gary thompson says: “I think you should post a graph showing what the temperatures will look like for 2010. since you obviously have it all figured out and understand the earth’s weather system on a fundamental level, prove it. give monthly predictions with error bars and then track your score through the year. If your models are accurate then put them to the test. will 2010 be hotter than 2009?”
Good straw man there, gary! Do you understand the difference between the forced component and internal variability in the climate system? Do you understand which aspects are sensitive to initial conditions and which are not? Do you understand the difference between knowing everything about a system and not knowing nothing?
blueshiftsays
Hi,
Gavin’s inline response to #204 is:
“[Response: No, this is not correct (think about what occurs at equilibrium where the net flux changes must be zero. The stratospheric cooling because of increasing CO2 is a function of the spectral nature of the absorption and the presence of other emitters in the lower atmosphere. – gavin]”
Could someone elaborate on this, or link to a more complete explanation? I’m afraid I’ve spread misinformation as I used a similar argument earlier today.
My understanding now is that models predict stratospheric cooling until the climate system reaches thermal equilibrium. (Not necessarily a cooling trend until that point, but cooler than “baseline”.)
Thanks
[Response: Ok, let me try again. First point. CO2 is a much more important absorber/emitter in the stratosphere than in the troposphere (because it’s very dry up there). This is illustrated clearly in the Clough and Iacono figure. Increases in CO2 in the troposphere increase absorption @ 650 cm^-1, warming the atmosphere and increase emissions up across the rest of the spectrum. If you are in the stratosphere looking down, you will see less radiation at the 650 wavenumber as CO2 increases and more radiation elsewhere as a function of the temperature rises. Thus in the stratosphere, you have less 650 band radiation to absorb from below, but because you have more emitters (higher CO2) the emission to space is greater. The net effect is less-in/more-out and therefore more energy to space in that band (leading to a cooling to re-establish a steady state). – gavin]
Ray Ladburysays
Bob Arning @226,
That post is NUTS. Why on Earth would you fit to a cubic polynomial. As John von Neumann said: “Give me 4 parameters, and I will fit an elephant; five and I will make him wiggle his trunk.” The list of what these guys don’t understand would be LONG–but suffice to say, they seem to think that humans needn’t worry about Earth because soon we’ll be inhabiting other planets. This is not a group I want to be in charge of maintaining the health of the only habitable planet we know of.
Dwightsays
The debate has obviously taken on deep political over-tones, which permit righties to howl about world government, redistribution of wealth, etc.
I think that if more greenies and scientists said loudly, “Look, this CO2 problem is so serious that as much as we dislike it, we are embracing nuclear power as the only reasonable way to generate the energy needed…there would be a PR breaktrough.
Since I can’t see any reasonable way to supply the power needed through, solar, wind, conservation, or any other of the greens favorite solutions, and the cap and trade stuff is also ideologically suspect scientists should, like Hansen, loudly jump on the nuclear bandwagon. Believe me, that would get people’s attention and nullify a lot of the “political” dynamics here. The idea of AGW seems lefty, green, and extremist to all righties and many independents. As a centrist, I am predisposed to be sceptical, whenever I have te least excuse to be. There are hundreds of “crises” a year which rise, make for some great headlines and feature stories, and then go poof, but as I often do, I belabor the obvious.
The way things are now, people who buy electric cars or hybrids which need to be charged, power them up with electricity produced by coal-fired plants. Hmmmmm.
Ray Ladburysays
TRY, “LIKELY” is not support at all. It is called qualitative language. And pray, why should there be a timeline in a policy statement by a professional organization of physicists?
Now, do you classify “incontrovertible” as weak? How about “We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now.”
Sounds pretty urgent to me. See, here’s the thing folks like you and Jim are not taking into account. You automatically assume that uncertainty favors your attitude of complacency. It doesn’t. If we are wrong about CO2 sensitivity, it’s much more likely that our estimate is too low than it is that it is too high. And you assume that a failure to specify a time period means you don’t have to worry–when most of the uncertainties (tipping points, irreversible climate change, a growing population that will make future mitigation ever more difficult, etc.) lead to greater peril. Uncertainty is NOT your friend, TRY. If you knew anything about climate, you’d understand that.
Luke Leasays
Per gavin’s response to comment #252: could you reference your technical points to journal articles in the scientific literature? Thanks,
The stratospheric cooling issue is a tough nut to crack. Here are two sources that can help:
Ajavon, et al. (2007, February). Scientific assessment of ozone depletion: 2006. Retrieved from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Earth System Research Laboratory Chemical Sciences Division Web site: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/csd/assessments/2006/report.html
Randel, W. J., et al. (2009). An update of observed stratospheric temperature trends. J. Geophys. Res., 114, D02107, doi:10.1029/2008JD010421
To summarize:
In the global mean, the lower stratosphere cooled between 1979 and 1995 but has not noticeably cooled since 1995. This is no surprise because ozone levels are increasing since 1995 so there is increasing incoming solar radiation absorption.
In the middle and upper stratosphere there was mean cooling of 0.5–1.5 K/decade during 1979–2005, with the greatest cooling in the upper stratosphere near 40–50 km. Ozone concentration above 35 km is minimal so ozone depletion is much less a factor at these levels than below.
Model calculations suggest that the upper stratosphere trends since 1979 are due, about equally, to decreases in ozone and increases in well-mixed greenhouse gases. All climate models predict further cooling of the stratosphere as the year 2100 approaches due to increased GHGs even though full ozone recovery is predicted to occur around 2060.
…some 32,000 scientists, 9,000 of them PhDs, have signed The Petition Project statement proclaiming that Man is not necessarily the chief cause of warming, that the phenomenon may not exist at all, and that, in any case, warming would not be disastrous.
Et tu, Randi?
Jiminmplssays
# Ron Kent
The problem with using the peak oil angle, is that the denialists and their minions don’t believe that there is a limit to oil reserves either – esp in the USA. They really believe that the USA has enough oil for the next 100-200 years if the environmentalists would just let us “drill baby drill”.
You cannot reason with them. They will state with all certainty that we are not drilling for oil in the Gulf of Mexico. I’ve even heard people claim that we don’t drill for oil in Alaska!
I’m out in the real world. Most people just don’t care. They’re not informed and they don’t want to be.
Dwight #255 – As a centrist you probably should not use the reluctance of certain greenies to embrace nuclear power as a basis for siding with the deniers on the climate issue. Remember that there are many greenies who think we use far too much power as it is and hence don’t see any compelling need for nukes. Conversely, there are many greenies who are promoting the nuclear option vigorously.
As a centrist you will want to look at the arguments logically, and on that basis the denialist position is severely lacking. You also might want to take the precautionary principle, as Stern did, and again you’d have to discard the denialist arguments as irresponsible (at best).
but this has been disastrous for his reputation as a skeptic. It doesn’t hurt climate science, because his understanding of the subject is so feeble, not even the denialists could embrace it. It’s sad, really. He really doesn’t know enough to be in denial, and yet, for some reason, he seems to think he has to take a position–making him selectively credulous rather than a true skeptic.
Jiminmplssays
Here’s a suggestion:
Guest commentaries from scientists working in other disciplines – biologists in particular – on research related to climate change.
Doug Bostromsays
Jim Galasyn says: 21 December 2009 at 7:12 PM
Wow, amazingly naive, regurgitating many shopworn talking points. I suppose Randi is too busy to do the homework required to produce a more competent evaluation?
This reminds me of “SuperFreakonomics”. Feet of clay, etc.
dhogazasays
It doesn’t hurt climate science, because his understanding of the subject is so feeble, not even the denialists could embrace it.
In his retraction he mentions that he knows that there’s a lot of heat generated by the burning of fossil fuels, etc …
As though he thinks this, not GHGs, are what climate scientists have determined is causing the problem.
For those thinking that we don’t know enough about precisely what will happen on a particular day sometime in the future so we should wait before any policy decisions are made…
I suggest you begin contemplating the reality that what uncertainty means in this context is that it’s more likely than not to be much worse that we can predict, especially when one adds the economic inter-dynamics.
Dan L.says
Randi should be cut a little slack, I believe. It appears he was pestered into taking a position on a subject in which he had little interest. That his response was scientifically inadequate is not surprising.
