Posted on 04/19/2007 8:34:22 AM PDT by dangus
The following is based on observations accepted by the global-warming consensus, and does not attempt to refute or even provide contradictory evidence.
Is the Earth warming?
Yes. With extremely advanced statistical techniques, scientists have been able to cut through all the background noise of weather patterns and cyclical fluctuations to detect a tiny increase in temperature over the past 100 years. To be precise, there have been two warmings in the past century, each about three decades long, and each of about one third of one degree, separated by a pause of about three decades.
These increases are by no means unprecedented. 11 of 12 attempts to recreate Holocene (modern)-era temperatures show similar rapid fluctuations repeatedly over the last twelve thousand years. (This is ignoring the black "trend line", an activist-created measure which averaged out all measurements.)
The most recent fluctuation was the “little ice age,” during which temperatures dropped about one degree centigrade.
Are sea levels rising?
Apparently. They’ve risen about 20 centimeters in the past 115 years. Notice in the chart below, however, that there is zero correlation with accelerated or decelerated global warming. They rose steadily even during the three-decade pause in global warming. On the other hand, the sort of devestation speculated about by alarmists is often based on the notion that the polar ice cap will melt (not caps; there is no polar ice cap on the North Pole.) For that to happen, the temperature of Antarctica would have to increase by 100 degrees for 10,000 years.
Why are temperatures rising?
It is very difficult to tell. It is possible, but not certain that both periods of recent warming had a common cause. That is, a common factor may have warmed the Earth steadily throughout the past decade, but a mitigating factor may have suppressed the warming for a time. Aerosol pollution (referring to microgranules, not to CFCs, which cause ozone depletion and used to be found in “aerosol hair spray”) has been shown to increase cloud cover, which reflects away the warmth of the sun. The widespread existence of such pollution corresponds with when this mitigating factor would have existed.
The following chart shows how cloud cover has decreased globally by between four and five percent between 1987 and 2001. Note that this is the time frame of the most dramatic warming in the past century.
Aerosol mitigation of global warming poses several tricky problems for the alarmists. The rate of increase in global warming correlates horribly with carbon-dioxide output. The fastest increases occur during the 1930s, when the worldwide Great Depression resulted in dramatic decreases in carbon-dioxide output, and since the late 1980s, when, industrial nations’ production of carbon-dioxide leveled off. (China has been responsible for 80 percent of the increase in CO2 production, since then.) Contrarily, during the massive and care-free industrial expansion of the 1950s and 1960s, the globe actually cooled somewhat.
Aerosol mitigation could explain the cooling of the 1950s and 1960s in a manner consistent with the alarmists’ explanation of global warming. But the removal of aerosol mitigation also explains away some of the recent increase in global temperatures. Global warming alarmists have used the supposed recent acceleration of warming to extrapolate far more rapid warming in the next century, perhaps three to ten degrees. With aerosol mitigation, the gross trend in global warming is a harmless 0.06 degrees per decade. Without aerosol mitigation, observed temperatures in no way support any model of carbon-dioxide-induced global warming.
The existence of aerosol mitigation resuscitates other causes of global warming. Scientists actually observed an increase in solar output during the first half of the century, which has not reversed since then. This would be an obvious cause of warming, but the timing is off. Aerosol mitigation explains how the effects of such an increase could be delayed.
Don’t ice cores show global temperature correlates well with carbon dioxide?
Yes, in fact they correlate quite well, recently. But correlation isn’t causation. In the past 400,000 years, there have been six spikes in global temperatures, and in each case, there has been a spike in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. If carbon dioxide was a cause of warming, one would expect temperature to follow carbon dioxide, but in each case there was a reversal in temperatures before there was a reversal in carbon dioxide levels. An increase in temperature makes the Earth’s vast oceans less soluble to carbon dioxide, so the warming probably caused the carbon dioxide, and not the other way around.
If carbon dioxide isn’t causing global warming, why isn’t it?
Chemists can easily explain how carbon dioxide could cause global warming, and even predict how much. The problem is that the Earth is an amazingly complex system. For every environmental change, there are numerous reactions that reinforce or mitigate the effects of the change. The alarmists see the Earth’s lack of response to warming factors and suppose that mitigating factors have been preventing a calamity, and, further, that we must be approaching some tipping point where the mitigating factors fail, and calamity ensues. In such complex systems, however, the opposite usually happens. The more changes stress the balance of a system, the more mitigating factors usually respond.
