What Do We Think About Climate Change

[Boston]

Eh gads Jim I think I got to go with your post 1997 as the glacial calving is about as fickle as it gets
but
thickness and area are a hole nother story
with both thickness and area falling

thing is as glassier s warm they move faster and so calving increases
so it may look like one thing and actually be another
very tricky to know whats what just looking at the calving rates

best
B

[Guillermo]

Pretty interesting:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/02/03/arctic-sea-ice-increases-at-record-rate/#more-5425

From there:
"Looking at this plot of the 30 day slopes of actual NASA gridded data, the maximum ice melt rate occurs in 1999 and in 2004 not in 2007. Surprisingly the maximum ice growth rates occur in 2007 and 2008, ....

Certainly the 30 year arctic trend in ice area is downward, even the most committed global warming scientist has to admit this happens regularly in climate along with regular 30 year uptrends. The questions are, did we cause it or not, and was CO2 the instigating factor. The rapid recovery of ice levels has to have some meaning regarding the severity of the problem. This goes directly in the face of accelerated global warming and the doom and gloom scenarios promoted by our politicians and polyscienticians."

Cheers.

[Guillermo]

Playlist: Global Warming, Doomsday Called Off
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=C012004CB098DE90

Cheers.

[bntii]

Back to Helheim...

Sorry for no analysis just a c&p:

Science Summary:
Recent discoveries have made it clear that our understanding of the dynamics of flow at large outlet glaciers is limited and inadequate for understanding the ways in which the outlet glaciers, and the ice sheets they drain, respond to external forcings. The spectrum of timescales over which significant velocity variations in outlet glacier flow can occur appears to be much broader than previously believed, with significant variations occurring on timescales of 10s of seconds to several years. Analysis of glacial earthquakes suggests that significant volumes of ice may move at speeds 1000 times faster than their average annual velocities for periods of a minute or two and a doubling of average annual flow speeds over only a few years has been observed at some glaciers. Multiple observations now indicate that glacier flow behavior can respond quickly to environmental changes, including rapid climate change. It is not currently clear, however, what mechanisms or combination of mechanisms allow for, or drive, the temporal variations, nor is it clear how variations in flow behavior at different timescales are related to one another. This grant funds an interdisciplinary, high-resolution study involving remote sensing and field investigations at two of Greenland's largest outlet glaciers. The study of the Helheim and Kangerdlugssuaq Glaciers will integrate seismological, glaciological, and geodetic observations to build an understanding of flow dynamics at major outlet glaciers. The project will provide the first long-term occupation of an outlet glacier by a GPS receiver network, and address questions of flow variation on earthquake to interannual time scales. Understanding the changes in force balance that control variations across the range of timescales from minutes to years requires observations at higher resolution in both space and time than are currently available, and achieving a comprehensive picture of the interactions between short- and long-timescale processes, and between external forcings and glacier flow behavior, requires the integration of data and expertise from several traditionally separate disciplines. Intellectual Merit. The research will lead to a greatly improved understanding of the dynamics of flow at the large, fast-moving outlet glaciers that drain the Greenland ice sheet and of the temporal variability in their rates and modes of flow. It will provide insight into the processes controlling glacial earthquakes and possible connections between glacial-earthquake activity and global climate change. Broader Impacts. Understanding the controls on flow configuration at major outlet glaciers, and the timescales over which they may respond to climatic forcing, is of great importance for proper modeling of systems affected by the transfer of fresh polar meltwater to the world's oceans. A better understanding of glacier and ice-sheet response to climate change will allow for improvements in modeling of the coupled ice ocean atmosphere system, and of its interactions with the solid Earth. The geodetic instrumentation and processing techniques developed under this proposal will benefit researchers in a variety of environments such as glacier and volcano monitoring involving rapid, large-scale motions and the risk of instrument loss.

From here:

http://www.polar.ch2m.com/arlss_reports/arlss_projectsdetail.aspx?cbpropnum=0713970

[Guillermo]

We are pioneering CO2 capturing in Europe.
http://www.autobloggreen.com/2007/10/02/pioneering-european-co2-capture-plant-coming-to-spain-in-2009/
If AGW is not relevant, this investment (70 million euros) may come to be a sad waste of efforts and money.....:(

More on CO2 capturing: http://www.energypolicyblog.com/?p=22
After reading the article, have a look at the interesting comments.

Cheers.

[Boston]

ah
but if AGW is relevant
then it is money well spent and none to soon
and isnt it better to be safe than sorry
specially when there is a few hundred years and a few billions lives between fixing it

[Guillermo]

Interesting concepts: Energy Intensity and Economic Energy Efficiency
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_intensity
We should be rather investing such huge amount of moneys in these matters (moving towards the right top corner)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/70/Gdp-energy-efficiency.jpg

Cheers.

[bntii]

Just heard that the economic downturn has dropped the bottom out of the market for carbon credits.....

Sounds like one of my investments :(

B- how did you do on Friday?

I was slightly down on a bullish day.... now that's talent!

[Jimbo1490]

ah
but if AGW is relevant
then it is money well spent and none to soon
and isnt it better to be safe than sorry
specially when there is a few hundred years and a few billions lives between fixing it

It will be a waste either way because as hard as we may try, we can't cut CO2 releases by 75-90% no matter what we do, no matter how much we spend trying. Little fractions of a % cuts will do nothing and that's the best estimates of the sum total of all these efforts put together will cut.

Jimbo

[Boston]

friend of mine I just had a few pints with says they got a bacteria for everything somewhere, its just a matter of cultivation and presentation.
Swears we got one that eats co2 waiting in the wings for enough money to open up the doors to that lab and let it in. Personally as long as they dont bio engineer it to create some kind of new radiation or otherwise accidentally kill off everything that ever lived; I say lets see what they can come up with. Was an interesting conversation, you guys would have loved it
B

[Guillermo]

Surfacestations now at 70% of the network surveyed - new Google Earth KML file released
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/02/08/surfacestations-now-at-70-of-the-network-surveyed-new-google-earth-kml-file-released/

Also: http://www.surfacestations.org/

Cheers

[masalai]

http://www.theweatherchaser.com/maps/index.html is for Australia's surface stations...

[Guillermo]

Hi Mas!
I'm so sad for the terrible fires you're having over there. I hope you're not being affected.
Best regards.

[masalai]

Hi Guillermo, I am just north of Brisbane, Half way between the flooded area and the bush-fires - very lucky and eternally thankful. Coverage is frightening and very distressing - except for those farmers inland a bit in central Queensland where it hasn't rained for 7 or so years, and now they are as happy as a "pig in ****" preparing to bring their cattle back from agistment when the new grass grows....

[RHP]

Hundreds attend global warming demonstration. :D

[Boston]

R.I.P. that was dam funny
Mas
glad to hear your ok
some guy came up with a antifreeze foam for the Florida orange groves, stuff gets sprayed out of a can onto the trees and lasts about a day, I was looking at some of the pictures of the fires there and wondering if you could get a hold of some fire retardant foam that could be sprayed on your house in the event of a bush fire the antifreeze stuff is even water soluble and nonpolluting. Course then I was thinkin that wind was pretty strong and I know that foam will get blown around some

anyway just thinkin

B :-)

[Sean Herron]

An Old Man On The Lower Fraser...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hello...

I work in a yard near a marina that still allows live aboard moorage to a wide variety of boats - imagine that to begin with...

Now imagine an old guy with a trimmed beard on a 'peddle me bike' cruising the more industrial dumpsters in the yard - lap welded steel tugs to woodie fish boat guys with a 30 foot steam box - this old guy digging out chunks of clear scrap timber to burn in his wood stove in his little shanty on the river...

Rather than this clear timber going into a landfill - he cuts it up on our large band saw and makes it into char overnight to stay warm - that char gets hucked up by him and put into the little tree pots along the dyke...

NOW HERE IT IS - the F'ing yachters are crying over the smoke from his stack - an old man - done his time - collects his bits - recycles on a REAL level - keeps to himself - always nods a thank you...

Now the yachters are after him for what we know and can smell as real smoke - oak - cherry - little bits of throw away...

HELL - WHEN ONE OF THOSE MOTHERS LIGHTS UP THEIR GENERATERS - for six annoying hours for a wine and cheese - YOU CAN KISS A SMALL DINO GOOD BYE...

Arrogant M/F's...

Raise a glass for this Old Man on the lower Fraser River...

Living simply - alone - not bothering anybody - and some green eco **** who has nothing better to do has something to say about a time honuored lifestyle...

SOB's

SH.

[Sean Herron]

Hello...

That photo needs riot police and RPG's on the snowmen...

I can do this - but ah - I rather just unwind with some CDN Rye...

Catch you on the next doughnut...:)

SH.

[rasorinc]

I really need some help by the math wizzards on this panel.
The US just passed a 800 Billion package. With interest @ 7% that debt will double in 7 years to 1.6 Trillion. Our population is 300 Million people.
I want 300 Million people divided into 1.6 Trillion so I know what every individual person would owe. Then deduct 75 million people who pay no taxes and that leaves 225 Million people. Divide 1.6 Trillion by 225 Million
people and then I will know what my children and grandchildren will individually
owe.
Thank You Very Much, Stan Rasor, State of Oregon, USA

[Sean Herron]

Hello...

Forget the math - it is all made up - it is not based on the real math that we all learned - while pulling those blonde pigtails - that we married...

Just go get some inner tubes and start blowing - it will make more sense to you as you blow...:)

You will be the guy with a lot of inflated inner tubes - they will be worth a fortune in McDonald Quarter Pounders...

Hell - people will be trading dry ammunition for an inflated inner tube...:)

SH.

[Guest625101138]

I really need some help by the math wizzards on this panel.
The US just passed a 800 Billion package. With interest @ 7% that debt will double in 7 years to 1.6 Trillion. Our population is 300 Million people.
I want 300 Million people divided into 1.6 Trillion so I know what every individual person would owe. Then deduct 75 million people who pay no taxes and that leaves 225 Million people. Divide 1.6 Trillion by 225 Million
people and then I will know what my children and grandchildren will individually
owe.
Thank You Very Much, Stan Rasor, State of Oregon, USA

Your numbers are not very accurate. You will see from attached there are only 116M workers. I might be doing the farmers a disservice but I am not sure if they actually pay taxes.

Also the USD1.6t is just the new debt. It is already much higher than this. I think the USA owes China alone something like USD2.5t.

Irrespective it is not that bad. Each worker only needs to make good an extra USD40k over the next few years.

We had an incompetent government in my State in Australia a few years ago. The new government just levied an additional tax on households of AUD100 per year and the debt was soon under control.

When I look at at shows like CSI Miami my mind boggles at the houses you see. And there is not just one or two of them. Also acres of large pleasure craft in marinas. You wonder how anyone can afford such affluence. It seems the large majority cannot. In fact in reality China probably owns the whole lot if things were called to account.

So it is not that bad. People just have to stop living beyond their means. China is only earning a pittance on the capital it has locked up in US treasury.

Hands up anyone who drives something bigger than a 4 cylinder car for their family car. Whose choice was it to buy something bigger than 4 cyclinder. USA has made some very poor countries very wealthy by buying their oil.

Who has kids who are label junkies. For that matter hands up those who are label junkies. Do you covet that BMW X5. Have a look at where your clothes and shoes are made. Did you really need the new outfit you just bought or those new joggers - just more money going to China or other places that produce more than they consume.

Many have got used to being fat and lazy and living beyond their means. How many actually have sufficient savings to see them through retirement?

The problem did not happen overnight and will not be fixed quickly but it can be fixed. If BO can manage to cap corporate salaries it will be a great step. No one in the corporate world earns the sort of money paid to US executives. (and some in Australia as well)

The insightful dill who caused AIGs problems was paid USD280M in 5 years before he was shown the door. Even then he was held on a retainer of USD1M/mth. This just boggles the mind. What do you think the chances are of recovering all those bonus payments!!!

Rick W

[Boston]

$ 7,111

each
but you were thinkin its only going to cost 800,000,000,000
thing is there talking about 4 trillion by the time this is actually over
so now your talking more like $17,777

but and here is the fun part
that 225 million is a little off
firstly fully half of the people dont pay taxes or at least not anything meaningful kids 25%, unemployed 8~14%, collegeites ~5%, the basic bum in the street kind 5% and the refusniks of course 20%.
they add up in a big way
so realistically you get > half of the ttl population who pay
so call it 150 mill just for fun

ends up $26,666 and thats not including interest or more importantly in this case inflation
want me to take a stab at that one

oh
Sean hit the nail on the head with that guy recycling on a grass roots level
those yuppy wanna be greens need to lighten up

and also with the pig tails

best
B

[Guillermo]

Tipping point reached: UK Met Office makes blistering attack on those who make ‘Apocalyptic climate predictions’ :cool:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/02/12/tipping-point-reached-met-office-makes-blistering-attack-on-those-who-make-apocalyptic-climate-predictions/#more-5563
"Experts at Britain’s top climate research centre have launched a blistering attack on scientific colleagues and journalists who exaggerate the effects of global warming. The Met Office Hadley Centre, one of the most prestigious research facilities in the world, says recent “apocalyptic predictions” about Arctic ice melt and soaring temperatures are as bad as claims that global warming does not exist."

Read Vicky Pope article here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/feb/11/climate-change-science-pope

Dr Vicky Pope is the head of climate change advice at the Met Office Hadley Centre

Cheers.

[Guillermo]

NBC 4 chief meteorologist Jym Ganahl says the “global warming hoax” is an obvious fallacy.
http://www.theotherpaper.com/articles/2009/02/05/front/doc498b07c3e889d326202045.txt

See video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wn1SOqcmc64

Cheers.

[Guillermo]

"The leaves of soybeans grown at the elevated carbon dioxide (CO2) levels predicted for the year 2050 respire more than those grown under current atmospheric conditions, researchers report, a finding that will help fine-tune climate models and could point to increased crop yields as CO2 levels rise."
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-02/uoia-hcb020609.php

Cheers.

[Boston]

read it
sounded to me like it was just one disgruntled dissenter ( this Pope person ) who is doing all the disclaiming

thing is most of the changes we are seeing are happening "faster" than the predictions called for

as for the weather in Brittan I believe it was predicted that the UK would cool down with the slowing in the gulf stream and shortly after that winters in western Europe would also become harsher

that slowing caused of course by freshwater entering the marine thermohaline system due to exesive melting brought on by
you guessed it kids
global warming

course I read all that a while ago so there may be addendum's Im not aware of but
something to chew on

best
B

oh
and yes the overall effect of global warming is cooling resulting in an ice age with the initial stages being the slowing and collapse of the thermohaline system

not the prolonged extreme high temps that are often associated with the misinformed

the higher temps are a short term obvious result
the longer term result is a ice age
and a big one

can you say snowball earth theory


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hows that for the sky is falling kids
"alarming" isnt it

best B

[Guillermo]

In October 2005 there was an abrupt and sustained lowering of the Ap Solar Magnetic Index. The sun has been running at a lower plateau of the Ap index after that event and has not recovered.

There is a good correlation between the Ap Index at minimum and the amplitude of the following solar cycle. This Index may have a value of 3 in late 2009, this leading to a very weak solar cycle 24 (when it appears!).

Read more at:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/02/12/using-the-ap-magnetic-index-prediction-for-solar-cycle-24-amplitude-prediction/#more-5568

[bntii]

I really need some help by the math wizzards on this panel.
The US just passed a 800 Billion package. With interest @ 7% that debt will double in 7 years to 1.6 Trillion. Our population is 300 Million people.
I want 300 Million people divided into 1.6 Trillion so I know what every individual person would owe. Then deduct 75 million people who pay no taxes and that leaves 225 Million people. Divide 1.6 Trillion by 225 Million
people and then I will know what my children and grandchildren will individually
owe.
Thank You Very Much, Stan Rasor, State of Oregon, USA

Your grandchildren will likely see a profit.

Think of this government largess as a investment in our country. If you look to historical acts for comparison you may find that this is not a wasted effort.

Take a look to the Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944 - the GI bill. This could be viewed as the last gasp of the New Deal government investments in our economy of that period. The wisdom of this spending is abundantly clear.

Here is a bit on the subject:

"The 1944 Servicemen’s Readjustment Act, or G.I. Bill of Rights, attracts universal praise as one of the most significant pieces of social legislation of the twentieth century for its redeeming effects on both the national economy and its beneficiaries."

"In 1988, congress was interested in discovering if the GI Bill of Rights had helped or hurt the economy, and how much it had. The Congressional Subcommittee of Education and Health of the Joint Economic Committee did a study of the effects of the GI Bill of Rights to answer this outstanding question. They found that it caused an extra $35 billion (1952 dollars) to be created over the next 35 years. It also brought in, in this 35 post-war period, an extra $12.8 billion (1952 dollars) of taxes. Overall, they found that for every $1 invested, there were $6.9 in return.

"The GI Bill of Rights gave many veterans a free education and cheap home-loans. This helped in the economy in more than one way. Not only did it prevent a flood of workers from creating a post-war depression, as had happened after World War One, it also created a more productive economy. Veterans with an education could make more money and helped to build a more sound economy than could have ever been done without their educations."

The "Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956" worked towards building our interstate highways. This government investment had profound effects on our growth.

The tension we see across the isle on these issues reflects a difference in approach. To my mind this difference is characterized by short term stimulus on one hand and investment on the other.

The division is not so wide as the histrionics of the debate would suggest. 60/40 vs 40/60 investment/stimulus vs stimulus/investment more or less...

One might conclude that even this difference is imaginary if the hundreds of billions Bush extended in failed short term stimulus efforts are included in the accounting.

[Boston]

interesting stuff

if we have a economy with say 11 trillion in us dollars around the world
and we add 4 trillion which is what they are saying this will probably cost in the end
how can it not devalue each dollar

dont get me wrong I liked the previous
but what percentage of the ttl money in the economy did the GI bill add to the ttl

as apposed to what percentage we are talking about adding today

I agree we need to spend on infrastructure and education big times
they have been neglected way to long

but not on bailing out banks and biz
which is were about 600 billion has already disappeared to with no appreciable effect

that is already twice what they are saying is in the bill for infrastructure, education and energy combined

infrastructure
120 billion
education
100 billion
renewable energy
30 billion
212 billion in tax breaks ( imaginary money gov isnt going to print this up its just that they arent collecting it from the population )
267 billion for unemployment benefits and food stamps

[the1much]

HAHAHHahhahahahahahaa :D
been months,,, and my birds are still a WAY better investment then anything else,, hahahahahaha ,, last month i sold over 1200 baby chicks,,, @ $3 a piece,, at the cost to me of $.80 a piece..... hmmmmm hahahhaa :P

[Jimbo1490]

that slowing caused of course by freshwater entering the marine thermohaline system

I guess you missed the post, Oh about 20 or so pages back, where I cited the WORLD'S LEADING EXPERT on oceanic currents who stated rather flatly that "There really is no thermo-haline circulation current of any significance-there can't be".

It was after all, just a THEORY that some scientists used at one time to account for pelagic mixing of hot and cold waters. Nothing more than a theory, now discredited.

Jimbo

[the1much]

hiyas Jimbo ;) Boston ;) bntii ;) Guillermo ;) Rick ;)
glad ta see ya allz again,, and that all is well hehe ;)

[bntii]

hey Jim

good investment them little birds...? :)

I have been looking all over the eastern shore of Maryland for a bit of land- on occasion there is a property listed with the whole set up in place- buildings birds- contract with purdue.. the whole shooting match. Not too much $ it seems as well for the size of lot offered and all that stuff in place...

Of course the whole place is going under water if jimbo is wrong about the AGW thingamajiggy :p

[the1much]

hey Jim

good investment them little birds...? :)

I have been looking all over the eastern shore of Maryland for a bit of land- on occasion there is a property listed with the whole set up in place- buildings birds- contract with purdue.. the whole shooting match. Not too much $ it seems as well for the size of lot offered and all that stuff in place...

Of course the whole place is going under water if jimbo is wrong about the AGW thingamajiggy :p

there isnt NO $ in commercial meat birds,, here,, its laying hens, and roo's to eat, and bug control.. lol. people are all getting ready for the big "kaaaplunk" and figure their gonna need some meat and eggs,, lol,, people will stop in and buy $100 worth almost every 2 or 3 days,, i bet i get 20 or so people here a day buying at least $20 worth of chicks,, lol.

to keep on the subject,,, bugs are getting way worse here,,,, climate change ????????? :confused:

[Sean Herron]

Hello...

The old man on the river in his shanty has us all beat...

Yup...

SH.

[the1much]

Hello...

The old man on the river in his shanty has us all beat...

Yup...

SH.

he sure does,,,,, im gonna try to get that way,,, imma moving close to canada lol,, gonna try the self sufficiency thingy,, have the garden, the animals, live on a mountain, do my hunting and trapping,, and make the wifers get a real job ;) :D

[Sean Herron]

Hello...

Hope you are well - stay to topic though - this is a psuedo SCIENCE thread - oh ****...:)

I would like you to check in on - http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/open-discussion/nafi-doghouse-26074.html - as it gets going...

Happy St. Valentines Day my friend...

Lots of burps and farts...

SH.

[bntii]

Hear you jim- not on board exactly with the SHTF way of thinking but do want to get a little elbow room in the next couple of years.

Feel trapped- its like all those godzila flicks.

It's the bus full of people that always gets snatched up and tossed up in the air by the big lizard

[Boston]

I read it
just that I was laughing so hard at the idea that tens of thousands of scientists and hundreds of years of countless sailors working those thermohaline currents and trades were just imagining it all
I guess I just didnt take it seriously

basically you found someone who is denying the gulf stream exists or that the southern ocean circulation is real or the Atlantic current ( canary islands )
the Labrador current
all are well known and studied
no way there existence is in question
why they move, how fast they move, where they move from and were they move to, is well understood





http://www.windows.ucar.edu/earth/Water/images/thermohaline_circulation_conveyor_belt_big.gif


also if you are willing to consider the circulation then it becomes obvious why the arctic is melting faster than the antarctic
kinda lends credence to the hole circulation theory when there is corroborating evidence like that

[Jimbo1490]

Nobody's denying the freakin' Gulfstream exists! That's yet another example (of sooo many) of the absolute silliness that comes from the mouth (keyboard:p ) of 'Boston'! What he (and others) are saying is that these currents ARE NOT driven by salinity/temperature differences, which is what the 'thermo/haline' theory suggests.

Furthermore, these currents ARE NOT the main mixing forces of the cold and warm waters, as was once believed. This is important because the implication of the idea that there is a significant thermo/haline circulation, and this is the main mixing mechanism for warm and cold water, is that the pelagic system is yet another unstable equilibrium that could potentially be upset by climate change, and go 'off the rails', never to return.

Now the main mixing mechanism is said to be eddies, which are ultimately wind driven.

Jimbo

[Boston]

always good to hear from you Jim
hows it going

ok I think it was proven about thirty or forty years ago that the energy required to mix deep stratified layers of ocean considering density and temperature differences far exceeded the ability for surface wind driven currents to account for

on a smaller scale its easier to understand
numerous deep freshwater lakes have significant internal seiche's comprising of large amplitude movements of the thermocline layer while maintaining thermal stratification
some in the range of several hundred feet of oscillating vertical movement

IE
the wind cant disturb the water enough to cause mixing

if I remember my lymnology classes well enough the basic distribution oxygenation mechanism to deep water environments in varying density fluids can only be accomplished through thermal convection
as the salinity based density variations are highly resistant to mixing when no virtical currents are present

like in the black sea
which is described as being aerobically stratified but is so because of this same inability of wind driven surface currents to overcome the density based stratification

sorry Jim but the idea of wind driven vertical currents simply doesnt work in the worldwide oceanic system of varying densities

you need more energy than that

nother little proof is presents of oxygen in the deep ocean
it wouldn't be there if there were no vertical currents of significant strength
able to break through the thermal and saline stratified layers

you just read a bogus article Jim
classic agnotism again
there is a hole industry sprung up around creating confusion around otherwise scientifically understood principals by industry that profits from denying the damage they are causing and so wish to prolong there profitability at the expense of the environment and the populous

its a disinformation campaign by industry's which stand to benefit from the delays they generate through confusing the public of the scientific consensus


think of it this way
there is no real reason for wind driven currents to go vertical rather than stick to the upper horizontally stratified layers of the ocean as its the path of least resistance
but in the temperature driven system the varying density of the thermal differences bring gravity into the picture and must result in a vertical movement as the path of least resistance is now in a vertical direction

basically wind driven currents do not generally exceed a hundred meters in depth and we have many recorded incidences of currents existing far bellow that depth

cheers
B`

if your talking about the gyre systems then yes those are wind ( actually more by the Coriolis effect of the planetary spin ) driven as are many of the surface currents
the surface currents are a dam complex system
but the grand oceanic current which is hugely responsible for our climate is thermally driven

[Jimbo1490]

The latest studies suggest that indeed wind (combined with tide and submerged land features) create quite strong and deep eddies which are now believed to be the main mixing mechanism for the oceans and this mechanism is quite independent of most surface climate variables.

Jimbo

[Boston]

send em along would like to read them
Im sure wind has a lot to do with the surface currents but density is the key player when it comes to the deep ocean thermohaline system

way off topic

what do you think of bamboo fiber mat as a substrate for epoxy rather than say glass or carbon fiber

[Jimbo1490]

It's good for a kinda 'retro' look I guess, but no comparison as an engineering material to glass, let alone CF.

Jimbo

[Jimbo1490]

also if you are willing to consider the circulation then it becomes obvious why the arctic is melting faster than the antarctic
kinda lends credence to the hole circulation theory when there is corroborating evidence like that

This does not jibe with what the warmers have said about this circulation in the past. They have said that the melting of the arctic ice would slow down the thermo-haline circulation by reducing salinity, which will plunge us into another ice age (which presumably stop all that pesky melting:P ) with amazing rapidity, like in that climate alarm movie where New York goes under.

The new evidence is that salinity has nothing to do with the circulation, so this outcome is highly unlikely.