Randi is a woo-woo debunker. Science denial is not his bailiwick.
David B. Bensonsays
John P. Reisman (OSS Foundation) (267) — You might care to study a bit about the statistics of extreme events.
Andrewsays
How much more rain is expected with Global Warming?
Maybe this has already been covered on this site; if so, then please show me where.
Otherwise, it would be interesting to review the apparent divergence between models and observations with respect to water vapor, rainfall and wind shear.
I understand some climate models may not be modeling the radiative forcing of clouds properly.
Dwightsays
#262 Crazy Bill wrote:
As a centrist you will want to look at the arguments logically, and on that basis the denialist position is severely lacking. You also might want to take the precautionary principle, as Stern did, and again you’d have to discard the denialist arguments as irresponsible (at best).
———-
Well, I am becoming impressed (especially as I learn on this site and elsewhere) with the depth of the CO2 and related studies over the last 100+ years and see that a lot of the deniers’ positions have already been addressed by what is now “known” about the history of our climate.
But as a person who makes it a point to consume very little, I hold out little hope that the average American is going to consume less, unless absolutely forced to. Recession is a hell of a lot more effective than conscience or guilt, that’s for sure. So any pragmatic analysis would conclude that the world’s energy use will only grow; it will never shrink unless there is an economic crack-up. The rate of growth may vary, of course, but that’s all.
Therefore, short of some miraculous technological breakthrough, we need nukes. We “proved” that we did not need them before because we could just burn oil, coal, and gas, which has gotten us where we are.
In the meantime, I am burning five cords of wood a year and get a longer growing season for my big garden. The white tail deer have returned with a bang to Southeastern Mass. Their protein is appreciated, but their ticks are not.
A centrist has to use the extra CO2 as best he can. :-)
dhogazasays
Randi should be cut a little slack, I believe. It appears he was pestered into taking a position on a subject in which he had little interest. That his response was scientifically inadequate is not surprising.
Then he should’ve said “I don’t know enough about the subject to have an informed opinion.”
hfsays
I haven’t been following the comments above, but given the open ended topic I hope that my question is appropriate. Is the reference to the IPCC in the quote below valid? I have not read the fourth report, but I have not seen this kind of economic data in parts of the report that I have read or scanned. I’m speaking of the 1-5 percent figure referring to economic output.
“According to the authoritative U.N.Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), under a reasonable set of assumptions for global economic and population growth, the world should expect to warm by about 2.8°C over the next century. Also according to the IPCC, a global increase in temperature of 4°C should cause the world to lose about 1–5 percent of its economic output.”
My interest is based on a conversation that I’m anticipating regarding the article.
Thanks in advance for a response, and happy solstice to all!
The text above is from an
MacDocsays
Would not mind seeing more on the influence of ocean current changes – particularly implications through the North West passage and secondarily the influence on glacial erosion.
Not sure if it’s bang on the topic but surely changes in the circulation volume temp would have a ENSO like influence on regional climates particularly the poles.
Jim Galasynsays
Re Randi, he’s undergoing chemotherapy after surgery for a malignant intestinal tumor, so I’m inclined to cut him some slack. The comments make for interesting reading.
Steve Rsays
RE: 232 David Horton,
They drown out any other discussion, their madness and ignorance (nothing about climate change has ever been discussed before for these newbies) even more strident than it was just a few months ago. This looks to me like a ramped up astroturf operation, the starting gun fired as soon as the emails were leaked. Anyone else noticed the pattern?
Does anyone here have the code chops to do something like seining for particular phrases on a representative list of blogs? And then analyze their repeated appearances statistically, compared to other climate blogs? I suspect, too, that there’s an awful lot of cutting and pasting going on (see the Wall St. Journal article comments from the 17th–I linked it above in comment 43).
My other suggestion is for people who participate on this site to roll up their sleeves, hold their noses, and plunge into some of those comment threads from time to time. I think a lot of the participants in those groups get the impression, from hearing only their own strange misconceptions mirrored back at them, that the whole world is of one mind, which gives them rather too much confidence.
I also fear that cuts at newspapers have left us with journalists who don’t understand the science turning to blogs (one visit to RC, one to one of those others for “balance”) for explanations.
Lady in Redsays
A recent post on DeepClimate about the Wegman Report got me thinking.
DeepClimate discovered that some parts, for example the explanation of the importance and use of tree ring proxies, was “lifted” from another source. That’s uncool, tacky. Unethical, but, also, not particularly germane to the report’s thrust, does not negate the report’s conclusions, in particular, that the climate science peer-review process is, at least, inbred and that climate scientists need more cross-disciplinary mathematical expertise in their work. [edit]
I would be interested in reading two overviews of the chronology of climate science, dating back, say, to the 1970’s, done by both skeptics and believers in AGW. If science is to build on prior science, should not all interested individuals have access to everything upon which peer-reviewed and published papers are based, including the selected data and models?
I envision only a couple of pages, with head-to-head comments by the “other” side appended to each – but written for the intelligent lay community. Allowed comments being like “direct hits” instead of diversionary and distracting sideways slings.
In the 1970’s, I believe, persons attempting to understand the world’s oceans, and others studying the atmosphere were called oceanographers and meteorologists and atmospheric scientists. Mostly, scientists focused on a narrow swath, like the biology of the ocean, or a study of its currents. Air-sea interactions were very complex, nuanced mysteries, I thought.
When was “climate science” invented as a discipline, separate from previous earth sciences? What are the course requirements, what universities confer degrees in “climate science,” instead of, or alongside, traditional earth sciences? How much math, statistics, and physics are required for a “climate science” degree?
Below is a succinct explanation of the difference between science and engineering and why we should open our confusing “settled science” about climate to qualified engineers:
Who were the first persons to attempt to do long-range, climate predictions? When? What were the predictions? In the 1970’s some folk were predicting a new Ice Age. The source most often referenced is a Newsweek article, which is derided by the AGW community as not authoritative, or peer-reviewed. I find it hard to believe that, one week, Newsweek went over the top and reported something completely without any scientific basis whatsoever. So, what was the genesis of that article? Who did the research and what became of them and their work? When did the consensus view shift from global ice to problematic warming?
When did the IPCC issue its first report and how have its predictions borne out over time? How does the IPCC build upon its earlier predictions with each new report? What is the IPCC overall predictive track record?
I am confused, and there appears to be controversy whether the last decade was the warmest in history (excluding 1934, possibly…?), is getting somewhat warmer, or is cooling. I’ve seen a U-Tube video of a ten year old and his father doing an analysis of US temperature data outside of urban centers which is a flat line, and read about cherry-picked data and temperature sensors mounted atop buildings beside air conditioning units. Why is the temperature record — from just the past ten years! — so controversial, more complicated than a junior high school science project, binary list of do’s and don’ts? Why isn’t satellite data incorporated more into contemporary analyses of global temperatures?
In the past months I have read DeepClimate, ClimateProgress and RealClimate on the AGW side of the aisle.
ClimateProgress reports today that a new, independent study by the British Met Office in conjunction with the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasting has – so quickly? – determined that prior HadleyCRU global warming predictions have been more conservative than the data and analysis now indicates and includes a terrifying, new hockey stick graph of warming from 1860 to the uptick present. The problem, of course, is that I have no confidence in the independence of this analysis and wouldn’t know if the graph were upside-down. (I am, however, impressed with the rapidity of this analysis and am left wondering why, if so easy and fast, this data cannot be analyzed by independent statistical experts and engineers.
(There are often dismissive references from within the climate science community about the importance of trusting only peer-reviewed articles written by those with the appropriate academic degrees, the only ones entitled to have opinions on matters pertaining to climate. There is a modest, thin, little-known book by the late, great Jane Jacobs, an intellectual gadfly of great proportion, titled Dark Age Ahead – a subject not ungermane to matters at hand. There are three chapters of particular note: Credentialing Versus Educating, Science Abandoned, and Self-Policing Subverted. The entire book is an easy yet compelling read. Look it up. Read it.)
[edit]
Alex BUrtonsays
One thing I have wondered is whether the increases in CO2 concentration can have small effects on our cognitive abilities. I know it has marked effects at higher concentrations. At long term low but elevated levels might it be that the denial of AGW observed is exacerbated by loss of cognitive abilities.
happypuppysays
What is real Climate’s response to the Fox News special on change change?
