If you can use them here are some more visuals for you John Reisman:
First, another great site THE PHOTOGRAPHIC DOCUMENTATION OF CLIMATE CHANGE http://tinyurl.com/5de5o
Lots of great “then and now” glacier photos (if you don’t already have them) clearly and cleanly shown. How can one argue with this? http://tinyurl.com/das6n
Another representation of Arctic thaw http://tinyurl.com/ybjz3h5
Again, I’d probably put the 1979 and the 2008 Arctic summer ice minimums side-by-side too.
Change in Number of Category 4 and 5 Hurricanes by Ocean Basin for the 15-Year Periods 1975-1989 and 1990-2004 http://tinyurl.com/ybcpnfj
RC, rather than so much talk about possible future changes or the minutae of temperature data etc maybe we should have more discussion and visuals about the already observed changes occurring.
I don’t know, how about this topic? Something y’all can really whack around like a pinata for egregious failure to peer review!
In the case of melting glaciers in the Himalayas, the IPCC 2035 claim has led to, in Nielsen-Gammen’s words, an egregious mistake becoming “effectively common knowledge that the glaciers were going to vanish by 2035.” Like the common (but wrong) knowledge on disasters and climate change that originated in the grey literature and was subsequently misrepresented by the IPCC, on the melting of Himalayan glaciers the IPCC has dramatically misled policy makers and the public.
rob m.says
I am just a passerby who is trying to get a handle on AGW. I think I understand the proponents of AGW in that humans are pumping CO2 into the atmosphere thus creating warming. But there has been warming in the past. What started the production of CO2 in the past that lead to GW? What stopped so that the earth could cool?
Robert P.says
_Physics Reports_ is indeed a prestigious journal, but it’s a very peculiar place to publish a finding of this sort. _Physics Reports_ published review articles rather than primary research papers. While it is not unheard of for reviews to include some original research (indeed, the best review articles in my experience are those in which the author really engages with the papers being reviewed, to the level of presenting a simplified derivation of a published result or showing how the conclusions of paper X do, or do not, support the conclusions of paper X), it’s not the sort of place where one would *first* present an argument that purports to overturn established results.
UpNorthOutWestsays
You all ought to have fun picking apart and dismissing this
Philippe Chantreausays
Gary Rissling mentioned the CLOUD experiment, which has been going on for a long time and is going nowhere as it always has. Yet it continue being funded. If I were a “skeptic” how would I comment on this use of public money? They found out that whatever results they had were too contaminated by interactions with the chamber walls to mean anything. Meanwhile, out in the real atmosphere, CCN number between 100 and 1000 per cubic centimeter of air, and nicely ionized over the oceans too. Chances that GCRs have a meaningful contribution to cloud modulation? Well, if I were a “skeptic” considering this, where would I start? If only all the nonsense was 2-sided…
Philippe Chantreausays
Lu is arguing based on a “temperature decrease” since 2000, which has a strong smell of BS. How does that square with 2005 tying with 1998? If 2009, or 2010, or both, are hot years, what does that do to his hypothesis? The “skeptical” treatment needs to be applied here.
Nick Bonesays
Re: Comment 334 [David Murphy]. This is closely tied in with my own comment above (218) on Earth System Sensitivity and target CO2. Also see David Benson’s comment (249).
It strikes me that the difficulties with limiting to a 2 degree rise are now so profound that they become mind-numbing.
1. As you say, 450ppm *might* be feasible, but only if polluting countries agree to cap emissions very soon, and start making big annual cuts by 2020. However, if they were at all minded to agree to such a trajectory, we would have had a very different result from Copenhagen. We didn’t get that result, so it won’t happen. (Judging by Copenhagen, and the pitiful “progress” it represents over Rio and Kyoto, it’s not clear that we’ll stabilize at all this century at any level.)
2. Even if (by some miracle) we stabilize at 450ppm, it’s still not good enough. That gives us ~2 degrees of rise from the “fast” feedbacks. But then the “slow” feedbacks kick in over subsequent centuries and give us another 1 to 2 degrees. So it is not enough to stabilize, we need to start going down.
3. Even if we then get down to 350ppm (which the 350.org campaign want), it’s *still* not good enough. 350ppm commits us to a world somewhere between the last interglacial (~300ppm?) and the Pliocene (~400ppm?). We still get around 2 degrees of temperature rise, and massive sea level rise (6+ metres).
4. So we need to go even *further* down – to 300ppm, or even right back to pre-industrial levels (280ppm). And we need to do it before the slow feedbacks take hold and sea level rise becomes unstoppable.
5. The problem is that I’ve no idea how fast we could feasibly and safely get CO2 down, even if we wanted to. A whole planet’s worth of industrial activity right now is pushing us up 1-2 ppm per year. If we could arrange to stop that rise completely (zero emissions!) and then come down by 1 ppm per year (air capture, biochar, reforestation, ocean neutralization??), we’re still looking at a century to get from 450 down to 350 and then the best part of another century to get right down to pre-industrial levels. Since the “slow” feedbacks hit on the same timescales, my main concern is that we just run out of time.
6. Even if we have the time to do it, how much would it cost and who’s going to pay for it? Extracting 1ppm or so per year is not going to help anyone this year, or this electoral cycle. Why would anyone fund such a long-term project? How would the world have to be organized before we *were* prepared to fund such a project?
These are the sorts of questions we now need to be addressing.
Eliotsays
Right now there is a major volcano in the Philipines, poised to erupt. When Mt. Pinatubo went off in 1991 there was a significant cooling for two years.
If it’s not this volcano, it will be another one in the next decade. How will the climate community deal with the deniers once the world temperature temporarily dips?
Theo van den Bergsays
On Climate Sceptics: I work in IT and many of my collegues are such sceptics and I greatly enjoy my attemps to show them the light. Some hide behind the company line, which has a need to make money irrespective of Global Warming, but privately, the are sceptics too. Biggest resistance is accepting that it is man-made, cause that may mean that they need to do something about it. But right now, when you dig deep enough, most seem to agree that the earth seems to be warming somewhat. Turns out, that after these many discussion, I am a sceptic too. I accept the previous premises and I even belief that we can theoretically do something about it, but to actually implement what needs doing on a global basis seems pretty unlikly. My reaction to that is that since 2007, I have been building Theo’s Arc, cause whatever the world gets up to, some of us WILL survive.
cougar_wsays
Possible topic:
We know that there is a lot of coal and oil in the earth. We know that this represents buried plant life from 100s of millions of years ago. Once the carbon that was buried is back in the air we’re stuck with it, UNLESS we can sequester it back into living plants.
So given the fossil reserves, and the likelihood that most will be released over the next 100 years, and the observation that a little more can be absorbed by the seas yet, how many mature trees of an average kind would have to grow over how much arable land just to pull that carbon out of the atmosphere and entrain it in the biosphere?