Jimbo

[Jimbo1490]

Here's an old one I've been sitting on for a while. I don't think anyone posted it yet:

http://www.financialpost.com/story.html?id=433b593b-6637-4a42-970b-bdef8947fa4e&p=1

Excerpted:

"Also in the real world, Prof. Segalstad's isotope mass balance calculations -- a standard technique in science -- show that if CO2 in the atmosphere had a lifetime of 50 to 200 years, as claimed by IPCC scientists, the atmosphere would necessarily have half of its current CO2 mass. Because this is a nonsensical outcome, the IPCC model postulates that half of the CO2 must be hiding somewhere, in "a missing sink." Many studies have sought this missing sink -- a Holy Grail of climate science research-- without success.

"It is a search for a mythical CO2 sink to explain an immeasurable CO2 lifetime to fit a hypothetical CO2 computer model that purports to show that an impossible amount of fossil fuel burning is heating the atmosphere," Prof. Segalstad concludes.

"It is all a fiction." "

Jimbo

[Guillermo]

Thanks Jim,
I highlight this:

"The IPCC postulates an atmospheric doubling of CO2, meaning that the oceans would need to receive 50 times more CO2 to obtain chemical equilibrium," explains Prof. Segalstad. "This total of 51 times the present amount of carbon in atmospheric CO2 exceeds the known reserves of fossil carbon-- it represents more carbon than exists in all the coal, gas, and oil that we can exploit anywhere in the world."

More detailed info on CO2 matters from Prof. Segalstad here:
http://folk.uio.no/tomvs/esef/ESEF3VO2.htm

From the Abstract:
"Both radioactive and stable carbon isotopes show that the real atmospheric CO2 residence time (lifetime) is only about 5 years, and that the amount of fossil-fuel CO2 in the atmosphere is maximum 4%. Any CO2 level rise beyond this can only come from a much larger, but natural, carbon reservoir with much higher 13-C/12-C isotope ratio than that of the fossil fuel pool, namely from the ocean, and/or the lithosphere, and/or the Earth's interior.

The apparent annual atmospheric CO2 level increase, postulated to be anthropogenic, would constitute only some 0.2% of the total annual amount of CO2 exchanged naturally between the atmosphere and the ocean plus other natural sources and sinks. It is more probable that such a small ripple in the annual natural flow of CO2 would be caused by natural fluctuations of geophysical processes."


Cheers.

[bntii]

Thanks Jim,

The apparent annual atmospheric CO2 level increase, postulated to be anthropogenic, would constitute only some 0.2% of the total annual amount of CO2 exchanged naturally between the atmosphere and the ocean plus other natural sources and sinks. It is more probable that such a small ripple in the annual natural flow of CO2 would be caused by natural fluctuations of geophysical processes."
Cheers.

We release sufficient CO2 into the atmosphere each year to account for fully 200% of the yearly gain. Natural fluctuation are indeed important- they are removing half of the Co2 we are releasing into the atmosphere, and slowing the rate of accumulation.

Our C02 emissions are rapidly increasing as is the rate of accumulation in the atmosphere. Important natural sinks are loosing the ability to absorb additional C02 in the short term which will compound the problem.

The ONLY reason Co2 is accumulating in the atmosphere is the fact that we are putting it there.

This point was settled in the scientific community some 30 years ago....

[Guillermo]

The ONLY reason Co2 is accumulating in the atmosphere is the fact that we are putting it there.
This point was settled in the scientific community some 30 years ago....
Of course not! :D
Ask the geologists.

Cheers.

[chandler]

137 pages arguing about global warming!
Keep going the way we are and we'll all die of skin cancer ( or is ozone depletion a greenie myth too), or lung cancer from all the byproducts of burning fossil fuels.

[masalai]

chandler, I think this thread remains the domain of the "global freezing" proponents... and anyone who can convince them otherwise needs a PROVEN direct link to higher authority... :D:D:D:D

[Guillermo]

....Keep going the way we are and we'll all die of skin cancer ( or is ozone depletion a greenie myth too)....
Well, if you want we can discuss that too....! :D

http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~davidc/ATMS211/articles_optional/Baliunas94_ozone.pdf
http://www.nationalcenter.org/npa159.html
http://breakfornews.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=8645
.....etc.

Cheers.

[Jimbo1490]

We release sufficient CO2 into the atmosphere each year to account for fully 200% of the yearly gain. Natural fluctuation are indeed important- they are removing half of the Co2 we are releasing into the atmosphere, and slowing the rate of accumulation.

Our C02 emissions are rapidly increasing as is the rate of accumulation in the atmosphere. Important natural sinks are loosing the ability to absorb additional C02 in the short term which will compound the problem.

The ONLY reason Co2 is accumulating in the atmosphere is the fact that we are putting it there.

This point was settled in the scientific community some 30 years ago....

Ridiculous, inane, scientifically unsupportable. Next you're going to tell me you still believe in the '200 year CO2 life span'

Thomas can be counted among the TRUE believers, undissuadable, completely credulous

(If the 450 PPM spike in the mid 19th century couldn't do it, how would I even think this would:confused:)

Jimbo

[bntii]

More exaggerations jimbo :)

I am interested in those things we know- one of them is the irrefutable fact that our emission are causing a dramatic increase of C02 in the atmosphere.

The rest is fair game for interesting debate by amateurs though there are many additional parts of the picture which are well defined by established science.

By well established science I don't refer to Jaworowski BTW.......

Do you really wish to present his work as evidence of a valid scientific conclusion??

[Boston]

well Jim if you look at the map of deep ocean currents at the top of the page ( ok top of the last page ) you can clearly see that the gulf stream brings huge amounts of warm water to the polar regions
warmer water
more thawing

once enough warm water melts enough ice and picks up enough additional influx from the continents melting glaciers the current is predicted to move

its the change in the current that is the real kicker
but in the initial stages before the big move the effects have been predicted and those predictions are being observed as we speak

stay tuned
if the next few yearly frieze thaw cycles follow the present trend of extreme arctic melting
you owe me a beer
and a planet

B

[Sean Herron]

Hello...

As my father and step father left me in bare rubber boots on a Neg 40 Plain - and my mother with F'uck all - I imagine that I will adapt...

Yup...

That is what I think of Climate Change...

Someone just stuffed some celery and onion up your ass if you believe - truly believe - that you get this climate change bit - you are are an arrogant Turkey on a spit...

SH.

[Boston]

and what about those who cant adapt
or adapt fast enough to continue being food sources in sufficient quantities to feed us
we need to be thinking a little farther than the end of our nose on this one
maybe at least as far as our bellies

[rasorinc]

Boston. I read awhile back that in Florida the Hurricanes in the wetlands stripped all the folage off trees etc. over 100s of 1,000s of acres and that the swamps releleasing CO-2 had no absorbsion so tons and tons of CO-2 went straight up. I'm not iinto this dissicusion I just post this for info. They had a lot of data and it seemed huge to me. thats all, Stan
Wood Lasts Generations P.S. this tree absorbs more by many times CO-2 than any other known tree. good wood for boat building too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulownia

[Boston]

yup and the thawing ( not so ) permafrost ( anymore ) also releases vast quantities of co2
basically we started a snowball rolling and its going to be hard to stop

[Knut Sand]

yup and the thawing ( not so ) permafrost ( anymore ) also releases vast quantities of co2

The same thawing also releases some quantities of methane... Doesent improve the situation either.

Last saturday there was some climate meeting, Chicago, stating that there had been an annual increase in the release of greenhouse gases of 3,5% in the period 2000 - 2007, it was way above expected levels....

Some other reading here:
http://www.imeche.org/NR/rdonlyres/CBF13D63-D8F5-483C-BB64-981D610F373B/0/IMechEAdaptationreport.pdf


Edit; found it, I belive...
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2009-02-14-climate-report_N.htm?csp=34

quote:
"Carbon emissions have been growing at 3.5% per year since 2000, up sharply from the 0.9% per year in the 1990s, Christopher Field of the Carnegie Institution for Science told the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. "It is now outside the entire envelope of possibilities" considered in the 2007 report of the International Panel on Climate Change, he said."quote end...

[masalai]

Where does this fit in climatic change? http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/02/19/2495518.htm?section=justin

Arctic ice to melt each summer: Russian experts - - By Moscow correspondent Scott Bevan

A group of Russian climate experts claims that ice in the Arctic could completely melt each summer by the end of this century.

The climate change experts from Russia's National Meteorological Centre are involved in a new report on climate change and warn of increasing global warming.

They told a media conference that Russia will feel global warming more than most countries.

In their latest report, the researchers forecast that the country's average yearly temperatures will increase by 2.6 degrees Celsius by the middle of the century.

One scientist, Vladimir Katsov, has said it is expected that the Arctic will be free of ice in summer by the end of the century.

Mr Katsov has said the thickness of ice in the region has been decreasing rapidly and ice in the Arctic could become seasonal.

[chandler]

Masalai,
If the temps. in Russia rise a few degrees it could be a good thing, less fossil fuel usage!
I mean really what good are polar bears, all they do is threaten researchers.
Let's get it over with and start living "Waterworld".
The fresher sea water becomes the more usable it will be when the earth becomes covered by water.

[masalai]

chandler, got your boat (sail as no fuel) sorted? - - or - - are you going for gills via surgery?

[Boston]

sounds like the republican burn it now and be done with it theory

[rasorinc]

I "represent" that Boston.

[Jimbo1490]

"
By well established science I don't refer to Jaworowski BTW.......

Do you really wish to present his work as evidence of a valid scientific conclusion??"

I was more referring to the plethora of studies (36, to be precise) which concluded the life of CO2 in the atmosphere was somewhere between 2 and 25 years, NOT the 200 years the warmers have postulated, without a shred of evidence, Jaworowski not among them.

I might have also referred you to the fairly well known idea of the oceans as a carbon sink, the particulars of which by themselves prove that nascent CO2 cannot possibly be the result of mere incidental emissions from 'fossil' fuels; the proportionality of that solubility dictates that we would have needed to burn some 50 times all the world's known oil reserves to have raised CO2 levels as much as they have risen in the last 70 years. This has led warmers on (yet another ) fool's errand to find the mythical 'missing CO2' and the mystery sink thereof rather than simply admit what is obvious; that the warming oceans are responsible for recent CO2 increases, NOT anthropogenic releases.

Jimbo

[Guillermo]

Interesting (and extensive) reading:

Timo Niroma:
One possible explanation for the cyclicity in the Sun.
http://personal.inet.fi/tiede/tilmari/sunspots.html

It alerts about a probable new Dalton minimum.

From there:
"This prolonged minimum and the delay of the cycle 24 mean that the cycle 24 will be very low, in the range of 30-50, or at most at a Dalton level. My Jovian cycle paradigm predicts a minimum in 2009.5 and maximum in 2014. This means a cooling for decades, at least for 30 years, but we cannot be sure we are on a course to a new LIA (Little Ice Age). A low Dalton is more probable, but one can't be sure, there are too many indications of the solar magnetic field having a deep dive. (A sidestep: The rise of the CO2 in atmosphere from 0.03 to 0.04 % does not have any meaning in this play as the last 200 million years in Earth's history show. I am a statistician and this is a statistical study, but a remark for those, who urgently for years have asked me about the physical reason: I find the Svensmark theory (2006) of cosmic rays oscillating to the rhythm of the Sun's magnetic field as the most promising. The CERN investigations in 2010 probably will settle the issue.) "



Cheers.

[Knut Sand]

............ This has led warmers on (yet another ) fool's errand to find the mythical 'missing CO2' and the mystery sink thereof rather than simply admit what is obvious; that the warming oceans are responsible for recent CO2 increases, NOT anthropogenic releases.

Thank you Jimbo...."NOT anthropogenic releases".
Ive always thaught that what I concluded in school was that i was a victim for a Great Scam.
By the end of the day, I really belived this:

Fuel + air = heat/ energy + H2O + CO2 (and sometimes CO) + N2

Sometimes I actually tried to run my moped on only "air" on the left side of that formula, thats how I got into shape....

Due to the information you've given me here Jimbo, I actually can rest safely and conclude that my motorcycle/ car/ boat, doesnt release any CO2 to the atmosphere. Thank you, you see I was worried there for a second...

I now realise that my motorcycle/ car leaves the Carbon in the best possible way, safely for the environment; as a solid, and nothing in the air. And I've always ignored the full proof for that, due to the "brainwash" we experienced in school (A full scale brainwash actually require something to be washed...). I've ignored it fully, neglected the proof....

When I start the AT (African twin, a Honda....) I leave a black streak on the tarmac, also when I stop, sometimes. That's the Carbon right there, on the tarmac, not in the atmosphere, that tiny black streak on the tarmac....

What I've seen and actually ignored all these years is that this is actually an extension of the Dark Sucker Theorem. This is only another proof that supports that theorem.

More information on DST can be found here:
http://members.dslextreme.com/users/rogermw/darksucker.html
http://www.geocities.com/skyweek/dark_sucker_2.html

Man, it took me close to 50 years to see the light.... ehhh the darkness....:idea:

[Jimbo1490]

"Due to the information you've given me here Jimbo, I actually can rest safely and conclude that my motorcycle/ car/ boat, doesnt release any CO2 to the atmosphere. Thank you, you see I was worried there for a second..."

Thanks once again Knut for proving that even the largest most majestic forest is COMPLETELY invisible if you stand with your face 5mm from the largest tree situated on the edge thereof.

It not that those incidental sources do not exist. They do; everyone know that! It's that the atmosphere is constantly trading amounts of CO2 with the oceans that are ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE larger than this.

Add to that the well-accepted concept of the proportionality of dissolved (oceanic) CO2 to atmospheric CO2 and you realize that either a) we must have actually burned about 50 times more 'fossil' fuels that we thought exist; (gosh, don't know how we could have missed an error in computation quite so large) or b) the oceans are not (at this current time) CO2 sinks, but instead a net CO2 source.

So which is it going to be? You can't have it both ways. If you accept the idea that the oceans are currently a net sink AND the idea that we put all the extra CO2 up there, then given what we know about the proportionality of atmospheric/oceanic CO2, we would have had to burn 50X all the world's oil reserves to accomplish this!

Isn't it much easier (not to mention more scientific) to simply accept that the oceans are currently net sources of CO2 and that anthropogenic CO2 is, well, just 'incidental' and unimportant?

Jimbo

[chandler]

masalai
I'm going for both, hopefully the oxygen in sea water water won't be too polluted to breath .

[bntii]

Add to that the well-accepted concept of the proportionality of dissolved (oceanic) CO2 to atmospheric CO2 and you realize that either a) we must have actually burned about 50 times more 'fossil' fuels that we thought exist;

Jimbo

Care to explain this in greater detail?

[Jimbo1490]

Go back a couple of pages. I posted the article, and there's even papers on it referenced. But then I already gave you Jeffrey Glassman's entire website dedicated to same; remember: "The Acquittal of Carbon (http://www.rocketscientistsjournal.com/2006/10/co2_acquittal.html)? That was maybe 50 thread pages back. It's really not that difficult a concept to grasp, but you will need to open your mind.

Jimbo

[bntii]

So in your understanding the oceans are a NET source of C02?

If so how much?

And yes- I remember Glassman- for a untrained amateur he has managed to draw conclusions which would have been of interest if he had thought of them some 50 years ago. The science has moved on.. if he had any training he would have know that.

[Jimbo1490]

So in your understanding the oceans are a NET source of C02?

If so how much?

And yes- I remember Glassman- for a untrained amateur he has managed to draw conclusions which would have been of interest if he had thought of them some 50 years ago. The science has moved on.. if he had any training he would have know that.


Yes, currently they are a source. This seems to happen 'stochastically' which probably explains that mid 19th century spike as well. Glassman makes a good attempt at 'reverse engineering' the actual quantity on his site. Note that the AGW hypothesis cannot be reverse engineered AT ALL; the actual numbers do not line up one bit. Thus the quest for the 'missing carbon' and its 'mystery sink'.

Your opinions of Glassman reflect the typical AGW alarmist bashing of anyone that disagrees with the politically correct hypothesis. There's always something 'wrong' with anyone that disagrees. Meanwhile, their gurus can DO NO WRONG:D You prob'ly went right to the 'rathole' to find out what opinion you 'should' have of Glassman rather than simply reading his work and forming an opinion on your own. I KNOW you did not read his work because you posed the above question "Care to elaborate on that?" when his work contains all the elaboration you could ever ask for. And the science of gaseous solubility has not moved on at all; it's the same as it ever was.

Jimbo

[bntii]

Yes, currently they are a source.

Jimbo

So you are presenting that the oceans are a NET source of Carbon via Glassman.

You are simultaneously presenting that mans emissions cannot accumulate in the atmosphere as the oceans "limitless sink" of carbon via Segalstad..

Perhaps you could chose one tack or the other?

Also- still referencing Jaworowski??

I do read the papers BTW. I do not find merit in these authors work.

[Jimbo1490]

There is no "tack" to choose, one way or another. What all these men are saying is that the oceans and the atmosphere 'trade' with each other HUGE amounts of CO2. Sometimes the oceans sink CO2. Sometimes they release it. It all depends on temperature. When the oceans heat up, they release CO2. When they cool down, they act as a 'sink'. This is why temperature changes lead CO2 changes by hundreds of years in the climatological record; atmospheric CO2 level is but a lagging proxy for ocean temperature. This is why there's no demonstrable cause and effect between CO2 level and temperature. It works the other way around; (ocean)temperature drives the (atmospheric)CO2 level.

Jimbo

[Guillermo]

Yeap. It is quite simple, indeed.

Cheers.

[Jimbo1490]

New lecture on YouTube, in 6 parts:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoke-1i8A9U&feature=channel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XH7276Z-n34&feature=channel_page
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXj7uuaAMp8&feature=channel_page
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SC7_kde1l5Q&feature=channel_page
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8P5gy-uZzxI&feature=channel_page
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4CgC_pyXlY&feature=channel_page

Jimbo

[jeanke]

the sense of the earth's rotation
the strenght of the sun's radiation
the distance of the earth to the sun
the increase of cosmic dust
the influence of cosmic radiation

all influence our earth's weatherconditions:!:

[masalai]

jeanke, don't forget the flatulence of all mammals, volcanic eruptions, chaos theory, acidification of the oceans or not, number and intensity of "black spots" on the sun, supernovay influences & associated radiation??? to name just a few more unknown influences....

[jeanke]

co2 is a fairytale :)

[mydauphin]

I just finished driving piles in a canal in south florida. The methane gases that where released everytime the hammer hit where incredible. They looked and smelled like gigantic farts. Just imagine what just normally escapes all by itself in every swamp on Earth....

[Boston]

funny
looks to about 97% of climate scientists that there is a direct correlation between co2 and temp

Im pretty sure they call that a consensus
97% that is

I am curious
is there any other area of science were 97% of the scientist research that agrees

just a thought

cheers
B

[bntii]

Every doctor I go to says I'm nuts....

Now that's a consensus

[Guillermo]

funny
looks to about 97% of climate scientists that there is a direct correlation between co2 and temp.... is there any other area of science were 97% of the scientist research that agrees.
You stubbornly keep on insisting till boringness with this statement.
Yes, 97% is a consensus, the same it was when they thought earth was flat or the Sun was a god. So what? The truth doesn't lay in consensus.

Cheers.

[rasorinc]

99% agree on the finality of death.

[Boston]

well there seemed to be some question as to whether there was a consensus
once we can establish that there is
then we can establish the merit of the consensus
for instance
is the earth flat or not
or is the obvious correlation between co2 and temp a mitigating factor in the global climate change consensus
but first
I thought it important to admit there was a consensus
sounds like we have made a break through with that last G
as its the first time Ive heard it admitted by detractors that there is a consensus
and you are right
it was getting dull eliciting that admission
but it was essential in order to take a step by step approach with the more staunch detractors

[Boston]

next question is why is there a consensus
what preponderance of data has lead to the consensus conclusion that man is causing global climate change and that that change is detrimental to the health of the ecosystem

[Jimbo1490]

The very problem lies with the lack of a proponderance of data or evidence. For instance, those counting their opinion as coincident with the consensus view have simply assumed that there exists a positive feedback between CO2 and water vapor, when in fact, there was NEVER any evidence to support this view. Now that much better data is available, it's OBVIOUS that quite the opposite is true; there exists a negative feedback between CO2 and water vapor through the formation of clouds. Thy've had it wrong all along.

Jimbo

[Boston]

well just as it took a while to finally admit there is a consensus
its going to take a while to admit there is a reason for it
basically there is a huge amount of data the vast majority of which agrees that there is a correlation between co2 and temp
the confusing part is that there is some anomalous data as well
just as there is in any data stream

the type of science we practice today ( the empirical method ) rides on the following philosophical basis

In the philosophy of science, empiricism emphasizes those aspects of scientific knowledge that are closely related to evidence, especially as discovered in experiments. It is a fundamental part of the scientific method that all hypotheses and theories must be tested against observations of the natural world, rather than resting solely on a priori reasoning, intuition, or revelation. Hence, science is considered to be methodologically empirical in nature.

what that basically means is that some data that doesnt make the grade is removed from the data stream

as well as extremes like the high and low of a data set

this works also to eliminate entire data sets that are incongruous

once this method is understood by all within the discussion
we can move on to why there is a consensus


According to the Oxford English Dictionary (2nd Edition, 1989), empiric is derived from the ancient Greek for experience, έμπειρία, which is ultimately derived from έυ in + πεἳρα trial, experiment. Therefore, empirical data is information that is derived from the trials and errors of experience. In this way, the empirical method is similar to the experimental method. However, an essential difference is that in an experiment the different "trials" are strictly manipulated so that an inference can be made as to causation of the observed change that results. This contrasts with the empirical method of aggregating naturally occurring data.
Adding further confusion is another connotation of empiric. Strict empiricists are those who derive their rules of practice entirely from experience, to the exclusion of philosophical theory.
The OED further states that an empiric is "one who, either in medicine or in other branches of science, relies solely upon observation and experiment" [emphasis added]. In this case, an empiricist can be someone who conducts an experiment but without using a hypothesis to guide the process, i.e., strictly by the trial-and-error method. This is counter to one of the main tenets of the scientific method, that of the hypothetico-deductive method, where the manipulation of the variable in an experiment is dictated by the hypothesis being tested.
[edit]According to AccessScience@McGraw-Hill

The empirical method is generally characterized by the collection of a large amount of data before much speculation as to their significance, or without much idea of what to expect, and is to be contrasted with more theoretical methods in which the collection of empirical data is guided largely by preliminary theoretical exploration of what to expect. The empirical method is necessary in entering hitherto completely unexplored fields, and becomes less purely empirical as the acquired mastery of the field increases. Successful use of an exclusively empirical method demands a higher degree of intuitive ability in the practitioner.[1]

[Jimbo1490]

well just as it took a while to finally admit there is a consensus
its going to take a while to admit there is a reason for it



Oh there's a reason for the consensus, alright; it's just that the reason has NOTHING to do with the science, but only political maneuvering.



basically there is a huge amount of data the vast majority of which agrees that there is a correlation between co2 and temp



This is false; we've proven this idea wrong over and over throughout the pages of this thread. The latest proof is recent weather, which is completely at odds with the predictions of the AGW crowd. It's OK, though; they'll just move the bar again and say "See, we told you AGW would make the world warmer, cooler, dryer, wetter, stormier, calmer.....":P



Jimbo

[Guillermo]

Boston,
If you are saying I've admitted there is a consensus on AGW and CO2, you have misunderstood me. I just said 97% is a consensus. Period. :)

Cheers.

[BillyDoc]

Hi Boston,

Nice approach. Keep up the good work! But, of course, if empirical experience serves even here, next comes the "Ignoratio Elenchi."

BillyDoc

Opps! Too slow!

[Guillermo]

Precisely! Boston's "97% argument" is ignoratio elenchi in its purest form! :D

Cheers.

[BillyDoc]

Hi Guillermo,

I don't think that is where Boston is going. In fact, I suspect that his development of the idea of empiricism is to lay the foundation to support of your statement above that "The truth doesn't lay in consensus." This is how I see the sequence: You accept that empiricism is a good approach, or as Jim has done above you ignore that path with an ignoratio elenchi. Once Boston gets things back to empiricism, as I'm sure he will, then you ask the question, "What good is data collection (empiricism) without organizing that data coherently. Once this question is answered (no good at all, it's the coherence that matters and is forced by the data) then we can get to your point about consensus and how to determine the truth of something. For this to work, of course, irrelevant arguments, non sequiturs and the like must be avoided. They are, after all, just sophistry. They may "win an argument" through brute force but they do NOT yield truth.

BillyDoc

[Boston]

no I was just admiring the progress in that 97% was a consensus
doesn't mater what in

next will have to be the admition that ~97% of climate scientists agree that there is global warming and that it is caused by man

I just was just hoping we could skip the easy ones and move right on into why there was a consensus

which requires a basic understanding of how science is conducted

was kinda fun lighting a fire under you folks though
was wondering if you guys were still in there somewhere

B

ps

I don't think that is where Boston is going. In fact, I suspect that his development of the idea of empiricism is to lay the foundation to support of your statement above that "The truth doesn't lay in consensus."


when it comes to consensus in science
they are far and few between
although most of the greatest thinking came from outside the box
it also was found to be supported in the previous data and by the method within which science works
as a hole science likes to get fossilized within a particular conclusion once some preponderance of data is established
however
that preponderance of data is seldom 97% congruous
point being
that the consensus concerning global climate change is overwhelming to the point of it being extremely unlikely to be proven eventually wrong

once again I would point out that there are no absolutes
just some things that are far more likely to be true than others

obvious agnotism for example caries virtually no weight in the scientific community as apposed to say purely empirical research conducted by impartial parties

[Guillermo]

C'mon Boston, where is the scientific study supporting that 97% consensus of yours?

[BillyDoc]

Here you go Guillermo,

My Google is faster than Bostons.

