What Do We Think About Climate Change

What the hell does that mean....?


Oh brother.......

This is what I get for fighting some point for another.

To recap before I shoot myself:

Jimbo has cited a that a consensus exists in the skeptics camp- the petition project, body of research by scientists, etc.

Jimbo has argued repeatably that 'the consensus' on the AGW theory does not in fact exist, is overstated, etc..

By both of the above he has fully allowed the ideal of consensus in this debate to carry weight.
ie- he has reinforced the ideal that if a consensus behind AWG theory exists, that this is a valid point in this debate and he cannot therefore dismiss it as not relevant.

Did he even dismiss it? he asks himself while looking for the bullets.....

You made a good point Boston. The pro-AGW consensus is strong and the skeptics don't have squat.


I was busy looking up recipes for coconut crab... carry on!

 

no worries mate

on a hole other note

I think I would like to make a apology to Jim for joking around about something he obviously holds near and dear
his Atkins diet
I was finding humor in the apparently tenuous claim that Atkins had died of a heart attack
and regret the off color nature of my remark
fact is
with out an autopsy there is no way to tell what killed him
it was widely reported as a heart attack
and thats what I had heard as well
but those reports certainly may be inaccurate in light of the agreed fact that no official cause of death was ever issued
and with out an autopsy even the attending physician cannot for certainty assess the actual mitigating factors involved

for all the things Jim and I are going to disagree on
I was out of line commenting on his personal choices
guy can eat nothing but virgins for all I care
I say
let the games continue
Sincerely
B

 

It's OK.

I don't blame you for believing the misinformation that's out there; a LOT of people believe it. I just wanted to set the facts straight.

But there IS an official cause of death; The medical examiner listed it as a "subdural hematoma caused by blunt trauma to the head" An autopsy was not needed to determine this. He presented to an emergency room with an obvious head trauma, NOT cardiac symptoms. His heart did not stop during the hospitalization in question. He was disconnected from life support machines when it became apparent his brain had in fact died.

Jimbo

 

It's really quite the opposite. The AGW camp trumpets endlessly about the consensus to (presumably) persuade undecided/unmotivated members of the public. I was merely showing that there is actually NOT a strong consensus among scientists; that there are many reputable, non-wacky men of science that opposes the consensus view, making the consensus view of less importance that the AGW crowd purports it to be. This is nothing more than an "appeal to authority", one of the basic logical fallacies.

Yeah, we skeptics have 'squat' as you say. 'All we have' is:

No warming for at least 10 and more like 13 years, in the face of the very ominous predictions trumpeted dogmatically by AGW pundits years ago

Lack of causality between CO2 level and warming in the paleoclimatolical record

Complete lack of warming in the tropical troposphere, where basic greenhouse theory and ALL the climate models show that warming will be UNMISTAKABLY prominent IF the warming is caused by the greenhouse effect


The fraudulent and secretive behavior of some of the main pundits in the AGW camp don't help either, but even without that sideshow going on, one wonders what is keeping such a wounded ship afloat

Could it be..... POLITICS

Jimbo

 

This ball is either in play or not.

"All you have"...?
Answered in order:

Could you please provide some data?

"Global warming stopped in 1998," has become a recent mantra of those who wish to deny the reality of human-caused global warming. The continued rapid increase of the five-year running mean temperature exposes this assertion as nonsense. In reality, global temperature jumped two standard deviations above the trend line in 1998 because the "El Niño of the century" coincided with the calendar year, but there has been no lessening of the underlying warming trend."

Some thoughts:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/04/the-lag-between-temp-and-co2/

Please see the following:

Consistency of modeled and observed temperature trends in the tropical troposphere