John E. Pearsonsays
277: Who were the first persons to attempt to do long-range, climate predictions? When?
Joseph Fourier in 1810 is the earliest attempt that I know of to make scientific climate predictions. I have no idea what he predicted. There wasn’t enough science known at the time for his predictions to be taken seriously. You should read the Spencer Weart’s “Discovery of Global Warming” http://www.aip.org/history/climate/ if you’re seriously interested in this.
Andrew (#270)– Concerning precipitation, water vapor, clouds:
There’s several issues here. First of all, precipitation should go up much less rapidly than Clausius-Clapeyron in a warming world, so we expect differences between the accumulation of water vapor and the precipitation (which also suggests the atmosphere could be more sluggish getting rid of its water). The Wentz paper suggests the possibility of a discrepancy between models and observations in this regard (I would suggest our ability to model associated precipitation changes are currently inadequate), although others (e.g., Previdi and Liepert (2008)) suggest that the Wentz results may not necessarily be indicative of longer-term global warming due to the inter-decadal variability of precipitation changes. This is certainly something that needs work.
That said, you’re quite right about clouds being represented inadequately in models, particularly through their role as a feedback mechanism to greenhouse-induced warming. It is unclear what their magnitude (or even sign) is, as this is not well constrained. It is fair to say much of the IPCC sensitivity range of 2 to 4.5 degrees C/2xCO2 is largely the result on uncertanties in cloud feedback in a warmer world. Projected precipitation changes should be less sensitive to these issues because the tropospheric energy balance (which determines precipitation) is not really dependent on albedo feedback issues, as only feedbacks that affect tropospheric energy *absorption* affect the tropospheric energy budget (see the argument in Lambert and Webb 2008).
Water vapor is different than clouds, and there’s pretty high confidence that scientists are not off the mark that much concerning the radiative feedback influence of water vapor.
Doug Bostromsays
Lady in Red says: 21 December 2009 at 9:37 PM
…I understand nothing about this
I am confused…
I hope it’s not snipped…
Jim Galasynsays
Interesting editorial decision over at Chemical & Engineering News, to include the contrarian position in their climate change overview: Into the heart of the climate debate.
“The only contentious aspect of the IPCC assessment is attribution –– what is the cause of global warming and climate change,” says atmospheric physicist S. Fred Singer, who is president of the Science & Environmental Policy Project, a public policy institute based in Arlington, Va. “We have looked at every bit of data that IPCC has brought forth, and we see no credible evidence for human-caused global warming. None.”
[Response: They missed the next part of the quote: “Whether that has anything to do with the fact we’re wearing a blindfold, while sitting in the dark with our heads buried in the sand, I couldn’t possibly say.” – gavin]
Radge Haverssays
“In the past months I have read… RealClimate…”
Seriously? Did you go to thestart here page on this site and read deeply? Then move on to search the articles and comments for answers to your remaining questions?
(Don’t say that you did.)
“I also read WattsUpWithThat, The Air Vent, and, of course, ClimateAudit. Frankly, I find them more closely aligned with facts, with science and with numbers.”
Huh? How so?
“Somehow, I feel that…”
Oh, I see. Never-mind. It’s all about the feelings… somehow.
The science is going to be very hard to wrap your head around if you’re accustomed to forming you opinions based solely on seductively descriptive text with no math. Even core undergraduate courses in calculus and statistics will be insufficient. The closest you can come to getting around that is to spend a lot of time rigorously examining the mechanics of the discussion. You will see that climate scientists in general go to great lengths, if not always successfully, to break down difficult concepts, while denialists tend to cycle through rhetorical devices and debating tricks. While these occasionally get dressed up in new ways, I believe that any reasonably intelligent and literate person can learn to identify them with a little practice. (For instance your comment comes very close to “Gish Galloping.”) In the end, we have to go with our best estimate. We can’t just fantasize that there must be a better explanation and then make decisions based on that fantasy.
So. AGW. Deal with it.
Just in general, RC is a scientists’ site. It’s not like e-mailing your congress critter with countless talking points, and because he/she panders to polls, it will be taken seriously. If you want your comments to be truly influential, you’d better bring some game and some mad skills. Otherwise have the good graces to respectfully warm the bleachers.
I think a thread on why this is such a male dominated site would be interesting. Women are typically more pro environmental leaning than men. Is the lack of women a result of the state of physics in general–Prof. Bradley’s outfit has a few female grad students, but the postdocs and collaborators are all male. There is only one female tenure track faculty in that group–is she taken seriously? She doesn’t publish much. Are women in physics taken seriously? If women and American domestic minorities (also pretty non-existent in academic level physics) come to see AGW as another white male pissing match, then the scientific battle might be won while the policy space is lost.
[Response: Actually that is a good question. But it’s one I don’t really have an answer for. There is no shortage of female scientists in climate – though it does vary according to sub-discipline. And although we’ve had numerous guest posters (e.g. Kim Cobb, Cecilia Bitz, Figen Mekik, Dorothy Koch, Beate Liepert…), no-one (so far!) has wanted to do this as a continual thing. There are of course multiple pressures – these are generally early career people, and they have to publish, get grants, teach, raise families (optionally), be good community people etc – and so part-time blogging might look difficult to fit in. However, we are very keen to encourage people to use RC as a means of public outreach, and we’d welcome questions and suggestions from other potentials posters if they were interested in contributing one, two or multiple posts at whatever frequency they’d be happy with. It can be a lot of fun (at least some of the time ;) ). – gavin]
John E. Pearsonsays
254: It’s shoddy and certainly not anything someone interested in getting at truth would stop with, but I’m not sure it’s completely nuts. I wonder what the best fit would be over the modern temperature record? I would think one could search for a best fit using something like the BIC or AIC (I’m not sure which one would be more appropriate for this). Say you want to fit to global averaged annual mean temperature. You could try to extract a time dependent trend v(t) (with v representing the time rate of change of temperature as a function of time t) using splines of various orders to fit to time averaged windows of varying lengths. Obviously the best least squares fit would one with as many parameters as there are years of temperatures but BIC (or AIC) penalize for over-fitting. You definitely wouldn’t find the best BIC score came from a fit with 100 + parameters. My guess from eye-balling the temperature record is that the fit of the tempertaure data from 1880 until now with the best BIC score would have around 5-10 parameters. It would be interesting to see. Maybe somebody has already done an analysis along these lines? I think 226’s were honest questions. My guess is that the site he linked to has no interest in providing honest answers.
Comment by Lynn Vincentnathan — 21 December 2009 @ 5:03 PM:
I agree with what you are saying, but here is a little more information from the inside. Early in my career as a scientist (neurobiology), among my advisers and friends we made a distinction between pure science and applied science. Pure science was done by individuals at universities and basic science institutions that didn’t have a bias in their mission. Science was done for its own sake and scientists followed their interest.
Applied science was, in my area of research, the province of industry (e.g. drug companies) and physicians doing contract work for drug companies. The most extreme examples where money was spent to discover, or develop a specific product or process, we called biotechnology. If you are not familiar with an area, “follow the money” is a good guide.
I had colleagues that went into applied science because the salary and benefits were much better. Some of them went into jobs that produced good research, but you would have to know the individuals in order to decide if their research was biased or not. In my experience they were often willing to talk candidly about this.
Climate science is pure basic science. Steve
Rod Bsays
Dwight (255), we certaintly don’t need an AGW debate to howl about world government, redistribution of wealth, etc.
Spaceman Spiffsays
@277 Lady in Red:
You bring up a lot of points, most of which are non-issues. What I mean by that is (a) some were never issues to begin with, and (b) most of the rest climate scientists, atmospheric scientists, oceanographers, geologists, and physicists have addressed with *data and the convergence of evidence* and the successful predictions of their (yes, imperfect) models. Yet no matter how many times these and similar questions are answered, a segment of the population doesn’t care to learn from them, or care that those who are answering them are members of the scientific community that are collecting data and otherwise practicing the science. You might imagine the frustration that eventually sets in.
Nevertheless, I’ll try to address a few of the points you raise.
1) re. “global cooling predictions” of the 1970s. This has been answered (again and again and again, and…).