Doran and Kendall Zimmerman, 2009

A poll performed by Peter Doran and Maggie Kendall Zimmerman at Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Illinois at Chicago received replies from 3,146 of the 10,257 polled Earth scientists. Results were analyzed globally and by specialization. 96.2% of climatologists who are active in climate research believe that mean global temperatures have risen compared to pre-1800s levels, and 97.4% believe that human activity is a significant factor in changing mean global temperatures. Among all respondents, 90% agreed that temperatures have risen compared to pre-1800 levels, and 80% agreed that humans significantly influence the global temperature. Petroleum geologists and meteorologists were among the biggest doubters, with only 47 percent and 64 percent, respectively, believing in human involvement. A summary from the survey states that:

"It seems that the debate on the authenticity of global warming and the role played by human activity is largely nonexistent among those who understand the nuances and scientific basis of long-term climate processes."[74]

Lots more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change#Doran_and_Kendall_Zimmerman.2C_2009

BillyDoc

Link to original paper is in the reference section of the above link.

[bntii]

Have you guys been following the OCO satellite progress?

Ship was lost on launch...

http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2009/02/25/25climatewire-after-carbon-observatory-crashes-scientists-a-9853.html

The Japanese companion project the GOSAT satellite was launched successfully last month.

I am betting the nasa ship will be quickly duplicated and a relaunch scheduled.

Unfortunate as the project would have been a great aid towards understanding our emissions paths in the atmosphere.

[masalai]

http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/2501110.htm The evidence of the "argo floats" all 3000 of them should satisfy your curiosity and ignorance.... The oceans drive the climate and pollution and events that change the oceanic temperatures cause climatic change.... IT IS WARMING - - - but then anyone with half a brain in working order should know these basic fundamentals....

If that does not stir up a virtual hornets nest - I must be on the "ignore list" of too many people in this net :D:D:D:D:D

[Boston]

noted it earlier by about fifty pages but I can dig it up again G

what Im trying to do is find some place of agreement and go from there

what is a consensus
what is a significant consensus
what is an overwhelming consensus

what is impartial
what is science

what is agnotism

( someones bound to throw in there what is grammar and spelling but hey Im used to it )

once we can agree on some basics maybe we can agree on some of the more subtle points

[Boston]

impartial
would be a good place to start
since some of you folks seem to think that the IPC is partial
lets investigate both the meaning of the terms
and then if those meanings apply to the IPC
within the context of the scientific method

so I started with the scientific method

maybe I should have been a little more transparent with the idea behind the post

B

[Boston]

Billy doc I owe you one
I had misunderstood what you were saying in your initial post about empiricism
I was in a rush to get out the door and make an appointment
basically you are correct in your assessment of the new approach

the language is defined
once that is clear then we can move on to data that both sides have already agreed on and find a correlation
then we can establish why there is a consensus

B

for instance the word CORRELATION
it has a fairly unambitious meaning

Correlation
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about the correlation coefficient between two variables. For other uses, see Correlation (disambiguation).


Several sets of (x, y) points, with the correlation coefficient of x and y for each set. Note that the correlation reflects the noisiness and direction of a linear relationship (top row), but not the slope of that relationship (middle), nor many aspects of nonlinear relationships (bottom). N.B.: the figure in the center has a slope of 0 but in that case the correlation coefficient is undefined because the variance of Y is zero.
In probability theory and statistics, correlation (often measured as a correlation coefficient) indicates the strength and direction of a linear relationship between two random variables. That is in contrast with the usage of the term in colloquial speech, denoting any relationship, not necessarily linear. In general statistical usage, correlation or co-relation refers to the departure of two random variables from independence. In this broad sense there are several coefficients, measuring the degree of correlation, adapted to the nature of the data.

or how about this one


Main Entry:
cor·re·la·tion
Pronunciation:
\ˌkȯr-ə-ˈlā-shən,
Function:
noun
Etymology:
Medieval Latin correlation-, correlatio, from Latin com- + relation-, relatio relation
Date:
1561
1: the state or relation of being correlated ; specifically : a relation existing between phenomena or things or between mathematical or statistical variables which tend to vary, be associated, or occur together in a way not expected on the basis of chance alone <the obviously high positive correlation between scholastic aptitude and college entrance — J. B. Conant>
2: the act of correlating
— cor·re·la·tion·al \-shnəl, -shə-nəl\ adjective

so based on these definitions I think it reasonable that we all agree that a correlation is the relationship between two variables

variable like say
the amount of co2 in the atmosphere
and the temp of the atmosphere

it being irrelevant as to the nature of the relationship
it is relevant that we agree there is a relationship
one influences the other
as clearly stated in the definition

therefor there is just as much of a relationship between temp and co2 when it is said that carbon follows temp as there is when it is said that carbon precedes temp

for the moment it is not relevant as to which is true
what is relevant is that both statements rely on a relationship existing
and in the graphs used by both sides there is obviously a relationship

http://www.paulmacrae.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/gore-temp-chart-photo.jpg

http://www.willisms.com/archives/co2lagsbehindtemps.gif

http://www.globalwarminghoax.com/e107_images/newspost_image/vostocgraph.gif

http://www.tdf.it/2007/temp-co2.gif

each one of these graphs has been presented by prominent dissenters as evidence of something
what that something is is irrelevant to the present argument

what is relevant is that they show a relationship between co2 and temp

my point being
who disagrees that there is a relationship between temp and co2

I think it reasonable that based on the pure meaning of the word we all agree that there is a relationship

[Guillermo]

Here you go Guillermo,

My Google is faster than Bostons.

Doran and Kendall Zimmerman, 2009

A poll performed by Peter Doran and Maggie Kendall Zimmerman at Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Illinois at Chicago received replies from 3,146 of the 10,257 polled Earth scientists. Results were analyzed globally and by specialization. 96.2% of climatologists who are active in climate research believe that mean global temperatures have risen compared to pre-1800s levels, and 97.4% believe that human activity is a significant factor in changing mean global temperatures. Among all respondents, 90% agreed that temperatures have risen compared to pre-1800 levels, and 80% agreed that humans significantly influence the global temperature. Petroleum geologists and meteorologists were among the biggest doubters, with only 47 percent and 64 percent, respectively, believing in human involvement. A summary from the survey states that:

"It seems that the debate on the authenticity of global warming and the role played by human activity is largely nonexistent among those who understand the nuances and scientific basis of long-term climate processes."[74]

Lots more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change#Doran_and_Kendall_Zimmerman.2C_2009

BillyDoc

Link to original paper is in the reference section of the above link.
So we are talking about:
3,146 out of 10,257 = 31%, roughly
96.2% of climatologists (it is not stated how many of that 31% were climatologists) = (in the best of cases) 29.5 %
97.4% of those = 28.7%

On the other hand:
31% * 90% = 28%
80% *28% = 22%

So, we can say, only 22% the universe of 10,267 scientists to whom the poll was sent agree with AGW and only a maximum od 29% of climatologists (supposing all of them were of such specialty) agreed.

Numbers always have to be taken with care, because we do not know exactly what they mean. We do not know how the poll was conducted and why a full a 70% denied to answer.

That's not a scientific presentation at all to me, but rather a biased matter of faith.

In controversial matters, Wikipedia has to be taken with care.

Cheers.

[Boston]

agreed
wikipedia must always be taken with a grain of salt

but

I think you are kinda grasping at straws G in an effort to fight the inevitable conclusion of the new approach

basically your arguing that the sky isnt blue

of respondents to polls conducted of climate scientists
~97% agree
global climate change is real and based on mans interaction with the atmosphere and ecosystem as a hole

to argue that the people who didnt respond must be counted as a no is as senseless as saying they must be counted as a yes
they may be counted
but only as people who failed to respond

do we really need to define what a pole is and the accepted methods of poling

[Guillermo]

Japan's boffins: Global warming isn't man-made
Climate science is 'ancient astrology'
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/25/jstor_climate_report_translation/

"The report by Japan Society of Energy and Resources (JSER) is astonishing rebuke to international pressure, and a vote of confidence in Japan's native marine and astronomical research. Publicly-funded science in the West uniformly backs the hypothesis that industrial influence is primarily responsible for climate change, although fissures have appeared recently. Only one of the five top Japanese scientists commissioned here concurs with the man-made global warming hypothesis."

From Kiminori Itoh, Prof., Yokohama National University.
"Hi everybody!
I am one of the five who participated to the article in the JSER journal, which may have seemed to you as a mystery from Japan. At first, I thank you for picking up our activity in Japan. I am a regular reader of several climate blog sites, and had been making some contributions mainly to Climate Science of Prof. Pielke. Actually, the information I gave in the article largely owes the invaluable information shown at this site WUWT as well as Climate Science and Climate Audit. Thus, I felt I should explain a bit about the article of JSER because, unfortunately, it is written in Japanese although it has partly been translated into English.

Some readers of WUWT might remember my name; I had written a guest blog in Climate Science several months ago, when Roger kindly suggested me to introduce my new book “Lies and Traps in Global Warming Affairs.” Yes, I am regarded as one of the most hard-core AGW skeptics in Japan, although I myself regard me as a realist in this issue.

The article of JSER has been composed of discussions between the five contributors, made through e-mail for several months, and was organized by Prof. Yoshida of Kyoto University (an editor of the JSER journal). Our purpose was to invoke healthy discussions on the global warming issue in Japan. The JSER journal was selected as a platform for this discussion just because Prof. Yoshida has a personal interest in this issue and he is an editor of the journal.

Thus, it is not correct if one thinks that the discussion represents the opinion of the journal’s editors or of the society JSER. In fact, none of the five contributors belong to the JSER, and Prof. Yoshida kept his attitude neutral in the article.

All the contributors are well-established researchers in different fields and each has characteristic personal opinions on the AGW issue. Only one (Dr. Emori, National Institute of Environmental Sciences, Japan) represents IPCC. Other members are more or less skeptical of the conclusions of IPCC. For instance, as translated into English, Dr. Kusano made a severe critique on climate models; he himself is a cloud-modeler, so that his critique seems plausible. Prof. Akasofu is well known as an aurora physicist, Prof. Maruyama is famous for his ideas in geophysics, and I myself have sufficient academic record in environmental physical chemistry (more than 160 peer review papers).

We know that our try this time is small one, and its impact has a limitation especially due to language problem. Nevertheless, we believe that the discussion was useful and informative for everyone interested in the controversies associated with the AGW issue. In March, another article will come also in the JSER journal because the discussion received much interest from the readers of the journal.

Any comments and opinions are welcome and very helpful for us.

Thank you again."

[Boston]

does this abdication to a distraction mean that you concede the previous point
that ~97% or climate scientists responding to poles agree

[Guillermo]

"The mythical global warming ‘consensus’ continues to crumble as a top UN IPCC Japanese Scientist Turns on the IPCC and calls warming fears the “Worst scientific scandal in the history.”

Dr. Kiminori Itoh, award-winning PhD environmental physical chemist specializing in optical waveguide spectroscopy at the University of Tokyo, has a new book Lies and Traps in the Global Warming Affairs.

He writes of “inaccurate temperature measurements,” including chapters that call man-made global warming fears “the worst scientific scandal in the history.”

Itoh concludes his book with six points:

1. The global temperature will not increase rapidly if at all. There is sufficient time to think about future energy and social systems.

2. The climate system is more robust than conventionally claimed. For instance, the Gulf Stream will not stop due to fresh water inflow.

3. There are many factors that cause the climate changes, particularly in regional and local scales. Considering only greenhouse gases is nonsense and harmful.

4. A comprehensive climate convention is necessary. The framework-protocol formulism is too old to apply to modern international issues.

5. Reconsider countermeasures for the climate changes. For instance, to reduce Asian Brown Cloud through financial and technical aid of developed countries is beneficial from many aspects, and can become a Win-Win policy.

6. The policy makers should be ‘Four-ball jugglers.’ Multiple viewpoints are inevitable to realize sustainable societies.”

[Guillermo]

"The argument really isn’t about a slight AGW effect (few disagree over that), it’s whether Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming (CAGW) will engender a runaway greenhouse effect that will turn our planet into a mirror of Venus in no time at all, geologically speaking."

"Consider the earth 14,000 years ago. CO2 levels were around 200 ppm and temperatures, at 6C below present values, were rising fast. Now consider 30,000 years ago. CO2 levels were also around 200 ppm and temperatures were also about 6C below current levels, yet at that time the earth was cooling. Exactly the same CO2 and temperature levels as 14,000 years ago, but the opposite direction of temperature change. CO2 was not the driver.

Now consider 120,000 years ago. Temperatures were higher than today and CO2 levels were relatively high at 290 ppm. Atmospheric H20 was high, and albedo was low. According to the theorists, earth should have been warming quickly. But it wasn’t - quite the opposite with temperatures cooling very quickly at that time. CO2 was not the driver.

If CO2 levels and the claimed lockstep feedbacks controlled the climate, the climate would be unstable. We would either move to a permanent ice age or turn into Venus.

So, if not CO2, most probably it's clouds. And what drives the clouds? Most probably there is room for a solar component."

The Sun, stupid, it's the Sun! :)

Cheers.

[Guillermo]

SOHO MDI Continuum Latest Image

[Guillermo]

‘The increase of CO2 is not a cause for alarm and will be good for mankind’. Children should not be force-fed propaganda, masquerading as science.
Award-winning Princeton University Physicist Dr. Will Happer declared man-made global warming fears “mistaken” and noted that the Earth was currently in a “CO2 famine now.” Happer, who has published over 200 peer-reviewed scientific papers, made his remarks during today’s Environment and Public Works Full Committee Hearing entitled “Update on the Latest Global Warming Science.”

“Many people don’t realize that over geological time, we're really in a CO2 famine now. Almost never has CO2 levels been as low as it has been in the Holocene (geologic epoch) - 280 (parts per million - ppm) - that’s unheard of. Most of the time [CO2 levels] have been at least 1000 (ppm) and it’s been quite a bit higher than that,” Happer told the Senate Committee.

http://www.marshall.org/pdf/materials/629.pdf
(Feb 25, 2009)

[Guillermo]

From the previous paper:
"However, at least 90% of greenhouse warming is due to water vapor and clouds. Carbon dioxide is a bit player. There is little argument in the scientific community that a direct effect of doubling the CO2 concentration will be a small increase of the earth’s temperature -- on the order of one degree."
........
"Since most of the greenhouse effect for the earth is due to water vapor and clouds, added CO2 must substantially increase water’s contribution to lead to the frightening scenarios that are bandied about. The buzz word here is that there is “positive feedback.” With each passing year, experimental observations further undermine the claim of a large positive feedback from water. In fact, observations suggest that the feedback is close to zero and may even be negative."

Now, your turn, Boston and friends.

Cheers. :)

[bntii]

Water Vapor Confirmed as Major Player in Climate Change
11.17.08

Water vapor is known to be Earth’s most abundant greenhouse gas, but the extent of its contribution to global warming has been debated. Using recent NASA satellite data, researchers have estimated more precisely than ever the heat-trapping effect of water in the air, validating the role of the gas as a critical component of climate change.

Andrew Dessler and colleagues from Texas A&M University in College Station confirmed that the heat-amplifying effect of water vapor is potent enough to double the climate warming caused by increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

With new observations, the scientists confirmed experimentally what existing climate models had anticipated theoretically. The research team used novel data from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite to measure precisely the humidity throughout the lowest 10 miles of the atmosphere. That information was combined with global observations of shifts in temperature, allowing researchers to build a comprehensive picture of the interplay between water vapor, carbon dioxide, and other atmosphere-warming gases. The NASA-funded research was published recently in the American Geophysical Union's Geophysical Research Letters.

"Everyone agrees that if you add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, then warming will result,” Dessler said. “So the real question is, how much warming?"

The answer can be found by estimating the magnitude of water vapor feedback. Increasing water vapor leads to warmer temperatures, which causes more water vapor to be absorbed into the air. Warming and water absorption increase in a spiraling cycle.

Based on climate variations between 2003 and 2008, the energy trapped by water vapor is shown from southern to northern latitudes, peaking near the equator.

Water vapor feedback can also amplify the warming effect of other greenhouse gases, such that the warming brought about by increased carbon dioxide allows more water vapor to enter the atmosphere.

"The difference in an atmosphere with a strong water vapor feedback and one with a weak feedback is enormous," Dessler said.

Climate models have estimated the strength of water vapor feedback, but until now the record of water vapor data was not sophisticated enough to provide a comprehensive view of at how water vapor responds to changes in Earth's surface temperature. That's because instruments on the ground and previous space-based could not measure water vapor at all altitudes in Earth's troposphere -- the layer of the atmosphere that extends from Earth's surface to about 10 miles in altitude.

AIRS is the first instrument to distinguish differences in the amount of water vapor at all altitudes within the troposphere. Using data from AIRS, the team observed how atmospheric water vapor reacted to shifts in surface temperatures between 2003 and 2008. By determining how humidity changed with surface temperature, the team could compute the average global strength of the water vapor feedback.

“This new data set shows that as surface temperature increases, so does atmospheric humidity,” Dessler said. “Dumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere makes the atmosphere more humid. And since water vapor is itself a greenhouse gas, the increase in humidity amplifies the warming from carbon dioxide."

Specifically, the team found that if Earth warms 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit, the associated increase in water vapor will trap an extra 2 Watts of energy per square meter (about 11 square feet).

"That number may not sound like much, but add up all of that energy over the entire Earth surface and you find that water vapor is trapping a lot of energy," Dessler said. "We now think the water vapor feedback is extraordinarily strong, capable of doubling the warming due to carbon dioxide alone."

Because the new precise observations agree with existing assessments of water vapor's impact, researchers are more confident than ever in model predictions that Earth's leading greenhouse gas will contribute to a temperature rise of a few degrees by the end of the century.

"This study confirms that what was predicted by the models is really happening in the atmosphere," said Eric Fetzer, an atmospheric scientist who works with AIRS data at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "Water vapor is the big player in the atmosphere as far as climate is concerned."
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/fea...r_warming.html

[bntii]

From your source G:

"The combustion of fossil fuels, coal, oil and natural gas, has contributed to the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere. And finally, increasing concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere will cause the earth’s surface to warm. The key question is: will the net effect of the warming, and any other effects of the CO2, be good or bad for humanity?"

[Jimbo1490]

http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/2501110.htm The oceans drive the climate and pollution and events that change the oceanic temperatures cause climatic change....

Yes, the oceans drive (and moderate) the climate. But how in the world could 'pollution' warm the oceans???? Since it takes hundreds of years for the oceans to warm or cool, how could ~60 years of 'greenhouse' gas do it? Absent a plausible mechanism, this idea is out of gas, no pun intended:p

Jimbo

[masalai]

I am developing a stable black film to float on the surface of the oceans - will that do the trick?

[Boston]

well if its my turn then Im going to stick to the subject rather than open up an old boring argument about water vapor that has already been shown to be wrong
I notice that rather than address the issue at hand detractors have instead resorted to there old tactic of distracting from the point trying to be made


Correlation
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about the correlation coefficient between two variables. For other uses, see Correlation (disambiguation).


Several sets of (x, y) points, with the correlation coefficient of x and y for each set. Note that the correlation reflects the noisiness and direction of a linear relationship (top row), but not the slope of that relationship (middle), nor many aspects of nonlinear relationships (bottom). N.B.: the figure in the center has a slope of 0 but in that case the correlation coefficient is undefined because the variance of Y is zero.
In probability theory and statistics, correlation (often measured as a correlation coefficient) indicates the strength and direction of a linear relationship between two random variables. That is in contrast with the usage of the term in colloquial speech, denoting any relationship, not necessarily linear. In general statistical usage, correlation or co-relation refers to the departure of two random variables from independence. In this broad sense there are several coefficients, measuring the degree of correlation, adapted to the nature of the data.

or how about this one


Main Entry:
cor·re·la·tion
Pronunciation:
\ˌkȯr-ə-ˈlā-shən,
Function:
noun
Etymology:
Medieval Latin correlation-, correlatio, from Latin com- + relation-, relatio relation
Date:
1561
1: the state or relation of being correlated ; specifically : a relation existing between phenomena or things or between mathematical or statistical variables which tend to vary, be associated, or occur together in a way not expected on the basis of chance alone <the obviously high positive correlation between scholastic aptitude and college entrance — J. B. Conant>
2: the act of correlating
— cor·re·la·tion·al \-shnəl, -shə-nəl\ adjective

so based on these definitions I think it reasonable that we all agree that a correlation is the relationship between two variables

variable like say
the amount of co2 in the atmosphere
and the temp of the atmosphere

it being irrelevant as to the nature of the relationship
it is relevant that we agree there is a relationship
one influences the other
as clearly stated in the definition

therefor there is just as much of a relationship between temp and co2 when it is said that carbon follows temp as there is when it is said that carbon precedes temp

for the moment it is not relevant as to which is true
what is relevant is that both statements rely on a relationship existing
and in the graphs used by both sides there is obviously a relationship

http://www.paulmacrae.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/gore-temp-chart-photo.jpg

http://www.willisms.com/archives/co2lagsbehindtemps.gif

http://www.globalwarminghoax.com/e107_images/newspost_image/vostocgraph.gif

http://www.tdf.it/2007/temp-co2.gif

each one of these graphs has been presented by prominent dissenters as evidence of something
what that something is is irrelevant to the present argument

what is relevant is that they show a relationship between co2 and temp

my point being
who disagrees that there is a relationship between temp and co2

I think it reasonable that based on the pure meaning of the word we all agree that there is a relationship

[Boston]

why dont we find agreement on something simple
what does the word
correlation mean

why are detractors so fearful of coming to an agreement on the basic meaning of the language involved in the argument

[Guillermo]

Of course there is a correlation, and we, the coolest :) , have been saying that since the beginning of this thread. You have a very weak memory, or then a very selective one :p

CO2 follows earth temperature, but the trick is the extension of time and CO2 source under exam. Let's see:

The planet 'breaths' CO2 in a yearly scale (see animated graph here http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/02/24/watching-co2-for-the-last-12-years-by-hemisphere/). This could be due to vegetation breathing processes.

There is an inverted correlation in a few years period (see attached Mauna Loa vs Temps graph) :?:

There is a long term (11-60-200 years) cyclic correlation between Sun activity and CO2 (oceans as CO2 sinks-source) as we have debated already.

There is an estimated lag of around 800 years between temperatures and CO2 concentrations in the very long term (Your graphs, also presented by the 'coolest brigade' long ago)


Which one do you want to discuss (again! :rolleyes: )

Cheers.

[Guillermo]

About water vapour feedback. GWS have been saying for a long time that water vapour is a major contributor to earth temperature variations. Let's review what Roy Spencer says about feedbacks:

"What I have presented here is, as far as I know, the most detailed attempt to reconcile satellite observations of the climate system with the behavior of climate models in the context of feedbacks. Instead of the currently popular practice of building immensely complex and expensive climate models and then making only simple comparisons to satellite data, I have done just the opposite: Examine the satellite data in great detail, and then build the simplest model that can explain the observed behavior of the climate system.

The resulting picture that emerges is of an IN-sensitive climate system, dominated by negative feedback. And it appears that the reason why most climate models are instead VERY sensitive is due to the illusion of a sensitive climate system that can arise when one is not careful about the physical interpretation of how clouds operate in terms of cause and effect (forcing and feedback)."

http://www.drroyspencer.com/research-articles/satellite-and-climate-model-evidence/

(bolded is mine)
Cheers.

[Guillermo]

And attached please find an study on the correlation between the consume of fuels and earth's temperature, by L.B. Klyashtorin, Federal Institute for Fisheries and Oceanography (VNIRO), Moscow, and A.A. Lyubushin, Institute of the Physics of the Earth, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow.

ABSTRACT
Analysis of the long-term dynamics of World Fuel Consumption (WFC) and the
Global Temperature anomaly (dT) for the last 140 years (1961-2000) shows that
unlike the monotonously and exponentially increasing WFC, the dynamics of
global dT against the background of a linear, age-long trend, undergo quasi-cyclic
fluctuations with about 60 a year period. No true linear correlation has taken place
between the dT and WFC dynamics in the last century.
Spectral analysis of reconstructed temperature for the last 1420 years and
instrumentally measured for the last 140 years global dT shows that dominant
period for its variations for the last 1000 years lies in the 50-60 years interval.
Modeling of roughly 60-years cyclic dT changes suggest that the observed
rise of dT will flatten in the next 5-10 years, and that we might expect a lowering
of dT by nearly 1-0.15°C to the end of the 2020s.

(bolded is mine)
Now your turn again.

[Boston]

I was just trying to find some points we can agree on G
sounds like you agree that there is a correlation
and I used your graphs as a way to kinda bury the hatchet and make that correlation based on data that is also not going to be debated by detractors

since we are having such a hard time agreeing on even the simplest of things lets just dig a little deeper into what a correlation is within the scientific method

Correlation Coefficient
A correlation coefficient is a number between -1 and 1 which measures the degree to which two variables are linearly related. If there is perfect linear relationship with positive slope between the two variables, we have a correlation coefficient of 1; if there is positive correlation, whenever one variable has a high (low) value, so does the other. If there is a perfect linear relationship with negative slope between the two variables, we have a correlation coefficient of -1; if there is negative correlation, whenever one variable has a high (low) value, the other has a low (high) value. A correlation coefficient of 0 means that there is no linear relationship between the variables.

note the synonymous use of the terms correlation and relationship
as defined in the definition of the term correlation

A causal, complementary, parallel, or reciprocal relationship, especially a structural, functional, or qualitative correspondence between two comparable entities: a correlation between drug abuse and crime.

also listed as synonyms is the term relationship by thesaurus.com


so if we can agree that there is a correlation between co2 and temp then I believe we are also compelled by definition to agree that there is a relationship between co2 and temp

can we get that far without to much trouble


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[TeddyDiver]

Since it takes hundreds of years for the oceans to warm or cool,
Where the **** you find "thruths" like that :confused:
Without any "deep impact" or similar catastrophy deepseawater doesn't warm or cool. It's only the surface temp that changes, sea ice being a thermostat of it. When the sea ice is gone bye bye.. it's the end of the world as we know it...

[bntii]

OYou have a very weak memory, or then a very selective one :p

CO2 follows earth temperature, but the trick is the extension of time and CO2 source under exam. Let's see:

1) The planet 'breaths' CO2 in a yearly scale (see animated graph here http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/02/24/watching-co2-for-the-last-12-years-by-hemisphere/). This could be due to vegetation breathing processes.

