BTW, how many hurricanes were there in Omaha in 1934?
Ray Ladburysays
Ljubisa Cvetkovic asks:
“I found that total emissions of CO2 in 2006 were 1.5% of the total content of CO2 in the atmosphere. If that level of increase remained the same (1.5% of the previous level), we would get to doubling in 48 years. That’s 2045. By then, solar and wind (and other alternatives) will already dominate our economy. So, we’re in no danger of runaway warming. Am I right with this simple analysis?”
Nope. I see several errors. First, you are making the same mistake as Arhenius by assuming CO2 emissions are constant. Energy use increases exponentially and so do carbon emissions when the majority of that energy comes from fossil fuels. Second, where I am, it is almost 2010, but even if you are taking 2006 as your baseline, 48 years puts us at 2054. Third, where are you getting that we will be producing the majority of our energy by 2045 or even 2054? Achieving this goal would take a concerted effort that would need to begin NOW. Finally, you are assuming that a single doubling of CO2 would not be harmful. This would put us at 2.7x pre-industrial levels and a bit over 4 degrees warmer. That is likely very near some major tipping points and would result in some very serious consequences.
Ljubisa continues: “The forcing comes from increasing the CO2 content, not from the content itself (do I understand this correctly?). But at some time in the future (my guess is around 2035, 2045 latest) we will reverse this trend and emissions will fall so low that the CO2 content will start to decrease. Are we going to experience cooling then (maybe delayed, but still cooling)?”
No, forcing is the energy the component adds to the system, and so for CO2, it increases logarithmically with concentration. The best guess is that if we double CO2 we add 3 degrees per doubling, so if we halved CO2 content (not the increase, the content), we’d drop 3 degrees on average.
The “START HERE” has several introductory treatments of the greenhouse effect. I recommend them.
Edward Greischsays
775 Andrew Hobbs: “Power to Save the World; The Truth About Nuclear
Energy” by Gwyneth Cravens, 2007 Finally a truthful book about nuclear
power.
Page 70: Natural background radiation where the author happens
to be at the time is higher than what people living at Chernobyl are
getting. The US national average background radiation is 360
millirems/year.
Page 71: The natural background radiation in northeastern
Washington state is 1700 millirem/year.
The natural background radiation on the Zuni uplift is 500 to 700
millirem/year.
The natural background radiation in New Mexico is greater than the
calculated dose from the Three Mile Island meltdown, if you were
next to the reactor.
A chest x-ray gives you 10 millirem.
Page 72: The natural background radiation inside Grand Central
Station is 600 millirem/year because Grand Central Station is made
of granite. [ALL rocks are radioactive.]
The allowed exposure to the public from a nuclear power plant is
15 millirem/year.
A set of dental X-rays gives you 39 millirem.
Page 74: Smoking a pack and a half of cigarettes a day gives your
bronchial airways 1300 millirems/year according to the NCRP OR
8000 millirems/year according to the National Academy of
Sciences.
Page 75: A coal fired power plant gives you 100 to 400 times as
much radiation as a nuclear power plant. Worldwide, an average
person gets 0.01 millirem/year from nuclear power plants, the same
as eating one banana. Bananas contain potassium and some of the
potassium is radioactive potassium 40. This has always been the
case.
Page 76: The cancer rate in New Mexico is much lower than the
national average but the natural background radiation is much
higher than average. The highest rates of cancer are around heavy
industry, chemical factories and petrochemical factories. [Benzene,
a petroleum distillate, is a very powerful carcinogen.]
Page 77: Natural gas contains radon, a radioactive gas.
Page 86: Among 80000 nuclear bomb survivors from Hiroshima and
Nagasaki, the cancer rate was only 6% higher than expected.
Radiation is very weak at causing cancer.
Page 90: At Chernobyl, only 13 to 30% of the reactor’s 190 metric
tons of fuel evaporated. .13X190=24.7 tons.
.3X190=57 tons. [Much lower than the previous estimate of 200
tons, and trivial to what coal fired power plants give you.]
Page 98: There is a table of millirems per year from the
background in a list of inhabited places.
Chernobyl: 490 millirem/year
Guarapari, Brazil: 3700 millirem/year
Tamil Nadu, India: 5300 millirem/year
Ramsar, Iran: 8900 to 13200 millirem/year
Zero excess cancer deaths are recorded. All are natural except for
Chernobyl.
Page 99: There was an epidemic of PSYCHOSOMATIC illnesses
caused by the Chernobyl accident.
Page 100: Only 50 deaths can be directly attributed to radiation at
Chernobyl.
Bobsays
RE #903: Wow. How quickly a discussion of whether or not nuclear energy is a viable alternative to CO2 byproduct energy sources turned into a mirror image of the warmer/denier AGW debate.
Edward, your comments are somewhat disingenuous. Claiming only 50 deaths due to the accident (“directly attributed”) is obviously dodging the point. Clearly there are many cases of ailments and birth defects that resulted from the accident, and premature deaths as a direct result. But of course, just as it is difficult to measure a global temperature and then to directly attribute it to CO2, it is also difficult to measure actual deaths and unequivocally attribute them to the Chernobyl accident. Pretending that a nuclear accident will have less impact than a bus crash is downright silly. And you make no mention of the economic and social impacts of the need to evacuate an entire city and surrounding countryside for decades, loss of food production, etc. In addition… okay, that’s one Chernobyl. If the entire world switches to use a lot of nuclear power for a millennium, how many cumulative Chernobyl’s can the planet withstand?
Clearly, the dangers of nuclear accidents are an important issue, as are the problems of the handling of nuclear waste, where plants would be sited, and other issues. This is particularly troublesome because while some developed countries will have a political system and economic strength that maintains a reasonable level of safety and fairness… we’re talking about global, not local, solutions, so there will ultimately be any number of countries that have weaker safety precautions, socially unjust decisions, and the like… not to mention issues of nuclear weapon proliferation that may inevitably result from the sharing of and direct contact with the related technologies.
Now, in the long run, the judicious use of nuclear energy, to whatever degree is collectively deemed necessary and reasonable, is obviously better than global environmental catastrophe as a result of continuing to burn fossil fuels… but can we argue it like people trying to work together and achieve a common, best solution, rather than people who have made up our minds, and want to score points by creating convoluted half-truth arguments that the other side must cleverly deconstruct in order to refute?
Ray Ladburysays
I may regret this, but I do hereby give Gavin permission to give Simon Abingdon my email if he wants to keep trying to understand this. I’ll try to be nice.
Jiminmplssays
#903 Ed
So, are you saying that we don’t have to worry about the 4,408,000 lbs of highly reactive waste generated by civilian nuclear power plants every year? We can just dump it in the rivers??
Wow, that changes everything! Go nukes!
dhogazasays
I just read about yet another televison program, this one with WWF wrestler Jesse Ventura “exposing” the climate change “conspiracy”. Up till now I kind of respected JV. I guess he’s has to make a living some way though.
Jesse is a libertarian. Libertarian philosophy is incompatible with the kind of global, cooperative action needed to reduce CO2 emissions. Libertarians confronted with the reality of global warming are faced with some bleak choices:
1. Accept the science, refuse to dump the philosophy, head explodes.
2. Accept the science, dump the philosophy, very hard to do.
3. Keep one’s libertarian philosophy intact, reject the science, requires no great personal change.
I think it’s easy to see why #3 is chosen by so many of them. It’s the path of least resistance.
dhogazasays
A personal plea to the moderators – can the nuke discussion be nuked? It never goes anywhere and as usual, is starting to dominated the thread.
Spaceman Spiffsays
Matthew@ 854 says:
“That is not the only solar cycle. The upcoming cycle is predicted to have a lower peak than the now-ending cycle, based on analyses of the other cycles.”
Read what I wrote and what you quoted again. I said that there are variations in the 11 year cycle, and in a separate post I have noted the long term solar variations on top. However, we haven’t a working model for any of it except a crude version of a generic 11-yr/22-yr sunspot/magnetic cycle, and even in this case I don’t believe the results are ab initio (although this is not my field, and I’d have to go read the more recent literature).
