Global Warming Man-Made, Will Continue

ABC News ^ | Feb 2, 2007 | SETH BORENSTEIN

[palmer]

PARIS Feb 2, 2007 (AP)— International scientists and officials hailed a report Friday saying that global warming is "very likely" caused by man, and that hotter temperatures and rises in sea level "would continue for centuries" no matter how much humans control their pollution.

...

A top U.S. government scientist, Susan Solomon, said "there can be no question that the increase in greenhouse gases are dominated by human activities."

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On sea levels, the report projects rises of 7-23 inches by the end of the century. An additional 3.9-7.8 inches are possible if recent, surprising melting of polar ice sheets continues.

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[devane617]

Propaganda/Brainwashing assault continues. If you repeat it enough, as is the case with the MSM, it becomes fact. I feel the Leftists have found a issue, and are going to run with it.

[Reform4Bush]

True, but one of the global warming skeptics claims is this (from Wikipedia: Global Warming Controversy):

Estimates at CO2's effectiveness as a greenhouse gas vary, but are generally around 10-100 times lower than water weight for weight, leaving a "net" greenhouse effect of man-made CO2 emissions at less than 1%.

So their vague statement would still stand as 'true' if human induced global warming only contributes 1%.

This is a completely non-conclusive report that is being spun to overstate human influence (as I suspect you would agree - just making the point for others to see).

[olezip]

A top U.S. government scientist, Susan Solomon, said "there can be no question that the increase in greenhouse gases are dominated by human activities."

I suspected that Susan Soloman was a political hack. I did not find her especially intellectual, but with an agenda. Will the government ever return to genuine, objective scientists? ...sad indeed!

[cogitator]

NASA Explains "Dust Bowl" Drought

My hunch is that ocean circulation patterns were different enough to cause the warm decade globally. Intriguingly, though, El Ninos were weak in the 1930s, and El Nino years (like 1998) are usually the warmest years.

The Relative Importance of Solar and Anthropogenic Forcing of Climate Change between the Maunder Minimum and the Present

Estimations of Maunder Minimum Solar Irradiance and Ca ii H and K Fluxes Using Rotation Rates and Diameters

Indicates Maunder Minimum irradiance was lower by 0.37% (minimum) to 1.23% (maximum) -- a lot more than 0.1%.

[Reform4Bush]

Good post, my main concern in this study is that they seem to ignore the recent announcement that Mars is experiencing warming as well.

As a reasonably informed poster, don't you agree that it is ludicrous not to examine the temperature effects on other planets (especially our nearest neighbor) when trying to asses what contributes to global warming?

Mars in this case would appear to represent a reasonable 'control' subject - where human induced warming is minimal or non-existent? (I say minimal because those Mars rovers sure resembled SUV's, and God knows those are just evil global warming contributors).

[cogitator]

Global warming on Mars?

explains what's happening on Mars.

[tcostell]

While I get your point, I have a few issues as well. First of all, I don't think that melting equatorial glaciers is evidence of anything by themselves. No matter how it's sliced a melting glacier is a local event, and while it can be used as a part of a larger model to describe a global event, by itself, it isn't adequate evidence. With that said though, I'll grant you that although I haven't seen the data, I believe it's possible for the scientific community to determine that we are in a warming trend. I'd want to see the actual data to be sure, but I'll accept it on faith for now because I believe it to be easily verifiable.

Second, I still haven't seen any data which would indicate that CO2 has increased in any systemic way. 380 is definitely higher than 280, but like I said, it could be as a result of any number of things which would normalize the levels to a much more stable mean. That data point by itself does not constitute evidence, but if there is more data I'll be happy to have a look at it.

I'm not questioning anyone's motive here, or claiming that anything is being misrepresented. I'm only saying that based upon statistics, the data point does not contain the information that people are attributing to it. It may be one point in a broader set of data which can lead to that conclusion, but by itself it does not.

At it's core though, the problem that seems to be emerging to me is that we are trying to take very sparse data which support a certain trend, and use it to draw a conclusion of a scale so massive that it can't be supported. It's like trying to support a stone roof with toothpick thickness pillars. It can in fact be done, but you need a lot of them... more than I have seen so far.

At the same time, (and as you pointed out), they seem to be simply ignoring all the data which may contradict the trend they have pronounced. Correlation records of sunspot with warming trends and evidence of past glacial melting are two which even I can pick off the top of my head.

I'm really committed to keeping an open mind here, but it's already difficult to keep from seeing the kinds of philosophical errors which the left has so frequently proven guilty of in the past. I'm setting it aside for now, but if this is all the data that's out there then,the left's desire to redesign society to match their model is looking like the cause of much of the hyperbole.

[gallaxyglue]

A great post! Just curious...if the ocean swallows more CO2, wouldn't that bring on another ice age?