2)There is an inverted correlation in a few years period (see attached Mauna Loa vs Temps graph) :?:

3)There is a long term (11-60-200 years) cyclic correlation between Sun activity and CO2 (oceans as CO2 sinks-source) as we have debated already.

4)There is an estimated lag of around 800 years between temperatures and CO2 concentrations in the very long term (Your graphs, also presented by the 'coolest brigade' long ago)


Which one do you want to discuss (again! :rolleyes: )

Cheers.


1) The planet "breaths" Co2

Yes it is called the 'Carbon Cycle". Its existence has never been in question and if you will notice it is accurately described by the findings of science, not the blogosphere. The carbon cycle has been fairly stable for at least 800 thousand years and perhaps back as far as 4 million years. The interesting change happens right at the time when our emissions start adding CO2 into the atmosphere. At this point the levels of carbon in the atmosphere rapidly accelerate to levels 35% higher than the record and are accumulating at unprecedented rate of over 200 times faster than any period in the known record. Our carbon emissions are more than double the yearly accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere. It is ONLY due to the ability of the natural sinks to absorb SOME of our emissions that this rate of change is not far larger. All evidence indicates that the natural carbon sinks are becoming saturated and loosing the ability to absorb excess carbon. This will increase the rate of accumulation of our emissions in the atmosphere over the short term.

2) The troposphere temperature record.

If you insist on using outdated data which has been now corrected for some 5 years it appears that a "inverse" relationship holds true. One will note that Roy Spencer, who you have cited above, fumbled the arithmetic and masked the temperature increase. Following a public apology by Dr. Spencer, the record is now clear and indicates the anticipated warming.

3) Sun cycles.. natural variation.

Of course there is a natural variation around the trend line. But this "11-20-200" year cycle did not cause a perturbation over the trend in the last 800 thousand years equal to what is now happening. We are causing the increase in atmospheric CO2 by adding more than double the amount which accumulates each year.

4) Temperature lag.

CO2 IS a greenhouse gas. This is clear science known for some 150 years. The investigation of the process by which long term temperature trends increase atmospheric CO2 by no means negate the effect this greenhouse gas has when it is present in the atmosphere. We don't have to wait "800 years". We are releasing carbon into the atmosphere at a UNPRECEDENTED rate of over 200 time faster than any period seen in the record. It is of interest to note what the earth in a greenhouse phase is like. The cretaceous period had temperature in excess of 15 degrees higher than today in a world with high levels of atmospheric carbon. Sea levels were a bit higher- 80 meters higher.
We have initiated a scientific experiment with the earths atmosphere. The procedure is too add carbon to the atmosphere at a rate which far exceeds any possible natural variation to see if anything changes. Interesting eh? I wonder what will happen...

So......

"Which one do you want to discuss (again! )"

[BillyDoc]

Whoa, Guys, we have some inferential statistics to review. To begin, a fundamental concept you will get hammered with in any stat class is this: "Correlation does not imply causation!!!" As an example, consider the following strong correlations:

Ice cream consumption and drowning.

Initial consumption (use) of mother's milk and subsequent drug use.

Breathing and drug use (99% correlated! It would be higher except sometimes drug use stops breathing.)

The ONLY THING a correlation is good for is to demonstrate that there is NO RELATIONSHIP between variables, if you want to be strict about it. On the other hand, combined with other strong evidence, a strong correlation does support that evidence if, and only if, the correlation is demonstrated AFTER the hypothesis being tested is formulated. If the hypothesis is formulated after a correlation is found, the term applied in scientific circles is "begging chance."

Correlation tests are only one kind of test in inferential statistics, another common one is called the "t" test (and there are many variations on this), which does something quite different, it addresses the question of whether "correlated" data are correlated by chance or not. So, performing a "t" test results in a "p" value (probability), which is generally taken as "significant" if it is LESS than 0.05. That is, a "p" of 0.05 tells us that the probability of a relationship based upon chance is less than 5%.

And Guillermo, a couple of pages back you were bad-mouthing the fact that the sample size in the study about climate scientists agreeing that AGW was with us was too small a proportion of the whole. Actually, when dealing with a large population, and 10,000 is certain a large population (of scientists, in this case) then you can get good data from a sample size of 20, if the sample is randomly selected. A sample sice of over 3,000 pretty much guarantees that if you were to poll each and every member of the population you would get exactly the same result. To make this point let me give you a "thought experiment."

Imagine you have a barrel, and you dump 10,000 same-sized glass marbles into that barrel, with some proportion of them being white and the rest being black. Then you mix them up thoroughly and blindly scoop out 100. You count the black marbles in your sample and find that 36 of them are black and the rest white. You toss the marbles back in, shake up the barrel again, and draw out another sample. This time you get 35 black. Would you be surprised at this result? How about if you took your second sample and got 5 black. Would you be surprised at that? In the first case you might infer that the barrel contained a total of 3,600 black marbles, and in the last the inference would be that the barrel contained a total of 500 marbles. I think that you can see that such a discrepancy would not really happen. Both samples would inevitably be very similar. In fact, sampling just 20 marbles would give you a very good idea of the overall ratio in those circumstances. Sampling 3,000 of them would give you an almost exact estimate of the ratio. If you want to know why this is, get a stat book and look up "z" scores and their derivation. The main point I'm trying to make here is that, properly applied, statistical inference can be astoundingly accurate. Quantum mechanics is based upon this principle, and it certainly works. A visual demonstration of this fact can be found in many "science museums" (there's one in Baltimore, I know) where thousands of steel balls are rolled down a board from a center aperture, where they encounter a cluster of randomly placed nails and bounce around within this cluster until they drop into an array of parallel slots. The demonstration board will have a "bell shaped" (Gaussian) curve painted permanently on it, and the balls will line up with curve, every time. It's the "law of large numbers" at work. There is no way that you could predict the final resting place of any one ball, but you can pretty much exactly predict the behavior of all of them together. I admit that it blew me away the first time I saw this demonstrated.



BillyDoc

[Guillermo]

OK, Boston, there's a correlation :) , so....?

Cheers.

[Jimbo1490]

Correlation does not equal causation, and we need causation, not simple correlation. There is a correlation between the occurrence of the spring equinox and the appearance of new annual plant growth. But what kind of ***** would then say that the appearance of new plant growth caused the spring equinox?? In the universe in which I exist, an event that happens first is plausible as a cause for something that happens subsequently. Causes never follow effects. If you want to try to find something really simple to agree on, it should be this: that causes come first and effects always follow.

Jimbo

[BillyDoc]

Hi Guys,

This is tangential to the subject at hand, I know, but the demo I described above is so cool . . . I wanted to find one and show you! Unfortunately our friends at youtube.com have been lax and not done such a good job. But still, here's a demo like I described but without it going to completion. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ph2DmwZMhGo You can see the gaussian distribution curve painted on it, and eventually the balls will fill up to that level. The second clip here, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDIyAOBa_yU&NR=1 , shows a small board going to completion. I think these things are called "Galton boards."

Several years ago there was a Galton board in the window of the Maryland Science Museum in Baltimore. It cycled automatically, and I stood and watched it through about six cycles. I couldn't believe it! I had no idea such a thing was possible.

BillyDoc

[Guillermo]

2009 International Conference on Climate Change

Sunday, March 8 -
Tuesday, March 10
Marriott New York Marquis
Times Square Hotel
1535 Broadway
New York City, New York


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Cheers

[Guillermo]

And....


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:D :D :D

[Guillermo]

There are people who don't like very much Mr. Hansen...:(

Fire James Hansen - NASA Climate Chief
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=53080958739

[Guillermo]

Thomas,
I post again:

The resulting picture that emerges is of an IN-sensitive climate system, dominated by negative feedback. And it appears that the reason why most climate models are instead VERY sensitive is due to the illusion of a sensitive climate system that can arise when one is not careful about the physical interpretation of how clouds operate in terms of cause and effect (forcing and feedback)."

http://www.drroyspencer.com/research...odel-evidence/

Cheers

[Boston]

bntti
Ild say we know that co2 is a green house gas not because it was debated to death
but because its been long ago mathematical and experimentally proven to be so

its simple physics that its more transparent to visible light than it is to the far infrared ( heat )
so it lets the sunshine in which is of a higher wave length and doesnt let the heat energy ( radiant heat ) back out ( lower wavelength )
( why, the size and shape of the molecule, duh )
simple greenhouse effect
basic physics
not much argument there
by the same experimental means it can be shown to be a much more effective green house gas than water vapor which is one reason it is said to be more relevant than water vapor as a green house gas

G just doesnt agree with that assessment and Im not going to bother with it at the moment cause I think I got a good logic path going and Im hoping to stick with it as best I can


ok so Billy is the other guy who took a statistics class
one being myself ( thanks for throwing a wrench into my logic path B with the obvious, frankly, I got no clue who's side you are batting for B )

I remember the bit about causation not necessarily being relevant to a relationship but since all sides agree that there is concerning the issue at hand I was hoping to forgo that part as we just agreed there is a correlation regardless of who comes first


there is a calculation for determining if a correlation is based on causation that I was hoping to avoid ( Ill leave it up to you B since you seem to remember that part of statistics class better than I do )
frankly Id need to look it up to compliment my point about a correlation in this case being synonymous with a relation as we both already know it is
so Im not going to
and we all know we could go off for a few pages on it and basically come back to the same place we are now
which is
about to solve for the correlation coefficient
which will also determine the relative causality of one event based on another

anyone want to take a guess at how closely temp and co2 are related

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[Boston]

ok I just started the graph that I would use to figure that out with and I realized that the only fair way to do this is to first agree on three graphs to use in the calculation

so
are you guys comfy with my using one of the three I last presented
in post 2119
several are from detractors web sites and one was All Gore's
although were he got it Im not sure

nother thought I had B is that if you have the background in statistics that I think you do that you help me agree on a few things about calculating the coefficient
for instance the amplitude of the correlation is less relevant than the frequency
makes the hole thing so much easier to figure out

[bntii]

Guillermo- thanks for the lead.

I have not looked into Dr. Spencer much since Jimbo & I were going over some of his work on tropical cloud formations way back when.

I will take a look..

Boston- Excellent video. Well worth a look by all camps as it provides a very nice historical backdrop for the whole debate.

[Jimbo1490]

bntti
Ild say we know that co2 is a green house gas not because it was debated to death
but because its been long ago mathematical and experimentally proven to be so


Nobody has ever denied that it is so. The distinction to be debated is the relative importance of CO2 as a greenhouse gas. Without a positive feedback coupling between CO2 and water vapor, the answer to this question is unequivocally "No, CO2 IS NOT an important greenhouse gas, as it is responsible for a mere couple of percent of the planet's total atmospheric greenhouse warming." Without this coupling, there can be no scary warming scenario involving small changes in atmospheric CO2.

Now if there really IS a positive feedback coupling between CO2 and water vapor, then the answer to the question is "Yes, as it is responsible for about 25% of the total greenhouse effect." Corollary to this, we could add that the earth's CO2/water vapor cycle is therefore an extremely rare example of an unstable equilibrium in the natural world.

This is really the last frontier of this debate, and the most current data on this does not support the 'AGW via CO2' hypothesis.

Jimbo

[Boston]

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lets try to set aside what we dont agree on and focus on what we can agree on and see what we come up with

can we agree that based on physics the properties of the co2 molecule make it a stronger green house gas than h2o

given that one molecule is more transparent to visible light than the other and also more reflective of the far infrared area of the spectrum

for the moment lets ignore the relationship between the two since we dont agree on it but like co2 and temp lets say there is one
is that a fair enough place to begin

[Boston]

not trying to beat t dead horse but this article is pretty thorough and in the end is the accepted relationship between co2 and h2o
the results are noted in each paper cited and when taken as a hole represent a conclusion based on physics
for instance
we know the chemical make up of the atmosphere
we know the concentrations of various gasses
the physical properties of each gas is known when subjected to various forms of radiation
the radiative forcing can then be calculated
the results can be laboratory recreated and verified
the results corroborated by independently duplicating the experiments with the researchers noted in the studies cited
the studies are listed with all studies being cited as having no competing interests



Water vapour is indeed the most dominant greenhouse gas. The radiative forcing for water is around 75 W/m2 while carbon dioxide contributes 32 W/m2 (Kiehl 1997). Water vapour is also the dominant positive feedback in our climate system and a major reason why temperature is so sensitive to changes in CO2.

Unlike external forcings such as CO2 which can be added to the atmosphere, the level of water vapour in the atmosphere is a function of temperature. Water vapour is brought into the atmosphere via evaporation - the rate depends on the ocean and air temperature and is governed by the Clausius-Clapeyron relation.

If extra water is added to the atmosphere, it condenses and falls as rain or snow within a week or two. Similarly, if somehow moisture was sucked out of the atmosphere, evaporation would restore water vapour levels to 'normal levels' in short time.

Water Vapour as a positive feedback
As water vapour is directly related to temperature, it's also a positive feedback - in fact, the largest positive feedback in the climate system (Soden 2005). As temperature rises, evaporation increases and more water vapour accumulates in the atmosphere. As a greenhouse gas, the water absorbs more heat, further warming the air and causing more evaporation.

How does water vapour fit in with CO2 emissions? When CO2 is added to the atmosphere, as a greenhouse gas it has a warming effect. This causes more water to evaporate and warm the air more to a higher (more or less) stabilized level. So CO2 warming has an amplified effect, beyond a purely CO2 effect.

How much does water vapour amplify CO2 warming? Without any feedbacks, a doubling of CO2 would warm the globe around 1°C. Taken on its own, water vapour feedback roughly doubles the amount of CO2 warming. When other feedbacks are included (eg - loss of albedo due to melting ice), the total warming from a doubling of CO2 is around 3°C (Held 2000).

Empirical observations of water vapour feedback and climate sensitivity
The amplifying effect of water vapor has been observed in empirical studies such as Soden 2001 which observed the global cooling after the eruption of Mount Pinatubo. The cooling led to atmospheric drying which amplified the temperature drop. A climate sensitivity of around 3°C is also confirmed by numerous empirical studies examining how climate has responded to various forcings in the past.

Satellites have observed an increase in atmospheric water vapour by about 0.41 kg/m² per decade since 1988. A detection and attribution study (Santer 2007), otherwise known as "fingerprinting", was employed to identify the cause of the rising water vapour levels. Fingerprinting involves rigorous statistical tests of the different possible explanations for a change in some property of the climate system.

Results from 22 different climate models (virtually all of the world's major climate models) were pooled and found the recent increase in moisture content over the bulk of the world's oceans is not due to solar forcing or gradual recovery from the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo. The primary driver of 'atmospheric moistening' was found to be the increase in CO2 caused by the burning of fossil fuels.

Basic theory, observations and climate models all show the increase in water vapor is around 6 to 7.5% per degree Celsius warming of the lower atmosphere. The observed changes in temperature, moisture, and atmospheric circulation fit together in an internally and physically consistent way. When skeptics cite water vapour as the most dominant greenhouse gas, they are actually invoking the positive feedback that makes our climate so sensitive to CO2 as well as another line of evidence for anthropogenic global warming.

[Guillermo]

My dear Boston,
Would you please read through Roy Spencer's site and then tell us what do you think about what there is said?

Here again the link: http://www.drroyspencer.com/
Begin by the 'Home/Blog' section.

Thanks in advance.

[bntii]

Balance- how rare is that in this issue:

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2009/pr20090211.html

It's just a nice short summary on the effect of the science on the current debate.

[bntii]

B- have you dropped the "Consensus" ball?
I think it's interesting to note that the scientific consensus on this issue was established 30 years ago and is far stronger with each passing day.


Little joke for you:

A duck a priest and a climate scientist walk into a bar.

Bartender asks the duck:
"so what do you think about climate change?"

Duck:
"it's a bunch of bunk"

Bartender:
"I thought so"

[Boston]

as always Ill first go look up a bio on him
and check the credibility and impartiality of his work

the first thing thats apparent is that a certain percentage of people no mater how carefully chosen will play a system designed to ensure both quality and honesty for there own personal gain

the first question that needs to be considered is "what is tenure" when reading material that is so far off base, from a professor no less is understanding the system that protects academics from censure other than consistent rejection by a peer review panel
which is what has happened to MR Spencer

Academic tenure is primarily intended to guarantee the right to academic freedom: it protects teachers and researchers when they dissent from prevailing opinion, openly disagree with authorities of any sort, or spend time on unfashionable topics. Thus academic tenure is similar to the lifetime tenure that protects some judges from external pressure. Without job security, the scholarly community as a whole might favor "safe" lines of inquiry. Tenure makes original ideas more likely to arise, by giving scholars the intellectual autonomy to investigate the problems and solutions about which they are most passionate, and to report their honest conclusions.

what tenure unfortunately also allows for is a person in a protected position to use that position for personal gain which it seams obvious is what R Spencer is engaging in when he plays the system to the degree he has.
What I mean by playing the system can be found in the following blatantly false statements that placated the oil and gas industry which provided the funding for entities that would publish his work when peer reviewed scientific publishers wouldn’t

IE
pay him for writing articles refuting and confusing the consensus view that has been and still is growing since the 1950’s

FACTSHEET: ROY W. SPENCER
DETAILS
Principal Research Scientist, University of Alabama
Science Roundtable Member, Tech Central Station. Scientific Advisor, Interfaith Stewardship Council. 

Ph.D. in Meteorology from the University of Wisconsin in 1981. TCS bio: http://www.techcentralstation.com/020604C.html
KEY QUOTES
26 February, 2007
"The media is, almost by definition, most interested in extreme views on the issue, so reporting seldom reveals that broad scientific uncertainty still exists."
Source: New York Post 2/26/07

17 April, 2006
"We are not saying that we don't believe that there can be significant global warming. As John [Christy] said, if you add CO2, something has to change. But things are changing all the time anyway. The big question is: So what? How much is it going to change, compared to other things? And what can you do about it?"
Source: George Marshall Institute Roundtable April 2006

19 April, 2007
"We see something change in our climate and we blame ourselves. ... I don't think we understand what happens. We can watch it happen on the (climate) models, we know it happens, but we don't know for sure how it happens."
Source: The Huntsville Times, April 19, 2007

2 May, 2007
"Politicians and some of the scientists like to say that there's a consensus now on global warming or the science has been settled, but you have to ask them, what is there a consensus on? Because it really makes a difference. What are you talking about? The only consensus I`m aware of is that it's warmed in the last century. They completely ignore the fact that there's this thing called the Oregon petition that was signed by 19,000 professionals and scientists who don't agree with the idea that we are causing climate change." 
Source: CNN, Glenn Beck special "Exposed: The Climate of Fear," May 2, 2007

KEY DEEDS
8 March, 2007
Appeared in documentary "The Great Global Warming Swindle"
Source: The Great Global Warming Swindle (Documentary)

25 July, 2006
Co-author of Interfaith Stewardship Alliance report critical of the Evangelical Climate Initiative's Call To Action urging a swift response to global warming. The ISA letter argues that "the most prudent response is not to try (almost certainly unsuccessfully and at enormous cost) to prevent or reduce whatever slight warming might really occur." They suggest adaptation instead.
Source: Interfaith Stewarship Alliance website (2007)

2 May, 2007
Appeared in Glenn Beck's May 2, 2007 special "Exposed: The Climate of Fear"
Source: CNN, Glenn Beck special "Exposed: The Climate of Fear," May 2, 2007

ORGANIZATIONS
Tech Central Science Foundation or Tech Central Station
Source: Tech Central Station Bio - Spencer

Heartland Institute
Source: Heartland Institute website 4/04

George C. Marshall Institute
Source: Marshall Institute Website (2006)

Interfaith Stewardship Alliance
Source: Interfaith Stewardship Alliance "Call to Faith"

SOURCES
Heartland Institute website 4/04
http://www.heartland.org

Heartland Institute website 4/04
http://www.heartland.org

Tech Central Station Bio - Spencer
http://www.techcentralstation.com/biospencerroy.html

Tech Central Station Bio - Spencer
http://www.techcentralstation.com/biospencerroy.html

Marshall Institute Website (2006)
Christy and Spencer authored a report using "satellite microwave data beginning in 1979, which showed little or no warming above the surface."
http://www.marshall.org/article.php?id=415

Marshall Institute Website (2006)
Christy and Spencer authored a report using "satellite microwave data beginning in 1979, which showed little or no warming above the surface."
http://www.marshall.org/article.php?id=415

Interfaith Stewardship Alliance "Call to Faith"
http://www.interfaithstewardship.org/pages/article.php?&id=160

Interfaith Stewardship Alliance "Call to Faith"
http://www.interfaithstewardship.org/pages/article.php?&id=160

The Great Global Warming Swindle (Documentary)
http://www.channel4.com/science/microsites/G/great_global_warming_swindle/index.html

Interfaith Stewarship Alliance website (2007)
http://www.interfaithstewardship.org/pages/article.php?&id=159

New York Post 2/26/07
http://www.nypost.com/seven/02262007/postopinion/opedcolumnists/not_that_simple_opedcolumnists_roy_w__spencer.htm?page=0

George Marshall Institute Roundtable April 2006
http://www.marshall.org/pdf/materials/415.pdf

The Huntsville Times, April 19, 2007
"Scientist: Warming Not Caused by Humans," by Wendy Reeves. The Huntsville Times, 4/19/07.
http://www.al.com/news/huntsvilletimes/index.ssf?/base/news/1176974192195090.xml&coll=1

CNN, Glenn Beck special "Exposed: The Climate of Fear," May 2, 2007
http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/beck.climateoffear/



The first thing I noticed in the hours it took to read his websites endless diatribe is that he spends most of his time refuting work that was peer reviewed and published and complaining that his work was peer reviewed and rejected, ( I would love to read all his rejection letters but he didn’t quote any findings of the reviews. Kinda makes me wonder about the credulity of what he is trying to say from the word go.) The next thing I notice is that he is refuting an area of science that he claims is less well understood while ignoring to debate an area that is very closely related and more clearly understood and grounded in reams of scientific literature; water vapor feed back. The next thing that stands out is his failure to mention the significance of properly defining water vapor; which is a gas and therefore embodies its own particular characteristics as such vs cloud structures which are made up of water droplets; not a gas and have entirely different characteristics. seems that in doing so and by taking the argument that failed within the scientific community to the public he is deliberately confusing an issue otherwise well understood within the scientific community

In conclusion he was exactly as I suspected when I read his bio, embittered and corrupted by rejection to the point of endless complaints about his mediocre standing in a community that he once aspired to and now clearly holds in contempt.

[Boston]

most definitely not B

the more I look into it
the more obvious it becomes that the consensus view is stronger than ever
and the dissenting view based on agnotism in an effort to delay regulation that would cost industry its mind bending profits by forcing it to clean up its act a little

seems that greed makes the world go round rather than logic

B

[dimitarp]

visit:
http://www.partenovcfd.com

[Boston]

nice
but Im hopeing to stick to the relevant difference of the two foms of the same mater in reflecting specific wavelengths

water vapor is reasonable transparent to solar radiation yet reflect radiant heat
water droplets have a much higher degree of reflection and release latent heat when they form in the atmosphere creating a blanket of heat energy that had previously been locked up in the process of evaporation

the addition of co2 into the atmosphere raises the temp allowing more vapor to be held by the atmosphere before the formation of droplets occurs

that means since water vapor is also a greenhouse gas that temp increases even more ( forcing ) and the system as a hole enables less cloud formation and so less reflection
the end result is that the system seeks a new equilibrium higher than what is expected by merely calculating the change in one parameter

[Jimbo1490]

[YOUTUBE]

lets try to set aside what we dont agree on and focus on what we can agree on and see what we come up with

can we agree that based on physics the properties of the co2 molecule make it a stronger green house gas than h2o

given that one molecule is more transparent to visible light than the other and also more reflective of the far infrared area of the spectrum

for the moment lets ignore the relationship between the two since we dont agree on it but like co2 and temp lets say there is one
is that a fair enough place to begin


But you are focusing on the thing that does not matter. Following this logic, we should probably worry more about methane than CO2 as it is a far more powerful greenhouse gas. Latest data there is that it is already rivaling the direct affect of CO2, with a much higher intrinsic potential than CO2 than was understood only a few years ago. And if the direct affect is there, why not a coupling with water vapor for methane as well? The same mechanisms would be at play, would they not?

But neither of these is significant if it does not couple to the water vapor cycle through a positive feedback. Even those that support the idea of this sort of feedback admit that water vapor is directly responsible for ~95% of the total greenhouse warming; its just that they feel that a significant fraction of that water vapor is suspended in the atmosphere because of a coupling with CO2. That's where they come to the conclusion that CO2 is an important greenhouse gas rather than a trivial one; NOT by looking at the greenhouse potential of CO2 directly.

Once again, WITHOUT A COUPLING THROUGH POSITIVE FEEDBACK WITH WATER VAPOR, THERE IS NO PLAUSIBLE WAY TO EXPLAIN CLIMATE CHANGE THROUGH SMALL CHANGES IN CO2 CONCENTRATION.

And a doubling of CO2 from 280 to 560 ppm is still a small change in the context of our atmosphere. The 'rate of change' arguments are pure BS; look at the mid 19th century spike. How's THAT for a high rate of change! Did we do that too? :p

Without this coupling, incidental CO2 could be said to warm the atmosphere in a similar way that e few electric wristwatches in a conference room might do so; an effect we must admit exists but which is below the 'noise floor' and impossible to observe or measure.

Jimbo

[Jimbo1490]

nice

the addition of co2 into the atmosphere raises the temp allowing more vapor to be held by the atmosphere before the formation of droplets occurs

that means since water vapor is also a greenhouse gas that temp increases even more ( forcing ) and the system as a hole enables less cloud formation and so less reflection
the end result is that the system seeks a new equilibrium higher than what is expected by merely calculating the change in one parameter


Boston,

This is the very part that Roy Spencer, et al, have disproven with their research. The poor performance of climate models using the mechanism you outlined above also underscore the fact that this understanding is in error. They had the succession wrong right from the beginning, putting the effect in front of the cause, thus the persistent error.

Jimbo

[Guillermo]

Boston,
You have a not scientific position at all, excuse me. That's precisely your problem. You judge the work and ideas of the people not because the instrinsic merit, but just because what their adversaries (or plain enemies) say about him/her. That's fundamentalist religion, not science.