So if you’re waiting for an understanding of the various solar variations before deciding whether or not to act on Earth’s climate….well, let’s just say that “better late than never” won’t cut it.
simon abingdonsays
#892 Gavin’s response “You win the prize for uneducatability”.
Gavin, you don’t normally have recourse to gratuitous rudeness, particularly on an open thread.
Why should you be unhappy about a discussion of the stark climatological differences between day and nighttime conditions? Do you have concerns about the GCMs in this respect?
Andrew Hobbssays
#903 Edward Greisch
All of which are irrelevant.
There are any number of books on the pros and cons of Nuclear Power, most of which I suspect are rather partisan, one way or another. However I rather think the International Atomic Energy Agency is likely to know what they are talking about, though again I suspect that they are possibly rather more pro than con.
Even they, in their own publication, give the figures that I cited, which include that Chernobyl has been responsible for at least 5000 thyroid cancers and possibly an equal number of other types of cancers.
However since I am not an expert on radiation induced cancers or even epidemiology in general, I don’t think it is worthwhile continuing the discussion, especially as it is O/T.
[Response: No more nuclear please. – gavin]
caerbannogsays
Norman (#864)
One question I have. Do any have valid evidence that the weather has become more extreme in the last couple of decades? So far my research has not indicated such. I believe there may be more large fires but this might be do to human interference by putting out small fires and leaving lots of fuel until a huge firestorm takes place.
Here, we show that large wildfire activity increased suddenly and markedly in the mid-1980s, with higher large-wildfire frequency, longer wildfire durations, and longer wildfire seasons. The greatest increases occurred in mid-elevation, Northern Rockies forests, where land-use histories have relatively little effect on fire risks and are strongly associated with increased spring and summer temperatures and an earlier spring snowmelt.
Jaime Fronterosays
#890 –
…by Edward Greisch:
“779 Jaime Frontero: We already HAVE one 4th generation reactor in operation. It is NOT future technology or theory. It is available NOW.”
You aren’t by any chance referring to Argonne’s IFR?
I’m afraid I must plead ignorance about the currently available Generation IV technology you mention, and request a link.
Thank you.
Jaime Fronterosays
Gavin –
Ooops. My apologies. I posted my request of Mr. Greisch (#890), and upon refresh noticed your: “[Response: No more nuclear please. – gavin]” in #911.
It’s your blog – as you prefer.
I will note though, that full discussions of AGW must reasonably include mitigation strategies – if only for practice (which is really what these forums are, no? Practice.).
Florifulguratorsays
I’d like to see more on serious (not techno fancy) “biophysical geoengineering”, i.e. biochar and reforestation (is there anything else?).
E.g. what about creating a subsaharan carbon sequestration machine, consisting of a desalination plant feeding water to a huge forest and then charring the biomass.
Lynn Vincentnathansays
We need more discussion about Copenhagen from a social science point of view, especially the economic/political/globalization dynamics. We need to get to the real climate forcings behind the climate forcings.
At first I assumed it was the rich nations that blocked the deal, but now understand it was mainly China, not that the U.S. was committed to unilaterally reducing its GHG emission by 50% below 1990 levels by 2020 (and we could have already been there today, if people had had true life-support & economic interests at heart). I even blogged defending China, saying that per capita its GHGs are much lower than the U.S.’s, that a lot (about 20%) of China’s GHGs are actually the U.S.’s, since they are emitted in supplying us with products. And the U.S. demands at Copenhagen on China were unfair. Etc, etc. And I’m sure a wee bit of all that are factors in the failure.
Why? It only took me 1 minute to understand. There’s something beyond our national boundaries (aside from the U.N.) — it’s economic globalization, the rule of the multinationals that are beyond the laws of nations, that are oriented around one principle only — make profits (unlike governments that ostentively are there to serve & protect the people (ho-ho-ho)). In fact if corporations are not so oriented toward short-term profits they can be sued for fiduciary irresponsibility. We love them so much in America that we’ve given them all the rights that human beings have, even though, unlike humans they don’t die (perhaps only metaphorically); in fact if they totally pollute some community and get their metaphorical butts sued to smitherines, they can even dissolve and reincorporate under some other name (finagling their assets so as to avoid much loss) — I guess that’s sort of corporation resurrection heaven on earth.
So in a way they are like voracious monsters eating up resources and emitting all sorts of pollution as excrement.
I’ve seen a couple of documentaries about China, one about the extreme pollution and cancer towns; the other about the sweatshops and horrible working conditions, so we can have mountains of cheap throwaway trinkets here in the rich countries. Well, if China (that is the multinational corporations that actually run China, as they do many nations on earth — think “U.S.” — if you don’t believe me, look at campaign and media financing). Well, if China Inc can write off its own people (not totally write off, but perceptively by perceptive people, along the lines of the U.S. writing off the Rio Grande Valley, or New Orleans, or the various minorities and poor communities), well I’ll leave the rest to your imagination.
Ron R.says
dhogaza #907, I didn’t know that JV was a Libertarian. Libertarians, like those at the Cato Institute, tend to be anti-anything-enviromental (always, AFAIK, siding with Big Business in such cases) and anti-people (defending the tobacco industry for instance). Even more so than Repubs. Ron Paul would have been an environmental train wreck as President. IMO.
Edward Greischsays
906 Jiminmpls: No, that isn’t what I said.
Jiminmplssays
Norman (#864)
One question I have. Do any have valid evidence that the weather has become more extreme in the last couple of decades?
Yes! Dramatic increases in the frequency of Cat 4 and 5 hurricanes. Multiple “100 year” floods, storms and droughts in multiple locations throughout the world. Record heat waves in multiple locations throughout the world. If you can’t find the evidence, you aren’t looking.
As a non-technical lay person, what impresses (and alarms) me most is that even though the warming *appears* to have slowed ever so slightly over the past decade, the EFFECTS of the warming are occuring MUCH sooner than anyone predicted.
Also, all of the natural forcings (solar activity, cosmic rays, ocean currents, etc.) that denialists claim are responsible for the warming have been in pronounced cold cycles for the past decade. If they were right, we’d be experiencing record cold temps right now, but global temps are still more than .5F warmer than the 20th C average. 2008 was the coldest year of the decade, but would still rank among the warmest years of the 1990’s and would be the warmest in the 1980’s. Why is that? What’s going to happen ten years from now when we are entering another solar maximum? What’s going to happen when we next have a strong El Nino current?
Blair Dowdensays
Timothy (from 874: I think we have nearly exhausted both of our understanding of the science. I would add that in addition to the 12 W/m2 deficit from a 6% lower solar constant being compensated for by 3 doublings of CO2, a 1% change (out of 100%) in albedo results in a 3.4 W/m2 change in forcing, so a 4% change in albedo also compensates, and snowball earth is about massive albedo change. The discussion on cap carbonates is found in the review I linked to before, under the section “The Acid Test”.
You are correct that my questioning is often directed at what I consider high end interpretations of climate change, but also simply at gaps in my understanding. Of course, there is a lot of commentary here that greatly understates or outright denies any reality of climate change. The reason I do not usually respond is because this is a fast moving forum, and by the time I see such a comment it has already been responded to, often by people more informed than I. (Again, though, I urge these people to restrain their hostility – remember you are really writing for the many potentially fair minded people who come here to read and do not comment.)
I try to raise issues that no one else is covering, rather than pile on. After about 200 posts nobody questioned the runaway greenhouse assertion, so I did. I promise, I will not use the forbidden “A” word again. I am not out to polarize. Let me add that I am totally outraged at the possibility of death threats against Hansen. I supposes those same people say they are against terrorism. But this does not put Hansen above legitimate scientific criticism, which I have tried to do.
Let me return to Al Gore, another hot button topic I foolishly raised. Let me make clear that I agree with the magnitude of the sea level rise he is talking about. But when stated with no time frame, people assume it is in the time frames they are used to, ie. in their lifetime. This sets him up to be easily “debunked” by statements about how much sea level rise is expected this century. Usually these statements quote the IPCC 2007 report, without mentioning that ice shelf melt was excluded from the estimate.