It’s a back-o-envelope calculation I suppose, but I sense and fear the approximate solution would be chilling.
cougar
hfsays
Re Lyle
Relative to your post 373, would you have any comments on the following brief article? Thank You.
On dirty coal and other filthy human addictions: Humanity would still be using horses for transport without that industry and it is not right to make them into the baddies overnight. Here in Aus, we had heavy demonstrations straight after Copenhagen stopping us from exporting coal to our mates in China. We have been lucky to have lots of that stuff in the ground, cause doing something with that, keeps our economy going. If I had a power station, I would turn it off for a day, to see how people would like that. Bet ya, the same demonstrators will be at my gate. But seriously, we need to INCLUDE them in our doings, not alienate them.
I would like to wish RealClimate and all its contributors a Merry Christmas and New Year. Thanks for all the the climate commentary during 2009 and a special thanks for the grace under pressure shown by Gavin and others following the CRU hack. I hope we’ll see more great posts in 2010!
All the best for 2010 to the regular commenters too – you all add a lot to the posts.
Theo van den Bergsays
…and while the door is open to general posts:
(1) ABC news in Aus was tentatively using the p-word and how it absolutely rated no mention in Copenhagen or in any climate discussions. Even the best procedures to mitigate Global Warming will pale into insignificance, unless we do something about humanity’s favourite entertainment.
(2) What’s this thing about rating countries on their CO2 emissions per captita? The Netherlands with similar polulation is rated much lower than Australia on this ladder, but you should see how much dirt they produce per square kilometer. Sure, ours is higher per capita, but have you ever attempted to roll out a national broadband network in a country the size of Australia. The Nederlands is one big city and what they call “the country” is smaller than my backyard. It should be OK for me to use a coal fire, cause I am sure that the millions of trees around me will compensate for that.
Anyway, maybe these 2 point can be used for further discussion? PS. I used to be a dutchman and I still love them.
Ericsays
Hi, first time poster and someone really trying to cut through the politics so I can form an unbiased opinion.
I have concerns and can honestly say – at this stage I don’t know what to think about AGW or what I should support or reject with regards to action on it. Flame if you must.
In no particular order my concerns are:
1. The analytical mathematics:
This is what I do. Without writing a thesis on it, put simply if the mathematical answers are wrong one or more of three basic things are happening. (a) crucial data is missing (b) input data is misrepresented or incorrect (c) the hypothesis or equation is wrong.
Whilst dissecting and trying to follow the maths on AGW I keep running into the above problems with the models and suppositions. The disturbing element of the so called “Climategate” emails wasn’t argument over tree rings etc, it was the arguements over how much to manipulate data and suggestions that some inconvenient data was being left out – or “cherry picked”. Adjusting data is things Engineers do to try and make something workable. It is NOT science and definitely NOT mathematics.
From my “wanting to learn more” perspective, it looks too much to me like trying to fit cubes into round holes. Either the data is wrong, something else yet to be identified and / or understood is having an effect, or the theory is wrong. It is making it very difficult for me to have confidence in such “findings” or the scenario’s they suggest.
2. The basis mathematics:
If I move on and accept AGW and CO2 as the prime driver despite the above “science” and “mathematics”, to determine how much of a reduction of Co2 is required to meet various scenario targets requires quite a lot of careful basis maths. I need to know how much Co2 man is pumping out, how much nature is pumping out, how much nature will pump out as temps increase, how much the earth can use and absorb, and most importantly how much will result in a 1 degree temp increase, how much will form a stable temp, and how much will result in cooling.
There’s a lot of “need to know’s” above. I am really struggling to find peer reviewed and followable mathematics that provides these answers – or even some of them. Without ALL of them the world’s leaders can say what temps they’d like until they’re blue in the face – God knows how we’ll achieve it!
3. From a mathematical viewpoint – the end result:
With so few answers, and most of it intelligent but nonetheless educated guesswork, how the hell do we take action?
If the general modelling has flaws, and lets not debate it – they do, then our first problem is we don’t know enough and / or the theory could be wrong. Not a good start. Then add at best “guestimations” or no real answers to the “must know” Q & A’s and we’re really nowhere.
We could all wake up tomorrow and have a 100% agreement on the theory of AGW and 100% agreement that Co2 is the cause. But we would still be absolutely nowhere near knowing how to achieve a “2 degree cap on warming”. Sadly, we’d also be nowhere near knowing by just how much we need to cut emissions – and what other effects that might have.
This being the case, how on earth can we even hope politicians will magically figure it out? And how the hell do we know what will work?
James McDonaldsays
To Completely Fed Up: Sorry I wasn’t clearer.
First, I’m looking for ammunition to squelch denialist rumors, but to some extent that requires knowing your enemy, and knowing the kinds of arguments that will work against them. The best seem to be short pithy rejoinders which can, if challenged, be supported with lots of easily accessible references. The rejoinder itself doesn’t need to be detailed–it just needs to point out the flaw in the denialist’s assertion.
Regarding “hiding the decline”, all I meant to say is that splicing could work both ways (to hide or enhance something) and a more complete sentence would explain that derived data was being hidden in favor or more direct data, but then the sentence gets just a bit to long to be pithy. (I.e., I’m not saying a better sentence couldn’t be written, just that “my” sentence was a bit lacking.)
To anyone else, including Gavin, I’m really, truly trying to help here. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve corrected some idiot on some news site. The problem is that I have a day job (and a night job, and kids, and …) so when something like the CRU incident comes up I’m at a loss to understand exactly what’s going on, and I HATE correcting someone only to find out I was mistaken in my correction–if nothing else, it undermines any other comments I have in those threads. Hence my appeal for the 15-second elevator pitches, from those in the know.
Thanks for your patience.
vboringsays
I’d like to see a logic map for the need to address anthropogenic climate change. It would be a way to depict how robust the science really is and how even if you threw away everything that ever came out of the UEA, the case for immediate action would be unaltered.
It’d show the complete logical and scientific analysis from how we know atmospheric CO2 reflects heat to how confident we can be that a given international policy will be effective at preventing damage to our habitat.
I understand that a lot thorough science has taken place approaching each step in the proof from several directions. I think a graphical representation would be the best way to communicate how thorough and robust this process has been and whether there really are any data or analysis choke points (any single crux of the issue that if proven false would damage the case for action).
The diagram would ideally depict feedbacks, like using temperature records to verify models via hindcasting and references to the most definitive work on each step.
I’ve read the “six steps to climate change” and find it an insulting oversimplification of the issue. I’ve watched scientists on TV yelling about how “the science is settled.” I want to believe the claim and I think this kind of diagram would be a big help.
ELsays
Gavin – [Response: Your point? – gavin]
Seems like the claims are more and more outrageous.