Cheers.

[Guillermo]

This fight of global warming skeptics against global warming alarmists, remembers me the fight of David against Goliath or, to put it in more spanish terms, the battle of Blas de Lezo against the fleet of Admiral Vernon in Cartagena de Indias. :D

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Cheers.

[Boston]

actually I judged it partly based on the fact it was rejected by the scientific community
over and over again
partly because he obviously receives funding from sources with a vested interest in the outcome of his work
both completely valid scientific reasons to also reject what he is saying
and partly because having read what he is saying it became obvious based on the contempt he holds for his peers that he is not writing from an impartial point of view, something that is kinda key in writing a scientific paper
which that was not

his work was reviewed and rejected not only by myself
but by the scientific community as a hole
what more do you want me to say

[Boston]

while we are on the subject and since have at least made a beginning what with being able to agree on at least a few things

can we agree that water vapor is a gas and water droplets are a solid
one being an independent molecule distributing itself evenly within a given space as all gasses do
and the other being a conglomeration of molecules coalescing or coagulating within specific areas and not evenly distributed

also I would like to come to agreement that the gaseous state of an molecule
will by definition have differing physical characteristics than its solid form

oh
as for my previous concerning the correlation coefficient of co2 and temp
since no one objected to me using the graphs found on the detractors web sites I went with this one

http://www.tdf.it/2007/temp-co2.gif

within the definition of what a correlation coefficient is there is no relevance to the amplitude of the graphs being compared only with the quality of synchronous behavior of the wave forms
( start arguing Billy )
what I did was print the diagram on 10/x graph paper and plot the deviation within the peeks of the overlayed graphs

as a reminder
if the peaks had fallen exactly between one another there would have been a negative coefficient number
had they lay half way between that IE with in 25% of the ttle distance between peaks there would be a zero coefficient number
but they lay extreemly close to one another
and as near as I can tell working with the size graph I had
a coefficient number of ~ +.998

so can we agree that there is a nearly perfect relationship between temp and co2 in the natural climate cycle

if you guys need a more tangible way to look at it
and using your own claims
the graph shows an average peek between events of 125,000 years
you guys have stated over and over that there is a lag in temp and co2 of about 800 years
( I dont agree with that figure but lets go with it for now )
so by your own numbers we get a deviation of about .00064 in the correlation between the two
a statistically insignificant number

[Boston]

the conclusion is supported in established literature


In 1974, the Vostok camp in east Antarctica drilled down to 950m where the ice dates back 60,000 years. By 1985, drilling reached depths of 2,083m to ice that dates back 160,000 years.4 Finally, in 1999, the ice cores were drilled at 3,300m dating back 420,000 years.5 Taylor Dome camp, the most recent drilling, reached depths of 554m in 1994 with a higher resolution of data from the past 11,000 years.6 With the Vostok, Taylor Dome (referred to now as TD) and other ice core records in Antarctica, researchers are able to study the correlation between temperature and CO2.

Currently there are three hypotheses that describe the relations between CO2 and temperature seen in the Antarctic iced core records. The suggestion that is of much interest in environmental policies and Earth Sciences is that the changes in CO2 concentrations control the observed change in the Antarctic climate by the greenhouse effect.
In the Vostok ice core data, temperature and CO2 concentrations in the Antarctic atmosphere correlate almost in phase throughout the last four climatic cycles.5 Temperature is measured in the average annual change/deviation, positive or negative, from a chosen normal temperature, and the CO2 concentrations are measured in parts per million by volume. The first climatic cycle began 420,000 years before the present (BP) with both the temperature change and CO2 concentration at their maximums of 2o C and 280 p.p.m.v. respectively. Then both data reach their minimums around 335,000 years BP with a temperature change of -8 oC and a CO2 concentration of 180 p.p.m.v. And again around 320,000 years BP, they both rapidly reached their maximums.

The observed increase and decrease are the same in both temperature and CO2. Both decrease slowly over ~100,000 years until they reach their minimums; then, they rapidly increase to a reoccurring maximum in ~20,000 years. The minimums in temperature and CO2 concentration associate with the glacial maximum (ice age) observed by the volume of ice formed each year5. This data suggest that temperature (T) and CO2 both increase and decrease in phase with each other in a ~120,000-year cycle. This cycle has also been observed in the periods analyzed in the Antarctic Taylor Dome ice core records6 and in the Arctic V 19-30 core for Uvigerina Senticosa.4

CO2 and Temperature Lag
Further analysis of the T data collected at Vostok and Taylor Dome not only shows a trend in temperature and CO2 concentration change over time but also shows a time lag between the times they reach their maximums or minimums. This is valuable evidence to determine whether CO2 is a forcing factor on the change in temperature. In most of the records one can see that CO2 lags temperature, but the measured lag period is insignificant when compared to the large time frame.

In 1999, Hubertus Fischer et al. from Scripps Institution of oceanography compiled the records of the Vostok, TD, and Byrd ice cores and pointed out this lag between CO2 and temperature over the last 270,000 years. 7 A glacial termination begins at a temporal minimum and ends at a temporal maximum. In termination III (from 270,000 years BP – 230,000 years BP) CO2 concentrations reached a maximum of over 300 p.p.m.v. 600 (+/-200) years after temperature had peaked at a change of ~2o C. Then again in termination II (160,000 years B.P. - 120,000 years B.P.), CO2 concentrations reach their maximum 400 (+/-200) years later than the recorded temperature peak. Other sources, such as Eric Monnin et al., Callion et al., and Petit et al., all estimate this CO2 lag to be ~800 (+/-200) years after temperature8,3,5. However, they also give notice that the 800-year lag period is very short and insignificant compared to the 5,000-year period in which the lag occurs. This makes the lag insufficient evidence to rule out CO2 as a forcing factor on climate change.

There is also uncertainty in approximating lag period due to the fact that the air bubbles trapped in the ice cores are younger than the ice that they are taken from. When the layer of ice has formed on the surface it is very porous, allowing younger atmospheric air to diffuse in and out until trapped at a certain depth. The age difference is approximated to be ~1,000 years .5An overestimated gas-ice age difference devalues the evidence of CO2 lagging temperature debatable.

[masalai]

Nice bit of data, thanks Boston....

[Boston]

hey how you doing over there Mas
I notice you ran into your own version of rough seas
you still sailing
B

ps
that guy was way out of line

[Jimbo1490]

partly because he obviously receives funding from sources with a vested interest in the outcome of his work
both completely valid scientific reasons to also reject what he is saying


But we can say the same exact thing about warmers; they are all 'eco-socialists'. Their own statements and writings make this abundantly clear. So they have a vested interest in the outcome of the debate as well. As I've pointed out numerous times, EVERYBODY has a dog in this fight!

So why not do as Guillo keeps urging you, which is to judge on scientific merit alone. We are confident that when you do, the lack of scientific merit to the AGW hypothesis will become obvious.

Jimbo

[Boston]

actually the IPCC does no funding of research
nor is it in any way required that you go through them for peer review
actually there are established peer review panels in each of the various disciplines
therefor there is no conflict of interest when a peer reviewed article is subsequently also published by the IPCC
or rejected for that mater

I dont quite understand what you expect out of me
I was asked what I thought of a certain blog spot
so I took the time to review it
clearly the guy is pissed off that his work was rejected by his peers
so he takes it to the industry rags for payment and publication
instantly blowing his credibility
I myself am slowly working on a paper on plastics in the environment
should I get rejected the first time round
Ill not go write a blog and run to industry for a few bucks to make up for all the time I spent on it
Ill carefully read the rejection letter a few times and make the best of it
Ill take it to some friends and see if I can make a better paper out of it
one that will get published
maybe Ill have to reconsider my position in the hole thing
but one thing that I wont to is write an hours worth of vile rebuttal
which is what most of that article was

so in the end that answer is no
you cant say the same about warmers

funny thing is Ive found a few disenting opinions from perfectly respectable scientists
why cant you
we know there are roughly 3% out there
why do you guys keep quoting the worst offenders of the scientific method

I am after all trying to find what we can agree on in the hole thing rather than focus on what we dont agree on

its progress and it may just yield results
results that have been blatantly lacking in our previous debates

B

[masalai]

Boston, I replied in http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/open-discussion/global-politics-economics-lies-witchcraft-22206-175.html - these good folk are died-in-the-wool "coolies" and cannot be persuaded otherwise - I generally leave them to it except when I find a bit of a counter argument - to keep it honest:D:D:D

[Guillermo]

clearly the guy is pissed off that his work was rejected by his peers
so he takes it to the industry rags for payment and publication
instantly blowing his credibility

This says all about your way of reasoning. You have not studied the findings of this man but you just searched the text for his (to your eyes) personal weaknesses to keep on feeding up your own self indulgency and preconceived position. You have been doing this from the very beginning of your interventions in this thread. Thanks God you have learnt to stop scorning and insulting other posters. That was a great step ahead which I greatly appreciate. Now I kindly ask you to abandon also this way of judging others' work and help all of us to concentrate in scientific (up to our knowledge) arguments only (apart for a joke or two among friends, of course).

All the best.

[Boston]

G you asked me what I thought of the guys blog

its obvious my assessment is accurate
he admits his work was rejected
he fails to state why
and he is obviously not able to claim that no competing interest exist in his work
sooooo
what did I get wrong
why do you think I should consider his work as scientifically valid when it has been determined to not be so by several measures


a scientific panel of his peers rejected his work
it seems reasonable that they did, if for no other reason than his involvement in agnotism
which is a serious breach of ethics for any scientist

the same measure to which they hold science
I hold science
as should we all

its not like this is some kind of 9/11 conspiracy
its science pure and simple


so what have we agreed on so far

that there is a relationship between temp and co2 and that that relationship has a statistically insignificant variation

that water vapor and water droplets are two different forms of mater having different physical characteristics

that co2 has a stronger influence on the greenhouse effect than water vapor based on co2's physical characteristics and not on its preponderance in the atmosphere

that water vapor when it condenses releases heat

I think we have been over the above enough to say we can all agree on that much
speak up if your not on board and I can go over whatever again if you need

for my next trick Ild like to agree that dew point is directly related to temperature

is it possible to agree on that as well

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/91/Dewpoint.jpg

The dew point is the temperature to which a given parcel of air must be cooled, at constant barometric pressure, for water vapor to condense into water. The condensed water is called dew. The dew point is a saturation point.
When the dew point temperature falls below freezing it is often called the frost point, as the water vapor no longer creates dew but instead creates frost or hoarfrost by deposition.
The dew point is associated with relative humidity. A high relative humidity indicates that the dew point is closer to the current air temperature. Relative humidity of 100% indicates that the dew point is equal to the current temperature (and the air is maximally saturated with water). When the dew point stays constant and temperature increases, relative humidity will decrease.

is it possible to get any affirmation of the previous points

[Boston]

lets begin also to look at the term
unprecedented

un·prec·e·dent·ed (ŭn-prěs'ĭ-děn'tĭd) Pronunciation Key
adj. Having no previous example: unprecedented economic growth.
un·prec'e·dent'ed·ly adv.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2006 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Cite This Source
Unprecedented

Un*prec"e*dent*ed\, a. Having no precedent or example; not preceded by a like case; not having the authority of prior example; novel; new; unexampled. -- Un*prec"e*dent*ed*ly, adv.
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.
Cite This Source
unprecedented

adjective
having no precedent; novel; "an unprecedented expansion in population and industry" [ant: precedented]
WordNet® 3.0, © 2006 by Princeton University.
Cite This Source

unprecedented
1623, from un- (1) "not" + precedented (see precedent (n.)). In common use from c.1760.

[BillyDoc]

Hi Boston,

I've been out of town and have not had time to catch up on this thread, but saw that you were trying to do a correlation, in what looked like the hard way! The mathematical routine you are looking for is called a "Pearson Product-Moment (r) Correlation." You can see the formula for hand calculation here: http://research.ed.asu.edu/multimedia/eq.gal/corr.html but lots of hand calculators have the routine built in. You can probably find a calculator on the web too.

Gotta go!

Oh, most people can see a correlation when two functions are plotted together without the need for fancy math. The graph you show definitely has two correlated functions. No doubt about it.

BillyDoc

[Boston]

ya I got it to about 6/1000 accurate going the hard way

but thanks for the tip
Ive forgotten most of my statistics classes as I never use em

[bntii]

It's been argued many times on this thread that is in fact just that Boston- a conspiracy to control the world through science.

I have always sort of thought that the findings of science should direct policy..

[Boston]

ya I knew that
I just wanted to reiterate that global climate change is not a conspiracy of government
for those who seem to cling to the idea

9/11 certainly could be
gulf of Tomkin certainly was
Kennedy ?
and lots of others
but a conspiracy involving 97% of the scientists studying independently at countless separate institutions for over a hundred years backed by basic physics and involving an open academic arena that thrives on proving the other guy wrong
sorry, not a chance

science is way to unkind to possibly cut the slack needed to pull that one off

[rasorinc]

Did not a great author speak of a conspiracy re: this subject in a very interesting book? He was an M.D. and just passed away. Wrote Congo plus many other thrillers. Advancing C.R.S. deprives me of his name.

[bntii]

"State of Fear"

By Michael Crichton

Popular writer of fiction...

[rasorinc]

bntii, thank you very much, I now resember that. Getting old is touf.

[bntii]

np rasorinc- I always enjoyed his books.

Same with James Michener though his work is more the historical novel.

[bntii]

damn sean- we start dragging Catholic schoolgirls up into the ivory tower with us and we won't be getting anything done...

[Fanie]

On the news a couple of days back -

The African philamon's now want to sue the western world 'they must pay' because 'they are the cause of global warming'.

I wonder which of them is going to be the first to ban their car and start walking...

[Boston]

alright who moved the drivel thread

[Boston]

so what have we agreed on so far

that C R S is a debilitating condition

that there is a relationship between temp and co2 and that that relationship has a statistically insignificant variation

that water vapor and water droplets are two different forms of mater having different physical characteristics

that co2 has a stronger influence on the greenhouse effect than water vapor based on co2's physical characteristics and not on its preponderance in the atmosphere

that water vapor when it condenses releases heat

I think we have been over the above enough to say we can all agree on that much
speak up if your not on board and I can go over whatever again if you need

for my next trick Ild like to agree that dew point is directly related to temperature

is it possible to agree on that as well

also Ild like to point out that based on the definitions of the term unprecedented that have been posted
that the carbon spike, shown in the last few years; which has been measured and verified by multiple sources believers and detractors alike, as depicted on the graph from the detractors web site is
unprecedented in the last 450,000 years of the natural weather cycle

http://www.tdf.it/2007/temp-co2.gif

[rasorinc]

Methene causes global warming and is caused by 500 million pet cattle in India. It is a religious subject so how do we handle that??? Over fed cattle while many in India go hungry.

[Fanie]

Dew point can be reached between -10 and 30 deg C according to my psychrometric chart, but is drawed for 1500m above sea level.

[rasorinc]

Serious question from one who seldom enters into these discussions.
1. Is methene caused by humans, cattle, sheep, swine, whales, and all number of dogs and cats and wild mammals that burp and fart factored in to any of these un-understandable equations? Boston? Others?? It must amount to a large figure. Is that figure as high as rotting vegatation? I would really appreciate knowing this and having an answer to through out at get to gethers to change the subject back to women or football or fishing.
I am serious so please educate me. Thanks much, Stan

[Boston]

the predominant source of methane before the era of fossil fuels was
termites

with the advent of large numbers of inefficiently digesting domestic animals as apposed to smaller numbers of efficiently digesting wild stock there is a marked increase in bio-pollutants like methane


also the process of combustion releases large quantities of green house gasses other than co2 exeeding that released by domestic live stock
which comes in a close second

http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/166

[rasorinc]

Boston, does anyone estimate the amounts and are they large enough to be included in scientific study so that a % can be estimated or known? I really would like some info on this if it is out there. 500,000,000 pet cows is a big number. thanks again, Stan

[Boston]

seems to me that between all the joking around Ive got no detractor's to the definition or its application of the term unprecedented to the graph from the detractors own web site

the statement that the spike in co2 in the last few years is unprecedented within the time frame of the graph is then accepted, lacking any viable argument against the definition of the term

[Boston]

ya its out there I was looking at it a few months ago actually
I think its posted in here somewhere

its also available on the vegetarian web sites

cows pigs and sheep are huge contributors
where as there wild counterparts produce something like a third the amount of flatulence and are far less populous in there natural state

its in there arguments for free ranging game animals
I think there is also a study under the name of Morris going way back to the seventies that detailed the benifits of wild range endemic stock

[Boston]

Il be accepting apologies till aprox noon tomorrow
thank you for your participation

Termites as a Source of Atmospheric Methane

Greg Brockberg

Methane (CH4) is an important trace gas in the atmosphere, contributing significantly to longwave absorption, and to the chemistries of both the troposphere and the stratosphere. In the troposphere, methane acts as a sink for hydroxide (OH) and as a source for carbon monoxide (CO). In the stratosphere, methane is a sink for chlorine (Cl) molecules and a source of water vapor, which is the dominate greenhouse gas. Analysis has shown that atmospheric concentrations of methane have increased by about 30% over the last 40 years. Such increases may greatly affect future levels of stratospheric ozone and, therefore, the climate of the earth. Recent estimates of the total annual source strength of CH4 vary from 400 to 1200 Tg. Activities such as rice and cattle production, the mining and use of fossil fuels, and biomass burning are believed to be the cause of increasing methane levels in the atmosphere. Added to this list of sources is the termite, which produces measurable quantities of CH4, with estimates ranging from 2 to 150 Tg per year. However, data indicate that while there are large variations in the amount of CH4 produced by different species, the total methane source due to termites is probably less than 15 Tg per year, thus making a contribution of less than 5% to global CH4 emissions.

Methane production by termites was first reported by Cook (1932) who observed the evolution of a gas from a species of termite. Studies during the following years indicated that methane is produced in a termite's digestive track during the breakdown of cellulose by symbiotic micro-organisms. Later studies showed large variations in the amount of CH4 produced by different species. More recent research by Zimmerman et al. (1982) found average CH4 production rates of 0.425 ug CH4/termite/day for the lower termite species and 0.397 ug CH4/termite/day for the higher termite families.

Environmental conditions such as light levels, humidity, temperature, and CO2 and O2 concentrations play a part in methane production. Termites prefer the absence of solar radiation; an immobile atmosphere; saturated or near saturated relative humidities; high, stable temperatures; and even elevated levels of CO2. Although termite populations are active in the middle latitude environments, the vast concentrations of mounds and nests are found in the lower latitude tropical forests, grasslands, and savannahs of Africa, Asia, Australia, and South America. It is estimated that these regions contribute approximately 80% of global termite emissions.

Fraser et al. (1986) performed an experiment using 6 different species of termites from the United States and Australia. Termite mounds under glass enclosures were studied in a laboratory setting, with diet and temperature allowed to vary while all other variables were controlled. It was found that the capacity of termites to produce CH4 varied from species to species, within groups from different mounds or nests of a particular species, and also with temperature. The 6 different species studied produced methane at rates that ranged over more than two orders of magnitude. Raising the temperature by 5 degs C within each species' preferred temperature range caused a 30-110% increase in measured CH4 emissions. Prior laboratory and field research seems to show that termites prefer temperatures in excess of 10 deg C above the ambient air temperatures determined by their geographical locations. A positive correlation between amounts of biomass consumed and CH4 emitted was observed, with the average being 3.2 mg CH4 per gm of wood.

Seiler et al. (1983) performed a field research project near Pretoria, South Africa, to study termite methane production. His team placed aluminum framed boxes covered by plastic over termite mounds with the goal of separating the mounds from the ambient conditions while keeping the termite colonies in their natural environments. CH4, CO2, and temperature levels were monitored inside the mounds and flux rates of the carbon compounds were measured within the boxes by extracting air samples by means of syringes. Also monitored was the exchange of CH4 and CO2 at the soil surface within the vicinity of the nests.

The calculated flux rates from termite mounds into the atmosphere showed significant variations which were related to the size of the mounds, the population density of the termites, termite activity, and termite species. It was found that the flux rates exhibited diurnal variations, with maximum values during the late afternoon and minimum values during the early morning. The CH4 flux rates from individual mounds were directly proportional to the corresponding CO2 rates, with methane increasing linearly with increasing carbon dioxide. It was also shown that the ratios of CH4 and CO2 flux rates measured at different days, different mounds, and different weather conditions were relatively constant for each species, but differed considerably from species to species.

Most interesting were measurements performed on the soil surface at distances of 1 to 20 m from the center of the termite nests, which generally showed a decrease in CH4, indicating that CH4 is decomposing in the soil. This observed destruction of atmospheric methane in the termite-free soil areas has led some researchers to suggest that such adjacent areas are a sink for CH4. But it is agreed that much further tests and measurements are needed to more fully understand the effects of termites on atmospheric levels of methane.

References

Fraser, P.J., R. Rasmussen, J.W. Creffield, J.R. French and M.A.K. Khalil, 1986: Termites and global methane: another assessment, J. Atmos. Chem., 4, 295-310.
Seiler, W., R. Conrad, and D. Scharffe, 1984: Field studies of methane emission from termite nests into the atmosphere and measurement of methane uptake by tropical soils, J. Atmos. Chem., 1, 171-186.

http://www.epa.gov/methane/images/methane_naturalchart2.gif

Methane is emitted from a variety of both human-related (anthropogenic) and natural sources. Human-related activities include fossil fuel production, animal husbandry (enteric fermentation in livestock and manure management), rice cultivation, biomass burning, and waste management. These activities release significant quantities of methane to the atmosphere. It is estimated that 60% of global methane emissions are related to human-related activities (IPCC, 2001c). Natural sources of methane include wetlands, gas hydrates, permafrost, termites, oceans, freshwater bodies, non-wetland soils, and other sources such as wildfires.

Methane emission levels from a source can vary significantly from one country or region to another, depending on many factors such as climate, industrial and agricultural production characteristics, energy types and usage, and waste management practices. For example, temperature and moisture have a significant effect on the anaerobic digestion process, which is one of the key biological processes that cause methane emissions in both human-related and natural sources. Also, the implementation of technologies to capture and utilize methane from sources such as landfills, coal mines, and manure management systems affects the emission levels from these sources.

Emission inventories are prepared to determine the contribution from different sources. The following sections present information from inventories of U.S. man-made sources and natural sources of methane globally. For information on international methane emissions from man-made sources, visit the International Analyses Web site.

Human-related Sources

In the United States, the largest methane emissions come from the decomposition of wastes in landfills, ruminant digestion and manure management associated with domestic livestock, natural gas and oil systems, and coal mining. Table 1 shows the level of emissions from individual sources for the years 1990 and 1997 to 2003.

Table 1 U.S. Methane Emissions by Source (TgCO2 Equivalents)

Source Category 1990 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003
Landfills 172.2 147.4 138.5 134.0 130.7 126.2 126.8 131.2
Natural Gas Systems 128.3 133.6 131.8 127.4 132.1 131.8 130.6 125.9
Enteric Fermentation 117.9 118.3 116.7 116.8 115.6 114.5 114.6 115.0
Coal Mining 81.9 62.6 62.8 58.9 56.2 55.6 52.4 53.8
Manure Management 31.2 36.4 38.8 38.8 38.1 38.9 39.3 39.1
Wastewater Treatment 24.8 31.7 32.6 33.6 34.3 34.7 35.8 36.8
Petroleum Systems 20.0 18.8 18.5 17.8 17.6 17.4 17.1 17.1
Rice Cultivation 7.1 7.5 7.9 8.3 7.5 7.6 6.8 6.9
Stationary Sources 7.8 7.4 6.9 7.1 7.3 6.7 6.4 6.7
Abandoned Coal Mines 6.1 8.1 7.2 7.3 7.7 6.9 6.4 6.4
Mobile Sources 4.8 4.0 3.9 3.6 3.4 3.1 2.9 2.7
Petrochemical Production 1.2 1.6 1.7 1.7 1.7 1.4 1.5 1.5
Iron and Steel 1.3 1.3 1.2 1.2 1.2 1.1 1.0 1.0
Agricultural Residue Burning 0.7 0.8 0.8 0.8 0.8 0.8 0.7 0.8
Total for U.S. 605.3 579.5 569.3 557.3 554.2 546.7 542.3 544.9
Source: US Emissions Inventory 2005: Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks: 1990-2003

The principal human-related sources of methane are described below. For each source, a link is provided to the report entitled "US Emissions Inventory 2006: Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks: 1990-2004," prepared by EPA, which provides detailed information on the characterization and quantity of national emissions from each source. This report, hereafter referred to as the "U.S. inventory report", provides the latest descriptions and emissions associated with each source category and is part of the United States' official submittal to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The U.S. inventory report also describes the procedures used to quantify national emissions, as well as a description of trends in emissions since 1990.

Also, for those sources where EPA has established voluntary programs for reducing methane emissions, a link to those program sites is provided.

Landfills. Landfills are the largest human-related source of methane in the U.S., accounting for 34% of all methane emissions. Methane is generated in landfills and open dumps as waste decomposes under anaerobic (without oxygen) conditions. The amount of methane created depends on the quantity and moisture content of the waste and the design and management practices at the site. The U.S. inventory report provides a detailed description on methane emissions from landfills and how they are estimated (see the Chapter entitled "Waste").

EPA has also established a voluntary program to reduce methane emissions from landfills. This program, known as the Landfill Methane Outreach Program (LMOP), works with companies, utilities, and communities to encourage the use of landfill gas for energy.

Natural gas and petroleum systems. Methane is the primary component of natural gas. Methane losses occur during the production, processing, storage, transmission, and distribution of natural gas. Because gas is often found in conjunction with oil, the production, refinement, transportation, and storage of crude oil is also a source of methane emissions. The U.S. inventory report provides a detailed description on methane emissions from natural gas and petroleum systems and how they are estimated (see the Chapter entitled "Energy").

EPA has also established a voluntary program to reduce methane emissions in the natural gas industry. This program, known as the Natural Gas STAR Program (Gas STAR) is a voluntary partnership between EPA and the natural gas and oil industries to reduce emissions of methane from the production, transmission, and distribution of natural gas.