[CSM]

Why is there push every year concerning global warming when it is the coldest time of year?

[palmer]

Remember, we're looking for a wholly natural mechanism that would increase atmospheric CO2 by 80-100 ppm in 150 years. If you can show me a reference to anything that is even suggested as being able to do that, count me stunned.

So you're pretty sure it wouldn't exist even without all your assumptions (150 year carbon cycle, etc).

But there aren't fast mechanisms that would cause such a big CO2 excursion -- unless you'll be able to surprise me with one.

There are undoubtedly fast natural processes that will create sharp albido changes, temperature changes, etc which, without making prior assumptions, could cause large CO2 changes.

[palmer]

Some good links, although I would like to know Quay's assumption for carbon cycle time or seawater diffusion constant. I noticed in the PDF poster there is typo in your post: 0.021 decrease per year, not 0.002 like you and I thought. That's a lot more than the anthro contribution that I calculated (0.004 per year) from the NASA carbon numbers (quite simply, 6 parts anthro into 1560 parts seawater/atmosphere). This reversal means that seawater is absorbing a lot more anthro CO2 than I outlined in post 7.

[Fraxinus]

The big proof of the major probably human induced shift in CO2 concentrations is to be found in Archeology. The base line for C-14 dating is 1950, and if you take new charcoal and have it dated you will get a fairly ancient date because due to the burning of very old carbon deposits (many of which have been underground for over 300 million years) the concentrations of C-14 have dropped significantly. The correction curves also show that there have been times when the C-14 concentrations have dropped before (although I do not think anywhere near as dramatically).

[MortMan]

I understand. Because of the business I work in, I pick up on all of those 'weasel wording" errors.

The efficacy of CO2 as a greenhouse gas is a more scientific (if less humorous) enormous issue in the cited statement.

[palmer]

Well an actual reading of 380 for that data set would represent about a 5 standard deviation event.

(data set for reference: http://cdiac.ornl.gov/ftp/trends/co2/vostok.icecore.co2) I think you missed the point. You need to look at the sampling methods (finely slicing pieces of ice and measuring the CO2 in the slice) and determine the error bars for the reading by considering the length of time that the measured sample represents. I think you will find that a sample that represents some distribution (possible Gaussian) of several centuries of actual CO2 measurements will have an error bar considerably larger than the 5 STDs you attributed to the current reading. Also bear in mind that the old the ice core, the more compression and the longer the interval that will be included into a single reading.

Unfortunately for us, the solution boils down to the argument I am having with cogitator which is: can the CO2 spike or not? If it can, how much and how comparable to today's spike which we can all pretty much agree has some anthropogenic component to it. If natural spikes occur, how much can be hidden in the poor sampling resolution.

[palmer]

if you take new charcoal and have it dated you will get a fairly ancient date because due to the burning of very old carbon deposits (many of which have been underground for over 300 million years) the concentrations of C-14 have dropped significantly.

My understanding is 1950 is the end of 14C dating because the atmospheric nuclear tests put too much 14C in the carbon cycle after that, not because there's too little from anthropogenic carbon. In any case the 13C/12C ratio has been rising since 1850 and I would believe that 14C has done the same.

[tcostell]

Actually, I said something along those lines but with less detail in a later post and I agree completely with your view. I've also been looking at the much lauded temperature data from the models and I have some basic issues with that as well.

Even a cursory look at the chart indicates that our current peak deviation from the mean is roughly the same as the trough represented by the little ice age. That would make the current temperature a tail event, but nothing to be concerned about, particularly since a closed dynamic system is so prone to overshooting the mean. (A deep trough is usually followed by a tall peak etc) If over the next hundred years or so we continue to see the temperature increase, then I would say that there might be an issue, but as it stands I'm unconvinced that we have any systemic warming whatsoever, apart from normal.

I'm even more unconvinced given your posts regarding the disposition of CO2 over time. This isn't really all they have is it?

[palmer]

Sorry, didn't see that post before I jumped on the last one. I agree and would add: watch out for the measurements of recent ice cores juxtaposed on old ones. Slicing new snow and ice yields considerably more granularity than slicing old ones. There's no doubt CO2 is rising in the peak that it is now, some component of which is man-made. Both direct readings and recent cores show this. But that does not mean that old ice core measurements can be used for a conclusion of flat CO2.

[palmer]

Correction: 13C/12C decreasing because of anthropogenic sources and 14C should be doing the same.

[megatherium]

Most appreciated! I didn't know the Maunder Minimum irradiance was so low.

And apparently the Dust Bowl was a local phenomenon; your link mentions the connection between a cool tropical Pacific and droughts.

[RightWhale]

Wasn't the Thousand Year Reich soundly defeated last century? Oh, it just moved its HQ. Nevermind.