The largest consequences of climate change are far outside time frame that people are used to. Most of Florida may well be submerged, but that will take hundreds of years by anyone’s estimates. How do you present such an issue to the public, when they do not have any real idea about what uncertainty really means? Uncertainty = doubt = forget it. But I think it is important to always be as accurate as possible. Leave the lies to the denialist fringe.
Edward Greischsays
http://www.ornl.gov/ORNLReview/rev26-34/text/coalmain.html
says:
“Based on the predicted combustion of 2516 million tons of coal in the United States and 12,580 million tons worldwide during the year 2040, cumulative releases for the 100 years of coal combustion following 1937 are predicted to be:
U.S. release (from combustion of 111,716 million tons [of coal]):
Uranium: 145,230 tons (containing 1031 tons of uranium-235)
Thorium: 357,491 tons
Worldwide release (from combustion of 637,409 million tons [of coal]):
Uranium: 828,632 tons (containing 5883 tons of uranium-235)
Thorium: 2,039,709 tons”
Sorry, Gavin.
simon abingdonsays
#897 BPL
“I’m waiting for him to say it violates the second law of thermodynamics for clouds to warm the ground”.
Here I go Bart. At night it would violate the second law of thermodynamics for clouds to warm the ground. (No sun to provide a source of energy).
[Response: Ha! Are we playing a Turing game here? – gavin]
Radge Haverssays
China is playing a very dangerous game of brinkmanship with the planet. They aren’t alone of course. There’s India, corporations, and many lesser players, but China plays big and plays hard, and they plan long into the future compared with the relatively short term thinking in the west. We’re lucky if we can even discuss things a trifling century out. I fear they are all too willing to be the rulers of a crippled planet.
Steve W from Fordsays
Since the existence of the “Medieval Warm Period” as well as “the Little Ice Age” are equivalent to daggers to the heart of the theory of AGW, it would be useful for you to sponsor an open discussion and forum on whether these two climate periods existed or not. Invite, allow and encourage discussion by both sides of this matter to present and discuss the evidence they believe bolsters their position.
This would go a long way towards increasing your own credibility as well as, if the evidence is as overwhelming as you claim, that of AGW.
[Response: People can discuss all they like – but it has nothing to do with the radiative impact of increasing CO2 levels. I appreciate that you are not alone in thinking that climate variations over the last couple of thousand years are vitally important, but really, they’re not. Read the attribution chapter in AR4. – gavin]
Ron R.says
Per my last comment: I remember my father, who was pretty conservative having been raised as a Mormon, telling me as a child that one has to ‘respect the planet you live on, anything else is ultimately self destructive’. That’s the way conservatives used to believe.
Then came Reagan and Watt and Gingrinch and Rush and Bush and CATO and CEI and AEI and the Heartland Institute and, and, and…
And suddenly you were an “environmental whacko” or a commie if you actually had any concern about this planet we live on and its other species right to survive. If you saw the earth as more than just a giant Walmart of resources to be ripped out as fast as humanly possible for the ultimate financial benefit of a relatively few already obcenely rich people at the expense of a future.
Now they sound like Ron Arnold, busy spreading their anti-environmental bile far and wide. It’s no wonder then that so many have such disdain for climate science.
“…but can we argue it like people trying to work together and achieve a common, best solution, rather than people who have made up our minds, and want to score points by creating convoluted half-truth arguments that the other side must cleverly deconstruct in order to refute?”
——————
Well, I suppose that there is always a first time for everything.
To close the fourth generation nuclear discussion, Barry Brook’s Brave New Climate is dedicated to this issue. They would appreciate the discussion over there.
walter crainsays
hi guys, sorry to interrupt…
don’t know if you remember me. i’m walter, they guy truing to get gavin to start PROJECT JIM.
during the recent snow storm in washington dc, i went to the local weather blog to follow the storm. sure enough, there were comments from people using the strom as an opportunity to mock global warming scince and scientists. also, after the storm, i got an email from a friend asking my “opinion” on global warming. (i sent him here, and i think he’s a “believer” now.) my point is that all the excellently-executed denialist propoganda had WORKED on him. he truly didn’t know the extent of the scientific consensus.
the recent CRU email flap provides scientists with a great opportunity to let the public really know what they think about global warming. average joes out there truly think scientists were (are) hiding something. a giant list of “jims” would go a long way towards demonstrating the consensus. so once again, please, PROJECT JIM.
A bit late, but the term runaway greenhouse is being misused. It was invented to describe the situation on Venus, where all greenhouse gases reservoirs were “cooked” out. That means that all liquid water on the surface and water in hydrates were boiled away and could not recondense as well as the heat liberating CO2 from carbonate rocks on the surface. This is a much more extreme scenario than could happen on the Earth, if for no other reason that the Earth is a bit further away from the sun, and the intensity of the solar radiation that bit lower.
What could at least in theory happen here is that pushing enough CO2 and methane into the atmosphere could raise the greenhouse gas level high enough to push the average temperature up by 10-20 C (4-6x doubling) in the most extreme scenarios. That makes large portions of the Earth uninhabitable for humans, megafauna and all but the simplest plants and animals. Yes Virginia, there are positive feedbacks, but there are also system imposed limits.
There is a reason why they test kids in in Switzerland, to see if they have enough smarts to go to university or they should go into trade school.
You just don’t have what it takes to get into university on this subject.
Pick a trade, maybe basket weaving; or better yet, go into television. There you can confuse the hell out of everyone and get paid for saying spinning reality in circles.
As to GCM’s, generally speaking: No they are not perfect, yes they give us a good idea of how the major parts of the climate system are functioning, no they will never be perfect, yes they will be improved, no they will never be perfect, yes scientists are working on improving them, no they will never be perfect.
Ray Ladburysays
Simon, at the risk of incurring Gavin’s wrath (and feel free to can this if it’s too far astray, Gavin), on a planet with an atmosphere, you cannot consider the day-side and the night-side in isolation. 1)Planets rotate, and 2)even in the absence of rotation, the atmosphere would convect heat from the warm side to the cold one. For this reason, when we are talking about Global Temperature, we are talking about temperature averaged over the ENTIRE GLOBE–dayside and nightside.
Now, let us consider how clouds warm the surface at night. OK, the surface heats up to a certain temperature determined by the insolation during the day. Now the sun goes down.
What happens? The surface cools (loses energy) via IR radiation, right? But we know that clouds will reflect IR radiation (quite effectively), right? So the reflected IR is again incident on the cooled surface and so WARMS IT, does it not?
So, no, the clouds cannot warm the surface over its daytime temperature. Yes, they can warm the surface at night-time once it has started to cool. And yes, clouds do keep energy in the system that would otherwise radiate into the inky blackness of space. Does this not sound reasonable?
Since the existence of the “Medieval Warm Period” as well as “the Little Ice Age” are equivalent to daggers to the heart of the theory of AGW
– Climate has changed in the past, so how can it change in the future?
– Climate has changed in the past, so how can man change climate?
That’s sort of like saying because you have not died yet, you won’t die in the future. Or, mankind did not drive cars in the MWP or LIA, so how can man drive cars now?
The argument is non sequitur. One thing does not have to follow the other, and just because one thing has happened before, does not mean it can’t happen again for a different reason.
For example: A man can die from an accident. That does not mean a man can not die from a heart attack, or a disease, or old age. Men can die for different reasons… climate can change for different reasons.
I applaud your suggestion that discussions dealing with nuclear and other possible mitigation strategies should be conducted on BraveNewClimate.
I appreciate that RealClimate exists primarily to explain climate science to those hoping to be informed. However, I was surprised that Gavin wished to choke off discussion of nuclear on an open thread. I have just finished reading Dr Hansen’s book. It his unequivocal view, based mainly on climate science that, without a major role for nuclear power, mitigation strategies will probably fail to prevent tipping points being reached. It amazes me, therefore, that so many here express serious concern over global warming while expressing extreme hostility to the most likely means we have to ameliorate it. Perhaps, here, it would be possible to explain why Dr Hansen is so deluded? Is it his climate science that’s wrong – a relevant topic for this site?