Coal mining. Methane trapped in coal deposits and in the surrounding strata is released during normal mining operations in both underground and surface mines. In addition, handling of the coal after mining results in methane emissions. The U.S. inventory report provides a detailed description on methane emissions from coal mining and how they are estimated (see the Chapter entitled "Energy").

EPA has also established a voluntary program to reduce methane emissions in the coal mining industry. This program, known as the Coalbed Methane Outreach Program (CMOP) helps the coal industry identify the technologies, markets, and finance sources to profitably use or sell the methane that coal mines would otherwise vent to the atmosphere.

Livestock enteric fermentation. Among domesticated livestock, ruminant animals (cattle, buffalo, sheep, goats, and camels) produce significant amounts of methane as part of their normal digestive processes. In the rumen, or large fore-stomach, of these animals, microbial fermentation converts feed into products that can be digested and utilized by the animal. This microbial fermentation process, referred to as enteric fermentation, produces methane as a by-product, which can be exhaled by the animal. Methane is also produced in smaller quantities by the digestive processes of other animals, including humans, but emissions from these sources are insignificant. The U.S. inventory report provides a detailed description on methane emissions from livestock enteric fermentation and how they are estimated (see the Chapter entitled "Agriculture").

EPA has studied options for reducing methane emissions from enteric fermentation and has developed resources and tools to assist in estimating emissions and evaluating mitigation options. For more information, please visit the Ruminant Livestock site.

Livestock manure management. Methane is produced during the anaerobic (i.e., without oxygen) decomposition of organic material in livestock manure management systems. Liquid manure management systems, such as lagoons and holding tanks, can cause significant methane production and these systems are commonly used at larger swine and dairy operations. Manure deposited on fields and pastures, or otherwise handled in a dry form, produces insignificant amounts of methane. The U.S. inventory report provides a detailed description on methane emissions from livestock manure management and how they are estimated (see the Chapter entitled "Agriculture").

EPA has also established a voluntary program to reduce methane emissions in the livestock industry. This program, known as the AgSTAR Program, encourages adoption of anaerobic digestion technologies that recover and combust biogas (methane) for odor control or as an on-farm energy resource.

Wastewater treatment. Wastewater from domestic (municipal sewage) and industrial sources is treated to remove soluble organic matter, suspended solids, pathogenic organisms, and chemical contaminants. These treatment processes can produce methane emissions if organic constituents in the wastewater are treated anaerobically (i.e., without oxygen) and if the methane produced is released to the atmosphere. In addition, the sludge produced from some treatment processes may be further biodegraded under anaerobic conditions, resulting in methane emissions. These emissions can be avoided, however, by treating the wastewater and the associated sludge under aerobic conditions or by capturing methane released under anaerobic conditions. The U.S. inventory report provides a detailed description on methane emissions from wastewater treatment and how they are estimated (see the Chapter entitled "Waste").

Rice cultivation. Methane is produced during flooded rice cultivation by the anaerobic (without oxygen) decomposition of organic matter in the soil. Flooded soils are ideal environments for methane production because of their high levels of organic substrates, oxygen-depleted conditions, and moisture. The level of emissions varies with soil conditions and production practices as well as climate. Several cultivation practices have shown promise for reducing methane emissions from rice cultivation. The U.S. inventory report provides a detailed description on methane emissions from rice cultivation and how they are estimated (see the Chapter entitled "Agriculture").

Natural Sources

Emissions from natural sources are largely determined by environmental variables such as temperature and precipitation. Although much uncertainty remains as to the actual contributions of these natural sources, available information indicates that global methane emissions from natural sources are around 190 Tg per year. The figure below shows the relative contribution of different natural sources to global atmospheric methane emissions.


Source: Prepared from data contained in IPCC, 2001c .

Wetlands. Natural wetlands are responsible for approximately 76% of global methane emissions from natural sources, accounting for about 145 Tg of methane per year. Wetlands provide a habitat conducive to methane-producing (methanogenic) bacteria that produce methane during the decomposition of organic material. These bacteria require environments with no oxygen and abundant organic matter, both of which are present in wetland conditions.

Termites. Global emissions of termites are estimated to be about 20 Tg per year, and account for approximately 11% of the global methane emissions from natural sources. Methane is produced in termites as part of their normal digestive process, and the amount generated varies among different species. Ultimately, emissions from termites depend largely on the population of these insects, which can also vary significantly among different regions of the world.

Oceans. Oceans are estimated to be responsible for about 8% of the global methane emissions from natural sources, accounting for approximately 15 Tg of methane. The source of methane from oceans is not entirely clear, but two identified sources include the anaerobic digestion in marine zooplankton and fish, and also from methanogenisis in sediments and drainage areas along coastal regions.

Hydrates. Global emissions from methane hydrates is estimated to be around 10 Tg of methane per year, accounting for approximately 5% of the global methane emissions from natural sources. Methane hydrates are solid deposits composed of cages of water molecules that contain molecules of methane. The solids can be found deep underground in polar regions and in ocean sediments of the outer continental margin throughout the world. Methane can be released from the hydrates with changes in temperature, pressure, salt concentrations, and other factors. Overall, the amount of methane stored in these hydrates globally is estimated to be very large with the potential for large releases of methane if there are significant breakdowns in the stability of the deposits. Because of this large potential for emissions, there is much ongoing scientific research related to analyzing and predicting how changes in the ocean environment affect the stability of hydrates.

[rasorinc]

Thank you Boston. I shall reread your posting several times tomorrow to try and absorb it. I really appreciate you effort in locating this data. Stan

[Boston]

the information is readily available so no worries
B

[Landlubber]

Phew, this is all such good news, I have been holding on now for months, trying to be a good little greenie, now i can see it will be OK to let it all out!

[Jimbo1490]

Some of the info presented above on the subject of methane is sort of scientific 'boiler plate', just standard graphs and texts recycled from studies done decades ago. Recently scientists have documented HUGE releases of methane (as hydrates)from the oceans. This recent finding suggest that these emissions are much larger than the previously understood ~5%. It's really hard to KNOW any of this stuff, as it's all based on 'best guesses'.

http://marine.usgs.gov/fact-sheets/gas-hydrates/title.html

Another issue is that there are different scientific camps trying to decide just how relatively effective CH4 is as a greenhouse gas. Some new papers suggest it's much more effective than the previously agreed factor, but nevertheless somewhere between 23 and 62 times the greenhouse potential of CO2, given its direct greenhouse potential and dwell time.

And then there's the 'wild card' of methane clathrates. These can stochastically release methane in such great quantities so quickly that they can completely change the usual carbon isotopic balance in the atmosphere for a few years. And these events have happened in the past, which hampers our ability to decipher what certain proxies are telling us about atmospheric carbon since the data becomes skewed by these unknowns.

I'm not trying to shoot down anyone's plane here, just trying to point out that we are very far from having this whole climate thing figured out and that ANYONE that tells you "We KNOW this or that for sure" is pretty much full of **** as this science is changing incrementally every year, and TRANSFORMING itself every decade.

We are in NO position to make huge long-term commitments to programs that have a pretty high likelihood of being judged as complete RUBBISH by our progeny; not to mention economic suicide for now.

For instance, methane levels were rising in the atmosphere for a couple of decades. Then they stopped rising ~1990 for no reason anyone can figure out. So for about 20 years now methane levels have stayed essentially flat, despite all 'indicators' (oil exploration, seismic activity, livestock herds, etc.) for methane being on the plus. AND NOBODY KNOWS WHY!


Jimbo

[Guillermo]

Perhaps some people will understand better Spencer if in a video format (30').

<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/II9jLTzPv30&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/II9jLTzPv30&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>

Cheers.

[masalai]

Help Guillermo, it does not seem to work/play???

[Fanie]

Phew ! Eh Jeff, can Boston post such long posts :D Interesting stuff. And to think I came to the forum just to build a little boat to go traipsen around in a bit... :rolleyes:

Something else I'm wondering. Off late people get to live longer than a few years back. Improved living standards could be a factor, but who says polution or certain gasses does not contribute to some years in lifespan as well...

As an example just look at mugabe living in that pigsty of his, at 85 it doesn't look like he's leaving any time soon ;)

[Boston]

its not a mater of understanding spencer
its a mater of the credulity of his science when his science has been rejected by the scientific community
over and over again

[Boston]

large methane hydrate releases are kinda hard to miss as they can have catastrophic consequences

the major natural contributor to methane in the atmosphere is hands down wet lands and always has been specially in the tropics
the major wild species responsible for methane has always been termites

most of science is a mater of pinning down something with data not guesses
better data better science better results
lets not confuse an estimate with a guess

the simple fact is that we can estimate based on data the amount contributed by each source
from there over time the estimate can be streamlined with new data
since the world is getting warmer and termites do poorly in temps over x then it stands to reason in a warming world that the amount of methane contribution via this source is likely to be reduced when compared to sources not dependent on surface temp
like hydrates

no worries Jim my plane is still airborne
Im just trying to stick to what he can agree on
we just got of on flatulence cause it was kinda humorous but thing is
domestic stock add an astronomical amount ~+60% to the atmospheric methane content
and it is a significantly stronger greenhouse gas than even co2

and we do know through direct experimentation how the greenhouse gasses work
and what there effects will be
its been discovered and studied over a hundred years ago
its been predicted over fifty years ago
and the predictions have been remarkably accurate
the only debate remaining is the one falsely created by industry's in an effort to continue there profitability at the expense of our well being



cheers
B

[Boston]

hey Fannie
what happens to the dew point if you say the temp by a few degrees ?

[BillyDoc]

Bravo Boston!!!

Another thing you might want to look at is methane release from gas hydrates on the ocean floor. There have been several recent reports of major releases off the coast of Siberia. If I recall correctly, gas hydrates store their gas within ice structures. When these ice structures melt, the gas is released. So, a very large potential release may be waiting in the background for "forcing" from other phenomena which elevate temperatures. More positive feedback, that is.

A tangentially related subject is the incidence of major extinctions on our little mudball. A phenomena we seem hell-bent on reproducing. The last one about 65 million years ago is pretty much agreed to have happened as a result of a hit from an asteroid or some such object. But let me quote at length from a recent Scientific American article ( http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=impact-from-the-deep ):

Ghastly Greenhouse

About half a decade ago small groups of geologists began to team up with organic chemists to study environmental conditions at critical times in the earth's history. Their work involved extracting organic residues from ancient strata in search of chemical "fossils" known as biomarkers. Some organisms leave behind tough organic molecules that survive the decay of their bodies and become entombed in sedimentary rocks. These biomarkers can serve as evidence of long-dead life-forms that usually do not leave any skeletal fossils. Various kinds of microbes, for example, leave behind traces of the distinctive lipids present in their cell membranes--traces that show up in new forms of mass spectrometry, a technique that sorts molecules by mass.

This biomarker research was first conducted on rocks predating the history of animals and plants, in part to determine when and under what conditions life first emerged on the earth. But within the past few years scientists began sampling the mass extinction boundaries. And to the great surprise of those doing this work, data from the periods of mass extinction, other than the K/T event, suggested that the world's oceans have more than once reverted to the extremely low oxygen conditions, known as anoxia, that were common before plants and animals became abundant.

Among the biomarkers uncovered were the remains of large numbers of tiny photosynthetic green sulfur bacteria. Today these microbes are found, along with their cousins, photosynthetic purple sulfur bacteria, living in anoxic marine environments such as the depths of stagnant lakes and the Black Sea, and they are pretty noxious characters. For energy, they oxidize hydrogen sulfide (H2S) gas, a poison to most other forms of life, and convert it into sulfur. Thus, their abundance at the extinction boundaries opened the way for a new interpretation of the cause of mass extinctions.

Scientists have long known that oxygen levels were lower than today around periods of mass extinction, although the reason was never adequately identified. Large-scale volcanic activity, also associated with most of the mass extinctions, could have raised CO2 levels in the atmosphere, reducing oxygen and leading to intense global warming--long an alternative theory to the impacts; however, the changes wrought by volcanism could not necessarily explain the massive marine extinctions of the end Permian. Nor could volcanoes account for plant deaths on land, because vegetation would thrive on increased CO2 and could probably survive the warming.

But the biomarkers in the oceanic sediments from the latest part of the Permian, and from the latest Triassic rocks as well, yielded chemical evidence of an ocean-wide bloom of the H2S-consuming bacteria. Because these microbes can live only in an oxygen-free environment but need sunlight for their photosynthesis, their presence in strata representing shallow marine settings is itself a marker indicating that even the surface of the oceans at the end of the Permian was without oxygen but was enriched in H2S.

In today's oceans, oxygen is present in essentially equal concentrations from top to bottom because it dissolves from the atmosphere into the water and is carried downward by ocean circulation. Only under unusual circumstances, such as those that exist in the Black Sea, do anoxic conditions below the surface permit a wide variety of oxygen-hating organisms to thrive in the water column. Those deep-dwelling anaerobic microbes churn out copious amounts of hydrogen sulfide, which also dissolves into the seawater. As its concentration builds, the H2S diffuses upward, where it encounters oxygen diffusing downward. So long as their balance remains undisturbed, the oxygenated and hydrogen sulfide-saturated waters stay separated, and their interface, known as the chemocline, is stable. Typically the green and purple sulfur bacteria live in that chemocline, enjoying the supply of H2S from below and sunlight from above.

Yet calculations by geoscientists Lee R. Kump and Michael A. Arthur of Pennsylvania State University have shown that if oxygen levels drop in the oceans, conditions begin to favor the deep-sea anaerobic bacteria, which proliferate and produce greater amounts of hydrogen sulfide. In their models, if the deepwater H2S concentrations were to increase beyond a critical threshold during such an interval of oceanic anoxia, then the chemocline separating the H2S-rich deepwater from oxygenated surface water could have floated up to the top abruptly. The horrific result would be great bubbles of toxic H2S gas erupting into the atmosphere.

Their studies indicate that enough H2S was produced by such ocean upwellings at the end of the Permian to cause extinctions both on land and in the sea. And this strangling gas would not have been the only killer. Models by Alexander Pavlov of the University of Arizona show that the H2S would also have attacked the planet's ozone shield, an atmospheric layer that protects life from the sun's ultraviolet (UV) radiation. Evidence that such a disruption of the ozone layer did happen at the end of the Permian exists in fossil spores from Greenland, which display deformities known to result from extended exposure to high UV levels. Today we can also see that underneath "holes" in the ozone shield, especially in the Antarctic, the biomass of phytoplankton rapidly decreases. And if the base of the food chain is destroyed, it is not long until the organisms higher up are in desperate straits as well.

Kump and Arthur estimate that the amount of H2S gas entering the late Permian atmosphere from the oceans was more than 2,000 times the small amount given off by volcanoes today. Enough of the toxic gas would have permeated the atmosphere to have killed both plants and animals--particularly because the lethality of H2S increases with temperature. And several large and small mass extinctions seem to have occurred during short intervals of global warming. That is where the ancient volcanic activity may have come in.

Around the time of multiple mass extinctions, major volcanic events are known to have extruded thousands of square kilometers of lava onto the land or the seafloor. A by-product of this tremendous volcanic outpouring would have been enormous volumes of carbon dioxide and methane entering the atmosphere, which would have caused rapid global warming. During the latest Permian and Triassic as well as in the early Jurassic, middle Cretaceous and late Paleocene, among other periods, the carbon-isotope record confirms that CO2 concentrations skyrocketed immediately before the start of the extinctions and then stayed high for hundreds of thousands to a few million years.

But the most critical factor seems to have been the oceans. Heating makes it harder for water to absorb oxygen from the atmosphere; thus, if ancient volcanism raised CO2 and lowered the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere, and global warming made it more difficult for the remaining oxygen to penetrate the oceans, conditions would have become amenable for the deep-sea anaerobic bacteria to generate massive upwellings of H2S. Oxygen-breathing ocean life would have been hit first and hardest, whereas the photosynthetic green and purple H2S-consuming bacteria would have been able to thrive at the surface of the anoxic ocean. As the H2S gas choked creatures on land and eroded the planet's protective shield, virtually no form of life on the earth was safe.

Kump's hypothesis of planetary killing provides a link between marine and terrestrial extinctions at the end of the Permian and explains how volcanism and increased CO2 could have triggered both. It also resolves strange findings of sulfur at all end Permian sites. A poisoned ocean and atmosphere would account for the very slow recovery of life after that mass extinction as well.

Finally, this proposed sequence of events pertains not only to the end of the Permian. A minor extinction at the end of the Paleocene epoch 54 million years ago was already--presciently--attributed to an interval of oceanic anoxia somehow triggered by short-term global warming. Biomarkers and geologic evidence of anoxic oceans suggest that is also what may have occurred at the end Triassic, middle Cretaceous and late Devonian, making such extreme greenhouse-effect extinctions possibly a recurring phenomenon in the earth's history.

Most troubling, however, is the question of whether our species has anything to fear from this mechanism in the future: If it happened before, could it happen again? Although estimates of the rates at which carbon dioxide entered the atmosphere during each of the ancient extinctions are still uncertain, the ultimate levels at which the mass deaths took place are known. The so-called thermal extinction at the end of the Paleocene began when atmospheric CO2 was just under 1,000 parts per million (ppm). At the end of the Triassic, CO2 was just above 1,000 ppm. Today with CO2 around 385 ppm, it seems we are still safe. But with atmospheric carbon climbing at an annual rate of 2 ppm and expected to accelerate to 3 ppm, levels could approach 900 ppm by the end of the next century, and conditions that bring about the beginnings of ocean anoxia may be in place. How soon after that could there be a new greenhouse extinction? That is something our society should never find out.

If you search on "dead zones" you will find that they are already increasing world wide. Is this a marker? And the authors above comment that we are "still safe" at 385 ppm CO2. Most of us watching the Global Warming issue for the last several years have marveled at how many times we have heard something like "Scientists are amazed at how fast . . ." something is occurring. That may be because most of the models predicting the future of this phenomenon are using linear functions, and to my mind they should be exponential. It's that positive feedback thing you know. And there is a huge difference in the time estimate between the two.

BillyDoc

[Jimbo1490]

BillyDoc,

Methane hydrate releases are exactly what I was referring to earlier. There were also major releases observed off of the southern Atlantic coast, between Florida and the Antillean chain.

It's clear from your comments posted at the end of the quoted article that you have not looked at either of the Roy Spencer lectures posted in the last couple of thread pages. If you had, you'd know just how dubious the concept of positive feedback between CO2 and water vapor actually is, considering what the actual observations show.

Even the lead authors on one of the most recently published and influential scientific papers that supported the idea of such a feedback admitted that Roy Spencer's concept of a negative feedback dominated, CO2 insensitive climate was right and that they were wrong because they had the cause and effect mixed up WRT clouds and water vapor.

Jimbo

[BillyDoc]

Jimbo,

You're right, I haven't looked. I've been pretty busy lately, and I also haven't that much interest in Spencer's work, from what I understand of it as represented here by various posters.

As I understand it, Spencer is arguing that the causal relationship posed by many that "CO2 greenhouse effects give rise to an increase in water vapor, with subsequent positive feedback warming" is "backwards" and that it is the water vapor that increases first, leading to the release of CO2 from ocean sources, etc. Is that correct?

If so, then Spencer's idea doesn't set very well with my basic ideas concerning "vapor pressure" and the venerable "kinetic Molecular Theory" of heat.

This is from the Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vapor_pressure

"Vapor pressure (also known as equilibrium vapor pressure), is the pressure of a vapor in equilibrium with its non-vapor phases. All liquids and solids have a tendency to evaporate to a gaseous form, and all gases have a tendency to condense back into their original form (either liquid or solid). At any given temperature, for a particular substance, there is a pressure at which the gas of that substance is in dynamic equilibrium with its liquid or solid forms. This is the vapor pressure of that substance at that temperature."

And the Kinetic Molecular Theory, also from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_theory the basic assumptions of which are (for an ideal gas):

* The gas consists of very small particles, each of which has a mass or weight in SI units, kilograms.
* The number of molecules is large such that statistical treatment can be applied.
* These molecules are in constant, random motion. The rapidly moving particles constantly collide with the walls of the container.
* The collisions of gas particles with the walls of the container holding them are perfectly elastic.
* The interactions among molecules are negligible. They exert no forces on one another except during collisions.
* The total volume of the individual gas molecules added up is negligible compared to the volume of the container. This is equivalent to stating that the average distance separating the gas particles is relatively large compared to their size.
* The molecules are perfectly spherical in shape, and elastic in nature.
* The average kinetic energy of the gas particles depends only on the temperature of the system.
* Relativistic effects are negligible.
* Quantum-mechanical effects are negligible. This means that the inter-particle distance is much larger than the thermal de Broglie wavelength and the molecules can be treated as classical objects.
* The time during collision of molecule with the container's wall is negligible as comparable to the time between successive collisions.
* The equations of motion of the molecules are time-reversible.

The fundamental idea of the Kinetic Molecular Theory is that heat is nothing more than perfectly elastic collisions between molecules. When you get rid of these motions you have achieved "Absolute Zero" temperature. If you are warmer, there is a certain amount of molecular motion. If you have an interface between a gas and a liquid, then a portion of the molecules from the liquid will become entrapped within the gas and at the same time some portion will escape this gas and return to the liquid, thus leading to an equilibrium state. The exact ratio of liquid in gaseous state for any given set of static conditions like pressure, impurities, etc. is completely dependent on the relative molecular movements of the liquid and the gas. Which is to say, the temperature.

Now, given this particular view of the world, I can easily see how an increase in temperature would inevitably lead to an increase in the vapor pressure of a liquid within a gas. This follows directly from the Kinetic Molecular Theory. It is, in fact, a completely predictable phenomenon, with well worked out equations describing it. And, given the definition of vapor pressure given above, it looks to me like any external force that caused any deviation from the natural equilibrium state of such a system without a temperature change would simply and quickly correct itself back to it's initial state. Which is to say, except for some possible very brief deviations from the equilibrium vapor state in the atmosphere at any particular temperature, it is simply NOT POSSIBLE to increase the vapor pressure without first increasing the temperature.

This is why Spencer sounds like just another propagandist for the petroleum industry to me, and I have little interest in bothering with him. Correct me if I'm wrong!

BillyDoc

[Boston]

I have posted numerous times concerning calthrates and the information was soundly rejected

seems some folks have had a change of heart

I read as much of spencer as I could take and gave up on him for the same reasons the rest of the scientific community gave up on him

substandard biased research paid for by the oil and gas industry

if you have any research concerning new numbers on calthrates Ild be happy to see em
Im hoping they will be from accredited peer reviewed sources


bingo Billy
( should be a song )
Im headed out on a consulting gig but when I get back Ill dig up again why your theory of which came first co2 or vapor is exactly correct and why among other things spencer is soooo wrong
although frankly your working description is a work of art

[Jimbo1490]

Jimbo,

You're right, I haven't looked. I've been pretty busy lately, and I also haven't that much interest in Spencer's work, from what I understand of it as represented here by various posters.

As I understand it, Spencer is arguing that the causal relationship posed by many that "CO2 greenhouse effects give rise to an increase in water vapor, with subsequent positive feedback warming" is "backwards" and that it is the water vapor that increases first, leading to the release of CO2 from ocean sources, etc. Is that correct?


BillyDoc

What he is saying is even more basic than what you have outlined above. You really need to take some time to watch and digest his presentation.

And after you do so, you might need to swallow some humble pie and admit that the world doesn't work "as you understand it", since NOBODY has been able to demonstrate the existence of this supposed, fabled, mythical feedback, either by directly observing local or large-scale local phenomena (as Spencer does in his studies) or through demonstration of a climate model programmed with such a feedback that can actually predict the climate's CO2 sensitivity with something resembling useful accuracy.

In the second of the two lectures, Spencer rather glibly presents his "World's Smallest Climate Model", which is one simple equation. Yet it more accurately predicts the observed, measured behavior of water vapor and clouds than the highly complex models running on supercomputers because, unlike those complex models, his one equation is based on valid assumptions.

Here's an idea: Instead of trying to find something wrong with detractors like Spencer, why not just see if you can punch holes in their scientific arguments. If you can't, then maybe you need to consider the possibility that some of your basic assumptions are just wrong, and that the detractors are right.

Jimbo

[BillyDoc]

Jimbo, the nature of science is such that many things are not directly observed but inferred from indirect evidence. Just about all of quantum mechanics fits that description. I don't believe anyone has seen a quark, for example, and the existence of the Higgs boson is still just a prediction (but not for long, I bet.)

In the present case, if I understand you correctly, you are saying that "since NOBODY has been able to demonstrate the existence of this supposed, fabled, mythical feedback" and by that I assume you to mean increased heat from CO2 buildup causing increased water vapor, thus more heat buildup, you have no basis for "believing" in this relationship. Is that correct?

If so, then I will not be able to demonstrate it any better, as it is actually implicit in the logic of the two theories I posted above, namely the theory implicit in the definition of vapor pressure (an equilibrium state caused by evaporation and re-absorption of the liquid into a gas), the Kinetic Molecular Theory, and the theory of differential absorption and reflection by wavelength of various molecules. I didn't mention the latter, but simply put, these molecules act like the glass in a window, high energy heat passes through, is absorbed by whatever it hits and re-emitted as low energy heat, which is reflected. So when you have the windows up in your car, the heat gets trapped.

If I accept that there is such a thing as vapor pressure, and it works as described, and I accept that the Kinetic Molecular theory is at least something like as described, and then further accept that the so-called Greenhouse gases behave basically like glass when transmitting light (an empirical question) then I think I MUST accept that I cannot increase water vapor pressure without first increasing temperature.

If you do NOT think that this is true, please explain why!

I know I am being difficult here, but I really have been forced on past occasions to try and explain to someone why some muddled theory is incorrect, and it just doesn't work. You either understand it, or you don't. Science is not just about collecting data, it's primarily about fitting data into a coherent logical structure. So let's stick to the basic data and it's logic here, before going off on some other tangent. If you can demonstrate logically where I went wrong with the above business with the vapor pressure, kinetic molecular theory, and differential molecular transmission then I'll have some crow for dinner and go read Spencer's paper. Fair enough? To keep it simple, let's restrict the exercise to a small container with a volume of one cubic meter, within which we have absolute control of the temperature. Pure water and ordinary air in the container in equal volumes. Given those constraints the question then becomes: "How could you increase the vapor pressure of the water without increasing the temperature?"