S. Molnarsays
How about a brief post on how to use an index and search engine? That way, instead of linking for the umpteenth time to an RC column on a subject someone asks about, you can just link to the post on how to find it. But seriously, one despairs of educating those who won’t make the least effort to scan the literature that’s right under their noses.
# 379 (David Klar)– The link gavin gave is good, but just for some further clarification:
The 3 degree C per 2xCO2 does not depend on the baseline CO2 concentation since a logarithmic relation suggests the climate change from 280 to 560 ppmv (which would be the “first doubling” since pre-industrial time) would produce the same effect as going from 1000 to 2000 ppmv. That is the “forcing” part of the temperature change, but the whole change also depends on feedbacks. The climate sensitivity will change somewhat under different baseline climates since feedbacks might behave a bit differently, although this shouldn’t be a very big factor over the current range of climate changes under consideration.
There is not really a good theoretical ground for this value. You can get parts of it theoretically (doubling CO2 by itself gives you about a degree, atmospheric water vapor content will increase in a warmer world, although basic thermodynamic arguments like Clausius-Clapeyron are not quite sufficient to tell you the full answer, especially in the upper atmosphere where the radiative impact is strongest). Warmer world means less snow and ice which should mean less albedo, but it’s hard to say how big of an impact that is without numeric modeling. Clouds are tough, and we still don’t really have a handle on the magnitude (or even sign) of cloud responses.
The past climate record (especially glacial times) are the best tool for assessing climate sensitivity. There’s been a lot of deep-time work as well (see some work by Dana Royer, or Richard Alley’s recent AGU 2009 talk ), as well as using the modern instrumental record to contrain sensitivity. Researchers have looked at all types of stuff– the seasonal cycle, the response to volcanoes, the solar cycle, and obviously modeling is a big deal– some of it is more useful than others, but the IPCC constraints are based on a wide range of tests. See this post for some more background, and especially the Knutti and Hegerl paper which you may find most useful for summarizing the various lines of evidence for the current equilibrium sensitivity estimates. The AR4 is a good place to go as well.
xtophrsays
> dhogaza: Just in case anyone’s wondering why all these GCR/Lu woo-woos came from, I took a quick peek and yes indeed, WUWT has a piece on Lu as its top post at the moment.
Hi dhogaza,
I’m new to the whole climate-science corner of the blogosphere, and yep, I read it on WUWT. Still trying to figure out who’s who (I take it that RC and WUWT are something like antipodes; I’ve gotten that far). That’s why I came here with the Liu article. Anyways, no hard feelings about the “woo-woo” comment.
I take it you have an opinion about the Liu piece? Maybe you can help me understand.
Cheers.
Doug Bostromsays
DocumentTheData says: 22 December 2009 at 5:09 PM
Much of what you want is available. More importantly, the temperature records that you’re worried about are at this point becoming increasingly less important, which is counterintuitive but less so as time goes by. If we had no global record of temperatures, as opposed to an imperfect one, we’d still find ourselves pressed to explain a lot of phenomena that, taken together, reflect a change in conditions. As it stands, we happen to have a messy record of temperature that corresponds to and helps explain many other changes.
Think of it this way: if you’re dumped in Death Valley with no access to water it’s not the heat that’s going to kill you, it’s dehydration. Even if you have no clue about temperature or what it means, you’ll still feel thirsty, and you’ll still die.
Denialists often take issue with AGW on the grounds that it is merely deduced from ‘models’.
It would be amusing to assemble a list of industrial, financial and social processes and services which are based solidly on models. Presumably the list would run for many pages.
Lylesays
Re #412
If the costs are as low as the article cites then we should do those conservation measures that make sense anyway, (of which there are quite a number such as when renovating a building or building a new one make it energy efficient, since it saves utility costs (ignoring the problem of the incidence of costs versus the incidence of savings) Now many on this board will say the article states much lower costs than will happen. Its kind of hard to decide to buy insurance when you don’t know the risk and you don’t know the premium. Insurance is what the mitigation measures are, take it out to prevent the bad thing happening. In particular its hard to decide when the benefits will likely not come to one but ones children and grandchildren.
In that case people (like me) who have no children and are of an age where they won’t have any will likely have a different point of view than those with children.
Unfortunately much of the mitigation argument is conducted on a moral basis, which gets to a fundamental (perhaps the fundamental) issue of human kind (In the parable of the good samaritian sense “Am I my brothers keeper”). Opinions on this differ wildly, and because they proceed from different premises create a 2 way monologue not a dialog. Many allege that taking an economic view of the issue is immoral. Following from the Scientific American article a while ago on what the discount rate for the climate change should be (ranging from +8% following from the average increase of the us stock market since 1871 to 0% ) expresses these different points of view.
dhogazasays
I’m new to the whole climate-science corner of the blogosphere, and yep, I read it on WUWT. Still trying to figure out who’s who (I take it that RC and WUWT are something like antipodes; I’ve gotten that far).
Yes, RC and WUWT are something like antipodes:
1. RC is run by some of the leading climate scientists in the world.
2. WUWT is run by a guy with a high school education who has no scientific training. He's a TV weatherman, old enough that he doesn't have to have the BS in meteorology that is required for modern certification.
I would go to WUWT for advice on what kind of makeup would make me look best on TV.
The mathematical equations are going to be similar to the equations that we went over in my undergraduate astrophysical stellar envelopes course. Even at the advanced undergraduate level, we did not directly solve the equations of state for an atmosphere and extracurricularly I validated that runge-kutta methods blew up. The planetary atmosphere is arguably more difficult to model than a lot of stellar models since you need a stratosphere and you need to care about convection.
There’s this idea that if science isn’t simple enough for the average man on the street to figure out numerically that it must be incorrect. In many cases, however, once you get out there it gets difficult. Good luck trying to do anything numerical with Quantum Chromodynamics or anything non-trivial with General Relativity (and those are far less understandable and unapprochable than AGW).
Re: Comment by Curmudgeon Cynic — 21 December 2009 @ 11:11 AM It is oft quoted that 2500 scientists can’t be wrong and that the science is settled. The denier camp casts doubt on this and claims that the IPCC report is written by just a few scientists
[Response: Not true. Many thousands of scientists have participated in the IPCC process
They are lying with the truth. What they are referring to is the number of people who literally typed out/edited the final sections of the full report. They are attempting to diminish the import by lying that a few tens of scientists participated in doing the science.
2. I also understand that we pump sea water underground to get oil to come out. Is the amount of sea water that is now “underground” as a result of the years f pumping ina any way “material” to overall sea level?
If it were, it would be a reduction in sea level, masking a higher level, so not good news, if so. We have produced around 1 trillion barrels of oil. That’s 42 trillion gallons. If this were replaced by sea water on a 1:1 ratio, then we’ve put 42 trillion gallons of water in the ground.
First, only wells that are in declining production use advanced recovery techniques such as water flooding. Second, not all of it is sea water, iirc.
Even if it is 42 trillion gallons, I can’t help but think this is a vanishingly small percentage of total sea water.