One obvious mitigating factor is that a warming object radiates more heat. Another mitigating factor may be a godsend. Most of plant growth over most of the earth is limited, not by a lack of fresh water, but by a lack of carbon dioxide. Plants dry out because they release their water in order to capture carbon dioxide. An increase in carbon dioxide means an increase in carbon-dioxide-consuming plants. This means that vast arid regions will become arable, and food production will skyrocket.
Don’t like it so hot? Move north. Shipping lanes will open, and the vast expanses of Siberia and the Canadian shield, which would the most largest and most fertile farmlands in the world if not for their permafrost, will thaw.
Oh, and don’t worry about the polar bears. Yes, retreating ice cover in mid-summer will mean the bears will have trouble hunting in July and August as they currently do. But they’ll be able to hunt in May, June, September and October. That’s right: their hunting seasons will increase, not decrease. Those skinny bears you’ve seen? They’re a result of overpopulation. It seems that polar bears like to make love around oil pipelines. I’m not kidding!
BFL
I love how some of these plots exaggerate to the eye the present C02 level. Yes 375 PPM, but it has been 300 PPM in the past few hundred thousand years. So were only 75 PPM more then then past max CO2 level in the last few hundred thousand years.
Big deal huh? Run for the hills. Jeez.
BUMP!
That paticular chart is too small to read the text, in my browser in any case.
I’m particularly interested in last chart, the one showing the CO2 and temperature variation with time. It does seem clear that temperature change does lead CO2 change. If we had a link to the original data, some smart statistical whizkid, of the kind that is found in abundance in the wilds of FR, he/she could surely run some meaningful calculations.
For example, can anyone provide the mean and standard deviation of the time lag between temperature and CO2 change? That would be the ticket.
What if, with all the “sequestration” of carbon dioxide, we have a huge die-back of vegetation in this planet? Have the “Greenies” thought this all the way through yet?
Or do they have to have a NEW set of “problems” when the current “global warming” problem recedes in importance?
Err....I have always been under the impression that the Artic’s free-floating polar ice is still considered an ice cap, just not an ice cap made of a solid sheet of ice or other frozen material as in the Antarctic and on Mars.
Maybe we could get them to drop the carbon tax in place of funding time travel so they could send someone back 800 years to change the weather.
You can’t trust anything in wiki on a subject that anyone has a difference on.
Within 100 years, the contraction of the land will become so severe that the sphere of the Earth will become imbalanced. The Earth will affect a wobble that will alter its axial tilt and wreak havoc with the seasons. Within 500 years the Earth's orbit will begin to degrade so that the planetary plane will shift into the path of an asteroid belt.
With the resulting bombardment of so much additional mass, the Earth's altered orbit will become ever more pronounced. Within 1,000 years, the Earth will shear away from the Sun and go hurtling through space. Without the warmth of the Sun, all life on the Earth will die.
Or not.
;-)
Please read point #5 in my profile. The above brief statement is incorrect.
Me too, but for the purposes of ocean levels, when you melt floating ice it does absolutely *nothing* to the level of the water it floats in. It melts precisely into the space it occupied below the waterline before it melted.
I read that point and found it utterly unconvincing. I did find it interesting that in your entire page there is only *one* passing mention of water vapor, the *dominant* greenhouse gas.
Let me guess - we have about ten years to fix it?
I have explained it as best possible in a short space. What points leave you unconvinced?
Regarding water vapor, temperature increase caused by higher atmospheric CO2 concentrations induces increased relative humidity, which also increases global temperature. This is called the "positive water vapor feedback effect". I will add this to the explanation. Thanks for noting this omission.
If your "tipping point" arugment, which is what it really is, were true and was the cause of the temprature rise, then the temprature would continue to rise or at least level out at a new higher equilibrium given the amount of atmospheric CO2, until something lowered the CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere.
However, as you can plainly see in the chart below, after each temprature peak, the temprature decline preceeds the CO2 concentrations by 800-1,000 years, without exception.