I'm trying to keep it simple here because adding in the complications of global circulation, etc. will just get us off on useless tangents.

Oh, and if you can't solve this riddle, is crow in your diet?

BillyDoc

[Boston]

we got difficult down on this thread and your still wearing a halo and wings near as I can tell

my theory is that if I can find enough things we can agree on that we can then come to a basic understanding as to why so many scientists agree that global climate change is real

97% is a significant number and certainly it is unusual that 97% of people involved in a field of science agree on anything

it begs the question
why
why do so many people in the field of climate research agree
and conversely
why are those few who refute the belief found to be employed or supported by the oil and gas industry


I know I am being difficult here, but I really have been forced on past occasions to try and explain to someone why some muddled theory is incorrect, and it just doesn't work. You either understand it, or you don't. Science is not just about collecting data, it's primarily about fitting data into a coherent logical structure.

another bulls eye there Billy
let me see if I can go back and find the exact quote

this from about 850 posts ago #1350
actually farther but I didnt go back and actually find the original I just stumbled on this in 1350


A debate implies there are two viable positions to be considered, in regards to global climate change there appears to be only one position with the necessary continuity in refereed work to form a theory. the dissenting opinion having no such chain of peer reviewed work available.

[Boston]

in post 2162 I noted the term unprecedented and received no objections

un·prec·e·dent·ed (ŭn-prěs'ĭ-děn'tĭd) Pronunciation Key
adj. Having no previous example: unprecedented economic growth.
un·prec'e·dent'ed·ly adv.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2006 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

Un*prec"e*dent*ed\, a. Having no precedent or example; not preceded by a like case; not having the authority of prior example; novel; new; unexampled. -- Un*prec"e*dent*ed*ly, adv.
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.

given that we agree on this Ild like to agree that we have a unprecedented consumption of fossil fuels within the last hundred or so years

unless someone can point out that dinosaurs or arthropods somehow drilled for oil

[Boston]

just noting a few graphs I may be using in future

http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/science/images/co2_concentrations-lg.gif

Figure 1: Fluctuations in temperature (red line) and in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide (yellow) over the past 649,000 years. The vertical red bar at the end is the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels over the past two centuries and before 2007.
References

CO2 Data

647426 BC to 411548 BC: Siegenthaler, U., T. F. Stocker, E. Monnin, D. Lüthi, J. Schwander, B. Stauffer, D. Raynaud, J.M. Barnola, H. Fischer, V. Masson-Delmotte, and J. Jouzel. 2005. Stable Carbon Cycle-Climate Relationship During the Late Pleistocene. Science 310: 1313-1317. Data

415157 BC to 339 BC: Barnola, J.-M., D. Raynaud, C. Lorius, and N.I. Barkov. 2003. Historical CO2 record from the Vostok ice core. In Trends: A Compendium of Data on Global Change. Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, U.S. Department of Energy, Oak Ridge, Tenn., U.S.A. Data

9002 BC to 1515 AD: Flückiger, J., E. Mono2_mm nin, B. Stauffer, J. Schwander, T.F. Stocker, J. Chappellaz, D. Raynaud, and J.-M. Barnola, 2002, High resolution Holocene N2O ice core record and its relationship with CH4 and CO2, Glob. Biogeochem. Cycles, Volume 16, Number 1, March 2002, 10.1029/2001GB001417. Data

1010 AD to 1978 AD: D.M. Etheridge, L.P. Steele, R.L. Langenfelds, R.J. Francey, J.-M. Barnola and V.I. Morgan. 1998. Historical CO2 records from the Law Dome DE08, DE08-2, and DSS ice cores. In Trends: A Compendium of Data on Global Change. Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, U.S. Department of Energy, Oak Ridge, Tenn., U.S.A. Data

1958-2006 AD: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Earth System Research Laboratory, Global Monitoring Division. 2007. Monthly Mean CO2 concentrations from Mauna Loa, Hawaii. (Accessed May 29, 2007). Data

Temperature Data

420,765 BC to 2000 AD: Petit J.R., J. Jouzel, D. Raynaud, N.I. Barkov, J.M. Barnola, I. Basile, M. Bender, J. Chappellaz, J. Davis, G. Delaygue, M. Delmotte, V.M. Kotlyakov, M. Legrand, V. Lipenkov, C. Lorius, L. Pépin, C. Ritz, E. Saltzman, and M. Stievenard. 1999. Climate and atmospheric history of the past 420,000 years from the Vostok Ice Core, Antarctica. Nature 399:429-436. Data

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http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8jZYyJv8MUM/SUFo5qJoemI/AAAAAAAAATQ/9RMQp9Ev6Rw/s400/Co2pa500.jpg

History of Atmospheric CO2 through geological time (past 550 million years: from Berner, Science, 1997). The parameter RCO2 is defined as the ratio of the mass of CO2 in the atmosphere at some time in the past to that at present (with a pre-industrial value of 300 parts per million). The heavier line joining small squares represents the best estimate of past atmospheric CO2 levels based on geochemical modeling and updated to have the effect of land plants on weathering introduced 380 to 350 million years ago. The shaded area encloses the approximate range of error of the modeling based on sensitivity analysis. Vertical bars represent independent estimates of CO2 level based on the study of ancient soils.

====================================================================================================

http://home.comcast.net/~pdrallos131681/CO2/longTimeScale.JPG

this graph is based on a geological reconstruction of continental drift and bedrock analysis with some fossil and paleobotony thrown in
Ive written to the team who created it and am interested in how long of a time frame exists between average plots
should be interesting
my theory is that the time frame between plots is insufficient to show the relationship of co2 and temp that is obvious in the more detailed data set of the ice cores
Im also writing to a friend of mine at NOA ( just up the road ) to find the average time frame of plots on the Vostoc data
also the range of error on the reconstructed data of the geological record is significantly higher than in the ice core data

[Guillermo]

Help Guillermo, it does not seem to work/play???
It works, but it takes a bit of time to begin.

Cheers.

[Guillermo]

Billy Doc,
Read Spencer carefully, without preconceived ideas.
The fact is that IPCC predictions have shown to be grossly exagerated, and nowadays everybody has been (and is) refining their computer and statistics models, thanks to the work of people like Spencer, McIntyre, and the like.

Also read Svensmark and his cosmic rays theory (i.e.), being under test nowadays at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research in Geneva
http://www.denmark.dk/en/menu/About-Denmark/Science-Research/Research-Areas/Climate-Research/Cosmic-Rays-And-Climate/
http://www.dsri.dk/sun-climate/

There is much more out there than anthropogenic CO2 to explain recent climate warming (It seems to me you have not been following this thread closely as you are coming back again with matters only Boston keeps on discussing :D )

Cheers. :)

P.S Anyway, Boston: Interesting and honest your exercise. Go ahead :)

[Guillermo]

About methane:

"When you’re working in temperatures that drop to 20 degrees Celsius below freezing, maintaining the equipment can be a chore. However, in this case it was a fantastic experience. It was exciting and unexpected to watch the methane release from the tundra suddenly increase as the temperatures dropped at Zackenberg,” Charlotte Sigsgaard reports. The methane release was so voluminous that the total amount was equal to the entire outlet over the summer months."

Read more at:
http://www.denmark.dk/en/menu/About-Denmark/Science-Research/Research-Areas/Climate-Research/Methane-Emission-From-Permafrost-Areas/

Cheers.

[Boston]

G you might be surprised to find out that I have data to support a position you held way earlier in the debate concerning the sun cycle
although at the time I agreed with you I think we failed to communicate it adequately ( pretty sure I said no **** Sherlock ) but the point is
Im trying to quantify the relationship a little before I attempt to present it to the group as it is about as direct as the relationship between carbon and temp
and is highly relevant to the point Im trying to get at
why
cause in the past the sun was brighter and it has cooled over time
in terms of its cycle
even relatively accurate data only goes back so far ( not very )
and the sun data is scarce so its taking a while to find good data
but
the correlation is relevant in any conclusion and so eventually it will need to be addressed

if you have any graphs of the suns cycle feel free to post em
it should line up fairly well with the graph showing a near perfect correlation between temp and co2

best case is you find one that overlays the graphs of temp and co2 so I can calculate the correlation coefficient between the two

[Boston]

Billy
how do you calculate for correlation coefficient considering the amplitude of the parameters

[Guillermo]

What do you think about these IPCC “contradictions”?

IPCC projects global warming at a rate of 0.2C per decade in the early 21st century; so far the first 8 years of the 21st century have shown cooling at an average rate of around 0.1C per decade.

IPCC states that the rate of sea level rise has increased in the latter part of the 20th century, switching from tide gauge records to satellite altimetry; the tide gauge record shows a slight decrease in sea level rise in the second half of the 20th century, as compared to the first half.

IPCC states that changes in solar irradiance since 1750 are estimated to cause a radiative forcing of only 0.12 W/m2, equivalent to a net warming of around 0.02C; several studies by solar scientists conclude that the 20th century warming caused by the unusually high level of solar activity is around 0.35C.

IPCC claims that the satellite temperature record has shown a faster rate of tropospheric warming than that at the surface, confirming the anthropogenic cause of warming; both the satellite and radiosonde record show less warming than the surface record.

IPCC models all assume a strongly positive feedback from clouds with warming, resulting in 1.3C of the total assumed 2xCO2 climate sensitivity of 3.2C; actual physical observations show a strongly negative net feedback from clouds of around the same order of magnitude; correcting the 2xCO2 climate sensitivity for this factor brings it to around 0.6 to 0.8C, rather than 3.2C.

IPCC states confidently that the upward distortion of the surface temperature record due to the urban heat island effect has a negligible influence of less than 0.006C per decade; many studies from all over the world show that the UHI influence is thirty to fifty times as great as claimed by IPCC.

Time to go to work.
I'll review your posts tonight, Boston.

Cheers.

[Boston]

well you know me
Ild have to check the veracity of each claim
along with the credentials of the people making em
then do the same with the rebuttals or the contradictions in this case
and who made em and when
if you give me some further information I can get it done more quickly

thing to remember is two scientist in a room generally dont agree on anything
so just cause some fool got on a committee doesn't mean that committee is in harmonious tune with one another
frankly its a miracle given the diverse nature of the group that they haven't all strangled each other by now

not sure if you have ever worked in that kind of committee environment before but honestly its enough to piss off the pope

[BillyDoc]

Hi Boston,

I've posted the formula for the Pearson Product-Moment correlation (r) below. As you can see, the correlation is taken from two data sets (x and y), with (in your case) time incrementing to define the data sets. If, for example, you wanted to know the correlation between CO2 and Temp for a particular data set and you had the graph, you would have to pick off the magnitude of each value by some even time interval, say by year or every ten years, whatever. By that I mean something like this: at the first time interval, determine the magnitude of CO2 (your first "x") and record that data. Then determine the magnitude of the temperature (your first "y") and record that adjacent to your first "x". Proceed through the data in this fashion, making sure your adjacent "x"s and "y"s are always taken from the same time interval. It looks like you are comparing the proverbial apples and oranges here, but the magnitude of the scale for each data set washes out in the math. So, you might have a temperature range of 10 degrees that you are comparing to a CO2 range of a thousand units . . . and it doesn't matter.

The peaks and valleys in the data are taken care of by the method.

(I know this will define me as totally weird, especially since I generally hate to do math, but I truly think that this formula is quite elegant! If this sort of thing "floats your boat" compare this formula to one for linear regression and then take a look at the basic formulas for "t" and "f" scores. You will find some very similar stuff there! It's mind-blowingly elegant, in my view.)

I just checked the OpenOffice spreadsheet (free to download as part of the OpenOffice suite) and it has the Pearson function built in. You just enter the data into two columns, call up the function and it does the rest. Probably all the modern spreadsheet programs have it. Sometimes the raw data sets are available from the authors of the various papers you are looking at as well, it's worth an email to find out, or check the references for a link.

BillyDoc

[Boston]

well there were estimates made in the fifties as to what global climate change would do given a change in co2 over a certain time
and they worked out to be spot on

what Im after is quantifying the idea that there is not enough resolution in the long term co2/temp graph to see the relationship between them
the average time interval looks to be about ten million years
not even close to the say the twenty thousand years or less that you would need to see the relationship as found in the ice data


dam Ild love to find that program and just fill in the data
would save a lot of time on the old calculator for each plot
which all off a sudden I dont have what with the new gig and all

best
B

[Boston]

that first ones pretty easy
so Ill tackle it right off
and await your sources for the rest

IPCC projects global warming at a rate of 0.2C per decade in the early 21st century; so far the first 8 years of the 21st century have shown cooling at an average rate of around 0.1C per decade.

well Im not seeing a contradiction in this one G

http://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/4way.jpg

among the thousands of graphs I could have chosen to depict temp over time
this one has a number of data sets that generally agree pretty well with one another

seems clear we are in a rising trend

looks like the guy who said things were cooling of was a little off base with his statement

hears one from a skeptics page

http://climate.gi.alaska.edu/temprec/fai_temp.GIF

there are hundreds of em and they all show the same thing
we are definitely in a rising trend

http://web.uthm.edu.my/uthm/iklan/Effects%20of%20Global%20Warming_files/image006.gif

[Jimbo1490]

If you do NOT think that this is true, please explain why!

Billydoc,

I'll explain it to you through a series of 'If, Then' conjunctions:

IF we add more of any greenhouse gas to the atmosphere, all other things being equal, THEN the atmosphere will warm up.

IF we want to know how much it will warm up, THEN we examine the change in concentration, dwell time and the light absorptive properties of that gas.

IF examining the above parameters reveals the change in greenhouse heat budget to be trivial, THEN we conclude that that change in concentration is of trivial importance from a greenhouse heating perspective.

The above series applies to CO2. A doubling of CO2 from ~280ppm to ~560ppm will increase surface temps about .5 degree C in ~100 years, an amount that would be difficult to distinguish from natural variation.

But what if the situation were more complex than this, i.e., that CO2 leverages it's small greenhouse potential through increasing water vapor? We can make a new "If, Then" conjunction series to examine the outcome given what we now know about the behavior of the components involved.

IF water vapor is the dominant greenhouse gas in our atmosphere, THEN small changes in water vapor concentration will make a significant difference in the greenhouse budget, thereby causing significant changes in temperature.

IF small changes in CO2 concentration cause changes in water vapor concentration, THEN small changes in CO2 concentration cause significant temperature changes.

IF small changes in CO2 concentration cause changes in water vapor concentration, THEN this is a positive feedback coupling between CO2 and water vapor.

But what IF water vapor was subject to its own set of strongly negative feedbacks which keep its concentration levels 'in check' or between a set of limits?

THEN we can make a new set of conjunctions:

IF water vapor is subject to its own set of controlling negative feedbacks, THEN changes in CO2 concentration are not coupled to changes in water vapor concentration.


IF changes in CO2 concentration are not linked to increased water vapor concentration, THEN we need only look at the intrinsic greenhouse potential of CO2 by itself to predict the warming which might occur when CO2 concentrations increase, which, everyone agrees (except Boston:D ) is not enough to matter.

What warmers like YOU want to pretend is that we are incapable of observing or measuring the supposed, fabled positive feedback between CO2 and water vapor. So satellites, balloon-launched radiosondes and all the rest aren't up to the task? So you want to prove it's existence through indirect means? How about computer modeling?

IF the fabled feedback exists, THEN why do computer models incorporating the fabled feedback do such a piss-poor job of predicting atmospheric phenomena such as clouds, precipitation and temperature?

IF Roy Spencer is wrong, THEN why is his 'one equation climate model' more predictive than the complex computer models?

IF there is no positive feedback between CO2 concentration and water vapor concentration, THEN there can never be any significant warming caused by changes in CO2 concentration.

All of your careful 'analysis' of vapor pressure is of NO IMPORTANCE in deciphering the question at hand; it's just a side show with which you amuse yourself. Even warmers don't mention this at all; it's all about whether or not this feedback exists. This is a question to which many warmers actually don't want an answer, because it's looking increasingly like the answer is not going to be the one they prefer.


Jimbo

[BillyDoc]

Jimbo, you're confusing the hell out of me! Is there something in there that answers the simple question: "How can I increase water vapor without increasing temperature?" which is what I thought the issue was?

[Jimbo1490]

The issue is that water vapor concentration and CO2 concentration ARE NOT LINKED together as warmers assert. Without this link, you simply can't get CO2 to warm the atmosphere much. Furthermore, you can't explain past temperature events through CO2 without this link!

ALL of the climate modeling is with models that simply ASSUME this link exists! We should not be making assumptions about something so important, agreed?

Billy, PLEASE take some time to watch any of the Roy Spencer presentations we posted earlier. All will be explained, I PROMISE :D

Jimbo

[BillyDoc]

Boston,

If you have a spreadsheet program check it to see if it has a correlation function, most do! Search the help with "Pearson" and you'll probably find it.

If you don't have a spreadsheet program go to http://OpenOffice.org and download the openOffice suite. The OpenOffice suite has a spreadsheet program and a bunch of other useful stuff like a word processor in it. It's damn good stuff, and absolutely, no strings attached, free. It's written by volunteers who do it just to be doing something good for their fellow humans. Unlike with MS they don't have any reason to build in bugs so you have to upgrade. And if you like that, you might want to give some flavor of Linux a try. I'm writing this using the Firefox browser (open source) running on openSUSE 11.1 Linux for 64-bit systems (also open source) and there is no way in hell I would go back to Windows. I like a hassle-free existence!

BillyDoc

[Jimbo1490]

Around here we love OpenOffice! We still have to use that !@6#^%^#% MS Word to make documents to send out, though. De-facto monopolies are like that.

Jimbo

[BillyDoc]

Jimbo, you are missing my initial point, which is this: given the well established physics surrounding this issue of a link between CO2 and water vapor concentration, it does indeed exist. For you to ASSUME that it does not you have to show that either the basic definition of the nature of vapor pressure I gave above from Wikipedia is incorrect, or the Kinetic Molecular Theory of heat is incorrect, or that the molecules in question do NOT act as greenhouse gases.

As I said above, the logical relationships implicit in the above three factors absolutely force the conclusion that the level of atmospheric CO2 is linked to the level of water vapor via the well established fact that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. Increase the level of CO2 and temperature will rise. A rise in temperature changes the vapor pressure equilibrium point upward. Simple physics, and probably the reason most scientists who understand this physical relationship want nothing to do with Spencer. It's like if I was trying to sell you some investment scheme that was dependent upon you believing that 2+2=6.58345275. Lot's of people will get lost in the complexity of it, but that doesn't make it correct. And the apparent fact that Spencer thinks this is not an issue, or has some convoluted "explanation" for it, also does nothing real. Two plus two, remains four . . . no matter what.

And you are quite right that most models would assume this link, for the same reason they would assume that 2 + 2 is equal to 4. The logic of it is firm and beyond question!

Which is why we need to stick to these basic issues BEFORE proceeding to the complex, and I again ask: How can I increase the water vapor pressure without first increasing the temperature?

BillyDoc

[BillyDoc]

Jimbo, I have to send out documents in Word format as well, and I use openOffice to do it! No problems so far. I have a friend that was laughing at the fact that openOffice was compatible with the latest Word formats, but the previous version of MS Word was not! Of course MS changes the format all the time to force upgrades.

BillyDoc

[Boston]

Im on a mac kids
do my best to avoid Microsoft products

never a virus
no security issues
ever

[Boston]

I dont have time at the moment but I have some graphs round here somewhere that show a direct relationship between co2 and vapor content

[BillyDoc]

Thanks, Boston, but no graphs are necessary. This is just basic physics. In fact, I learned all this stuff, except the greenhouse effect of CO2, in high school back in the dark ages of the last century (the 50s).

[BillyDoc]

Oh, yeah! The Mac OSX is awesome!

But then my homebrew machine with Linux doesn't have security issues either. And I don't have to bog it down with anti-virus software.

[Jimbo1490]

Jimbo, you are missing my initial point, which is this: given the well established physics surrounding this issue of a link between CO2 and water vapor concentration, it does indeed exist.

BillyDoc


This is wrong! It's an assumption that they've been using in the warmer camp from day one and it's just dead WRONG!

When you start to think a little deeper about it, it HAS to be wrong, because if you could find such a link for CO2, then there'd have to be a similar link to CH4 and a plethora of others too! Why not? Same mechanisms at work.

Spencer's observational work not only PROVES this idea is wrong, but he quantifies just how NEGATIVE the feedback is for water vapor. Water vapor has very powerful negative feedbacks which keeps it at 'safe' levels in the atmosphere. These feedbacks revolve around cloud formation and of course precipitation. Some of the most basic assumptions the AGW camp has been clinging to are just wrong! They got it bas-ackwards!

Watch the presentation; all is explained!

Jimbo

[BillyDoc]

because if you could find such a link for CO2, then there'd have to be a similar link to CH4 and a plethora of others too! Why not? Same mechanisms at work.
Jimbo

Exactly, Jimbo, we finally agree on something. And a very important point as well! Which is exactly why I commented above that linear models won't get even close to the time frame we have to worry about here, when we are actually dealing with variables that are exponential in nature. In fact, I strongly fear that it is already too late to save ourselves.

But when you say that the relationship between CO2 and water vapor "HAS to be wrong" I think what you are really reacting to is a realization that if it is NOT wrong we are indeed in extremely deep ****, and in deep denial as a result. Denial will not serve in the present case, however. Denial makes things worse, and will ultimately and inevitably result in our death. Which is why I'm here writing this instead of working as I should be. You see, the primary reason that I think "all is lost already" is because we don't seem to be able to get everyone working on the problem in a positive sense. There are still viable responses to the problem, but we do need to get on them real soon now! It is truly our very last chance.

Now, getting back to this CO2 and water vapor relationship, on the one hand you have some pretty simple and straightforward physics saying there is, indeed, a relationship. On the other hand you have people like Spencer saying there is not, and proceeding to bury anyone who will listen with enough "reasonable sounding" stuff that it becomes almost impossible to sort out what is going on. This is a snake oil salesman's tried and true trick. I could do it too, if I disregarded the truth. I haven't read Spencer, but I've sure seen a lot from his soul-mates, and it was always garbage, specifically designed to defraud.

The reason they do this is actually profound: it's the same reason many parasites kill their host, and thus themselves, they simply don't have the imagination to be able to see the result they are working toward. So, thousands of good people in the oil industry, for example, proceed to work hard to convince everyone that burning fossil fuels is OK, because if it isn't OK, then they have to find another job. Or, they are responsible for a catastrophe and might be held liable. Or, in many cases, they simply can't see past life with less than a billion dollars a year income. Pure greed, and everything else be damned! Jimbo, the people who are putting out this crap, like Spencer, don't give a damn about you, or your children. They only live for the day and only care about themselves. And they often knowingly lie.

Don't feel bad about being taken in by this stuff. It is being presented in very sophisticated ways, by experts from the world of marketing. I actually studied this stuff once (one of my degrees is in Social Psychology) and I can guarantee that given control of the media, I could make 99.9% of the American population believe almost anything. Especially if I could get them to put these new high definition TVs in their homes. Our entire society revolves around this premise, and it certainly works. As a citizen, you are not a customer when you watch TV, you are the product being delivered to those who want to modify your behavior. Usually to get you to buy something you don't need, but also to get you to support various political goals. Like a war in Iraq, which certainly made some big bucks for those who supplied it, and designed the program to promote it.

But I digress. Please think about what I said above about physics versus someone's convoluted pronouncement. It's really the only way left to determine the truth. Everyone seems to have an agenda, and it is getting desperate.

BillyDoc

[BillyDoc]

Jimbo, another point about negative feedback in the water vapor cycle. There is, indeed negative feedback in the water vapor cycle. Various factors reduce the vapor back to plain water, and others evaporate it. It's a necessary part of maintaining an equilibrium state, and in the case of an entire planet is quite complex and convoluted. No doubt about it! BUT, look again at the definition of vapor pressure above, it basically says that a certain equilibrium state will establish itself based on the prevailing conditions, the primary one being temperature. The mechanism to do this involves negative feedback, and that's why an equilibrium state can be established in the first place.

The positive feedback the "warmers" (as you call them) refer to is an adjunct to the above. In this case, they are referring to an increase in heating (from whatever greenhouse gas) causing an increase in water vapor, which causes an increase in heating, which causes an increase in water vapor . . . and so on. That's the positive feedback at issue here.

BillyDoc

[Boston]

http://www.seaford.k12.de.us/es/vgray/weather%20and%20climate/activity_10.htm

this might help you out some Jim
its from a basic physics class
vapor pressure is dependent on temperature
what your trying to say is that basically you could light the fire to boil the water that would create the steam by just increasing the steam pressure in the first place
doesnt work that way
you gotta raise the temp first
then you get an increase in vapor

there are only two things that basically control temp on a planetary scale
geological activity
sun light and green house gasses ( atmosphere )
everything else is a forced response
like clouds and ice and so on

Jim
Spencers work was rejected
why get stuck on it
if your point has validity then you should be able to find countless qualifying examples
peer reviewed and published in major scientific journals from scientists who are not involved in the industry's effected
thats the hole point in a coherent theory
it encompasses a hole range of established principals to create a theory capable of prediction
which the rapid global climate change theory did fifty years ago
as can be seen in the dramatically increased rise in temp at the poles than at the equator that the theory predicted
please review the film by Oreskies

[Jimbo1490]

Hey, Billy,

I found another great lecture on YouTube which helps explain why some of the most basic assumptions of the AGW camp are just dead wrong.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPPZNk5ozig&feature=channel_page
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mW8uaj8Evg&feature=channel_page
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNRYacFgIqI&feature=channel_page
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-5PCN6wVVE&feature=channel_page

His Oz accent is sometimes a little hard for my ear to follow, especially in such a reverberant lecture hall, but the many graphs help a lot.