Santer, B. D., P. W. Thorne, L. Haimberger, K. E. Taylor, T. M. L. Wigley, J. R. Lanzante, S. Solomon, M. Free, P. J. Gleckler, P. D. Jones, T. R. Karl, S. A. Klein, C. Mears, D. Nychka, G. A. Schmidt, S. C. Sherwood, and F. J. Wentz, submitted:
"Consistency of modelled and observed temperature trends in the tropical troposphere. International Journal of Climatology. 3/08.
Abstract: A recent report of the U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) identified a "potentially serious inconsistency" between modelled and observed trends in tropical lapse rates (Karl et al., 2006). Early versions of satellite and radiosonde datasets suggested that the tropical surface had warmed by more than the troposphere, while climate models consistently showed tropospheric amplification of surface warming in response to human-caused increases in well-mixed greenhouse gases. We revisit such comparisons here using new observational estimates of surface and tropospheric temperature changes. We find that there is no longer a serious and ubiquitous discrepancy between modelled and observed trends in tropical lapse rates.
This emerging reconciliation of models and observations has two primary explanations. First, because of changes in the treatment of buoy and satellite information, new surface temperature datasets yield slightly reduced tropical warming relative to earlier versions. Second, recently-developed satellite and radiosonde datasets now show larger warming of the tropical lower troposphere. In the case of a new satellite dataset from Remote Sensing Systems (RSS), enhanced warming is due to an improved procedure of adjusting for intersatellite biases. When the RSS-derived tropospheric temperature trend is compared with four different observed estimates of surface temperature change, the surface warming is invariably amplified in the tropical troposphere, consistent with model results. Even if we use data from a second satellite dataset with smaller tropospheric warming than in RSS, observed tropical lapse rates are not significantly different from those in all model simulations.
Our results contradict a recent claim that all simulated temperature trends in the tropical troposphere and in tropical lapse rates are inconsistent with observations. This claim was based on use of older radiosonde and satellite datasets, and on two methodological errors: the application of an inappropriate statistical "consistency test", and the neglect of observational and model trend uncertainties introduced by interannual climate variability."


Have you read Hansens original paper '88?
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/1988/1988_Hansen_etal.pdf

And his 2006 review/update of this paper?
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2006/2006_Hansen_etal_1.pdf

Thanks

 

Or graphed another way, (with a much less alarming perspective, don't ya think?)

http://climate-skeptic.typepad.com/.a/6a00e54eeb9dc18834010535e286c4970b-pi

SO there ya go; 1980-2008 with no *significant* warming.

Jimbo

 

Thomas'

I have never read the full report from '88, only excerpts published in Science magazine, which I used to get. There's really nothing unusual in the '88 report; Hansen lays out the premise for the model, lists the things the model accounts for and also those things that the model (for whatever reasons stated) does not take into consideration. He then makes a test run assuming a stable CO2 concentration, then makes a run using the observed CO2 rise projected into the future and comes up with a prediction.

It's obvious that he assumes that CO2 (and other 'trace gases) causes warming, so he tunes the model to let CO2 produce the warming observed (from the late 70's to the late 80's) then asks the model to project what the future climate would be if CO2 concentration were to continue to rise. Of course the model then tells you that temperature will rise, and alarmingly so, because that is what you have, in effect, told the model to tell you. This illustrates the very problem I'm talking about. This is circular reasoning! The model cannot be depended upon to predict anything given these conditions! The proof of that is what happened over the next 20 years.

Jimbo

 

may not be of a heart attack but your dying on us here Jimmy
the number of scientists supporting the theory is unmistakably up
way up
like up to 97% from 60%
now please
if all this is, is an exorcise in futility ( the conclusion I came to long ago ) then feel free to continue the confusion
but isnt it about high time you start admitting a few basics
the majority
vast majority of climate scientists are in agreement
its called a consensus

sorry Jim you havent shown anything, on the contrary
I would note the following Gallup pole numbers in direct disagreement of your statement
( this information has been posted previously but you must have missed it )

I think this should beyond any doubt lay to rest the idea that there isnt a consensus view

bntii

a valiant effort ( hows the old brain muscle feeling today )

the relevant ( relevant being the key word ) data has already been presented time and again
there seems to be some basic misunderstanding of the way science conducts itself in collating and considering data
untill that is understood and accepted
actually looking at the relevant data rather than the anomalous will continue to confuse our detractors

based on the consensus numbers of say 97% I believe the following analogy is a reasonable way to look at what we are dealing with

imagine your in a class of 100 people and 3 are having trouble understanding
the class moves on with out them and before you know it is so far ahead that its hard for the 3 to catch up
they seek tutorial help and may still not get it
there is some point that didnt click
now if one or all of these unfortunates kept repeating the same issues over and over then Ild take em back to there place of competency and try to start from there (assuming they were willing)
however
I might also ask why it is these three are trying to be artists when they clearly cant paint

this is basically the issue at hand
engineers deal with numbers
scientists deal with data
relevant data is the key to understanding why it is that 97% of climate scientists have formed a consensus
treating all data streams like number sets will only get the engineering types confused
that is if he is trying to paint a picture of the weather
crap in
crap out
works both ways

Ive seen excellent engineers have endless trouble conducting science
and excellent scientists who made some pretty silly engineering mistakes
takes an artist to put em together

best to all
its beer thirty
B

 

I haven't read the papers and am diving into it a bit just now Jimbo, thanks for the lead.