[Response: This may be a factor. Depletion of ground water resources is a global problem, and in IPCC AR4 they discuss (p418) some of the estimates but they are quite uncertain. Recent results from GRACE point to a larger contribution than may have been expected. – gavin]
He asked about sea water, but I do think this is the far more important issue. Aquifers are dropping all over. This is a very bad thing for agriculture, in particular.
Cheers
Lynn Vincentnathansays
Well, here’s a fine how-do-you-do. I wrote some radio program, CrossTalk, that comes on my local Christian station re their discussion of climate change, and corrected some of their mistakes. They wrote back, “We recommend ClimateDepot.com for a more scientific assessment of the fraud called ‘climate change.'”
I briefly checked out the site and figured this one is really over the top denialist. I hate to even go to those sites.
But if anyone can stomach it, it might help to assess these denialist sites — rank them from bad to worse, or something.
ClimateDepot is a shame on our nation, a shame on Christians who use it for their science, and a shame on all of humanity. Man’s inhumanity to man never fails to shock me, even at my age.
jscsays
My idea for a topic to discuss is
“The great AGW Debate”
I would bill it as a *completely* unmoderated event where scientists, “alarmists,” and “deniers” alike can try and contribute to the discussion.
Assuming the science is overwhelming (sadly I have no expertise in this field), it should not be a contest, but it would be interesting to see what people said.
Admittedly signal to noise would be issue, but this happens all the time on the internet and it is really not that hard for intelligent people to discern the contenders from the pretenders.
Anyway, on my wishlist.
jsc
PeteBsays
There was an interesting recent comment on the ‘peak fossils’ oildrum thread that I posted an excerpt from suggesting the author was being over optimistic
‘You ask above if climatologists read this. Sure. Myself working at least with atmospheric aerosol particles and clouds.
Here some general critic, loosely connected to your question above concerning linear scenarios, hope you like it and can see opportunities for improvements of your text, so to speak:
You write “but it is starting to appear clear that geology is placing a major constraint on anthropogenic CO2 emissions and, therefore, on global warming. Here, I present a brief summary of some of the recent papers that have appeared on the subject.”
This I do not agree to; it is not “appearing clear”, only a few individuals ponder today on these questions; on a large timescale, (that you should define for the discussion), there is a constraint on emissions, yes, but you write “therefore, on global warming”. With the current scientific knowledge today, I cannot agree, (and it seems as if many would not,) that global warming for the next say 5 generations (my suggestion, again you do not mention the timescale you like to discuss) will be “constrained” with that scenario. It is not excluded that global warming can be large (ie there could be “pain” for humans, eco-systems and or the economic system we live in) even if “anthropogenic CO2 emissions” would become small!
(Do you mean now all CO2 or only from fossil fuels, btw? Not clearly written, a scientific text can be done better!)
Thus it is risky to recommend to study “tipping points” more, then to only study the current climate, just because a few individuals suggest scenarios/models which include smaller CO2 emissions…
You further write you present papers on this, but at least a few papers that you present seem to me, to arrive to the opposite then what you describe, namely that with a constraint in CO2 emissions climate change can be at least substantial. i e Kharecha and Hansen, and Hansens 350 ppm paper, Brecha and the reply from Zecca and Chiari. I find your introduction thus not clearly describing your content.
You further write “simulations of future climate have been run without taking into account “peaking” of the major fossil fuels”. I suppose you mostly mean in the IPCC. Scenarios are there defined. Not simulations. The scenarios include for example A1T which foresees use of “non-fossil energy sources”, and the B1 group including “introduction of clean and resource-efficient technologies”.
——
A further point you mention is that these are the only papers with both scenario/model and climate simulation, this is not very surprising, as mostly a scenario is used as input for the climate simulation, thus the two processes can be done apart.
Only if you do a new “unexpected” scenario you might need to run that yourself, as it is not mainstream. A point to think about?
—–
This is critical: you write “These values are far below those of the “business as usual” (bau) scenario of the IPCC that predicts a CO2 concentration of about 1000 ppm by the end of the century.”
Are you talking about ppm CO2, or are you talking about CO2 equivalent ppm? This you should clearly write out. 600 ppm CO2 correspond roughly to 1000 CO2 equivalent ppm!!!’
[…] not the anti-junk-science crowd that is fooling them, it’s YOU!
Or is this what you truly believe?
You contradict yourself.
Choose:
a. The science is probably right, but you should try harder to make the process more transparent.
b. Scientists are conspiring to mislead the world with junk science and no matter what you say or do will ever make me change my mind.
Or the *only* compliantbid the Ontario Power Authority received for a new 2400 MWe station was 26 billion (canadian dollars).
None is even close to 2$/W. And these are only the projections. Cost overruns are standard when constructing nuclear plants, so the real cost will end up even higher.
I am not afraid of nuclear, but I don’t see it surviving in a post cold war capitalist market place.
Punkstasays
While the post-1998 flattening of temperatures was not predicted by any of the models, it is claimed that this period is nevertheless still consistent with the models, ie within their bounds of error I assume.
How much longer would it need to not warm significantly before
(a) minor doubts arise ?
(b) major doubts arise ?
(c) they are rejected ?
Biggest resistance is accepting that it is man-made, cause that may mean that they need to do something about it.
I call it ‘preemptive conscience protection’.
Most people can’t be bothered to deal with climate change, but will never admit that they simply don’t care. Somewhere deep inside they feel it is likely true and are afraid of feeling guilty once the consequences manifest themselves in an undeniable fashion. They will actively tell themselves that the signals are unclear and climate science is suspect so they can later claim innocence by ignorance.
simon abingdonsays
I have asked before, so again, what is this “noise” that swamps the signal of the underlying warming trend, other than the myriad effects that we just don’t yet understand?
[Response: The unforced component. The stuff is not predictable as a function of changing boundary conditions. But note that one scientist’s noise is another scientist’s signal. – gavin]
Edward Greischsays
318 Completely Fed Up: You haven’t considered the costs of protesters. It is the anti-nuclear protesters who create this self- fulfilling prophecy thing. The protesters make nuclear power financially risky, and they have made nuclear power far safer than is reasonable.
Douglas Wisesays
re #396 Jiminmpls
“I’ve been over to Brave New Climate. They claim that ….”
You use this as a starting point to imply that all those commenting on BNC are under the misapprehension nuclear power will be cheap relative to that produced by alternative means. You continue by giving your own contrary view that it will prove too expensive to adopt.
Presumably, your attempt at brevity has led you into this trite response. The discussions at BNC are far more nuanced and balanced than you imply.