The most recent and complete review of this non-issue can be found here: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2008BAMS…89.1325P (the electronic on-line article should be available for free; otherwise try googling: “The Myth of the 1970s Global Cooling Scientific Consensus”).
2) Mann’s “hockey stick” has been replicated (and improved upon) by other researchers in study after study since his original work, using many different methods for temperature reconstruction. See the studies linked from here, for example: http://www.desmogblog.com/this-is-not-a-hockey-stick . The US National Academy of Sciences investigated the climate reconstruction issue (Mann’s “hockey stick”), and essentially confirmed its scientific usefulness: http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?RecordID=11676 . Now 3-4 years on, the case for the ‘hockey stick’ has only been strengthened.
And what’s more, even if these particular data did not exist the scientific conclusion of the future arrival of a climate train wreck is hardly dented. This is because of the multitudes of convergent independent evidence across many scientific disciplines with regards to Earth’s climate.
4) Engineers, statisticians and all are welcome to submit their climate data and physical or statistical interpretations thereof to the appropriate journals for consideration of publication.
5) You are invited to learn for yourself the more important processes and phenomena associated with the science of Earth’s climate. Along the way you will find that on the one hand, there are many 1000s of scientists of climate-related disciplines collecting and publishing their data, publishing replicated model predictions as well as continually expanding and improving the climate models. There is a working overarching physical model for Earth’s climate (and I am not referring to a particular computer model) — one that explains and unifies the observations, despite the uncertainties that climate scientists are more than happy to reveal. There is at present no competing model that does the same.
May I recommend beginning this quest for understanding by watching this most effective video of a presentation given by a highly recognized actively practicing paleogeologist, Dr. Richard Alley, of the American Geophysical Union at their annual meeting regarding the role that CO2 has played in the long history of Earth’s climate: http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm09/lectures/lecture_videos/A23A.shtml .
It is an excellent presentation that shows how interlocking independent lines of evidence result in understanding.
All the best.
Normansays
I wonder what the solution is?
If the continued burning of fossil fuels will cause untold damage to the planet via potential runaway “Greenhouse Effect”, what is the answer?
Should the 6 billion plus people be forced to live unpleasant difficult lives, low on food, comforts, etc?
Are the plans to get rid of 80% of the current population (odds would be that I would be in that 80%) to make things more manageable?
Wind is not very reliable and you need vast amounts of windmills to provide enough electricity for a comfortable existence. What is the energy of the future? Why does it take so long to figure out fusion? Why can’t the World’s Nations develop Fusion power?
What will all the billions of people do? The bigger question is what should we be doing? In order to have a Nation of fully employed citizens it seems necessary to carry out an extremely wasteful consumer oriented society. One where many items of no particular use are manufactured and sold and buried in the ground after they, by design, break. If we are to consume less fossil fuels then someone needs to design an economic system where the citizens can partake in meaningful labor but not need to be hyper consumers. We can enjoy the comfort of a warm house and plenty of food without the excess needed to keep this current form of economy running.
Does anyone have an answer? You can prove release of Carbon Dioxide by man will cause a drastic warming of the planet, the next phase is to figure out a new economic model that would work.
ZTsays
I was intrigued to have a message on this thread not posted, and then to read of the suspicion that people posting asking dumb questions might be an astro-turf operation. So – I just wanted to let you know that I (at least) am not some kind of stooge. I am or was just asking questions to satisfy my curiosity.
I think that you are going to find that people who don’t know anything about climatology are going to know something about climategate. That isn’t suspicious – that is just a result the fact that climategate makes people curious about climatology, but not apparently, vice versa. Once one is curious about climatology, one asks questions about the accuracy of data (etc.), then one asks about projections (modeling, etc.), then one learns about the fact that long term trends are important, and that leads to wanting to know about the MWP, etc.
In my case I hadn’t come across the concept that models couldn’t be used for prediction – and at that point I seem to have become uniformly banned :-( anyway my questions weren’t supposed to be annoying.
Anyway, the progress from climategate to having questions is fairly natural – and not a malevolent plot. I am just mentioning this as I see the climatology people turn on people in these threads – and that will simply convince anyone that knows nothing of climatology that they are in fact ‘a skeptic’ and send them elsewhere for information. That isn’t the game plan is it? (or is this site in fact run by big oil!).
Anyway – just my two cents – feel free to delete this message like my last if you want.
[Response: People are free to clutter up all manner of bulletin boards and forums and threads elsewhere with repetitive, oft-debunked random talking points. Just not here. If you want to have a dialog about science then we’re good, but if you want to insult scientists, insinuate wrong-doing or post random links to the same, then that isn’t going to work. Feel free to try again. – gavin]
Susannsays
I haven’t had the opportunity to read all 280+ comments yet, but in response to the first post re polling results, the denial industry (doubt is our product) can claim at least a temporary victory. This end — discredited science through discrediting the scientists — was precisely their goal. If you can’t cast doubt on the science, cast doubt on the scientists. Most people are not equipped to judge the science but they do like judging each other.
Sadly, the denialists were able to hound the scientists enough that they made some ill-advised comments to each other in emails that have been taken out of context and used to inflame those inclined to be so. Very sad.
Time will tell of course, but by the time there is evidence that is beyond doubt, it will be too late to do anything but mitigate through even more risky geoengineering projects. The cost will be much more in lives and money than if we were to act sooner. Filthy lucre rules.
40% of American co2 comes from coal and natural gas power plants. Nuclear is the only cost effective co2 neutral alternative. Unlike what people like #16 would have you believe, solar is ridiculously expensive (~10x as expensive as nuclear without subsidies). I’ve personally done extensive research on the costs of different power sources, from a variety of government, green, and industry sources, and its blatantly obvious that only switching to nuclear will allow us to meet the 2°C target without bankrupting our economy. And yet hippies and greens are fanatically opposed to nuclear because “they’re scary”. Until the green movement pulls its collective head out of the sand, they will continue to be mocked by people that can do math.
Spaceman Spiffsays
@277 Lady in Red:
There were two other questions you asked that I can help you with.
2) “What are the course requirements, what universities confer degrees in climate science, instead of, or alongside, traditional earth sciences? How much math, statistics, and physics are required for a climate science degree?”
(omitting the quotes around climate science)
As an active researcher in astrophysics, I can tell you my career path. I would be surprised if it differs much (except in details in particular course work) from those who work in the climate sciences:
a) majored in physics and astronomy, with plenty of courses in mathematics. Degree: B.S.
b) Graduate school in astronomy. Two years of advanced course work in physics, astrophysics and astronomy. After passing 2 rigorous PhD candidacy exams, there are 3-4 additional years to complete an original research project, write and defend the dissertation. Degree: Ph.D.
c) postdoc research positions — These are 2-3 year long terminal positions at a university or observatory, during which time one performs research, publishes results, tries to gain research grants. Here, your research mettle is being tested. Most do two postdocs, some do 1 or 3.
Based on the above research record, attempt and hopefully land a regular research/teaching position at university, laboratory, observatory. One is then on a “6-year plan” to teach, mentor students, perform research, publish the results, actually gain research grants, become recognized in your field. Based on evaluations of these, one might become tenured and continue exploring the universe.
David Klarsays
Real Climate does a great service by providing climate science education for both the lay public and scientists and science teachers(like myself). Sometimes the evidence(particularly the statistics based ones) cause my eyes to glaze over, but generally, I give you an “A” for clear presentation of up to date climate science.
Prof T Heidricksays
Check: http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20090408/
To pull the NASA scientists quote out:
“We will have very little leverage over climate in the next couple of decades if we’re just looking at carbon dioxide,” Shindell said. “If we want to try to stop the Arctic summer sea ice from melting completely over the next few decades, we’re much better off looking at aerosols and ozone.”
SO if we focus on Carbon we will lose the Arctic!
[Response: No. If we just focus on CO2 then it will take a long time to affect concentrations, but in the meantime, reductions in ozone precursors (particular methane) and black carbon, will improve the situation with a more rapid impact. No exclamation marks required. – gavin]
Re #216 response (new rules for RC): *applause*
gary thompson says: “I think you should post a graph showing what the temperatures will look like for 2010. since you obviously have it all figured out and understand the earth’s weather system on a fundamental level, prove it. give monthly predictions with error bars and then track your score through the year. If your models are accurate then put them to the test. will 2010 be hotter than 2009?”