Still a bit in the dark on the how this is all coming out of the wash.

Fairly good analysis and debate on the model, issues with it, and how well it was predictive of observed temps.
There seems to be a big shuffle around when the zero is set; 1956... or 1984, which I don't quite get as it is just a graphing technique to me....

Will post if I get a handle on it...

Boston- I just keep trying to trap Jimbo into agreeing with me....

It doesn't turn out too well.

Thomas

 

Boston and Thomas,
have you read this?
http://www.griffith.edu.au/conference/ics2007/pdf/ICS176.pdf
Please do it and tell me what do you think.

Cheers.

 

Thomas,
That page has been posted, and I've read it before. I hate to say it's just more obfuscation and circular reasoning, but....

First, that CO2 levels increases lag temperature increases in the climate record is a relatively new revelation. 20 years ago, it was believed otherwise,(the data wasn't 'clear' yet) and we were waiting for 'better data' to really solidly confirm the hypothesis of AGW increasing anthropogenic CO2, thus implicating anthropogenic CO2 in recent warming. Of course that didn't happen, the lag was the other way around by a convincing margin.

But instead of admitting that this cast doubt that CO2 levels cause warming (and CO2 levels must therefore logically lead temp increases) Mann and Hansen simply came up with a more complex theory, implying that a dangerous positive feedback loop exists and that while the initial perturbation may not have been an increase in CO2, whatever that perturbation was, it caused temps to rise, which in turn caused CO2 levels to rise, driving temps up which further releases CO2, etc.

The first problem with this is that even during 'lulls' in natural CO2 production, anthropogenic CO2 is only a tiny fraction of the total. Natural CO2 production and natural fluxes are always what really dominates and regulates the level of CO2 in the atmosphere. The fluxes are already coping with way bigger amounts of CO2; one little bit more is not going to matter. That's still true today.

And whatever perturbs temperature to drive CO2 levels up, we know that there must exist natural negative feedbacks to prevent a dangerous positive feedback loop from forming, because the climate never ran away in the past, even when natural source/flux balance was putting THOUSANDS of times more CO2 into the atmosphere than we are today, driving nascent CO2 levels to 10X or 20X what they are today. Yet the fluxes and negative feedbacks worked. We did not burn up or overheat.

As Boston pointed out, there have been rapid climate changes in the past. Note that these were wholly of natural origin.

The second problem was alluded to in that page. You see, while the 'cabal' admits that CO2 did not drive temperature over large scales of time, They still continue to insist that it must have driven it initially in small time scales that we cannot properly analyze with core samples for the various reasons stated. So they keep falling back to that (prob'ly to avoid the whole feedback loop logical fallacy).

Now this sounds a lot like the 'just wait for the better cores and you'll see' arguments we heard back in the 80's when they still thought that the paleoclimate was going to show a CLEAR cause and effect 'tween CO2 level and warming (which I love to point out, it did not).

And the reason that they still insist that CO2 must have been the initial cause, but our data analysis is still not yet precise enough to detect it? THEY HAVE NO OTHER EXPLANATION! Yep, back to the old standby; blame the humans, redux with coplexifications! It's that now they are saying that older perturbations must have been due to rising CO2 also so that they can now say (with some shred of credibility) that rising CO2 now is the cause of recent warming. GOD FORBID (or Gaia forbid ) that there might actually be some other natural cause of the warming/perturbation besides greenhouse warming due to rising CO2 levels, because if they admitted that, then those pesky skeptics might rightly raise the question : "if so and so caused the perturbation 10,000 years ago, then who is to say that is not what is actually happening now???"

So if the data gets even more precise, and we can see that Temp increases lead CO2 increases even in smaller time scales, THEN WHAT?? Do you think the cabal will finally back down? I doubt it.

