What Do We Think About Climate Change

Great! Now we have a firm platform from which to work. I am delighted! Unfortunately, it's 7 PM here and the wife is waiting for me, so I have to go. We can continue this tomorrow morning.

I'm guessing that the next stage of this conversation is to address those missing inputs and outputs and their mechanisms. Let's take it step by step, and that way maybe we won't be talking at cross-purposes! Anyway, I certainly hope we won't be.

To give you a preview of my own thoughts on the subject based on what you have said previously, I won't be surprised if there is some merit to some of the "skeptical" positions. Let's find it. I suspect that the issue will boil down to a matter of magnitude, though, because the facts all indicate that global warming is indeed happening no matter what we may think.

Tomorrow!

BillyDoc

 

Good morning, Jimbo!

 

Hey, Billy!

 

So where do we go from here? Do you want to take a shot at describing the skeptic model for non-global warming?

 

That's really kind of a backwards way to tackle this and pre-supposes that the warmers have actually already shown that their hypothesis has crossed key logical/scientific thresholds, which I can assure you IT HAS NOT!

For instance, warmers cannot even make a plausible claim that any supposed recent warming is in ANY WAY unusual, that is, unprecedented in magnitude, rate or anything else. Corrollary to this is that if this warming cannot be shown to be unusual somehow, then it cannot be reliably attributed to anything but natural climate drivers.

Furthermore, since it is the warmers, not the so-called skeptics, that are making extraordinary claims about the climate, the warmers have taken upon themselves the task of proving the plausibility of these claims, given the known science on the matter. Those making extraordinary claims ALWAYS have the burden of proof.

In the last 150+ pages, I have cited dozens of scientific papers, presentations, graphs and other measurements in support of the 'skeptical' side of the argument. This represents a LOT of research work, work that I have NO INTENTION of repeating now for you, if I even had the time to do so, which at present, I do not.

I have given a synopsis of the arguments several times recently, and have done so throughout the thread. If you want more detail from me, look at what I've already written to this thread, and to the other "Global warming, are humans to blame?" thread.

Otherwise, I'd be more than happy to assist you in doing your own research on the subject by pointing you to various sources. But you can't expect me to re-post all that has gone by; it's just too much work

But if you shoot me one of the claims of the warmer camp, I'll tell you how and why it's wrong, and show you where to find the data that proves that it's wrong.

Jimbo

 

Climate Change: Driven by the Ocean not Human Activity
by William M. Gray, Professor Emeritus, Dept of Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University

http://tropical.atmos.colostate.edu/Includes/Documents/Publications/gray2009.pdf

From the abstract:
"This paper discusses how the variation in the global ocean’s Meridional Overturning Circulation (MOC) resulting from changes in the Atlantic Thermohaline Circulation (THC) and deep water Surrounding Antarctica Subsidence (SAS) can be the primary cause of climate change. (MOC = THC + SAS) is the likely cause of most of the global warming that has been observed since the start of the industrial revolution (~1850) and for the more recent global warming that has occurred since the mid-1970s. Changes of the MOC since 1995 are hypothesized to have lead to the cessation of global warming since 1998 and to the beginning of a weak global cooling that has occurred since 2001. This weak cooling is projected to go on for the next couple of decades."

From the introduction:
"General Circulation Models assume that an increase in atmospheric CO2 will cause weak global warming and an increase in global precipitation that will lead to a large increase in upper-level water vapor and cloudiness. They simulate that this increase in water vapor and cloudiness will block large amounts of infrared radiation emitted to space. New observations by satellite and reanalysis data, however, do not support these GCM assumptions. The global warming that has occurred since the mid-1970s has been associated with a modest decrease of global upper tropospheric water vapor and an increase of Outgoing Longwave Radiation (OLR). These measurements contradict model predictions."

And from corpus:
"The global warming that has been experienced over the last century (~0.7oC) has been primarily due to a slowdown in the MOC from what was experienced in the 19th century and during the period of the Little Ice Age. The 30-35 year periods of up-and-down global temperature change over the last century are due to shorter multi-decadal variations of the MOC. There is typically a 5-10 year lag before one is able to detect a noticeable globe surface temperature change from the initial onset of a stronger to weaker MOC or vice-versa.

The CO2 increases that have been experienced with the globe’s growing industrialization over the last century could have accounted for only about 15-20 percent of the warming that has been observed. The expected doubling of CO2 from the pre-industrial background state by the end of the 21st century should by itself be expected to increase global temperature by no more than about 0.3-0.5oC. It will be possible for humankind to adjust to this degree of warming.

The MOC could either enhance the late 21st century CO2-induced warming or act to cancel it out. It would not be wise to engage in expensive national and international efforts to reduce CO2 for the purpose of preventing global warming when nature through its MOC variations is holding the trump cards which can overwhelm anything CO2 increases can accomplish. AGW advocates of CO2 reduction strategies do not understand the physics of global climate change. Humankind would suffer severe economic hardships to follow the path advocated by the AGW advocates. There is very little humans can do to effect climate change. We must, as we have in the past, adjust to it."

Cheers.

 

Looks like the 'Iris' is being vindicated once again, eh?

Jimbo

 

Yeap. Lindzen must be happy.

Cheers

 

no darned good pm you you look once a month, pl take up the where is this thread , for us travelled folk>)

 

Hi Guillermo, thanks for providing the link. I was suspicious about the paper after seeing all the caveats in the quotes you provided. And, as I suspected, it's just another opinion piece from the Heartland Institute. Lot's of smoke, no substance.


BillyDoc

 

Jimbo, I'm with you on not wanting to go over the whole mess again. That's precisely why I want to narrow it down to whatever the essence is and eliminate all the fluff, if we can. I think we made some good progress the other day in that regard too.