Good straw man there, gary! Do you understand the difference between the forced component and internal variability in the climate system? Do you understand which aspects are sensitive to initial conditions and which are not? Do you understand the difference between knowing everything about a system and not knowing nothing?
Hi,
Gavin’s inline response to #204 is:
“[Response: No, this is not correct (think about what occurs at equilibrium where the net flux changes must be zero. The stratospheric cooling because of increasing CO2 is a function of the spectral nature of the absorption and the presence of other emitters in the lower atmosphere. – gavin]”
Could someone elaborate on this, or link to a more complete explanation? I’m afraid I’ve spread misinformation as I used a similar argument earlier today.
My understanding now is that models predict stratospheric cooling until the climate system reaches thermal equilibrium. (Not necessarily a cooling trend until that point, but cooler than “baseline”.)
Thanks
[Response: Ok, let me try again. First point. CO2 is a much more important absorber/emitter in the stratosphere than in the troposphere (because it’s very dry up there). This is illustrated clearly in the Clough and Iacono figure. Increases in CO2 in the troposphere increase absorption @ 650 cm^-1, warming the atmosphere and increase emissions up across the rest of the spectrum. If you are in the stratosphere looking down, you will see less radiation at the 650 wavenumber as CO2 increases and more radiation elsewhere as a function of the temperature rises. Thus in the stratosphere, you have less 650 band radiation to absorb from below, but because you have more emitters (higher CO2) the emission to space is greater. The net effect is less-in/more-out and therefore more energy to space in that band (leading to a cooling to re-establish a steady state). – gavin]
Bob Arning @226,
That post is NUTS. Why on Earth would you fit to a cubic polynomial. As John von Neumann said: “Give me 4 parameters, and I will fit an elephant; five and I will make him wiggle his trunk.” The list of what these guys don’t understand would be LONG–but suffice to say, they seem to think that humans needn’t worry about Earth because soon we’ll be inhabiting other planets. This is not a group I want to be in charge of maintaining the health of the only habitable planet we know of.
The debate has obviously taken on deep political over-tones, which permit righties to howl about world government, redistribution of wealth, etc.
I think that if more greenies and scientists said loudly, “Look, this CO2 problem is so serious that as much as we dislike it, we are embracing nuclear power as the only reasonable way to generate the energy needed…there would be a PR breaktrough.
Since I can’t see any reasonable way to supply the power needed through, solar, wind, conservation, or any other of the greens favorite solutions, and the cap and trade stuff is also ideologically suspect scientists should, like Hansen, loudly jump on the nuclear bandwagon. Believe me, that would get people’s attention and nullify a lot of the “political” dynamics here. The idea of AGW seems lefty, green, and extremist to all righties and many independents. As a centrist, I am predisposed to be sceptical, whenever I have te least excuse to be. There are hundreds of “crises” a year which rise, make for some great headlines and feature stories, and then go poof, but as I often do, I belabor the obvious.
The way things are now, people who buy electric cars or hybrids which need to be charged, power them up with electricity produced by coal-fired plants. Hmmmmm.
TRY, “LIKELY” is not support at all. It is called qualitative language. And pray, why should there be a timeline in a policy statement by a professional organization of physicists?
Now, do you classify “incontrovertible” as weak? How about “We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now.”
Sounds pretty urgent to me. See, here’s the thing folks like you and Jim are not taking into account. You automatically assume that uncertainty favors your attitude of complacency. It doesn’t. If we are wrong about CO2 sensitivity, it’s much more likely that our estimate is too low than it is that it is too high. And you assume that a failure to specify a time period means you don’t have to worry–when most of the uncertainties (tipping points, irreversible climate change, a growing population that will make future mitigation ever more difficult, etc.) lead to greater peril. Uncertainty is NOT your friend, TRY. If you knew anything about climate, you’d understand that.
Per gavin’s response to comment #252: could you reference your technical points to journal articles in the scientific literature? Thanks,
BPL,
The stratospheric cooling issue is a tough nut to crack. Here are two sources that can help:
Ajavon, et al. (2007, February). Scientific assessment of ozone depletion: 2006. Retrieved from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Earth System Research Laboratory Chemical Sciences Division Web site: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/csd/assessments/2006/report.html
Randel, W. J., et al. (2009). An update of observed stratospheric temperature trends. J. Geophys. Res., 114, D02107, doi:10.1029/2008JD010421
To summarize:
In the global mean, the lower stratosphere cooled between 1979 and 1995 but has not noticeably cooled since 1995. This is no surprise because ozone levels are increasing since 1995 so there is increasing incoming solar radiation absorption.
In the middle and upper stratosphere there was mean cooling of 0.5–1.5 K/decade during 1979–2005, with the greatest cooling in the upper stratosphere near 40–50 km. Ozone concentration above 35 km is minimal so ozone depletion is much less a factor at these levels than below.
Model calculations suggest that the upper stratosphere trends since 1979 are due, about equally, to decreases in ozone and increases in well-mixed greenhouse gases. All climate models predict further cooling of the stratosphere as the year 2100 approaches due to increased GHGs even though full ozone recovery is predicted to occur around 2060.
Just found this disturbing post from James Randi:
AGW, Revisited
Et tu, Randi?
# Ron Kent
The problem with using the peak oil angle, is that the denialists and their minions don’t believe that there is a limit to oil reserves either – esp in the USA. They really believe that the USA has enough oil for the next 100-200 years if the environmentalists would just let us “drill baby drill”.
You cannot reason with them. They will state with all certainty that we are not drilling for oil in the Gulf of Mexico. I’ve even heard people claim that we don’t drill for oil in Alaska!
I’m out in the real world. Most people just don’t care. They’re not informed and they don’t want to be.
Hmm, then Randi backtracks here:
I Am Not ‘Denying’ Anything
Still disconcerting.
Dwight #255 – As a centrist you probably should not use the reluctance of certain greenies to embrace nuclear power as a basis for siding with the deniers on the climate issue. Remember that there are many greenies who think we use far too much power as it is and hence don’t see any compelling need for nukes. Conversely, there are many greenies who are promoting the nuclear option vigorously.
As a centrist you will want to look at the arguments logically, and on that basis the denialist position is severely lacking. You also might want to take the precautionary principle, as Stern did, and again you’d have to discard the denialist arguments as irresponsible (at best).
Jim Galasyn @259, Randi has subsequently backtracked a bit,
http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/806-i-am-not-qdenyingq-anything.html
but this has been disastrous for his reputation as a skeptic. It doesn’t hurt climate science, because his understanding of the subject is so feeble, not even the denialists could embrace it. It’s sad, really. He really doesn’t know enough to be in denial, and yet, for some reason, he seems to think he has to take a position–making him selectively credulous rather than a true skeptic.
Here’s a suggestion:
Guest commentaries from scientists working in other disciplines – biologists in particular – on research related to climate change.
Jim Galasyn says: 21 December 2009 at 7:12 PM
Wow, amazingly naive, regurgitating many shopworn talking points. I suppose Randi is too busy to do the homework required to produce a more competent evaluation?
This reminds me of “SuperFreakonomics”. Feet of clay, etc.
In his retraction he mentions that he knows that there’s a lot of heat generated by the burning of fossil fuels, etc …
As though he thinks this, not GHGs, are what climate scientists have determined is causing the problem.
#256 Ray Ladbury
Excellent post!
I spend a lot of time trying to get people to understand that “Uncertainty is NOT your friend”
My two favorite pictures showing things are worse that we can model:
http://www.ossfoundation.us/projects/environment/global-warming/myths/images/arctic/arctic_sea_ice_extent6_800pxW.jpg/view
http://www.ossfoundation.us/projects/environment/global-warming/myths/images/sea-level/synthrepfig1.jpg/view
For those thinking that we don’t know enough about precisely what will happen on a particular day sometime in the future so we should wait before any policy decisions are made…
I suggest you begin contemplating the reality that what uncertainty means in this context is that it’s more likely than not to be much worse that we can predict, especially when one adds the economic inter-dynamics.
Randi should be cut a little slack, I believe. It appears he was pestered into taking a position on a subject in which he had little interest. That his response was scientifically inadequate is not surprising.