Douglas Wisesays
re 927 Eli Rabett
I agree with your suggestion in viewe of Gavin’s reluctance to allow discussions of possible solutions
dhogazasays
Steve W from Ford:
Since the existence of the “Medieval Warm Period” as well as “the Little Ice Age” are equivalent to daggers to the heart of the theory of AGW
I’ve never understood the rationale behind this claim, though it is apparent you’re not along among denialists in believing it to be true.
Care to explain why you think these would be equivalent to “daggers to the heart of the theory of AGW”?
Overnight, CO2 will stop absorbing long-wave IR or what?
Jim Eagersays
Re Steve W @924 “Since the existence of the “Medieval Warm Period” as well as “the Little Ice Age” are equivalent to daggers to the heart of the theory of AGW…”
Opening with the assertion of a false premise is hardly a good strategy for being taken seriously.
First, there is no AGW theory. AGW is just a variation of the greenhouse theory. The only thing anthropogenic about AGW is how the excess carbon is getting into the atmosphere. The radiative forcing of CO2 and other greenhouse gases, and the amplifying and damping feedbacks in play today are also in play for any natural forcing, be it an increase or decrease in solar intensity or insolation, an increase or decrease in Earth’s albedo, an increase or decrease in volcanic activity, or an increase or decrease in greenhouse gas concentration, regardless of source or mechanism.
Second, never mind that there is evidence suggesting that the MWP and LIA were not in fact geographically or temporally global events, if anything, citing periods when internal natural variability and forcings caused climate to deviate from the long term cooling trend since the Holocene Climate Optimum demonstrates how sensitive Earth’s climate is to seemingly minor perturbations. In other words, the MWP and LIA are evidence for the potential of greenhouse warming or cooling, not evidence against it.
Third, you might want to look into the work of William Ruddiman, which suggests that the cause of both the MWP and the LIA may have had an anthropogenic component, namely the influence of agriculture, specifically rice production, on atmospheric greenhouse gas levels, combined with disease agents that resulted in sudden large scale reductions in human populations and the subsequent natural draw down of greenhouse gases. as agricultural lands reverted to scrub, forest and other natural vegetation.
Do any have valid evidence that the weather has become more extreme in the last couple of decades?
The NOAA has a US Climate Extremes Index and accompanying report. There is a recent paper in PNAS that primarily discusses risks, but there are a few references noted, but I don’t see a world-wide index that is similar to the NOAA index. That doesn’t mean that it does not exist, however.
Since the existence of the “Medieval Warm Period” as well as “the Little Ice Age” are equivalent to daggers to the heart of the theory of AGW, it would be useful for you to sponsor an open discussion and forum on whether these two climate periods existed or not. Invite, allow and encourage discussion by both sides of this matter to present and discuss the evidence they believe bolsters their position.
The latest research is a bit more nuanced thatwhat you state, as you can see in this recent paper. From the abstract:
The Medieval period is found to display warmth that matches or exceeds that of the past decade in some regions, but which falls well below recent levels globally. This period is marked by a tendency for La Niña–like conditions in the tropical Pacific. The coldest temperatures of the Little Ice Age are observed over the interval 1400 to 1700 C.E., with greatest cooling over the extratropical Northern Hemisphere continents.
There’s a good summary in Skeptical Science. But of course, none of this means that recent or future warming cannot be anthropogenic.
Doug Bostromsays
Douglas Wise says: 27 December 2009 at 12:04 PM
“…I was surprised that Gavin wished to choke off discussion of nuclear on an open thread.”
I’m not. The title of the blog is “Real Climate” and the topic is climate science, not “Let’s Argue Endlessly and Pointlessly About Energy Capture/Liberation Systems” and the relative merits of energy-related engineering solutions.
This site is a lot better for entertaining those arguments:
Per my last comment: I remember my father, who was pretty conservative having been raised as a Mormon, telling me as a child that one has to ‘respect the planet you live on, anything else is ultimately self destructive’. That’s the way conservatives used to believe.
Then came Reagan and Watt and Gingrinch and Rush and Bush and CATO and CEI and AEI and the Heartland Institute and, and, and… [some omitted for the same of brevity on my part]
Fortunately not all Conservatives have drunk that koolaid.
At root I would still consider myself an Objectivist — where Objectivism is what most would politically classify as a form of libertarianism. I prefer the term “classical liberal” and certainly believe it is more accurate in my case. I am essentially pro- free market. But by what Objectivists would call the “primacy of existence,” I believe that identification and the norms that guide it logically precede and are more fundamental than evaluation.
At base this is the principle that is being violated when someone engages in the informal fallacy known as an ad hominem attack. Likewise it is the principle that is violated when one regards science as simply a means to an end set by ideology, when one fails to recognize that science is far more basic.
*
Much of my belief in the free market stems from the recognition of the existence of a division of cognitive labor that it embodies and which was largely identified by Frederick A. Hayek in his formulation of the problem of economic calculation in a centrally organized and coordinated society. He argued that the attempt to substitute the judgement of a central authority, whether it be an individual or committee, for the process of economic calculation and coordination brought about by the free market was doomed to fail. The cognitive capacity of the few is no substitute for that of the many when the activity of the many is systemically organized by the division of cognitive labor brought about by the free market.
But fundamentally the same argument applies to the highly specialized division of cognitive labor that exists within the scientific community. Those who would regard it as tool in the service of ideology, its conclusions the result of a conspiracy or as biased by the disparate ideologies of the individuals who are a part of that community are making much the same mistake as those who would substitute a centralized authority for the division of cognitive labor that exists within a free market.
It has been said that, “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.” But by the primacy of identification I would argue that it is a vice. Furthermore, if someone regards himself as a marxist of one school or another yet nevertheless recognizes that science must be given precedence over ideology, then I will gladly join hands in the defense of science.
Likewise I believe that we should be willing to transcend ideological differences with respect to the practical goal of opposing the threat that climate change poses to humanity. The cold war is over — and our descendants will be living with the consequences of what we do now for a hundred thousand years to come.
simon abingdonsays
#931 Ray
“[at night] The surface cools (loses energy) via IR radiation, right? But we know that clouds will reflect IR radiation (quite effectively), right? So the reflected IR is again incident on the cooled surface and so WARMS IT, does it not?”
No Ray. Not as much as it’s already cooled. Net result cooling, not warming.
Dwightsays
Jiminmpls wrote
Also, all of the natural forcings (solar activity, cosmic rays, ocean currents, etc.) that denialists claim are responsible for the warming have been in pronounced cold cycles for the past decade. If they were right, we’d be experiencing record cold temps right now, but global temps are still more than .5F warmer than the 20th C average. 2008 was the coldest year of the decade, but would still rank among the warmest years of the 1990’s and would be the warmest in the 1980’s. Why is that? What’s going to happen ten years from now when we are entering another solar maximum? What’s going to happen when we next have a strong El Nino current?
————
Can a few people corroborate and/or provide some evidence that the natural forcings mentioned at the beginning actually have been very low (or whatever) for the past decade?
This point strikes me as tremendously important in the debate in the current climate…er…noise.
john byattsays
“The evidence for AGW is as strong as the hiv/aids link and smoking /lung cancer”
now if the evidence for AGW could be stated “as strong as the evidence for evolution” i could really get some bang for my buck .
simon abingdonsays
#930 John P. Reisman (OSS Foundation)
John, I’m a retired airline captain (12000 hours in Boeings and the Airbus). (Before that I taught mathematics). Good trade, eh?
Garry Gramssays
Some questions about AGW:
1. What is the optimum temperature for life on Earth?
2. Won’t a slightly warmer climate be beneficial for agriculture? Given that warmer air holds more moisture?
3. Wouldn’t we be better off (expend less wealth) on adaptation to a warmer climate?
4. Did Al Gore really spend $4 million Dollars of his own money on ocean-front property in Florida?
Net result less cooling due to warming, due to IR reflection downward ‘warming’ the ‘cooling’ surface.
Order of precedence. Stop putting the cart before the horse.
Ray Ladburysays
Simon, pay attention. We’re talking about the effect of the clouds here. It’s the IR radiation that cools the surface, right? And the surface winds up less cool that it would be if the clouds weren’t there, right? So since the surface is warmer when the clouds are there and radiating IR down to the ground, the net effect of the clouds must be to do what, Simon?