And by the way, it's the AGW camp's explanation that is convoluted. Roy Spencer's is so simple you'll get a chuckle out of it. He calls it the "World's Smallest Climate Model"

Jimbo

[BillyDoc]

Jimbo, you don't need to find more stuff on youtube. You just need to address the basic physics issue posed. We aren't going anywhere until you do!

BillyDoc

[Boston]

still waiting on an answer from the paleoclimate people
but I think its pretty obvious from the details of the data reconstruction that the time intervals on there graph are way to long to adequately show the relationship between sun, co2, and temp
which is were Im going with this hole thing
the graph ( post 2201 ) showing the plots on it makes that pretty clear
but Im waiting confirmation on that from the folks who made the graph
thing is
there skeptics so they may not want to answer a question that shoots a hole in there data
point being
the ice core data clearly shows a 120,000 year oscillation in temp and co2
any graph with out the necessary resolution to show deviations with in those time frames with not be of any use in determining an accurate relationship between the two

[masalai]

http://www.abc.net.au/foreign/default.htm "what lies beneath" has some interesting stuff on core sampling in Antarctica which may add weight to your postulation, Either from here or another program it appears that there is a correlation between warming and CO2 - but which causes which - and I argue that the CO2 would follow the evidence of warming as it would be less cold in the form of snow deposits and hold some of the evidence of the causal gasses / "pollutants" and being more permeable, allow absorbtion os same whilst settling etc.... and the higher levels of "responsible gasses etc" may be the cause of warming influences... core samples are ~500metres and the new Chineese ecpedition is hoping to go down to 1000 metres..... for core sampling and analusis...

[Jimbo1490]

Billy,

I don't really understand why you would not want to hear the explanation from an actual scientist (whose lecture happens to be posted on YouTube) but would rather hear it from me, but I guess that's how you choose to draw a line in the sand in defense of this position which you obviously have at least a great emotional investment.

The basic physics are what the AGW camp gets wrong. Heating (by ANY cause, including ANY greenhouse gas, water vapor included) causes more ocean surface evaporation. Evaporation adds water vapor to the atmosphere (of course) but also leads to cloud formation. Clouds both block some sunlight (thereby reducing incoming solar radiation) but also increase greenhouse warming. Clouds are actually responsible for both reflecting sunlight back into space, but also a large fraction of the greenhouse effect. The big question is of course which of these two opposing properties in the end dominates the equation. The AGW camp, quite predictably, asserts that the greenhouse portion dominates. But if that were true, then we should see an increase in suspended water vapor without an increase in precipitation. But in fact, what we actually observe is increased cloud formation AND precipitation, meaning that there is a net cooling effect which is precipitating the water vapor out of the air mass. Thus water vapor concentrations do not change. Precipitation becomes a heat transport mechanism which keeps all in check.


Boston,

You have become so full of **** that it's become difficult to even read your posts anymore. Dr Spencer's work is not only peer reviewed and accepted, but this latest paper detailing the mechanism I described above was put before the very authors his paper was refuting, and yet they accepted his paper and admitted that they had got it wrong only a couple of years earlier. Of course if you had watched either of the Roy Spencer lectures, you would know this.

Boston, you are a pathetic excuse for an educated man who has reduced himself to little more than a close-minded ideologue. I hope you presently know all you will ever need to know, as you've clearly lost the required humility needed for further learning.

Jimbo

[Frosty]

I thought Utube was full of crap, like a guy blowing up a chevy engine with water in the sump . Or the guy doing a bike wheely.


So is this where you guys get all your info 0n the world climate then?

I popped in to this thread now and again but will probably do so less now.

[BillyDoc]

I don't really understand why you would not want to hear the explanation from an actual scientist (whose lecture happens to be posted on YouTube) but would rather hear it from me, but I guess that's how you choose to draw a line in the sand in defense of this position which you obviously have at least a great emotional investment.

Jimbo

The reason, Jimbo, is that I have not been convinced that Spencer is an actual scientist, as opposed to a propagandist from he oil industry, of which there are way too many. I don't want to waste my time. And you are absolutely right about my "emotional investment." It really looks to me like the end is in sight for this planet, and that affects me strongly. I really, really, would rather not see us all die miserably, and unnecessarily.



Heating (by ANY cause, including ANY greenhouse gas, water vapor included) causes more ocean surface evaporation. Evaporation adds water vapor to the atmosphere (of course) but also leads to cloud formation. Clouds both block some sunlight (thereby reducing incoming solar radiation) but also increase greenhouse warming. Clouds are actually responsible for both reflecting sunlight back into space, but also a large fraction of the greenhouse effect. The big question is of course which of these two opposing properties in the end dominates the equation. The AGW camp, quite predictably, asserts that the greenhouse portion dominates. But if that were true, then we should see an increase in suspended water vapor without an increase in precipitation. But in fact, what we actually observe is increased cloud formation AND precipitation, meaning that there is a net cooling effect which is precipitating the water vapor out of the air mass. Thus water vapor concentrations do not change. Precipitation becomes a heat transport mechanism which keeps all in check.
Jimbo

Bravo Jimbo! That is an excellent description of the problem! This is the approach I like, talking about actual phenomena and then looking at the evidence to see what is supported and what is not. Bravo!

Now let's get down to the details.

You say: "what we actually observe is increased cloud formation AND precipitation, meaning that there is a net cooling effect which is precipitating the water vapor out of the air mass." I think you are correct in stating that we observe an increase in cloud formation and precipitation. That would follow from a warming situation. But let's look a little closer at this evaporation and precipitation cycle.

Water has an unusual property when undergoing phase changes from liquid to gas. It absorbs energy to become a gas, and releases energy to re-condense back to a liquid. The first is called the "Heat of vaporization," and the second is the "Heat of condensation." Go here for more on this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_enthalpy_change_of_vaporization The salient feature of these heats of vaporization and condensation is that they are always exactly equal. They must be, because if there was any differential at all we could engineer some way to exploit it and tap off free energy! Which would be against the "Law of conservation of energy" which these idiot politicians passed years ago.

When water evaporates it absorbs some 539 calories per gram. When it condenses it gives up some 539 calories per gram. So, water evaporating from the oceans and then condensing into water droplets in clouds results in no net energy change to the system as a whole.

So, where is the "net cooling effect" you mention coming from? I can certainly see that an increase in cloud formation will increase the albedo (reflection) and reduce the effect of incoming heat. But then, that would cause a subsequent reduction in cloud formation and a reversal of this process, again leaving no real net difference without a net increase in heat.

I also note that you start your discussion by noting that "Heating (by ANY cause, including ANY greenhouse gas, water vapor included) causes more ocean surface evaporation." which I certainly agree with. But then you seem to be saying that evidence indicates that there IS an increase in cloud formation while at the same time saying that some precipitation phenomenon causes cooling, which should reduce cloud formation. Where did I go wrong here? Aren't you actually supporting the GW theory by stating that there has been an increase in cloud formation?

BillyDoc

[Jimbo1490]

Frosty,

You Tube is simply a website that allows you to post video content. All sorts of content is available there now, as it has been from the very beginning of YouTube. You can see stupid animal tricks, street fights, car and airplane crashes, children reciting poetry, people playing musical instruments and many, many scientific lectures. It's just a medium, like any other.

Would you discredit information found in a book because there are a lot of crappy books in print?

Please explain to me how you propose to watch a given lecture presented by a scientist or professor without attending that lecture in person OTHER than a medium such as YouTube.

Jimbo

[Jimbo1490]

Billy,

Dude, you've been listening to that idiot Boston for too long! Spencer is not an oil company scientist, he's a (former) NASA scientist and now a university scientist/lecturer. His work is per reviewed and accepted, in the most recent case, by the very peers his work refutes.

You can't keep tarring all the people whose views you don't like with this "Oil Money" crap, using it as an EXCUSE to ignore their scientific arguments! This tactic has become transparent in intention. Show some moxy and answer the scientific questions he presents rather than finding a trumped-up excuse for not listening to a detractor from your precious orthodoxy!

IF you have any BALLS, (which at this point I seriously doubt), have the courage to actually listen to Spencer's lecture an then try to find REAL SCIENTIFIC FLAW in his assertions, rather than taking Boston's usual COWARDLY approach of character assassination.

The 'Skeptics' on this thread have studiously taken apart the BOGUS, UNFOUNDED, MASSAGED DATA and etc ad nauseum, of the AGW camp, while you 'warmers' have CONSISTENTLY taken the scoundrel's approach of retreating to the cowardice of character assassination!

Shame on you all! Grow some nuts and play ball on the field!

Jimbo

[BillyDoc]

Jimbo, did you notice any actual argument in my last message to you? Some stuff about "Heat of vaporization" and "Heat of condensation" maybe? A little problem for you, and Spencer, in the fact that they are equal and do NOT result in a net heat loss?

BillyDoc

[Jimbo1490]

Billy,

I know it sounds paradoxical that there could be a net cooling from ocean evaporation, but this is exactly what is observed in the real world. The explanation is not all that difficult to grasp. Clouds both heat and cool. The cooling effect trumps the heating effect. Dr Lindzen's work supports this idea also, though he readily admits his work builds on the works of other before him. The 'Iris Effect' is real and has now been observed and quantified.

Get over you anxiety about AGW, because

1) AGW is a fiction and

2) At no time in the past has a warmer earth been a less biologically hospitable earth; and

3) at no time in the past has a cooler earth been a more hospitable place.

The AGW crowd has it backwards again. Whenever the earth has been warm, the biosphere prospers and the opposite was true whenever it was cold.

If we are warming then that will be a good thing. I think we are actually headed for another period like the "Maunder Minimum" where we will get very cold again.

Either way, human activity has nothing more than a trivial effect on global climate.

Jimbo

[Jimbo1490]

Jimbo, did you notice any actual argument in my last message to you? Some stuff about "Heat of vaporization" and "Heat of condensation" maybe? A little problem for you, and Spencer, in the fact that they are equal and do NOT result in a net heat loss?

BillyDoc

Dude,

I read it all and noted that this same argument has come up over and over. This is just a re-tread of 100 thread pages ago. This has all been addressed. The IRIS and the backwards cause/effect order accounts for all of this. When you see the lecture (if you ever actually watch it) you'll understand. And yet there's nothing revolutionary in the lecture; just good basic physics.

But the AGW crowd should be ashamed at how badly they've got it wrong.

Jimbo

[BillyDoc]

Jimbo, when someone tries to tell me that something is happening that clearly violates basic physics like the Heat of Vaporization and Condensation equality, I get a little suspicious. It makes me think that maybe they didn't do their data collection quite right, for whatever reason. To my mind the established physics trumps the so-called observations. And for you to simply assert that "AGW is a fiction" holds no weight at all for me. Show me the logic, and I'll listen!

And the stakes are indeed high on this one. Your statement that "At no time in the past has a warmer earth been a less biologically hospitable earth" runs very contrary to the several mass extinctions that have apparently occurred exactly because of global warming. Those cases where we all suffocate from H2S pollution don't sound like too much fun at all to me. Go back and read my post #2193 on page 147, which has a lengthy excerpt from a Scientific American article on this subject. If I remember correctly, the evidence is now supporting the notion that three of the last five mass extinctions on this planet we call home were from H2S, the other two from impacts. The H2S phenomenon gets an upper hand exactly from global warming, from whatever cause.

Remember also that most, if not all, computer models of global warming use linear variables as the best estimate of the parameters used. This is, of course, a good first approximation. But when you have positive feedback involved, and tripping points like sudden methane releases from ice lattice structures that contain the gas melting, then the phenomena are no longer linear. They are exponential.

Exponential functions are hard to get a feel for. Back a few years (like about 50, I think) I saw a very interesting movie on TV called The Atom: A closer look. You can see it too, if you go here: http://www.archive.org/details/The_Atom . The reason I bring this up is that this movie has a scene in it, explaining nuclear fission, in which a room full of mouse traps with two ping-pong balls on each is used to simulate a neutron hitting a Uranium atom and releasing two more neutrons. These two hit two more, which hit four more and so on in an exponential progression with 2 as the exponent. The result of this exponential progression in the case of real Uranium (235) is, of course, a massive explosion. In the case of the room full of mousetraps and ping pong balls something very much like a slow motion explosion also happens. The announcer just casually tosses a single ball into the room, then there are two flying around, then four . . . and then all hell breaks loose!

If you watch the movie, try to picture the same sort of thing but with tripping points like a sudden methane release, or even just the simple positive feedback of increased atmospheric water vapor causing ever more warming. I personally think that you are right, Jimbo, that the water vapor business is probably self-limiting because of albedo changes. BUT, if this naturally self limiting water vapor process leads to a sudden methane release, or even just the eventual high accumulation of plain old CO2, these gases are not self limiting. Even worse, if these gases accumulate higher than the clouds, then increasing albedo isn't going to help much. Do you really want to write off this threat so casually? If the authors of the Scientific American article I mention above are correct, then this phenomenon has gotten away from all control several times in the past, and stayed that way for hundreds of thousands of years afterward. Given exponential factors, this phenomenon is something that you may very well have to deal with personally. I'm lucky, I'm already an old phart.

BillyDoc

[Landlubber]

Billy Doc,

They also used that movie to tell us that the world would explode if the atom bomb was ever to be used.........

[BillyDoc]

Landlubber,

They did? So the movie was made prior to 1945 when two were used --- and they didn't know?

BillyDoc

[masalai]

Now, now, keep it nice and lay off the "personal attacks" argue the point not denigration of the person.... as my 3 year old grand-son says "caaaaalm down".... Thanks

[Jimbo1490]

All is very neatly explained in the presentations. If you won't watch them, then I'll have to conclude that you lack the balls to test your 'convictions' by entertaining a contrary view. Prove me wrong by watching the presentations. I promise you, no physical laws need to be violated in order for the entire AGW hypothesis to be dead wrong.

No one knows with any certainty why past mass extinctions occurred. Anyone that tells you otherwise is simply full of ****. That these extinctions occurred because of runaway greenhouse warming is but a guess, and a highly contested one at that.

Instead of worrying over events in the long, long ago, un-examinable past, why not focus on warming events in the nearer past, where a human record of such events exists? When you do, you'll see that what I've said is absolutely accurate. The medieval and 'Roman' warming and 'Holocene optimum' were substantially warmer than today, even warmer than your erstwhile IPCC has projected, and by all reports, everything was just fine. So where's your PROOF that a warmer world will be worse than today's? ALL YOU HAVE is rank speculation about long ago past events that no one can confirm or deny, coming from people towing the party orthodoxy of AGW.

Since you claim to be a man who advocates for a strict adherence to the known tenets of the physical sciences, why do you swallow the idea of CO2 reaching 'dangerous levels' in the atmosphere, when we know that the Beer-Lambert equation well describes the logarithmic nature of gaseous absorption, and that the majority of the effective absorption for CO2 is attributed to the first 50ppm? Now the illustrious Michael Mann on his warmer website realclimate.org, pulls a hare-brained theory out of his ass to expalin this away, basically ASSerting that way up in the CO2 and water vapor deprived stratosphere, all the 'new' CO2 can absorb more light energy that's outside of the absorptive 'overlap' band that CO2 shares with water vapor. Then this 'new' CO2 radiates it's longwave heat downward from the stratosphere to the lower parts of the atmosphere.
This idea of his has not been published and subjected to peer review, and has basically NO supporting empirical data, despite the existence of very good data from satellites and balloon launched radiosondes. Despite all the good raw data coming in, no one has yet seen any of Michael Mann's pet stratospheric downward radiation :(

So are you a man of science, Billy? Then show why anyone should believe that anything but the Beer-Lambert equation should be used to describe the absorptive behavior of CO2 in our atmosphere. And if you conclude that Beer-Lambert does indeed describe the situation, try to explain how it's even possible for CO2 to add all the extra heat to the atmosphere that the AGW camp is telling us to worry about.

Jimbo

[rasorinc]

NEWS--NEWS--NEWS--NEWS--Just heard on the news 3:30 pm PST Scientists cannot explain the last 6 years of cooling. All government work is on hold as the scientists state the cooling we are experiencing the last few years is expected to last 20 to 30 years into the future. WOW , I look forward to reading the replies to this new information. Stan -- I knew it was happening because I could feel it in these old bones. I did not post that because it wasn't scientific. Will Al Gore now commit Hari Kari? Fox News, NY City

[Fanie]

I wonder if the Chinese logs can be found that they have accumilated over many centuries. Global cooling went to global warming and back to global cooling and then to global warming and repeated it self over and over.

The severity of each cycle, cooling (ice age) and heating (global warming) is dependant of where the sun, earth and the rest of our little convoy sits in relation to one another as well as the greater out there. Similar to tides in an ocean.

When global warming has been beaten to death and the temperatures begin to drop (already mentioned) then the whole emergency is going to be shifted to the next ice age.... and what has caused it, like the cigarettes you smoke, the car you drive, the factory releasing whatever.

Again, if the earth is buggered up with polutants (and it is) why do people live longer now than ever before ? Ok, one reason could be people have less kids nowadays. In Africa where they have MANY kids they die at like 35 ave...

Damn, that's it !!! Kids drive one to an early grave :D

[rasorinc]

Fanie, My three kids, 2 boys and a girl durning their teenage years were perfect saints and caused me no grief what so ever. That is why I invited the Army recruiter over for a couple of dinners in their senior year and told my sons to sign on the dotted line. It worked!!!The Army shaped them up quick. I thank the Army as I was close to choking them to death. It worked....They are fine successful adults now.

[bntii]

Billy,

I know it sounds paradoxical that there could be a net cooling from ocean evaporation, but this is exactly what is observed in the real world. The explanation is not all that difficult to grasp. Clouds both heat and cool. The cooling effect trumps the heating effect.
Dr Lindzen's work supports this idea also, though he readily admits his work builds on the works of other before him. The 'Iris Effect' is real and has now been observed and quantified.

I read it all and noted that this same argument has come up over and over. This is just a re-tread of 100 thread pages ago. This has all been addressed. The IRIS and the backwards cause/effect order accounts for all of this.

Get over you anxiety about AGW, because



Jimbo

The 'Iris Effect' was proven to be false as soon as it was published.

Even Lindzen, the theories author has thrown it out.

Apparently just mentioning the study is a fine way to piss Lindzen off as he is so tired of having his nose rubbed in a study which proved to be so far from predictive of what is actually happening.

So that leaves Spencer and blogs as the only players still chasing that ball.

[Jimbo1490]

The 'Iris Effect' was proven to be false as soon as it was published.

That's a load of crap! All Hartman did was assert (probably rightly) that the sample used in the data (the actual piece of the atmosphere) was simply too small and the time scale (20 months) too short to extrapolate the conclusions as explanatory of the behavior of the entire atmosphere. He went back and looked at some other data sets and found little or only weak evidence of the so-called iris.



Even Lindzen, the theories author has thrown it out.

More crap! You make it sound as though Lindzen is now disowning not only his own, but also Spencer's work! Fresh steaming crap!

Lindzen simply said (back in '02) that it just might not work as strongly as he had originally asserted, but maintained the mechanism was real and confirmed. But then again, if his sample really was too small, as his detractors complained, this inadequate sample size could have just as easily skewed the results against his theory (the detractors were asserting that the inadequate sample size skewed the data in his favor). Either way, a bigger sample might just be probative.

And this is exactly what Christy and Spencer's recent work has done. Their sample sizes, both in scopes of area and time, are exponentially larger than Lindzen's was, and have fully confirmed the strength of Lindzen's original assertions.

And Billy,

Let's try to remember that Spencer was the LEAD SCIENTIST on the NASA Aquos sattelite. Can you please kindly approve his credentials as a "Real Scientist" now:?: :D

Jimbo

[rasorinc]

While you folks argue about the causes of warming, I'm going to go to bed knowing it is not warming but cooling and that is a blessing for me. I do not like hot and I no longer fear my favorite islands will flood. Have a great nights sleep everyone.

[Jimbo1490]

Here's Lindzen's presentation on the 'Iris' from January, 2007. See if you can identify the passage where he "throws out" his own theory:D

29801


Jimbo

[Boston]

looks like things livened up while I was busy

Jimbo, did you notice any actual argument in my last message to you? Some stuff about "Heat of vaporization" and "Heat of condensation" maybe? A little problem for you, and Spencer, in the fact that they are equal and do NOT result in a net heat loss?

I believe its called conservation of energy
but basics physics class was a long time ago


And the stakes are indeed high on this one. Your statement that "At no time in the past has a warmer earth been a less biologically hospitable earth" runs very contrary to the several mass extinctions that have apparently occurred exactly because of global warming. Those cases where we all suffocate from H2S pollution don't sound like too much fun at all to me. Go back and read my post #2193 on page 147, which has a lengthy excerpt from a Scientific American article on this subject. If I remember correctly, the evidence is now supporting the notion that three of the last five mass extinctions on this planet we call home were from H2S, the other two from impacts. The H2S phenomenon gets an upper hand exactly from global warming, from whatever cause.

I talked about this extensively in this thread a while back
its a result of aerobic stratification of the oceans
both that black shale's and the blue shale's are the geological evidence of such an event occurring in conjunction with several of the largest extinction events

I can repost the video by DR Jeremy Jackson if anyone is curious to see it spelled out in detail

No one knows with any certainty why past mass extinctions occurred. Anyone that tells you otherwise is simply full of ****. That these extinctions occurred because of runaway greenhouse warming is but a guess, and a highly contested one at that

actually we know it was a global anaerobic event because of the chemistry of the sediment layers it left behind

Instead of worrying over events in the long, long ago, un-examinable past, why not focus on warming events in the nearer past, where a human record of such events exists? When you do, you'll see that what I've said is absolutely accurate. The medieval and 'Roman' warming and 'Holocene optimum' were substantially warmer than today, even warmer than your erstwhile IPCC has projected, and by all reports, everything was just fine. So where's your PROOF that a warmer world will be worse than today's? ALL YOU HAVE is rank speculation about long ago past events that no one can confirm or deny, coming from people towing the party orthodoxy of AGW.

that is exactly what Im trying to do in finding things we can agree on in the detailed record with the proper level of resolution of the ice core data
we have numerous ice cores at this point and they are all agreeing on something
why dont we take a look at what that something is ?


Boston,

You have become so full of **** that it's become difficult to even read your posts anymore. Dr Spencer's work is not only peer reviewed and accepted, but this latest paper detailing the mechanism I described above was put before the very authors his paper was refuting, and yet they accepted his paper and admitted that they had got it wrong only a couple of years earlier. Of course if you had watched either of the Roy Spencer lectures, you would know this.

Boston, you are a pathetic excuse for an educated man who has reduced himself to little more than a close-minded ideologue. I hope you presently know all you will ever need to know, as you've clearly lost the required humility needed for further learning.

just when I had decided to play nice
a lovely diatribe from the peanut gallery
hardly worthy of response

I will say thins though
any position so week as to find itself intolerant of healthy debate
must be suspect

it takes a lot for something to be considered a law
the law of conservation of energy is well founded
any theory that violates that law
is fatally flawed

Spencer admitted in his blog that his work was rejected
if you wont hear if from me
maybe you just didnt read Spencer carefully enough

from Spencer's blog
section 3
paragraph 3

Is my work published? No…at least not yet…although I have tried. Apparently it disagrees too much with the IPCC party line to be readily acceptable. My finding of negative SW feedback of around 5 W m-2 K-1 from real radiation budget data (the CERES instrument on Aqua) is apparently inadmissible as evidence.

clearly he admits his work has been rejected
further his speculation as to why he was rejected is unnecessary
any time you submit a paper for peer review you get a letter back of some kind
a rejection letter, although often stating simply that the work was not found acceptable at this time
often includes a few reasons by way one can improve on the work
and resubmit
a lack of language specific to Mr Spencer's rejection calls a question to his assertion that its merely disagreeable

Spencers ties to industry rags and special interest money are not in question
by forgoing his objectivity
he has lent an air of dishonesty to his efforts
and found himself outside of the scientific community's standard of ethics
the vast majority of scientist would have guarded there standing far more carefully

there are a few
rare though they be
dissenters who have not abandoned there ethics
but honestly believe rapid global climate change is not a reality
why is it you refuse to quote them instead of these lame duck oil and gas industry sell outs

cheers
B

I cant help but notice that an acknowledgment of the gas laws has not been forthcoming

vapor is dependent on temp
not vise verse

I believe students of physics as far back as several centuries would have been taught the gas laws

[Jimbo1490]

"We have two peer-reviewed, published papers out there in the literature and the mainstream media refuses to report on it..."

Roy Spencer, February 18, 2009, lecture presentation posted above

"Cloud and radiation budget changes associated with tropical
intraseasonal oscillations"
Roy W. Spencer,1 William D. Braswell,1 John R. Christy,1 and Justin Hnilo2
Received 15 February 2007; revised 30 March 2007; accepted 16 July 2007; published 9 August 2007.

Spencer, R.W., and W.D. Braswell (2008a), Satellite measurements reveal a climate
system less sensitive than in models, Geophys. Res. Lett., submitted.

(now accepted)


I guess Roy needs to update his website a bit. Or maybe he was referring to his most recent work?

The bigger question arises : Why do the warmers put so much stock into the idea that the sum of the feedbacks for water vapor is not only positive, but strongly positive? Some posting to this thread will no doubt blather on about the "hundred or even thousands of peer-reviewed papers that all agree this is
so, blah, blah, blah...."

But is this really the case? The info below is paraphrased from the Lord Monckton report, already posted to this thread many pages ago:

Indeed, in IPCC (2007) the stated values for the feedbacks that account for more than two-thirds of humankind’s imagined effect on global temperatures are taken from a single paper. The value of the coefficient z in the CO2 forcing equation likewise depends on only one paper. The implicit value of the crucial parameter κ depends upon only two papers, one of which had been written by a lead author of the chapter in question, and neither of which provides any theoretical or empirical justification for the IPCC’s chosen value. The notion that the IPCC has drawn on thousands of published, peer-reviewed papers to support its central estimates for the variables from which climate sensitivity is calculated is simply not supported by the evidence.

The answer to the question is simple: If there's no positive feedback with water vapor, then there can be no scary global warming caused by CO2.

The case for AGW is about two miles wide and one inch deep:D

Jimbo