Randi is a woo-woo debunker. Science denial is not his bailiwick.
John P. Reisman (OSS Foundation) (267) — You might care to study a bit about the statistics of extreme events.
How much more rain is expected with Global Warming?
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/317/5835/233
Maybe this has already been covered on this site; if so, then please show me where.
Otherwise, it would be interesting to review the apparent divergence between models and observations with respect to water vapor, rainfall and wind shear.
I understand some climate models may not be modeling the radiative forcing of clouds properly.
#262 Crazy Bill wrote:
As a centrist you will want to look at the arguments logically, and on that basis the denialist position is severely lacking. You also might want to take the precautionary principle, as Stern did, and again you’d have to discard the denialist arguments as irresponsible (at best).
———-
Well, I am becoming impressed (especially as I learn on this site and elsewhere) with the depth of the CO2 and related studies over the last 100+ years and see that a lot of the deniers’ positions have already been addressed by what is now “known” about the history of our climate.
But as a person who makes it a point to consume very little, I hold out little hope that the average American is going to consume less, unless absolutely forced to. Recession is a hell of a lot more effective than conscience or guilt, that’s for sure. So any pragmatic analysis would conclude that the world’s energy use will only grow; it will never shrink unless there is an economic crack-up. The rate of growth may vary, of course, but that’s all.
Therefore, short of some miraculous technological breakthrough, we need nukes. We “proved” that we did not need them before because we could just burn oil, coal, and gas, which has gotten us where we are.
In the meantime, I am burning five cords of wood a year and get a longer growing season for my big garden. The white tail deer have returned with a bang to Southeastern Mass. Their protein is appreciated, but their ticks are not.
A centrist has to use the extra CO2 as best he can. :-)
Then he should’ve said “I don’t know enough about the subject to have an informed opinion.”
I haven’t been following the comments above, but given the open ended topic I hope that my question is appropriate. Is the reference to the IPCC in the quote below valid? I have not read the fourth report, but I have not seen this kind of economic data in parts of the report that I have read or scanned. I’m speaking of the 1-5 percent figure referring to economic output.
“According to the authoritative U.N.Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), under a reasonable set of assumptions for global economic and population growth, the world should expect to warm by about 2.8°C over the next century. Also according to the IPCC, a global increase in temperature of 4°C should cause the world to lose about 1–5 percent of its economic output.”
The text was taken from the following article.
http://www.chiefexecutive.net/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=&nm=&type=Publishing&mod=Publications::Article&mid=8F3A7027421841978F18BE895F87F791&tier=4&id=9610EE159C324660849861BD80E2999E
My interest is based on a conversation that I’m anticipating regarding the article.
Thanks in advance for a response, and happy solstice to all!
The text above is from an
Would not mind seeing more on the influence of ocean current changes – particularly implications through the North West passage and secondarily the influence on glacial erosion.
Not sure if it’s bang on the topic but surely changes in the circulation volume temp would have a ENSO like influence on regional climates particularly the poles.
Re Randi, he’s undergoing chemotherapy after surgery for a malignant intestinal tumor, so I’m inclined to cut him some slack. The comments make for interesting reading.
RE: 232 David Horton,
They drown out any other discussion, their madness and ignorance (nothing about climate change has ever been discussed before for these newbies) even more strident than it was just a few months ago. This looks to me like a ramped up astroturf operation, the starting gun fired as soon as the emails were leaked. Anyone else noticed the pattern?
Does anyone here have the code chops to do something like seining for particular phrases on a representative list of blogs? And then analyze their repeated appearances statistically, compared to other climate blogs? I suspect, too, that there’s an awful lot of cutting and pasting going on (see the Wall St. Journal article comments from the 17th–I linked it above in comment 43).
My other suggestion is for people who participate on this site to roll up their sleeves, hold their noses, and plunge into some of those comment threads from time to time. I think a lot of the participants in those groups get the impression, from hearing only their own strange misconceptions mirrored back at them, that the whole world is of one mind, which gives them rather too much confidence.
I also fear that cuts at newspapers have left us with journalists who don’t understand the science turning to blogs (one visit to RC, one to one of those others for “balance”) for explanations.
A recent post on DeepClimate about the Wegman Report got me thinking.
DeepClimate discovered that some parts, for example the explanation of the importance and use of tree ring proxies, was “lifted” from another source. That’s uncool, tacky. Unethical, but, also, not particularly germane to the report’s thrust, does not negate the report’s conclusions, in particular, that the climate science peer-review process is, at least, inbred and that climate scientists need more cross-disciplinary mathematical expertise in their work. [edit]
I would be interested in reading two overviews of the chronology of climate science, dating back, say, to the 1970’s, done by both skeptics and believers in AGW. If science is to build on prior science, should not all interested individuals have access to everything upon which peer-reviewed and published papers are based, including the selected data and models?
I envision only a couple of pages, with head-to-head comments by the “other” side appended to each – but written for the intelligent lay community. Allowed comments being like “direct hits” instead of diversionary and distracting sideways slings.
In the 1970’s, I believe, persons attempting to understand the world’s oceans, and others studying the atmosphere were called oceanographers and meteorologists and atmospheric scientists. Mostly, scientists focused on a narrow swath, like the biology of the ocean, or a study of its currents. Air-sea interactions were very complex, nuanced mysteries, I thought.
When was “climate science” invented as a discipline, separate from previous earth sciences? What are the course requirements, what universities confer degrees in “climate science,” instead of, or alongside, traditional earth sciences? How much math, statistics, and physics are required for a “climate science” degree?
Below is a succinct explanation of the difference between science and engineering and why we should open our confusing “settled science” about climate to qualified engineers:
http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2009/12/21/the_perverse_economics_of_climate_modeling_97559.html
Who were the first persons to attempt to do long-range, climate predictions? When? What were the predictions? In the 1970’s some folk were predicting a new Ice Age. The source most often referenced is a Newsweek article, which is derided by the AGW community as not authoritative, or peer-reviewed. I find it hard to believe that, one week, Newsweek went over the top and reported something completely without any scientific basis whatsoever. So, what was the genesis of that article? Who did the research and what became of them and their work? When did the consensus view shift from global ice to problematic warming?
When did the IPCC issue its first report and how have its predictions borne out over time? How does the IPCC build upon its earlier predictions with each new report? What is the IPCC overall predictive track record?
I am confused, and there appears to be controversy whether the last decade was the warmest in history (excluding 1934, possibly…?), is getting somewhat warmer, or is cooling. I’ve seen a U-Tube video of a ten year old and his father doing an analysis of US temperature data outside of urban centers which is a flat line, and read about cherry-picked data and temperature sensors mounted atop buildings beside air conditioning units. Why is the temperature record — from just the past ten years! — so controversial, more complicated than a junior high school science project, binary list of do’s and don’ts? Why isn’t satellite data incorporated more into contemporary analyses of global temperatures?
In the past months I have read DeepClimate, ClimateProgress and RealClimate on the AGW side of the aisle.
ClimateProgress reports today that a new, independent study by the British Met Office in conjunction with the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasting has – so quickly? – determined that prior HadleyCRU global warming predictions have been more conservative than the data and analysis now indicates and includes a terrifying, new hockey stick graph of warming from 1860 to the uptick present. The problem, of course, is that I have no confidence in the independence of this analysis and wouldn’t know if the graph were upside-down. (I am, however, impressed with the rapidity of this analysis and am left wondering why, if so easy and fast, this data cannot be analyzed by independent statistical experts and engineers.
(There are often dismissive references from within the climate science community about the importance of trusting only peer-reviewed articles written by those with the appropriate academic degrees, the only ones entitled to have opinions on matters pertaining to climate. There is a modest, thin, little-known book by the late, great Jane Jacobs, an intellectual gadfly of great proportion, titled Dark Age Ahead – a subject not ungermane to matters at hand. There are three chapters of particular note: Credentialing Versus Educating, Science Abandoned, and Self-Policing Subverted. The entire book is an easy yet compelling read. Look it up. Read it.)
[edit]
One thing I have wondered is whether the increases in CO2 concentration can have small effects on our cognitive abilities. I know it has marked effects at higher concentrations. At long term low but elevated levels might it be that the denial of AGW observed is exacerbated by loss of cognitive abilities.