Brian Brademeyersays
abingdiddled — British slang term for an ongoing action of deception and misdirection, similar to being repeatedly “punk’d” in American slang usage
Florifulguratorsays
Gary Grams #945 reminds me that I’d also like to hear more on Lovelock’s Gaia theory…
re #945.2.: Warmer planet => less arable land [due to sea level rise and desertification] + less ocean life + .?.
Except for #945.1, #945.x are frivolous BS questions. wrrrrr…
#864
Norman. Dude! Your list covers the worst hurricanes that hit the US mainland.
How about looking at a list of Category 5 storms. Notice anything about the 2000’s – and 2005 and 2007 in particular?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Category_5_Atlantic_hurricanes
What about the frequency of Cat 4 storms?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Category_4_Atlantic_hurricanes
BTW, how many hurricanes were there in Omaha in 1934?
Ljubisa Cvetkovic asks:
“I found that total emissions of CO2 in 2006 were 1.5% of the total content of CO2 in the atmosphere. If that level of increase remained the same (1.5% of the previous level), we would get to doubling in 48 years. That’s 2045. By then, solar and wind (and other alternatives) will already dominate our economy. So, we’re in no danger of runaway warming. Am I right with this simple analysis?”
Nope. I see several errors. First, you are making the same mistake as Arhenius by assuming CO2 emissions are constant. Energy use increases exponentially and so do carbon emissions when the majority of that energy comes from fossil fuels. Second, where I am, it is almost 2010, but even if you are taking 2006 as your baseline, 48 years puts us at 2054. Third, where are you getting that we will be producing the majority of our energy by 2045 or even 2054? Achieving this goal would take a concerted effort that would need to begin NOW. Finally, you are assuming that a single doubling of CO2 would not be harmful. This would put us at 2.7x pre-industrial levels and a bit over 4 degrees warmer. That is likely very near some major tipping points and would result in some very serious consequences.
Ljubisa continues: “The forcing comes from increasing the CO2 content, not from the content itself (do I understand this correctly?). But at some time in the future (my guess is around 2035, 2045 latest) we will reverse this trend and emissions will fall so low that the CO2 content will start to decrease. Are we going to experience cooling then (maybe delayed, but still cooling)?”
No, forcing is the energy the component adds to the system, and so for CO2, it increases logarithmically with concentration. The best guess is that if we double CO2 we add 3 degrees per doubling, so if we halved CO2 content (not the increase, the content), we’d drop 3 degrees on average.
The “START HERE” has several introductory treatments of the greenhouse effect. I recommend them.
775 Andrew Hobbs: “Power to Save the World; The Truth About Nuclear
Energy” by Gwyneth Cravens, 2007 Finally a truthful book about nuclear
power.
Page 70: Natural background radiation where the author happens
to be at the time is higher than what people living at Chernobyl are
getting. The US national average background radiation is 360
millirems/year.
Page 71: The natural background radiation in northeastern
Washington state is 1700 millirem/year.
The natural background radiation on the Zuni uplift is 500 to 700
millirem/year.
The natural background radiation in New Mexico is greater than the
calculated dose from the Three Mile Island meltdown, if you were
next to the reactor.
A chest x-ray gives you 10 millirem.
Page 72: The natural background radiation inside Grand Central
Station is 600 millirem/year because Grand Central Station is made
of granite. [ALL rocks are radioactive.]
The allowed exposure to the public from a nuclear power plant is
15 millirem/year.
A set of dental X-rays gives you 39 millirem.
Page 74: Smoking a pack and a half of cigarettes a day gives your
bronchial airways 1300 millirems/year according to the NCRP OR
8000 millirems/year according to the National Academy of
Sciences.
Page 75: A coal fired power plant gives you 100 to 400 times as
much radiation as a nuclear power plant. Worldwide, an average
person gets 0.01 millirem/year from nuclear power plants, the same
as eating one banana. Bananas contain potassium and some of the
potassium is radioactive potassium 40. This has always been the
case.
Page 76: The cancer rate in New Mexico is much lower than the
national average but the natural background radiation is much
higher than average. The highest rates of cancer are around heavy
industry, chemical factories and petrochemical factories. [Benzene,
a petroleum distillate, is a very powerful carcinogen.]
Page 77: Natural gas contains radon, a radioactive gas.
Page 86: Among 80000 nuclear bomb survivors from Hiroshima and
Nagasaki, the cancer rate was only 6% higher than expected.
Radiation is very weak at causing cancer.
Page 90: At Chernobyl, only 13 to 30% of the reactor’s 190 metric
tons of fuel evaporated. .13X190=24.7 tons.
.3X190=57 tons. [Much lower than the previous estimate of 200
tons, and trivial to what coal fired power plants give you.]
Page 98: There is a table of millirems per year from the
background in a list of inhabited places.
Chernobyl: 490 millirem/year
Guarapari, Brazil: 3700 millirem/year
Tamil Nadu, India: 5300 millirem/year
Ramsar, Iran: 8900 to 13200 millirem/year
Zero excess cancer deaths are recorded. All are natural except for
Chernobyl.
Page 99: There was an epidemic of PSYCHOSOMATIC illnesses
caused by the Chernobyl accident.
Page 100: Only 50 deaths can be directly attributed to radiation at
Chernobyl.
RE #903: Wow. How quickly a discussion of whether or not nuclear energy is a viable alternative to CO2 byproduct energy sources turned into a mirror image of the warmer/denier AGW debate.
Edward, your comments are somewhat disingenuous. Claiming only 50 deaths due to the accident (“directly attributed”) is obviously dodging the point. Clearly there are many cases of ailments and birth defects that resulted from the accident, and premature deaths as a direct result. But of course, just as it is difficult to measure a global temperature and then to directly attribute it to CO2, it is also difficult to measure actual deaths and unequivocally attribute them to the Chernobyl accident. Pretending that a nuclear accident will have less impact than a bus crash is downright silly. And you make no mention of the economic and social impacts of the need to evacuate an entire city and surrounding countryside for decades, loss of food production, etc. In addition… okay, that’s one Chernobyl. If the entire world switches to use a lot of nuclear power for a millennium, how many cumulative Chernobyl’s can the planet withstand?
Clearly, the dangers of nuclear accidents are an important issue, as are the problems of the handling of nuclear waste, where plants would be sited, and other issues. This is particularly troublesome because while some developed countries will have a political system and economic strength that maintains a reasonable level of safety and fairness… we’re talking about global, not local, solutions, so there will ultimately be any number of countries that have weaker safety precautions, socially unjust decisions, and the like… not to mention issues of nuclear weapon proliferation that may inevitably result from the sharing of and direct contact with the related technologies.
Now, in the long run, the judicious use of nuclear energy, to whatever degree is collectively deemed necessary and reasonable, is obviously better than global environmental catastrophe as a result of continuing to burn fossil fuels… but can we argue it like people trying to work together and achieve a common, best solution, rather than people who have made up our minds, and want to score points by creating convoluted half-truth arguments that the other side must cleverly deconstruct in order to refute?
I may regret this, but I do hereby give Gavin permission to give Simon Abingdon my email if he wants to keep trying to understand this. I’ll try to be nice.
#903 Ed
So, are you saying that we don’t have to worry about the 4,408,000 lbs of highly reactive waste generated by civilian nuclear power plants every year? We can just dump it in the rivers??
Wow, that changes everything! Go nukes!
Jesse is a libertarian. Libertarian philosophy is incompatible with the kind of global, cooperative action needed to reduce CO2 emissions. Libertarians confronted with the reality of global warming are faced with some bleak choices:
1. Accept the science, refuse to dump the philosophy, head explodes.
2. Accept the science, dump the philosophy, very hard to do.
3. Keep one’s libertarian philosophy intact, reject the science, requires no great personal change.
I think it’s easy to see why #3 is chosen by so many of them. It’s the path of least resistance.
A personal plea to the moderators – can the nuke discussion be nuked? It never goes anywhere and as usual, is starting to dominated the thread.