The best chance of major global emissions reduction (short of societal collapse) is to replace fossil fuels, particularly coal, with an alternative energy source that is as cheap or cheaper. Industrial societies, capitalism and democracies currently all depend on continuous economic growth. Without it, we’re in a zero sum game such that the enrichment of one nation will lead to the impoverishment of another. Access to cheap and readily available energy is a necessary precondition for economic growth. It is scarcely surprising, therefore, that the Copenhagen Conference ended in a shambles. It might be argued that rich nations may be able to maintain the quality of life of their citizens by using energy more efficiently. However, this will not compensate for the growth in human population already in the pipeline and nor will it allow for the justified and rising aspirations of the citizens of developing nations.
If energy is to be cheap, it has to have a high ERoEI – in other words it must emanate from a high net energy source. CCS coal and renewables, with the possible exception of onshore wind, cannot fulfil this criterion. Wind has other problems (see Peter Lang on BNC) which, IMO, severely constrains its utility. Nuclear power seems to be the only possible major solution since it is the only one that has the potential to provide energy with a very high ERoEI (>100) and, given successful deployment of 4th generation reactors, that can be regarded as sustainable. Admittedly, there remain concerns over economic return on investment which will only be overcome by political action. The materials and fuel costs of nuclear are low relative to those of other energy technologies. The current costs of nuclear and time to deployment are as long as a piece of string and, at present, in Western democracies largely depend upon investor uncertainty and the consequent massive interest charges.
I am not suggesting that a nuclear approach will necessarily solve the problem we all face but I would suggest that it is the only solution with the potential to provide a soft landing – one, furthermore, that, in theory, could provide sufficient cheap energy to capture atmospheric CO2 should the need arise. Finally, I would like to make it clear that I am more of a Malthusian than a Cornucopian and would not wish cheap power to be used as an excuse for future generations to continue to live in our unsustainable manner.
Edward Greischsays
304 Patrick 027: Thanks for the clarification on terminology. I meant “really big” volcano that dumped out a lot of CO2. Flood volcano it is, not super volcano.
Douglas Wisesays
re #399 Anne van der Bom
I have spoken to David MacKay about your opinions of his book and your claims that he has treated nuclear power too favourably. I originally approached him to express the contrary view, namely that I considered fast reactors had the potential to provide much more sustainble power than he claimed without recourse to uranium extraction from oceans.
Why don’t you take your concerns directly to David rather than criticising him behind his back? He’s very approachable. Before doing so, you may wish to look at his Chapter 27 (in particular Fig 27.9). I can see no way that anyone could claim that he wasn’t treating all potential sustainable sources of energy in an equal manner.
P. Lewissays
In his research, Lu discovers that while there was global warming from 1950 to 2000, there has been global cooling since 2002. The cooling trend will continue for the next 50 years, according to his new research observations.
Well! On the assumption that press release accurately portrays Lu’s findings, then how can accredited scientists continue to perpetrate this cooling myth by ignoring 2005 and 2007?
Most remarkably, the total amount of CFCs, ozone-depleting molecules that are well-known greenhouse gases, has decreased around 2000
why not reference the “cooling” since 2000 or 2001?
Year JD DN
2000 33 34
2001 48 45
[GISS L&S]
Is it an egregious cherry pick? Or, given Lu has been working with stratospheric ozone, then perhaps he’s only been looking at stratospheric temperature trends.
It should be OK for me to use a coal fire, cause I am sure that the millions of trees around me will compensate for that.
1. Interesting, but it fails to account for history. We Dutchmen didn’t choose to be in such a densely populated country. It just kinda happened over the centuries.
How would Monaco or Vatican City ever be able to comply?
2. I think that if ever any binding agreement is made, wouldn’t it enforce *net* CO2 emissions per country. So as long as you can guarantee that the CO2 you emit is indeed captured by the trees around you and stays there, Australia should be fine.
As of now, every projection, not to mention those of the IPCC (except temperature) have fallen short. Why is this? Why always the error goes the same side?
Moreover, how can we be sure that current values are correct and there is not only another step for further worsening? Some recent paper still go this way.
I’m very surprised, as an engineer, for the low use of dynamic systems theory, and the equilibrium analysis this technique can provide. The bottom-up approach is like trying to calculate the GNP by summing all the bills! You will always fall short, o have errors.
Why don’t use stability analysis, eigenvalues, stability margin, etc, and have CO2eq as the control input?
I guess insisting in how to get +2ºC with the heat in the pipeline and the (uncertain) cooling by sulfate aerosols (or others?) will be a general interest topic.
What do you think about fertilizing Sahara as a recent paper in Climatic Change suggests? Do you think it is technically feasible? What are the dangers?
From Barcelona, thanks for your work.
Ferran
Ray Ladburysays
Eric @417, Good Lord, man, where in the hell are you getting your misinformation/disinformation. Did it ever occur to you that the released UEA emails might also be cherrypicked–taken out of context to paint the science in the worst light ahead of Copenhagen.
As to the rest of your screed, all it does is raise questions as to whether you are in fact as you say an “analytical mathematician”. I sure didn’t see any math in your post, nor any understanding of data analysis or modeling. The adjustments to the data are well documented and made for valid reasons. And the models actually do an excellent job reproducing the main features and behaviors of Earth’s climate. You even get features that correspond to ENSO. My recommendation would be to educate yourself so that your understanding of the science constitutes more than just a straw man. Because all a post like yours does is wreck your credibility from the start. Start here:
Elliot says, “If it’s not this volcano, it will be another one in the next decade. How will the climate community deal with the deniers once the world temperature temporarily dips?”
By using these events to validate the models, just as was done for Pinatubo. What is at issue is not whether temperatures climb continually. They won’t. What is at issue is how well we understand the climate. Climate scientists were able to put the data into their models and model the effects of the eruption. On the other hand, when denialists put the data into their models…. Oh yeah, that’s right. The denialists don’t have any models, no answers, no clues. They just throw up their hands and complain that it’s all too complicated to understand.
Ray Ladburysays
Rob m. @403, In the upper right corner of the page, you will find a button that says “START HERE”. Start there. Seriously. Not only will you understand this issue a lot better, but it truly is a fascinating subject.
The basic answer to your question though is that most previous warming epochs were started by changes in sunlight reaching Earth’s surface due to changes in Earth’s orbit, orientation, etc. After a few centuries, permafrost melted and CO2/CH4 was released, increasing and extending the warming period. Note that we have not yet triggered such natural releases–they are a potentially catastrophic feedback.
One epoch that was greenhouse induced (probably, at least), was the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, which coincided with one of the greatest mass extinctions in geologic history.
Go check out the resources on the START HERE page and come back and ask questions.
I think the first thing to consider is that mathematics is a different kind of science. It is purely abstract, whereas the other fields of science deal with the real world with all its complications and imperfections. Only in mathematics you can find 100% proof, but never in other fields like physics, medicine, astronomy or climate science.
Climate science is a continuous quest to reduce uncertainties. You could say that 200 years ago the climate sensitivity was somewhere between -100 and +100 K per doubling. Over the years, a lot of research efforts have reduced that to a range of 2 to 4.5 K. With 90% confidence (IIRC). No, not 100%.