What is real Climate’s response to the Fox News special on change change?
277: Who were the first persons to attempt to do long-range, climate predictions? When?
Joseph Fourier in 1810 is the earliest attempt that I know of to make scientific climate predictions. I have no idea what he predicted. There wasn’t enough science known at the time for his predictions to be taken seriously. You should read the Spencer Weart’s “Discovery of Global Warming” http://www.aip.org/history/climate/ if you’re seriously interested in this.
Yeah, right, Lady in Red, a genuine searcher after knowledge aren’t you?
Bit of a hint though – “In the 1970’s some folk were predicting a new Ice Age” – sort of gives it away.
Re #16, “I have a tremendous respect for Jim Hansen… but his focus on nuclear power is something I don’t get.”
Jim Hansen clearly refers to 4th generation nuclear power. He’s thinking of reactors that use thorium instead of uranium as the primary fuel. The process also burns up weapons grade fissionable elements and nuclear waste. It reduces the danger of storing nuclear waste from millennia to centuries.
http://seekerblog.com/archives/20090902/jim-hansen-on-4th-generation-nuclear-power/
see also:
http://www.ossfoundation.us/projects/energy/nuclear
Andrew (#270)– Concerning precipitation, water vapor, clouds:
There’s several issues here. First of all, precipitation should go up much less rapidly than Clausius-Clapeyron in a warming world, so we expect differences between the accumulation of water vapor and the precipitation (which also suggests the atmosphere could be more sluggish getting rid of its water). The Wentz paper suggests the possibility of a discrepancy between models and observations in this regard (I would suggest our ability to model associated precipitation changes are currently inadequate), although others (e.g., Previdi and Liepert (2008)) suggest that the Wentz results may not necessarily be indicative of longer-term global warming due to the inter-decadal variability of precipitation changes. This is certainly something that needs work.
That said, you’re quite right about clouds being represented inadequately in models, particularly through their role as a feedback mechanism to greenhouse-induced warming. It is unclear what their magnitude (or even sign) is, as this is not well constrained. It is fair to say much of the IPCC sensitivity range of 2 to 4.5 degrees C/2xCO2 is largely the result on uncertanties in cloud feedback in a warmer world. Projected precipitation changes should be less sensitive to these issues because the tropospheric energy balance (which determines precipitation) is not really dependent on albedo feedback issues, as only feedbacks that affect tropospheric energy *absorption* affect the tropospheric energy budget (see the argument in Lambert and Webb 2008).
Water vapor is different than clouds, and there’s pretty high confidence that scientists are not off the mark that much concerning the radiative feedback influence of water vapor.
Lady in Red says: 21 December 2009 at 9:37 PM
…I understand nothing about this
I am confused…
I hope it’s not snipped…
Interesting editorial decision over at Chemical & Engineering News, to include the contrarian position in their climate change overview: Into the heart of the climate debate.
[Response: They missed the next part of the quote: “Whether that has anything to do with the fact we’re wearing a blindfold, while sitting in the dark with our heads buried in the sand, I couldn’t possibly say.” – gavin]
Seriously? Did you go to thestart here page on this site and read deeply? Then move on to search the articles and comments for answers to your remaining questions?
(Don’t say that you did.)
Huh? How so?
Oh, I see. Never-mind. It’s all about the feelings… somehow.
The science is going to be very hard to wrap your head around if you’re accustomed to forming you opinions based solely on seductively descriptive text with no math. Even core undergraduate courses in calculus and statistics will be insufficient. The closest you can come to getting around that is to spend a lot of time rigorously examining the mechanics of the discussion. You will see that climate scientists in general go to great lengths, if not always successfully, to break down difficult concepts, while denialists tend to cycle through rhetorical devices and debating tricks. While these occasionally get dressed up in new ways, I believe that any reasonably intelligent and literate person can learn to identify them with a little practice. (For instance your comment comes very close to “Gish Galloping.”) In the end, we have to go with our best estimate. We can’t just fantasize that there must be a better explanation and then make decisions based on that fantasy.
So. AGW. Deal with it.
Just in general, RC is a scientists’ site. It’s not like e-mailing your congress critter with countless talking points, and because he/she panders to polls, it will be taken seriously. If you want your comments to be truly influential, you’d better bring some game and some mad skills. Otherwise have the good graces to respectfully warm the bleachers.
I think a thread on why this is such a male dominated site would be interesting. Women are typically more pro environmental leaning than men. Is the lack of women a result of the state of physics in general–Prof. Bradley’s outfit has a few female grad students, but the postdocs and collaborators are all male. There is only one female tenure track faculty in that group–is she taken seriously? She doesn’t publish much. Are women in physics taken seriously? If women and American domestic minorities (also pretty non-existent in academic level physics) come to see AGW as another white male pissing match, then the scientific battle might be won while the policy space is lost.
[Response: Actually that is a good question. But it’s one I don’t really have an answer for. There is no shortage of female scientists in climate – though it does vary according to sub-discipline. And although we’ve had numerous guest posters (e.g. Kim Cobb, Cecilia Bitz, Figen Mekik, Dorothy Koch, Beate Liepert…), no-one (so far!) has wanted to do this as a continual thing. There are of course multiple pressures – these are generally early career people, and they have to publish, get grants, teach, raise families (optionally), be good community people etc – and so part-time blogging might look difficult to fit in. However, we are very keen to encourage people to use RC as a means of public outreach, and we’d welcome questions and suggestions from other potentials posters if they were interested in contributing one, two or multiple posts at whatever frequency they’d be happy with. It can be a lot of fun (at least some of the time ;) ). – gavin]
254: It’s shoddy and certainly not anything someone interested in getting at truth would stop with, but I’m not sure it’s completely nuts. I wonder what the best fit would be over the modern temperature record? I would think one could search for a best fit using something like the BIC or AIC (I’m not sure which one would be more appropriate for this). Say you want to fit to global averaged annual mean temperature. You could try to extract a time dependent trend v(t) (with v representing the time rate of change of temperature as a function of time t) using splines of various orders to fit to time averaged windows of varying lengths. Obviously the best least squares fit would one with as many parameters as there are years of temperatures but BIC (or AIC) penalize for over-fitting. You definitely wouldn’t find the best BIC score came from a fit with 100 + parameters. My guess from eye-balling the temperature record is that the fit of the tempertaure data from 1880 until now with the best BIC score would have around 5-10 parameters. It would be interesting to see. Maybe somebody has already done an analysis along these lines? I think 226’s were honest questions. My guess is that the site he linked to has no interest in providing honest answers.
Gavin,
http://www.examiner.com/x-28973-Essex-County-Conservative-Examiner~y2009m12d10-Context-for-hide-the-decline-discovered
[Response: Your point? – gavin]
Comment by Lynn Vincentnathan — 21 December 2009 @ 5:03 PM:
I agree with what you are saying, but here is a little more information from the inside. Early in my career as a scientist (neurobiology), among my advisers and friends we made a distinction between pure science and applied science. Pure science was done by individuals at universities and basic science institutions that didn’t have a bias in their mission. Science was done for its own sake and scientists followed their interest.
Applied science was, in my area of research, the province of industry (e.g. drug companies) and physicians doing contract work for drug companies. The most extreme examples where money was spent to discover, or develop a specific product or process, we called biotechnology. If you are not familiar with an area, “follow the money” is a good guide.
I had colleagues that went into applied science because the salary and benefits were much better. Some of them went into jobs that produced good research, but you would have to know the individuals in order to decide if their research was biased or not. In my experience they were often willing to talk candidly about this.
Climate science is pure basic science. Steve
Dwight (255), we certaintly don’t need an AGW debate to howl about world government, redistribution of wealth, etc.
@277 Lady in Red:
You bring up a lot of points, most of which are non-issues. What I mean by that is (a) some were never issues to begin with, and (b) most of the rest climate scientists, atmospheric scientists, oceanographers, geologists, and physicists have addressed with *data and the convergence of evidence* and the successful predictions of their (yes, imperfect) models. Yet no matter how many times these and similar questions are answered, a segment of the population doesn’t care to learn from them, or care that those who are answering them are members of the scientific community that are collecting data and otherwise practicing the science. You might imagine the frustration that eventually sets in.