To finish your analogy, it would be as if I'm still pushing my finger on the bowling ball, but it suddenly stops halfway down the hill anyway, and refuses to roll again despite my continued application of pressure from my digit. After a time, I finally give up pushing. If that is the case, was it really my finger driving the system?
What could possibly explain atmospheric CO2 concentration level decline laging, not leading, atmospheric temprature decline? Due to their thermal mass, the oceans warm and cool more gradually than the atmosphere. After atmospheric temprature drops, due to some other mechanism than CO2 concentrations, there is a lag before the oceans cool enough to accept more CO2 in solution, thus lowering atmospheric concentrations.
So, unless you have a different Vostok chart that shows atmospheric CO2 levels dropping before atmospheric temprature levels do, your whole point #5 needs a serious re-think. I see why you retired from debating the issue.
Please read point #5 in my profile. The above brief statement is incorrect.
OK I read your profile point #5. But I'm still unconvinced. Here is what I got out your #5:
1. The lag time between the warming "push" and the onset of CO2 increase is 800 years. I assume this is the statistical analysis that I was looking for.
2. (You believe) that warming causes CO2 generation and CO2 causes warming. That makes sense but, since I didn't read your whole profile, what about the effects of solar activity? Surely the SUN has a bigger impact on warming/cooling than anything that CO2 could be doing. After all isn't WATER the primary green house gas? Isn't there a lot more H2O in the atmosphere than CO2. Like way, way more? Is that accounted for?
If you don't like the last chart, here's another.
The feedback mechanisms are the same, but reversed, for glacial-interglacial transitions compared to interglacial-glacial transitions.
If your "tipping point" arugment, which is what it really is, were true and was the cause of the temprature rise, then the temprature would continue to rise or at least level out at a new higher equilibrium given the amount of atmospheric CO2, until something lowered the CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere.
What this idea misses is that the processes driving increasing (or decreasing) atmospheric CO2, once initiated in a direction, keep going. The transitions are highly dynamic -- sea level is varying, ocean circulation transport is varying, and other processes -- to cite the analogy, the climate change gathers momentum. There doesn't appear to be a significant equilibrium state.
However, as you can plainly see in the chart below, after each temprature peak, the temprature decline preceeds the CO2 concentrations by 800-1,000 years, without exception.
I make this point. Because the initial temperature change precedes the change in CO2 concentration, temperature will always lead CO2, even when CO2 is the forcing factor of temperature change.
Here's a possible visualization. Imagine a trailing race car trying to pass a leading car. The trailing car moves to the inside to try to pass. The leading car responds by moving to the inside. Even though the trailing car's move was first in time, the trace of the cars' positions on the track will always show the leading car's position ahead of the trailing car's position. The image of the attempt to pass will be two parallel tracks moving toward the inside of the track, with the leading car's track in front. Looking at the CO2 and temperature data is like looking at the cars' positions on the track.
To finish your analogy, it would be as if I'm still pushing my finger on the bowling ball, but it suddenly stops halfway down the hill anyway, and refuses to roll again despite my continued application of pressure from my digit. After a time, I finally give up pushing. If that is the case, was it really my finger driving the system?
A better picture; imagine a hollow bowling ball, with a few smaller balls of various sizes and densities inside it. As the bowling ball rolls down the hill (and it could have an uneven slope, to make this more interesting), the chaotic positions of the inner balls will make the speed of the ball vary considerably. It could even stop a moment, then jerk forward abruptly. And that's what the temperature-CO2 record looks like.
After atmospheric temprature drops, due to some other mechanism than CO2 concentrations, there is a lag before the oceans cool enough to accept more CO2 in solution, thus lowering atmospheric concentrations.
If you had read all that I wrote, it is abundantly clear that CO2 solubility in the oceans doesn't work.
So, unless you have a different Vostok chart that shows atmospheric CO2 levels dropping before atmospheric temprature levels do, your whole point #5 needs a serious re-think.
Not as far as I can tell. You haven't countered it substantively.
I see why you retired from debating the issue.
So can I.
That's about right.
That makes sense but, since I didn't read your whole profile, what about the effects of solar activity? Surely the SUN has a bigger impact on warming/cooling than anything that CO2 could be doing.
For the purposes of what drives glacial-interglacial transitions, solar activity is considered constant, and the main change to the climate system is solar insolation, due to Milankovitch cycles. For solar activity to be a factor in this process, it would have to be more variable than models of our standard Class II yellow star indicate that it is.