Thomas, I don't pretend to know what is driving the earth's temperature up or down, whichever way it is going in the short/medium/long term. Guillermo has uniquely among us posted some of the most interesting alternate theories/mechanisms that might alone or in concert be the cause. But I do know that the warming we have seen in the last few decades DOES NOT look like greenhouse warming. The very guys who now insist it is greenhouse warming are the same guys who told us what to look for ITO the location and magnitude, etc of the warming to prove that it is greenhouse warming. So we looked and waited and when the data came in, the answer was not what greenhouse theory predicts; in fact it's all WRONG. So why still believe that what we are observing is greenhouse warming?


Jimbo

 

I notice we are studiously not going to admit that there is a growing consensus among scientists concerning rapid global climate change
up from
60% in 91 vs 97% in 07

the failure to admit even the most obvious points is a clear indication you have no intention of ever giving science a reasonable consideration

Jim

are you kidding me
a graph is a graph is a graph
axis x,y,z
you got some secret way to draw a graph you need to clue the scientific community in on the discovery
cause no mater how many times you graph the same data it should turn out the same
at least in the wild world of science that is
sounds like someone is fudging there data to create "another way"

G
Ill go check out what you are offering for review
may take a few days depending on what it is and who wrote it
if its author doesn't pass muster IE published work
then it may be a short review

there is a reason we have the refereed forum of peer review
it kinda weeds out the riff raff
and pre filters BS from the relevant data

Jim once you are able and actually make the admission that the vast and growing majority of scientist have formed a consensus then we can move on the why they have made that consensus
until then it is fruitless to address any other point

 

Boston,

Peer review is as broken as the US patent system. Even your usual cursory research would reveal that.

If peer review works, then why did MBH-98 ever pass muster? How about the semi-fraudulent audit of the surface data gathering network a couple of years back? Yup passed peer review, too.

And if peer review is SO damned important, Why won't Hansen submit his absolutely CRITICAL (and HIGHLY controversial) adjustment algorithms for the satellite and surface temp data to peer review:?: You want all the people who oppose AGW to be subject to the most stringent standards of peer review and the highest ethical standards imaginable, or else we are expected to dismiss everything they say, yet you can quite easily put up with a steaming pile of fresh dog **** from your own camp. You, sir are naught more than a common HYPOCRITE:!:

Jimbo

 

Actually the atmospheric concentration of CO2 is ~35% higher as a direct result of our activities and rapidly increasing.
It is not debated, uncontested, clearly understood and acknowledged by both sides of the debate.

The question has been settled for decades. The issue, to the extent that any existed, was not how we increased the levels of atmospheric carbon but why the levels were not far higher... such is the quantity of emissions we release each year.

More than a year ago in the prior thread I requested that this debate go no further than this issue till it is resolved.

The quantity of carbon dioxide is increasing in the atmosphere each year.
The rate of increase is unprecedented at 200 times the rate seen in the last 800,000 years, and has reached levels higher than any seem over this same period. All within the last 150 years.

Two questions:

1)By how much does the level of carbon dioxide increase in the atmosphere each year? (the net gain by weight)
2)How much carbon do we place in the atmosphere each year? (weight)

The rate in increase we are currently experiencing is unprecedented.

 

The critical data that we need for a logical discussion of the cause and effect of this thing is all right there in front of you, Thomas: Look and see that CO2 levels were increasing, by your admission here, for the last 150 years. I say it's even longer than that; I have a graph that shows since about 1820. But humans have been releasing CO2 in climatologically significant amounts only since the close of WWII. Hansen chose his start point as 1958 for the same reason. The perturbation had clearly already occurred. Selecting the 1820-1850 anthropogenic carbon level as the beginning of 'climatologically significant' is scientifically untenable, which is why you won't find even AGW scientists advocating this position. This increase must therefore be natural.

The natural source/flux system 'trades' quantities of CO2 at least two orders of magnitude larger than we emit. A little bit more from us is in the noise. If you can accept that CO2 increases are from a warming ocean, and that the oceans take several hundred years to warm, and that we only have a ~60 year 'look back' for the effects of human CO2 emissions, then you can see why I'm a skeptic. It's a reasoned position that I arrived a later, after holding the 'other' view for about 16 years.

Jimbo