Nevertheless, I’ll try to address a few of the points you raise.
1) re. “global cooling predictions” of the 1970s. This has been answered (again and again and again, and…).
The most recent and complete review of this non-issue can be found here: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2008BAMS…89.1325P (the electronic on-line article should be available for free; otherwise try googling: “The Myth of the 1970s Global Cooling Scientific Consensus”).
2) Mann’s “hockey stick” has been replicated (and improved upon) by other researchers in study after study since his original work, using many different methods for temperature reconstruction. See the studies linked from here, for example:
http://www.desmogblog.com/this-is-not-a-hockey-stick . The US National Academy of Sciences investigated the climate reconstruction issue (Mann’s “hockey stick”), and essentially confirmed its scientific usefulness: http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?RecordID=11676 . Now 3-4 years on, the case for the ‘hockey stick’ has only been strengthened.
And what’s more, even if these particular data did not exist the scientific conclusion of the future arrival of a climate train wreck is hardly dented. This is because of the multitudes of convergent independent evidence across many scientific disciplines with regards to Earth’s climate.
4) Engineers, statisticians and all are welcome to submit their climate data and physical or statistical interpretations thereof to the appropriate journals for consideration of publication.
5) You are invited to learn for yourself the more important processes and phenomena associated with the science of Earth’s climate. Along the way you will find that on the one hand, there are many 1000s of scientists of climate-related disciplines collecting and publishing their data, publishing replicated model predictions as well as continually expanding and improving the climate models. There is a working overarching physical model for Earth’s climate (and I am not referring to a particular computer model) — one that explains and unifies the observations, despite the uncertainties that climate scientists are more than happy to reveal. There is at present no competing model that does the same.
May I recommend beginning this quest for understanding by watching this most effective video of a presentation given by a highly recognized actively practicing paleogeologist, Dr. Richard Alley, of the American Geophysical Union at their annual meeting regarding the role that CO2 has played in the long history of Earth’s climate:
http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm09/lectures/lecture_videos/A23A.shtml .
It is an excellent presentation that shows how interlocking independent lines of evidence result in understanding.
All the best.
I wonder what the solution is?
If the continued burning of fossil fuels will cause untold damage to the planet via potential runaway “Greenhouse Effect”, what is the answer?
Should the 6 billion plus people be forced to live unpleasant difficult lives, low on food, comforts, etc?
Are the plans to get rid of 80% of the current population (odds would be that I would be in that 80%) to make things more manageable?
Wind is not very reliable and you need vast amounts of windmills to provide enough electricity for a comfortable existence. What is the energy of the future? Why does it take so long to figure out fusion? Why can’t the World’s Nations develop Fusion power?
What will all the billions of people do? The bigger question is what should we be doing? In order to have a Nation of fully employed citizens it seems necessary to carry out an extremely wasteful consumer oriented society. One where many items of no particular use are manufactured and sold and buried in the ground after they, by design, break. If we are to consume less fossil fuels then someone needs to design an economic system where the citizens can partake in meaningful labor but not need to be hyper consumers. We can enjoy the comfort of a warm house and plenty of food without the excess needed to keep this current form of economy running.
Does anyone have an answer? You can prove release of Carbon Dioxide by man will cause a drastic warming of the planet, the next phase is to figure out a new economic model that would work.
I was intrigued to have a message on this thread not posted, and then to read of the suspicion that people posting asking dumb questions might be an astro-turf operation. So – I just wanted to let you know that I (at least) am not some kind of stooge. I am or was just asking questions to satisfy my curiosity.
I think that you are going to find that people who don’t know anything about climatology are going to know something about climategate. That isn’t suspicious – that is just a result the fact that climategate makes people curious about climatology, but not apparently, vice versa. Once one is curious about climatology, one asks questions about the accuracy of data (etc.), then one asks about projections (modeling, etc.), then one learns about the fact that long term trends are important, and that leads to wanting to know about the MWP, etc.
In my case I hadn’t come across the concept that models couldn’t be used for prediction – and at that point I seem to have become uniformly banned :-( anyway my questions weren’t supposed to be annoying.
Anyway, the progress from climategate to having questions is fairly natural – and not a malevolent plot. I am just mentioning this as I see the climatology people turn on people in these threads – and that will simply convince anyone that knows nothing of climatology that they are in fact ‘a skeptic’ and send them elsewhere for information. That isn’t the game plan is it? (or is this site in fact run by big oil!).
Anyway – just my two cents – feel free to delete this message like my last if you want.
[Response: People are free to clutter up all manner of bulletin boards and forums and threads elsewhere with repetitive, oft-debunked random talking points. Just not here. If you want to have a dialog about science then we’re good, but if you want to insult scientists, insinuate wrong-doing or post random links to the same, then that isn’t going to work. Feel free to try again. – gavin]
I haven’t had the opportunity to read all 280+ comments yet, but in response to the first post re polling results, the denial industry (doubt is our product) can claim at least a temporary victory. This end — discredited science through discrediting the scientists — was precisely their goal. If you can’t cast doubt on the science, cast doubt on the scientists. Most people are not equipped to judge the science but they do like judging each other.
Sadly, the denialists were able to hound the scientists enough that they made some ill-advised comments to each other in emails that have been taken out of context and used to inflame those inclined to be so. Very sad.
Time will tell of course, but by the time there is evidence that is beyond doubt, it will be too late to do anything but mitigate through even more risky geoengineering projects. The cost will be much more in lives and money than if we were to act sooner. Filthy lucre rules.
Breaking News!
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=119745
[Response: Oh my!. – gavin]
40% of American co2 comes from coal and natural gas power plants. Nuclear is the only cost effective co2 neutral alternative. Unlike what people like #16 would have you believe, solar is ridiculously expensive (~10x as expensive as nuclear without subsidies). I’ve personally done extensive research on the costs of different power sources, from a variety of government, green, and industry sources, and its blatantly obvious that only switching to nuclear will allow us to meet the 2°C target without bankrupting our economy. And yet hippies and greens are fanatically opposed to nuclear because “they’re scary”. Until the green movement pulls its collective head out of the sand, they will continue to be mocked by people that can do math.
@277 Lady in Red:
There were two other questions you asked that I can help you with.
1) The history behind climate science; try the links here, from the American Institute of Physics: http://www.aip.org/history/climate/
2) “What are the course requirements, what universities confer degrees in climate science, instead of, or alongside, traditional earth sciences? How much math, statistics, and physics are required for a climate science degree?”
(omitting the quotes around climate science)
As an active researcher in astrophysics, I can tell you my career path. I would be surprised if it differs much (except in details in particular course work) from those who work in the climate sciences:
a) majored in physics and astronomy, with plenty of courses in mathematics. Degree: B.S.
b) Graduate school in astronomy. Two years of advanced course work in physics, astrophysics and astronomy. After passing 2 rigorous PhD candidacy exams, there are 3-4 additional years to complete an original research project, write and defend the dissertation. Degree: Ph.D.
c) postdoc research positions — These are 2-3 year long terminal positions at a university or observatory, during which time one performs research, publishes results, tries to gain research grants. Here, your research mettle is being tested. Most do two postdocs, some do 1 or 3.
Based on the above research record, attempt and hopefully land a regular research/teaching position at university, laboratory, observatory. One is then on a “6-year plan” to teach, mentor students, perform research, publish the results, actually gain research grants, become recognized in your field. Based on evaluations of these, one might become tenured and continue exploring the universe.
Real Climate does a great service by providing climate science education for both the lay public and scientists and science teachers(like myself). Sometimes the evidence(particularly the statistics based ones) cause my eyes to glaze over, but generally, I give you an “A” for clear presentation of up to date climate science.
Check:
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20090408/
To pull the NASA scientists quote out:
“We will have very little leverage over climate in the next couple of decades if we’re just looking at carbon dioxide,” Shindell said. “If we want to try to stop the Arctic summer sea ice from melting completely over the next few decades, we’re much better off looking at aerosols and ozone.”
SO if we focus on Carbon we will lose the Arctic!
[Response: No. If we just focus on CO2 then it will take a long time to affect concentrations, but in the meantime, reductions in ozone precursors (particular methane) and black carbon, will improve the situation with a more rapid impact. No exclamation marks required. – gavin]