Your racecar analogy missed mark as well, but I understand what you were trying to say. However, you can't have your cake and eat it too. Either CO2 is powerful enough to start a temprature runaway, or it isn't. If it is, then it would be trivial for the increased atmospheric CO2 to sustain those elevated tempratures, but it clearly doesn't do so according to the Vostok data.
As for CO2 solubility in the oceans, I fail to understand what you mean by "[it] doesn't work." The relationship between ocean CO2 solution saturation levels vs. temperature are, I thought, indisputed. Am I incorrect?
This is the UPDATED chart.
Looks familiar somehow.
And your point is?
So sun spot activity doesn't count? I don't believe it.
I thought there were very strong correlations between solar flare activity and global temperature change. What about that?
Excellent question, sir. (Note that the solar insolation is what tips the balance; CO2 is the "gravity" that forces the system.) In essence (and this is in my reference set), there are a number of carbon reservoirs, both terrestrial and land. The oceanic reservoir is more volatile. In the transitions, the reservoirs are either giving up a lot of CO2 (warming) or absorbing a lot (cooling). There's a limit to the amount that can be released or absorbed -- when that limit is reached, the transition process is done.
Note that this is not gas solubility! It's uptake by the system, increasing the carbon content of seawater. (To get the full picture it'd be better to read a chemical oceanography textbook than to try and get it from me.)
Either CO2 is powerful enough to start a temprature runaway, or it isn't. If it is, then it would be trivial for the increased atmospheric CO2 to sustain those elevated tempratures, but it clearly doesn't do so according to the Vostok data.
Not sure of your point here. Increasing atmospheric CO2 is going to force the system toward warmer temperatures.
As for CO2 solubility in the oceans, I fail to understand what you mean by "[it] doesn't work." The relationship between ocean CO2 solution saturation levels vs. temperature are, I thought, indisputed. Am I incorrect?
The change in CO2 solubility caused by actual warming or cooling of oceanic waters is very, very insufficient to explain the full range of atmospheric CO2 variation between glacials and interglacials. I try to explain this briefly; reference 8 explains it early in the paper (I tried to summarize what that said).
A sustained reduction in sunspot numbers does appear to indicate a decline in solar activity, like the Maunder Minimum, and this would have a climate effect. (Seems to me there has always been "normal" or "lower than normal" sunspot numbers. I don't know if I want to see what happens with "higher than normal" sunspot numbers!
I thought there were very strong correlations between solar flare activity and global temperature change. What about that?
Solar flares are short-lived explosions. They don't last long enough to affect climate. Did you really mean solar flares?
I suppose what I meant was solar flare activity. It's not the duration of a solar flare but the number of them in a given period. Google it. You will find references.
"Either CO2 is powerful enough to start a temperature runaway, or it isn't. If it is, then it would be trivial for the increased atmospheric CO2 to sustain those elevated temperatures, but it clearly doesn't do so according to the Vostok data."
Not sure of your point here. Increasing atmospheric CO2 is going to force the system toward warmer temperatures.
That is the nub of the entire argument, isn't it? It has been hypothesized that CO2 can cause temperatures to rise, man is adding unprecedented amounts of CO2 to the atmosphere, ergo the temperature rise we are currently experiencing is caused by anthropologic CO2. The proof of the hypothesis is the Vostok ice core data, and the correlation of atmospheric CO2 concentrations and atmospheric temperature.
The counter argument is that the Vostok ice cores show that atmospheric CO2 is the result of atmospheric temperature rise due to some other cause, not the initiator, and I add sustainer, of the temperature rise.
Again, you cannot have it both ways. If CO2 is shown by the Vostok ice core data to be such a strong greenhouse gas that it drove past temperature swings, it should have sustained those temperatures.
You argue that CO2 is enough of a greenhouse gas that it can start a chain reaction that leads to increased atmospheric temperatures, but is so weak that even when present in massive quantities in the atmosphere, cannot sustain those temperatures. Yet those same massive quantities are the root cause of our contemporary temperature experience.
What in fact you are saying is that CO2 was not the driving factor in the past, but it is today. A circular argument.