Matthew@ 854 says:
“That is not the only solar cycle. The upcoming cycle is predicted to have a lower peak than the now-ending cycle, based on analyses of the other cycles.”
Read what I wrote and what you quoted again. I said that there are variations in the 11 year cycle, and in a separate post I have noted the long term solar variations on top. However, we haven’t a working model for any of it except a crude version of a generic 11-yr/22-yr sunspot/magnetic cycle, and even in this case I don’t believe the results are ab initio (although this is not my field, and I’d have to go read the more recent literature).
So if you’re waiting for an understanding of the various solar variations before deciding whether or not to act on Earth’s climate….well, let’s just say that “better late than never” won’t cut it.
#892 Gavin’s response “You win the prize for uneducatability”.
Gavin, you don’t normally have recourse to gratuitous rudeness, particularly on an open thread.
Why should you be unhappy about a discussion of the stark climatological differences between day and nighttime conditions? Do you have concerns about the GCMs in this respect?
#903 Edward Greisch
All of which are irrelevant.
There are any number of books on the pros and cons of Nuclear Power, most of which I suspect are rather partisan, one way or another. However I rather think the International Atomic Energy Agency is likely to know what they are talking about, though again I suspect that they are possibly rather more pro than con.
Even they, in their own publication, give the figures that I cited, which include that Chernobyl has been responsible for at least 5000 thyroid cancers and possibly an equal number of other types of cancers.
However since I am not an expert on radiation induced cancers or even epidemiology in general, I don’t think it is worthwhile continuing the discussion, especially as it is O/T.
[Response: No more nuclear please. – gavin]
Norman (#864)
One question I have. Do any have valid evidence that the weather has become more extreme in the last couple of decades? So far my research has not indicated such. I believe there may be more large fires but this might be do to human interference by putting out small fires and leaving lots of fuel until a huge firestorm takes place.
Comment by Norman — 26 December 2009 @ 10:22 PM
#
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/313/5789/940
Excerpt (emphasis added if tags work):
Here, we show that large wildfire activity increased suddenly and markedly in the mid-1980s, with higher large-wildfire frequency, longer wildfire durations, and longer wildfire seasons. The greatest increases occurred in mid-elevation, Northern Rockies forests, where land-use histories have relatively little effect on fire risks and are strongly associated with increased spring and summer temperatures and an earlier spring snowmelt.
#890 –
…by Edward Greisch:
“779 Jaime Frontero: We already HAVE one 4th generation reactor in operation. It is NOT future technology or theory. It is available NOW.”
You aren’t by any chance referring to Argonne’s IFR?
I’m afraid I must plead ignorance about the currently available Generation IV technology you mention, and request a link.
Thank you.
Gavin –
Ooops. My apologies. I posted my request of Mr. Greisch (#890), and upon refresh noticed your: “[Response: No more nuclear please. – gavin]” in #911.
It’s your blog – as you prefer.
I will note though, that full discussions of AGW must reasonably include mitigation strategies – if only for practice (which is really what these forums are, no? Practice.).
I’d like to see more on serious (not techno fancy) “biophysical geoengineering”, i.e. biochar and reforestation (is there anything else?).
E.g. what about creating a subsaharan carbon sequestration machine, consisting of a desalination plant feeding water to a huge forest and then charring the biomass.
We need more discussion about Copenhagen from a social science point of view, especially the economic/political/globalization dynamics. We need to get to the real climate forcings behind the climate forcings.
At first I assumed it was the rich nations that blocked the deal, but now understand it was mainly China, not that the U.S. was committed to unilaterally reducing its GHG emission by 50% below 1990 levels by 2020 (and we could have already been there today, if people had had true life-support & economic interests at heart). I even blogged defending China, saying that per capita its GHGs are much lower than the U.S.’s, that a lot (about 20%) of China’s GHGs are actually the U.S.’s, since they are emitted in supplying us with products. And the U.S. demands at Copenhagen on China were unfair. Etc, etc. And I’m sure a wee bit of all that are factors in the failure.
But here it is, Wen Jinbao was the obstructionist, the new Bush — http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/22/copenhagen-climate-change-mark-lynas .
Why? It only took me 1 minute to understand. There’s something beyond our national boundaries (aside from the U.N.) — it’s economic globalization, the rule of the multinationals that are beyond the laws of nations, that are oriented around one principle only — make profits (unlike governments that ostentively are there to serve & protect the people (ho-ho-ho)). In fact if corporations are not so oriented toward short-term profits they can be sued for fiduciary irresponsibility. We love them so much in America that we’ve given them all the rights that human beings have, even though, unlike humans they don’t die (perhaps only metaphorically); in fact if they totally pollute some community and get their metaphorical butts sued to smitherines, they can even dissolve and reincorporate under some other name (finagling their assets so as to avoid much loss) — I guess that’s sort of corporation resurrection heaven on earth.
So in a way they are like voracious monsters eating up resources and emitting all sorts of pollution as excrement.
I’ve seen a couple of documentaries about China, one about the extreme pollution and cancer towns; the other about the sweatshops and horrible working conditions, so we can have mountains of cheap throwaway trinkets here in the rich countries. Well, if China (that is the multinational corporations that actually run China, as they do many nations on earth — think “U.S.” — if you don’t believe me, look at campaign and media financing). Well, if China Inc can write off its own people (not totally write off, but perceptively by perceptive people, along the lines of the U.S. writing off the Rio Grande Valley, or New Orleans, or the various minorities and poor communities), well I’ll leave the rest to your imagination.
dhogaza #907, I didn’t know that JV was a Libertarian. Libertarians, like those at the Cato Institute, tend to be anti-anything-enviromental (always, AFAIK, siding with Big Business in such cases) and anti-people (defending the tobacco industry for instance). Even more so than Repubs. Ron Paul would have been an environmental train wreck as President. IMO.
906 Jiminmpls: No, that isn’t what I said.
Norman (#864)
One question I have. Do any have valid evidence that the weather has become more extreme in the last couple of decades?
Yes! Dramatic increases in the frequency of Cat 4 and 5 hurricanes. Multiple “100 year” floods, storms and droughts in multiple locations throughout the world. Record heat waves in multiple locations throughout the world. If you can’t find the evidence, you aren’t looking.
As a non-technical lay person, what impresses (and alarms) me most is that even though the warming *appears* to have slowed ever so slightly over the past decade, the EFFECTS of the warming are occuring MUCH sooner than anyone predicted.
Also, all of the natural forcings (solar activity, cosmic rays, ocean currents, etc.) that denialists claim are responsible for the warming have been in pronounced cold cycles for the past decade. If they were right, we’d be experiencing record cold temps right now, but global temps are still more than .5F warmer than the 20th C average. 2008 was the coldest year of the decade, but would still rank among the warmest years of the 1990’s and would be the warmest in the 1980’s. Why is that? What’s going to happen ten years from now when we are entering another solar maximum? What’s going to happen when we next have a strong El Nino current?
Timothy (from 874: I think we have nearly exhausted both of our understanding of the science. I would add that in addition to the 12 W/m2 deficit from a 6% lower solar constant being compensated for by 3 doublings of CO2, a 1% change (out of 100%) in albedo results in a 3.4 W/m2 change in forcing, so a 4% change in albedo also compensates, and snowball earth is about massive albedo change. The discussion on cap carbonates is found in the review I linked to before, under the section “The Acid Test”.
You are correct that my questioning is often directed at what I consider high end interpretations of climate change, but also simply at gaps in my understanding. Of course, there is a lot of commentary here that greatly understates or outright denies any reality of climate change. The reason I do not usually respond is because this is a fast moving forum, and by the time I see such a comment it has already been responded to, often by people more informed than I. (Again, though, I urge these people to restrain their hostility – remember you are really writing for the many potentially fair minded people who come here to read and do not comment.)
I try to raise issues that no one else is covering, rather than pile on. After about 200 posts nobody questioned the runaway greenhouse assertion, so I did. I promise, I will not use the forbidden “A” word again. I am not out to polarize. Let me add that I am totally outraged at the possibility of death threats against Hansen. I supposes those same people say they are against terrorism. But this does not put Hansen above legitimate scientific criticism, which I have tried to do.