I like to compare the world to a general that has to decide: where to attack the enemy. He sends out his spies to gather information. Some of them do not return. Others come back with fragmented information, sometimes contradictory. The general has 3 options:
– Send out new spies over and over again, until 100% of them return with complete and consistent information.
– Declare the effort hopeless and do nothing.
– Act on the best available information.
Option 1: The general will wait forever, because perfect intelligence does not exist. The enemy will overrun him while he is still making up his mind and win the war.
Option 2: The enemy will take the initiative and win the war.
Option 3: He attacks the enemy at what is probably its most vulnerable point, and therefore there is a good chance he will win the war.
It is clear that option 3 has the best chance of success. In real life you never act on certainties alone, you act on the best available information.
So I would suggest that step 1 for you is come to grips with the fact that uncertainties are inevitable.
Step 2 is to realise that doing nothing is also a choice. Or better: a gamble. A gamble on the remote chance that an entire field of science has been consistently wrong for many decades.
I can tell you that Will Happer is the nut who keeps saying we’re in a “CO2 famine” and that “the CO2 is the lowest it’s been in millions of years,” neither of which is anything like true.
If you can use them here are some more visuals for you John Reisman:
First, another great site THE PHOTOGRAPHIC DOCUMENTATION OF CLIMATE CHANGE
http://tinyurl.com/5de5o
Lots of great “then and now” glacier photos (if you don’t already have them) clearly and cleanly shown. How can one argue with this?
http://tinyurl.com/das6n
More glacier loss photos here
http://tinyurl.com/yafr9ue
http://tinyurl.com/y8vs95o
Thawing Tundra
http://tinyurl.com/yapno4j
Another representation of Arctic thaw
http://tinyurl.com/ybjz3h5
Again, I’d probably put the 1979 and the 2008 Arctic summer ice minimums side-by-side too.
Permafrost loss graph
http://tinyurl.com/4dqg8y
Birds and Climate Change: On the Move
http://tinyurl.com/at48v2
Coral Bleaching Observations
http://tinyurl.com/ybfulo4
Migratory Species and Climate Change
http://tinyurl.com/ycsfby6 (PDF)
Boreal Forests Shift North
http://tinyurl.com/yd496oh
Change in Number of Category 4 and 5 Hurricanes by Ocean Basin for the 15-Year Periods 1975-1989 and 1990-2004
http://tinyurl.com/ybcpnfj
RC, rather than so much talk about possible future changes or the minutae of temperature data etc maybe we should have more discussion and visuals about the already observed changes occurring.
http://tinyurl.com/yeewn3j
http://tinyurl.com/y8r2wlf
Or we can just show this one
http://tinyurl.com/3n94n7
hmmm, maybe it won’t be so bad after all…
I don’t know, how about this topic? Something y’all can really whack around like a pinata for egregious failure to peer review!
In the case of melting glaciers in the Himalayas, the IPCC 2035 claim has led to, in Nielsen-Gammen’s words, an egregious mistake becoming “effectively common knowledge that the glaciers were going to vanish by 2035.” Like the common (but wrong) knowledge on disasters and climate change that originated in the grey literature and was subsequently misrepresented by the IPCC, on the melting of Himalayan glaciers the IPCC has dramatically misled policy makers and the public.
I am just a passerby who is trying to get a handle on AGW. I think I understand the proponents of AGW in that humans are pumping CO2 into the atmosphere thus creating warming. But there has been warming in the past. What started the production of CO2 in the past that lead to GW? What stopped so that the earth could cool?
_Physics Reports_ is indeed a prestigious journal, but it’s a very peculiar place to publish a finding of this sort. _Physics Reports_ published review articles rather than primary research papers. While it is not unheard of for reviews to include some original research (indeed, the best review articles in my experience are those in which the author really engages with the papers being reviewed, to the level of presenting a simplified derivation of a published result or showing how the conclusions of paper X do, or do not, support the conclusions of paper X), it’s not the sort of place where one would *first* present an argument that purports to overturn established results.
You all ought to have fun picking apart and dismissing this
Gary Rissling mentioned the CLOUD experiment, which has been going on for a long time and is going nowhere as it always has. Yet it continue being funded. If I were a “skeptic” how would I comment on this use of public money? They found out that whatever results they had were too contaminated by interactions with the chamber walls to mean anything. Meanwhile, out in the real atmosphere, CCN number between 100 and 1000 per cubic centimeter of air, and nicely ionized over the oceans too. Chances that GCRs have a meaningful contribution to cloud modulation? Well, if I were a “skeptic” considering this, where would I start? If only all the nonsense was 2-sided…
Lu is arguing based on a “temperature decrease” since 2000, which has a strong smell of BS. How does that square with 2005 tying with 1998? If 2009, or 2010, or both, are hot years, what does that do to his hypothesis? The “skeptical” treatment needs to be applied here.
Re: Comment 334 [David Murphy]. This is closely tied in with my own comment above (218) on Earth System Sensitivity and target CO2. Also see David Benson’s comment (249).
It strikes me that the difficulties with limiting to a 2 degree rise are now so profound that they become mind-numbing.
1. As you say, 450ppm *might* be feasible, but only if polluting countries agree to cap emissions very soon, and start making big annual cuts by 2020. However, if they were at all minded to agree to such a trajectory, we would have had a very different result from Copenhagen. We didn’t get that result, so it won’t happen. (Judging by Copenhagen, and the pitiful “progress” it represents over Rio and Kyoto, it’s not clear that we’ll stabilize at all this century at any level.)
2. Even if (by some miracle) we stabilize at 450ppm, it’s still not good enough. That gives us ~2 degrees of rise from the “fast” feedbacks. But then the “slow” feedbacks kick in over subsequent centuries and give us another 1 to 2 degrees. So it is not enough to stabilize, we need to start going down.
3. Even if we then get down to 350ppm (which the 350.org campaign want), it’s *still* not good enough. 350ppm commits us to a world somewhere between the last interglacial (~300ppm?) and the Pliocene (~400ppm?). We still get around 2 degrees of temperature rise, and massive sea level rise (6+ metres).
4. So we need to go even *further* down – to 300ppm, or even right back to pre-industrial levels (280ppm). And we need to do it before the slow feedbacks take hold and sea level rise becomes unstoppable.
5. The problem is that I’ve no idea how fast we could feasibly and safely get CO2 down, even if we wanted to. A whole planet’s worth of industrial activity right now is pushing us up 1-2 ppm per year. If we could arrange to stop that rise completely (zero emissions!) and then come down by 1 ppm per year (air capture, biochar, reforestation, ocean neutralization??), we’re still looking at a century to get from 450 down to 350 and then the best part of another century to get right down to pre-industrial levels. Since the “slow” feedbacks hit on the same timescales, my main concern is that we just run out of time.