The final nail is that even if it is granted that all of the theory the IPCC puts forth in the projected temperature increase due to anthropologic CO2, the Kyoto Protocol does so little that the economic harm far outweighs any potential global warming mitigation.
Well, without chasing down every point, it reads like most of the alarmist propaganda I see. By that I mean it takes whatever facts are out there and crams them into the alarmist argument one way or another, no matter how convoluted the logic has to get.
I'm not a scientist, and thus not particulary qualified to critique the more technical points. I come at this from a perspective that says, "Let's step back and look at this with just a bit of common sense." I hear the alarmist crowd predicting calamity, when I'm convinced that warming the planet would, on balance, be a very positive thing (what makes today's temperatures some kind of utopia?). I take a flight on an airplane and see just how little of the earth we've managed to cover; it's really still mostly a bunch of wide open land out there. The earth is a *very* big place, and I'm just convinced we're not big enough, or powerful enough, to affect climate on a global scale.
I think that if people step back and get their heads out of the minutae and just *think*, they'll realize that the whole idea is a bit preposterous. Even when I do start looking at more detailed stuff, I see things like the percentage of the atmosphere made of carbon dioxide and the percentage of that number which is due to human contribution, and the idea that such a miniscule amount could cause some kind of catastrophe is, again, rather preposterous. I guess I just can't get myself to take the whole idea seriously because common sense tells me it's a big joke.
No, that is not proof. The radiative absorption physics of atmospheric CO2 is the foundation of the theory. The effect of CO2 on climate is supporting evidence.
You argue that CO2 is enough of a greenhouse gas that it can start a chain reaction that leads to increased atmospheric temperatures, but is so weak that even when present in massive quantities in the atmosphere, cannot sustain those temperatures. Yet those same massive quantities are the root cause of our contemporary temperature experience.
Unclear, but I'll try to respond. CO2 is the ultimate global thermostat. Its concentration in the atmosphere "sets" global temperatures*; changing CO2 in the atmosphere alters global temperatures. *Water vapor is as important or more important in maintaining global temperatures, but because it responds to the global temperature "setting", it does not "set" them.
What in fact you are saying is that CO2 was not the driving factor in the past, but it is today. A circular argument.
It was the driving factor in the past (but not the initiating factor) for glacial-interglacial cycles. Increasing atmospheric CO2 now will also cause an increase in global temperatures.
The final nail is that even if it is granted that all of the theory the IPCC puts forth in the projected temperature increase due to anthropologic CO2, the Kyoto Protocol does so little that the economic harm far outweighs any potential global warming mitigation.
I don't support the Kyoto Protocol.
If that's the case, what I wrote and what I might write will probably not influence you. If you want to take it seriously, and if you want to know the real facts, you have to make an intellectual commitment to the effort.
I have endeavored to present what the scientific community has stated as "their" understanding of these issues.
But I will tell you with certainty that your common sense on this issue is wrong. It is a serious issue. Perhaps not the most pressing issue right at the moment, but nonetheless serious and current.
I don't know how these were calculated, but I've heard it claimed that surface temperature readings tend to be skewed upward by the heat island effect if measured from the ground (were these based on ground measurements?)
Allowing for some skewing upward of the red line toward the right hand, the graph suggests that the blue line is a leading indicator of the red line. If so one might expect that the red line will start to go down soon.
This is hardly proof that CO2 doesn't signifigantly drive tempeture. It just means that we are causing the medevial warm period today.
The little ice age that follows will no doubt be due to humankind finding alternatives to this evil gas in the future.
Ah, but you are not distinguishing between good old natural CO2 which makes plants grow and man-made CO2...which makes plants grow perhaps...but must be doing something evil and subversive as well.
But that is the whole point regarding global warming theory - the physics. We already know the absorption frequencies (in the EM spectrum) for CO2 are very, very, very small. And most of the frequencies are already fully taken up by H2O.
To adequately figure out the the gobal warming impact of CO2, you need to understand how molecule xXx100001001 at 100 metres above ground absorbs IR radiation at the limited frequencies that CO2 absorbs. Then you need to calculate how that increased absorption effects the H2O molecule yYy100010001011 next to it and how the N2 molecule nNnnn1010010010 next to it is affected. You need to calculate the effect for every molecule in the atmosphere from next to the ground all the way up to 100 KMs in the atmosphere.