It looks to me like the real issue is whether or not a current warming trend is caused by human activity, or maybe just exacerbated by human activity. It's an important issue, because if there is something humans can do to prevent or reverse the trend, we need to get on it Real Soon Now, or face the consequences of maintaining the status quo --- which appear to be extreme.

But way before we can get to that, I think you have nailed the first issue we should address here:

And you assert the following: "Corrollary to this is that if this warming cannot be shown to be unusual somehow, then it cannot be reliably attributed to anything but natural climate drivers."

First, I assume we agree that there has been a warming trend since the usually cited 1850 date. So, given that starting point, let me say that I don't in any way think that it has been unusual in the sense that it hasn't happened before. It does not follow, however, that warming cannot also be caused by human activity. For example, in the Scientific American article I quoted somewhere back there on mass extinctions, it was noted that a high CO2 level was read from the geological record just prior to each of three extinctions. The source of those high CO2 levels was apparently from volcanic activity. If CO2 levels were, in fact, the trigger for these extinctions, and human activity causes the same extinction triggering by burning fossil fuels then the result is the same.

Actually, the fact that the current climate pattern is in no way unusual is the point that scares me the most, given that the result may well be yet another mass extinction.

So, I guess that we have two points here upon which to agree or dissagree: First, "is there a warming trend" and second, "is it unusual." I think we agree, do we?

BillyDoc

 

But Billy,

There were ice ages that had EXTREMELY HIGH CO2 levels as well, so this is not particularly indicative of ANYTHING! All of this way, way long ago past stuff is essentially inscrutable; we can all theorize on and on about it and in the end EVERYBODY might be dead wrong in their guesses as to what really happened.

Why not look at something we can sink our teeth into right now. How about this: Atmospheric CO2 levels. What are they now, what were they in the pre-industrial period and how do we know what they were. Warmers love the ice core data for examining this since because of some simple technical reasons, the ice core data always skews CO2 levels low. This should not be a big problem as we also have very reliable direct measurements that were taken of atmospheric CO2 as far back as 150 years, so some concurrency with the ice cores. We can therefore use this to 'calibrate' the ice core data, applying a correction factor to bring it into harmony with the known reliable direct measurements. But the warmer camp steadfastly refuses to do this, preferring the raw data, which as I've said, skews low. It comes down to which data set you would rather believe: direct measurements made by a live scientist using a known, reliable, repeatable test method which is still used today, or ice cores drilled from antarctic (which may or may not be representative of global averages) that have sat there for decades or centuries undergoing who knows what changes? ME, I'm going with the direct measurements.

So if you really want to see what direct measurements of atmospheric CO2 over the last couple of centuries looks like, go to frame 68 of the Ian Plimer presentation. Hold onto your hat, because the 280ppm the warmers keep throwing around as gospel truth is just another of their distortion/misinformation items. It was almost NEVER that low!

Jimbo

 

Well, I guess we will eventually get to CO2 data, although if you are saying that the measuring techniques are too unreliable to believe . . . what else is there to say?

As for everyone being dead wrong, hell Jimbo, that's the fundamental nature of all science! It's exactly why it grows all the time. If you want to read an interesting book on this subject, check out Thomas Khun's "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions." It's a classic, and still applies --- except for being dead wrong, of course. The bottom line is that you do the best you can with the evidence you have and a dose of logic. Better still, if you can predict something, as in a phenomenon or an experiment where something is manipulated, that is very good support, but NOTHING is positive. For example, Einstein predicted that gravity would effect light, and people looked for ways to check this out, came up with some astronomical observations that would --- and old Al was right. Now very few people argue with the proposition that gravity effect's light. On the other hand, I got a pretty brochure in the mail last week informing me that all these pointy-headed scientists are wrong about the earth rotating about the sun. It's the other way around it seems! Who knew? I was shocked to see that, of course, but apparently it's in the Bible, so it must be true.

I don't want to skip ahead, if we can avoid it. It just leads to confusion and there's already been plenty of that on this thread. So, are we together about warming happening currently at least? I'm already pretty sure we agree that it isn't unusual.

BillyDoc

 

Measurement techniques are VERY reliable. But the warmers do not want to use measurements at all. They'd rather use 'reconstructions' which are far less reliable than measurements. Look how Hansen and Mann rest so much of their case on reconstructions, rather than measurements. Gee, I wonder why that is?

I'm all for doing the best you can with the evidence that you have, But that is not what the warmers do AT ALL. They consistently prefer corrupt data, unreliable data, data taken from decrepit measurement systems, and proxy recons, when actual measurements are available. Why? because the crappy data support their hypothesis, of course!
S ome of us expect this debate to be like true 'sport' the way a pro ball game is 'true sport'. When two pro teams get together, nobody really knows who is going to win. That's the way HONEST scientific investigation should be, too. Let the chips fall where they may.

But what we see with the global warming alarmists is more like WWE wrestling, where the outcome of the matches is pre-determined. When people abuse science this way for political ends, it is no longer honest science, but something else.

When NASA, the US SPACE AGENCY prefers the data sets from the decrepit old land-based measurement network over the data gathered from satellites and weather balloons (which data reliably shows alarming warming where the satellite and balloon data do not), we start to wonder if they are not rooting for a particular outcome. One sentence from the mouth of James Hansen should be enough to disabuse you of any notion that the bias does not exist!

Jimbo

 

Jimbo, your last is a complete aside! Why should we consider the validity of any particular data collection without knowing if we need to consider it at all? I don't even know what data you're talking about here. CO2? Warming? This is how we keep going off into never-never land and down the rabbit hole with Alice. No use whatsoever!!!

Please, let's keep it systematic and linear. The foundations first. So, are we warming or not? Is it unusual or not?

BillyDoc