Let me return to Al Gore, another hot button topic I foolishly raised. Let me make clear that I agree with the magnitude of the sea level rise he is talking about. But when stated with no time frame, people assume it is in the time frames they are used to, ie. in their lifetime. This sets him up to be easily “debunked” by statements about how much sea level rise is expected this century. Usually these statements quote the IPCC 2007 report, without mentioning that ice shelf melt was excluded from the estimate.
The largest consequences of climate change are far outside time frame that people are used to. Most of Florida may well be submerged, but that will take hundreds of years by anyone’s estimates. How do you present such an issue to the public, when they do not have any real idea about what uncertainty really means? Uncertainty = doubt = forget it. But I think it is important to always be as accurate as possible. Leave the lies to the denialist fringe.
http://www.ornl.gov/ORNLReview/rev26-34/text/coalmain.html
says:
“Based on the predicted combustion of 2516 million tons of coal in the United States and 12,580 million tons worldwide during the year 2040, cumulative releases for the 100 years of coal combustion following 1937 are predicted to be:
U.S. release (from combustion of 111,716 million tons [of coal]):
Uranium: 145,230 tons (containing 1031 tons of uranium-235)
Thorium: 357,491 tons
Worldwide release (from combustion of 637,409 million tons [of coal]):
Uranium: 828,632 tons (containing 5883 tons of uranium-235)
Thorium: 2,039,709 tons”
Sorry, Gavin.
#897 BPL
“I’m waiting for him to say it violates the second law of thermodynamics for clouds to warm the ground”.
Here I go Bart. At night it would violate the second law of thermodynamics for clouds to warm the ground. (No sun to provide a source of energy).
[Response: Ha! Are we playing a Turing game here? – gavin]
China is playing a very dangerous game of brinkmanship with the planet. They aren’t alone of course. There’s India, corporations, and many lesser players, but China plays big and plays hard, and they plan long into the future compared with the relatively short term thinking in the west. We’re lucky if we can even discuss things a trifling century out. I fear they are all too willing to be the rulers of a crippled planet.
Since the existence of the “Medieval Warm Period” as well as “the Little Ice Age” are equivalent to daggers to the heart of the theory of AGW, it would be useful for you to sponsor an open discussion and forum on whether these two climate periods existed or not. Invite, allow and encourage discussion by both sides of this matter to present and discuss the evidence they believe bolsters their position.
This would go a long way towards increasing your own credibility as well as, if the evidence is as overwhelming as you claim, that of AGW.
[Response: People can discuss all they like – but it has nothing to do with the radiative impact of increasing CO2 levels. I appreciate that you are not alone in thinking that climate variations over the last couple of thousand years are vitally important, but really, they’re not. Read the attribution chapter in AR4. – gavin]
Per my last comment: I remember my father, who was pretty conservative having been raised as a Mormon, telling me as a child that one has to ‘respect the planet you live on, anything else is ultimately self destructive’. That’s the way conservatives used to believe.
Then came Reagan and Watt and Gingrinch and Rush and Bush and CATO and CEI and AEI and the Heartland Institute and, and, and…
And suddenly you were an “environmental whacko” or a commie if you actually had any concern about this planet we live on and its other species right to survive. If you saw the earth as more than just a giant Walmart of resources to be ripped out as fast as humanly possible for the ultimate financial benefit of a relatively few already obcenely rich people at the expense of a future.
Now they sound like Ron Arnold, busy spreading their anti-environmental bile far and wide. It’s no wonder then that so many have such disdain for climate science.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Ron_Arnold
Fortunately not all Conservatives have drunk that koolaid.
http://www.rep.org/
Bob # 904 wrote:
“…but can we argue it like people trying to work together and achieve a common, best solution, rather than people who have made up our minds, and want to score points by creating convoluted half-truth arguments that the other side must cleverly deconstruct in order to refute?”
——————
Well, I suppose that there is always a first time for everything.
To close the fourth generation nuclear discussion, Barry Brook’s Brave New Climate is dedicated to this issue. They would appreciate the discussion over there.
hi guys, sorry to interrupt…
don’t know if you remember me. i’m walter, they guy truing to get gavin to start PROJECT JIM.
during the recent snow storm in washington dc, i went to the local weather blog to follow the storm. sure enough, there were comments from people using the strom as an opportunity to mock global warming scince and scientists. also, after the storm, i got an email from a friend asking my “opinion” on global warming. (i sent him here, and i think he’s a “believer” now.) my point is that all the excellently-executed denialist propoganda had WORKED on him. he truly didn’t know the extent of the scientific consensus.
the recent CRU email flap provides scientists with a great opportunity to let the public really know what they think about global warming. average joes out there truly think scientists were (are) hiding something. a giant list of “jims” would go a long way towards demonstrating the consensus. so once again, please, PROJECT JIM.
my interest in mitigating global warming is personal. global warming means i get to do less of this: http://www.flickr.com/photos/58171957@N00/
A bit late, but the term runaway greenhouse is being misused. It was invented to describe the situation on Venus, where all greenhouse gases reservoirs were “cooked” out. That means that all liquid water on the surface and water in hydrates were boiled away and could not recondense as well as the heat liberating CO2 from carbonate rocks on the surface. This is a much more extreme scenario than could happen on the Earth, if for no other reason that the Earth is a bit further away from the sun, and the intensity of the solar radiation that bit lower.
What could at least in theory happen here is that pushing enough CO2 and methane into the atmosphere could raise the greenhouse gas level high enough to push the average temperature up by 10-20 C (4-6x doubling) in the most extreme scenarios. That makes large portions of the Earth uninhabitable for humans, megafauna and all but the simplest plants and animals. Yes Virginia, there are positive feedbacks, but there are also system imposed limits.
#910 simon monckton
There is a reason why they test kids in in Switzerland, to see if they have enough smarts to go to university or they should go into trade school.
You just don’t have what it takes to get into university on this subject.
Pick a trade, maybe basket weaving; or better yet, go into television. There you can confuse the hell out of everyone and get paid for saying spinning reality in circles.
As to GCM’s, generally speaking: No they are not perfect, yes they give us a good idea of how the major parts of the climate system are functioning, no they will never be perfect, yes they will be improved, no they will never be perfect, yes scientists are working on improving them, no they will never be perfect.
Simon, at the risk of incurring Gavin’s wrath (and feel free to can this if it’s too far astray, Gavin), on a planet with an atmosphere, you cannot consider the day-side and the night-side in isolation. 1)Planets rotate, and 2)even in the absence of rotation, the atmosphere would convect heat from the warm side to the cold one. For this reason, when we are talking about Global Temperature, we are talking about temperature averaged over the ENTIRE GLOBE–dayside and nightside.
Now, let us consider how clouds warm the surface at night. OK, the surface heats up to a certain temperature determined by the insolation during the day. Now the sun goes down.
What happens? The surface cools (loses energy) via IR radiation, right? But we know that clouds will reflect IR radiation (quite effectively), right? So the reflected IR is again incident on the cooled surface and so WARMS IT, does it not?
So, no, the clouds cannot warm the surface over its daytime temperature. Yes, they can warm the surface at night-time once it has started to cool. And yes, clouds do keep energy in the system that would otherwise radiate into the inky blackness of space. Does this not sound reasonable?
#924 Steve W from Ford
– Climate has changed in the past, so how can it change in the future?
– Climate has changed in the past, so how can man change climate?
That’s sort of like saying because you have not died yet, you won’t die in the future. Or, mankind did not drive cars in the MWP or LIA, so how can man drive cars now?
The argument is non sequitur. One thing does not have to follow the other, and just because one thing has happened before, does not mean it can’t happen again for a different reason.
For example: A man can die from an accident. That does not mean a man can not die from a heart attack, or a disease, or old age. Men can die for different reasons… climate can change for different reasons.
http://www.ossfoundation.us/projects/environment/global-warming/milankovitch-cycles
http://www.ossfoundation.us/projects/environment/global-warming/forcing-levels
re 927 Eli Rabett
I applaud your suggestion that discussions dealing with nuclear and other possible mitigation strategies should be conducted on BraveNewClimate.