It cannot be done. climate scientists can build theoritical models (CGMs) which simulate how all the interactions might work but it cannot be done accurately.
Satellites can measure IR absorption from the atmosphere and see how this is changing but the satellites just show random noise.
the global warming models are just built on assumptions of the scientists involved (many of which might be considered emminent). But it is ALL BASED ON COMPUTER PROGRAMS.
It would be nice if the physics were worked out BUT THEY ARE NOT. It is just a computer program.
It contains an insignificant amount of ice, compared to Antarctica, and it’s already floating, so it doesn’t matter if it melts. “Ice cap” isn’t a technical term.
>> You can’t trust anything in wiki on a subject that anyone has a difference on. <<
I’m not trusting Wikipedia; I’m using it as an example of the sort of data presented by the alleged consensus.
I understand that, but the fact is that it may have been just inserted by one man, rather than a “consensus”. However, I don’t dispute your main point.
>> I understand that, but the fact is that it may have been just inserted by one man, rather than a “consensus”. <<
Not really... Not on a hot topic like this. People change and correct stuff that they see which is not typical of mainstream scholarship, if the topic is hot enough that people see. THese pages have been stable a good, long time. And I’ve read other, more scientific papers which these represent.
>> Please read point #5 in my profile. The above brief statement is incorrect <<
Unlike some people, who I’ve presumed misread the graphs, I am not claiming temperature increases preceded increases in C02 concentrations. Even if I expected it WOULD, I would expect that the small gap to be completely obscured by significance in geological time scales. My point is that the temperature decreases completely independent of C02, which, for whatever reason, eventually follows at very varying lags and degrees.
The Carbon Dioxide Greenhouse Effect (plenty of references)
Satellites can measure IR absorption from the atmosphere and see how this is changing but the satellites just show random noise.
When Milankovitch forcing initiates a transition from interglacial conditions to glacial conditions, the feedback processes in the climate system cause CO2 to decline, augmenting the temperature decrease toward glacial conditions.
What the Milankovitch cycles demonstrate is how C02 is an effect of, not a cause of, glacial temperature swings, which is clearly the implication of those who point out the ice core charts. The fact that there is some feedback occuring during the temperature decline is not surprising, but the case that it is predominant is very poorly made, because there are whipsaws in temperature along a typical decline that don’t seem to have any effect at all on C02, and which would seem to break and feedback pattern.
The point is that environmental alarmists have seized apon a chemical property, which, given an otherwise stable system and simple, indicate that an increase in C02 generates an increase in heat. The problem is that the Earth is not a simple system.
The Earth is heating, although not at all in a manner consistent with CO-2 induced warming. CO2 is increasing. WHo warmed the climate is beginning to look like “Murder on the Orient Express”: There are too many suspects.
If the same reverse engineering of models that is done to CO2 were done to any other proposed set of mechanisms, far better models could be created. But CO2 “devangelists” quickly and prematurely dismiss any other model but their own.
Case in point: your uproarious misreporting of warming taking place on other planets. You’ve inserted several straw men, micharacterized other reports, and got lost in the forest for the trees. Even if for each instance you could provide a plausible explanation for why warming might occur, trying to assert such an explanation on each case misses the point: It is an unbelievable coincidence that each rocky planet is experiencing warming.
Disprovals of the solar activity model are trying to put to fine a point on the theory. ALthough their motivation is plainly a response to skeptics’ production of charts showing a high correlation, trying to refute some bad science with more bad science is fruitless, especially when there is some good science underlying the first bad science:
What we do know is that the Sun has long-term weather, and that sunspots are one manifestation of that weather. We know the sun’s luminosity changes. The effect on the Earth would seem to be obvious, and considerably more dramatic than greenhouse gasses. The fact that the most recent sunspot cycle was longer than one would have infered from a correlation between temperature and sunspot cycles isn’t terribly important, and that’s all cogitator’s graph actually shows. It’s like saying that “hurricanes happen in the late summer and early fall, which precedes cold weather in the winter. We missed a hurricane season last year, so this strange cool spell we’ve had since January obviously can’t be winter.”
IOW, Cogitator, your chart dismisses a straw man argument that sunspot cycles are the CAUSE of global warming. That’s not the argument.
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