6. Even if we have the time to do it, how much would it cost and who’s going to pay for it? Extracting 1ppm or so per year is not going to help anyone this year, or this electoral cycle. Why would anyone fund such a long-term project? How would the world have to be organized before we *were* prepared to fund such a project?
These are the sorts of questions we now need to be addressing.
Right now there is a major volcano in the Philipines, poised to erupt. When Mt. Pinatubo went off in 1991 there was a significant cooling for two years.
If it’s not this volcano, it will be another one in the next decade. How will the climate community deal with the deniers once the world temperature temporarily dips?
On Climate Sceptics: I work in IT and many of my collegues are such sceptics and I greatly enjoy my attemps to show them the light. Some hide behind the company line, which has a need to make money irrespective of Global Warming, but privately, the are sceptics too. Biggest resistance is accepting that it is man-made, cause that may mean that they need to do something about it. But right now, when you dig deep enough, most seem to agree that the earth seems to be warming somewhat. Turns out, that after these many discussion, I am a sceptic too. I accept the previous premises and I even belief that we can theoretically do something about it, but to actually implement what needs doing on a global basis seems pretty unlikly. My reaction to that is that since 2007, I have been building Theo’s Arc, cause whatever the world gets up to, some of us WILL survive.
Possible topic:
We know that there is a lot of coal and oil in the earth. We know that this represents buried plant life from 100s of millions of years ago. Once the carbon that was buried is back in the air we’re stuck with it, UNLESS we can sequester it back into living plants.
So given the fossil reserves, and the likelihood that most will be released over the next 100 years, and the observation that a little more can be absorbed by the seas yet, how many mature trees of an average kind would have to grow over how much arable land just to pull that carbon out of the atmosphere and entrain it in the biosphere?
It’s a back-o-envelope calculation I suppose, but I sense and fear the approximate solution would be chilling.
cougar
Re Lyle
Relative to your post 373, would you have any comments on the following brief article? Thank You.
http://www.chiefexecutive.net/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=&nm=&type=Publishing&mod=Publications::Article&mid=8F3A7027421841978F18BE895F87F791&tier=4&id=9610EE159C324660849861BD80E2999E
On dirty coal and other filthy human addictions: Humanity would still be using horses for transport without that industry and it is not right to make them into the baddies overnight. Here in Aus, we had heavy demonstrations straight after Copenhagen stopping us from exporting coal to our mates in China. We have been lucky to have lots of that stuff in the ground, cause doing something with that, keeps our economy going. If I had a power station, I would turn it off for a day, to see how people would like that. Bet ya, the same demonstrators will be at my gate. But seriously, we need to INCLUDE them in our doings, not alienate them.
How to talk to a conservative about climate change? A good place to start may be http://www.exxonmobil.com/Corporate/energy_climate_views.aspx.
I would like to wish RealClimate and all its contributors a Merry Christmas and New Year. Thanks for all the the climate commentary during 2009 and a special thanks for the grace under pressure shown by Gavin and others following the CRU hack. I hope we’ll see more great posts in 2010!
All the best for 2010 to the regular commenters too – you all add a lot to the posts.
…and while the door is open to general posts:
(1) ABC news in Aus was tentatively using the p-word and how it absolutely rated no mention in Copenhagen or in any climate discussions. Even the best procedures to mitigate Global Warming will pale into insignificance, unless we do something about humanity’s favourite entertainment.
(2) What’s this thing about rating countries on their CO2 emissions per captita? The Netherlands with similar polulation is rated much lower than Australia on this ladder, but you should see how much dirt they produce per square kilometer. Sure, ours is higher per capita, but have you ever attempted to roll out a national broadband network in a country the size of Australia. The Nederlands is one big city and what they call “the country” is smaller than my backyard. It should be OK for me to use a coal fire, cause I am sure that the millions of trees around me will compensate for that.
Anyway, maybe these 2 point can be used for further discussion? PS. I used to be a dutchman and I still love them.
Hi, first time poster and someone really trying to cut through the politics so I can form an unbiased opinion.
I have concerns and can honestly say – at this stage I don’t know what to think about AGW or what I should support or reject with regards to action on it. Flame if you must.
In no particular order my concerns are:
1. The analytical mathematics:
This is what I do. Without writing a thesis on it, put simply if the mathematical answers are wrong one or more of three basic things are happening. (a) crucial data is missing (b) input data is misrepresented or incorrect (c) the hypothesis or equation is wrong.
Whilst dissecting and trying to follow the maths on AGW I keep running into the above problems with the models and suppositions. The disturbing element of the so called “Climategate” emails wasn’t argument over tree rings etc, it was the arguements over how much to manipulate data and suggestions that some inconvenient data was being left out – or “cherry picked”. Adjusting data is things Engineers do to try and make something workable. It is NOT science and definitely NOT mathematics.
From my “wanting to learn more” perspective, it looks too much to me like trying to fit cubes into round holes. Either the data is wrong, something else yet to be identified and / or understood is having an effect, or the theory is wrong. It is making it very difficult for me to have confidence in such “findings” or the scenario’s they suggest.
2. The basis mathematics:
If I move on and accept AGW and CO2 as the prime driver despite the above “science” and “mathematics”, to determine how much of a reduction of Co2 is required to meet various scenario targets requires quite a lot of careful basis maths. I need to know how much Co2 man is pumping out, how much nature is pumping out, how much nature will pump out as temps increase, how much the earth can use and absorb, and most importantly how much will result in a 1 degree temp increase, how much will form a stable temp, and how much will result in cooling.
There’s a lot of “need to know’s” above. I am really struggling to find peer reviewed and followable mathematics that provides these answers – or even some of them. Without ALL of them the world’s leaders can say what temps they’d like until they’re blue in the face – God knows how we’ll achieve it!
3. From a mathematical viewpoint – the end result:
With so few answers, and most of it intelligent but nonetheless educated guesswork, how the hell do we take action?
If the general modelling has flaws, and lets not debate it – they do, then our first problem is we don’t know enough and / or the theory could be wrong. Not a good start. Then add at best “guestimations” or no real answers to the “must know” Q & A’s and we’re really nowhere.
We could all wake up tomorrow and have a 100% agreement on the theory of AGW and 100% agreement that Co2 is the cause. But we would still be absolutely nowhere near knowing how to achieve a “2 degree cap on warming”. Sadly, we’d also be nowhere near knowing by just how much we need to cut emissions – and what other effects that might have.
This being the case, how on earth can we even hope politicians will magically figure it out? And how the hell do we know what will work?
To Completely Fed Up: Sorry I wasn’t clearer.
First, I’m looking for ammunition to squelch denialist rumors, but to some extent that requires knowing your enemy, and knowing the kinds of arguments that will work against them. The best seem to be short pithy rejoinders which can, if challenged, be supported with lots of easily accessible references. The rejoinder itself doesn’t need to be detailed–it just needs to point out the flaw in the denialist’s assertion.