I appreciate that RealClimate exists primarily to explain climate science to those hoping to be informed. However, I was surprised that Gavin wished to choke off discussion of nuclear on an open thread. I have just finished reading Dr Hansen’s book. It his unequivocal view, based mainly on climate science that, without a major role for nuclear power, mitigation strategies will probably fail to prevent tipping points being reached. It amazes me, therefore, that so many here express serious concern over global warming while expressing extreme hostility to the most likely means we have to ameliorate it. Perhaps, here, it would be possible to explain why Dr Hansen is so deluded? Is it his climate science that’s wrong – a relevant topic for this site?
re 927 Eli Rabett
I agree with your suggestion in viewe of Gavin’s reluctance to allow discussions of possible solutions
Steve W from Ford:
I’ve never understood the rationale behind this claim, though it is apparent you’re not along among denialists in believing it to be true.
Care to explain why you think these would be equivalent to “daggers to the heart of the theory of AGW”?
Overnight, CO2 will stop absorbing long-wave IR or what?
Re Steve W @924 “Since the existence of the “Medieval Warm Period” as well as “the Little Ice Age” are equivalent to daggers to the heart of the theory of AGW…”
Opening with the assertion of a false premise is hardly a good strategy for being taken seriously.
First, there is no AGW theory. AGW is just a variation of the greenhouse theory. The only thing anthropogenic about AGW is how the excess carbon is getting into the atmosphere. The radiative forcing of CO2 and other greenhouse gases, and the amplifying and damping feedbacks in play today are also in play for any natural forcing, be it an increase or decrease in solar intensity or insolation, an increase or decrease in Earth’s albedo, an increase or decrease in volcanic activity, or an increase or decrease in greenhouse gas concentration, regardless of source or mechanism.
Second, never mind that there is evidence suggesting that the MWP and LIA were not in fact geographically or temporally global events, if anything, citing periods when internal natural variability and forcings caused climate to deviate from the long term cooling trend since the Holocene Climate Optimum demonstrates how sensitive Earth’s climate is to seemingly minor perturbations. In other words, the MWP and LIA are evidence for the potential of greenhouse warming or cooling, not evidence against it.
Third, you might want to look into the work of William Ruddiman, which suggests that the cause of both the MWP and the LIA may have had an anthropogenic component, namely the influence of agriculture, specifically rice production, on atmospheric greenhouse gas levels, combined with disease agents that resulted in sudden large scale reductions in human populations and the subsequent natural draw down of greenhouse gases. as agricultural lands reverted to scrub, forest and other natural vegetation.
RE Norman
The NOAA has a US Climate Extremes Index and accompanying report. There is a recent paper in PNAS that primarily discusses risks, but there are a few references noted, but I don’t see a world-wide index that is similar to the NOAA index. That doesn’t mean that it does not exist, however.
Corrected post; mods: please use this.
RE Steve W from Ford
The latest research is a bit more nuanced thatwhat you state, as you can see in this recent paper. From the abstract:
There’s a good summary in Skeptical Science. But of course, none of this means that recent or future warming cannot be anthropogenic.
Douglas Wise says: 27 December 2009 at 12:04 PM
“…I was surprised that Gavin wished to choke off discussion of nuclear on an open thread.”
I’m not. The title of the blog is “Real Climate” and the topic is climate science, not “Let’s Argue Endlessly and Pointlessly About Energy Capture/Liberation Systems” and the relative merits of energy-related engineering solutions.
This site is a lot better for entertaining those arguments:
http://bravenewclimate.com/
Ron R. wrote in 925:
At root I would still consider myself an Objectivist — where Objectivism is what most would politically classify as a form of libertarianism. I prefer the term “classical liberal” and certainly believe it is more accurate in my case. I am essentially pro- free market. But by what Objectivists would call the “primacy of existence,” I believe that identification and the norms that guide it logically precede and are more fundamental than evaluation.
At base this is the principle that is being violated when someone engages in the informal fallacy known as an ad hominem attack. Likewise it is the principle that is violated when one regards science as simply a means to an end set by ideology, when one fails to recognize that science is far more basic.
*
Much of my belief in the free market stems from the recognition of the existence of a division of cognitive labor that it embodies and which was largely identified by Frederick A. Hayek in his formulation of the problem of economic calculation in a centrally organized and coordinated society. He argued that the attempt to substitute the judgement of a central authority, whether it be an individual or committee, for the process of economic calculation and coordination brought about by the free market was doomed to fail. The cognitive capacity of the few is no substitute for that of the many when the activity of the many is systemically organized by the division of cognitive labor brought about by the free market.
But fundamentally the same argument applies to the highly specialized division of cognitive labor that exists within the scientific community. Those who would regard it as tool in the service of ideology, its conclusions the result of a conspiracy or as biased by the disparate ideologies of the individuals who are a part of that community are making much the same mistake as those who would substitute a centralized authority for the division of cognitive labor that exists within a free market.
It has been said that, “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.” But by the primacy of identification I would argue that it is a vice. Furthermore, if someone regards himself as a marxist of one school or another yet nevertheless recognizes that science must be given precedence over ideology, then I will gladly join hands in the defense of science.
Likewise I believe that we should be willing to transcend ideological differences with respect to the practical goal of opposing the threat that climate change poses to humanity. The cold war is over — and our descendants will be living with the consequences of what we do now for a hundred thousand years to come.
#931 Ray
“[at night] The surface cools (loses energy) via IR radiation, right? But we know that clouds will reflect IR radiation (quite effectively), right? So the reflected IR is again incident on the cooled surface and so WARMS IT, does it not?”
No Ray. Not as much as it’s already cooled. Net result cooling, not warming.
Jiminmpls wrote
Also, all of the natural forcings (solar activity, cosmic rays, ocean currents, etc.) that denialists claim are responsible for the warming have been in pronounced cold cycles for the past decade. If they were right, we’d be experiencing record cold temps right now, but global temps are still more than .5F warmer than the 20th C average. 2008 was the coldest year of the decade, but would still rank among the warmest years of the 1990’s and would be the warmest in the 1980’s. Why is that? What’s going to happen ten years from now when we are entering another solar maximum? What’s going to happen when we next have a strong El Nino current?
————
Can a few people corroborate and/or provide some evidence that the natural forcings mentioned at the beginning actually have been very low (or whatever) for the past decade?
This point strikes me as tremendously important in the debate in the current climate…er…noise.
“The evidence for AGW is as strong as the hiv/aids link and smoking /lung cancer”
now if the evidence for AGW could be stated “as strong as the evidence for evolution” i could really get some bang for my buck .
#930 John P. Reisman (OSS Foundation)
John, I’m a retired airline captain (12000 hours in Boeings and the Airbus). (Before that I taught mathematics). Good trade, eh?
Some questions about AGW:
1. What is the optimum temperature for life on Earth?
2. Won’t a slightly warmer climate be beneficial for agriculture? Given that warmer air holds more moisture?
3. Wouldn’t we be better off (expend less wealth) on adaptation to a warmer climate?
4. Did Al Gore really spend $4 million Dollars of his own money on ocean-front property in Florida?
#941 simon monckton
Net result less cooling due to warming, due to IR reflection downward ‘warming’ the ‘cooling’ surface.
Order of precedence. Stop putting the cart before the horse.
Simon, pay attention. We’re talking about the effect of the clouds here. It’s the IR radiation that cools the surface, right? And the surface winds up less cool that it would be if the clouds weren’t there, right? So since the surface is warmer when the clouds are there and radiating IR down to the ground, the net effect of the clouds must be to do what, Simon?
abingdiddled — British slang term for an ongoing action of deception and misdirection, similar to being repeatedly “punk’d” in American slang usage
Gary Grams #945 reminds me that I’d also like to hear more on Lovelock’s Gaia theory…
re #945.2.: Warmer planet => less arable land [due to sea level rise and desertification] + less ocean life + .?.
Except for #945.1, #945.x are frivolous BS questions. wrrrrr…
RE me
Skeptical Science link should be:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Was-there-a-Medieval-Warm-Period.html