Regarding “hiding the decline”, all I meant to say is that splicing could work both ways (to hide or enhance something) and a more complete sentence would explain that derived data was being hidden in favor or more direct data, but then the sentence gets just a bit to long to be pithy. (I.e., I’m not saying a better sentence couldn’t be written, just that “my” sentence was a bit lacking.)
To anyone else, including Gavin, I’m really, truly trying to help here. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve corrected some idiot on some news site. The problem is that I have a day job (and a night job, and kids, and …) so when something like the CRU incident comes up I’m at a loss to understand exactly what’s going on, and I HATE correcting someone only to find out I was mistaken in my correction–if nothing else, it undermines any other comments I have in those threads. Hence my appeal for the 15-second elevator pitches, from those in the know.
Thanks for your patience.
I’d like to see a logic map for the need to address anthropogenic climate change. It would be a way to depict how robust the science really is and how even if you threw away everything that ever came out of the UEA, the case for immediate action would be unaltered.
It’d show the complete logical and scientific analysis from how we know atmospheric CO2 reflects heat to how confident we can be that a given international policy will be effective at preventing damage to our habitat.
I understand that a lot thorough science has taken place approaching each step in the proof from several directions. I think a graphical representation would be the best way to communicate how thorough and robust this process has been and whether there really are any data or analysis choke points (any single crux of the issue that if proven false would damage the case for action).
The diagram would ideally depict feedbacks, like using temperature records to verify models via hindcasting and references to the most definitive work on each step.
I’ve read the “six steps to climate change” and find it an insulting oversimplification of the issue. I’ve watched scientists on TV yelling about how “the science is settled.” I want to believe the claim and I think this kind of diagram would be a big help.
Gavin – [Response: Your point? – gavin]
Seems like the claims are more and more outrageous.
How about a brief post on how to use an index and search engine? That way, instead of linking for the umpteenth time to an RC column on a subject someone asks about, you can just link to the post on how to find it. But seriously, one despairs of educating those who won’t make the least effort to scan the literature that’s right under their noses.
# 379 (David Klar)– The link gavin gave is good, but just for some further clarification:
The 3 degree C per 2xCO2 does not depend on the baseline CO2 concentation since a logarithmic relation suggests the climate change from 280 to 560 ppmv (which would be the “first doubling” since pre-industrial time) would produce the same effect as going from 1000 to 2000 ppmv. That is the “forcing” part of the temperature change, but the whole change also depends on feedbacks. The climate sensitivity will change somewhat under different baseline climates since feedbacks might behave a bit differently, although this shouldn’t be a very big factor over the current range of climate changes under consideration.
There is not really a good theoretical ground for this value. You can get parts of it theoretically (doubling CO2 by itself gives you about a degree, atmospheric water vapor content will increase in a warmer world, although basic thermodynamic arguments like Clausius-Clapeyron are not quite sufficient to tell you the full answer, especially in the upper atmosphere where the radiative impact is strongest). Warmer world means less snow and ice which should mean less albedo, but it’s hard to say how big of an impact that is without numeric modeling. Clouds are tough, and we still don’t really have a handle on the magnitude (or even sign) of cloud responses.
The past climate record (especially glacial times) are the best tool for assessing climate sensitivity. There’s been a lot of deep-time work as well (see some work by Dana Royer, or Richard Alley’s recent AGU 2009 talk ), as well as using the modern instrumental record to contrain sensitivity. Researchers have looked at all types of stuff– the seasonal cycle, the response to volcanoes, the solar cycle, and obviously modeling is a big deal– some of it is more useful than others, but the IPCC constraints are based on a wide range of tests. See this post for some more background, and especially the Knutti and Hegerl paper which you may find most useful for summarizing the various lines of evidence for the current equilibrium sensitivity estimates. The AR4 is a good place to go as well.
> dhogaza: Just in case anyone’s wondering why all these GCR/Lu woo-woos came from, I took a quick peek and yes indeed, WUWT has a piece on Lu as its top post at the moment.
Hi dhogaza,
I’m new to the whole climate-science corner of the blogosphere, and yep, I read it on WUWT. Still trying to figure out who’s who (I take it that RC and WUWT are something like antipodes; I’ve gotten that far). That’s why I came here with the Liu article. Anyways, no hard feelings about the “woo-woo” comment.
I take it you have an opinion about the Liu piece? Maybe you can help me understand.
Cheers.
DocumentTheData says: 22 December 2009 at 5:09 PM
Much of what you want is available. More importantly, the temperature records that you’re worried about are at this point becoming increasingly less important, which is counterintuitive but less so as time goes by. If we had no global record of temperatures, as opposed to an imperfect one, we’d still find ourselves pressed to explain a lot of phenomena that, taken together, reflect a change in conditions. As it stands, we happen to have a messy record of temperature that corresponds to and helps explain many other changes.
Think of it this way: if you’re dumped in Death Valley with no access to water it’s not the heat that’s going to kill you, it’s dehydration. Even if you have no clue about temperature or what it means, you’ll still feel thirsty, and you’ll still die.
rob m. says: 22 December 2009 at 6:41 PM
Bookmark this:
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/
Denialists often take issue with AGW on the grounds that it is merely deduced from ‘models’.
It would be amusing to assemble a list of industrial, financial and social processes and services which are based solidly on models. Presumably the list would run for many pages.
Re #412
If the costs are as low as the article cites then we should do those conservation measures that make sense anyway, (of which there are quite a number such as when renovating a building or building a new one make it energy efficient, since it saves utility costs (ignoring the problem of the incidence of costs versus the incidence of savings) Now many on this board will say the article states much lower costs than will happen. Its kind of hard to decide to buy insurance when you don’t know the risk and you don’t know the premium. Insurance is what the mitigation measures are, take it out to prevent the bad thing happening. In particular its hard to decide when the benefits will likely not come to one but ones children and grandchildren.
In that case people (like me) who have no children and are of an age where they won’t have any will likely have a different point of view than those with children.
Unfortunately much of the mitigation argument is conducted on a moral basis, which gets to a fundamental (perhaps the fundamental) issue of human kind (In the parable of the good samaritian sense “Am I my brothers keeper”). Opinions on this differ wildly, and because they proceed from different premises create a 2 way monologue not a dialog. Many allege that taking an economic view of the issue is immoral. Following from the Scientific American article a while ago on what the discount rate for the climate change should be (ranging from +8% following from the average increase of the us stock market since 1871 to 0% ) expresses these different points of view.
Yes, RC and WUWT are something like antipodes:
1. RC is run by some of the leading climate scientists in the world.
2. WUWT is run by a guy with a high school education who has no scientific training. He's a TV weatherman, old enough that he doesn't have to have the BS in meteorology that is required for modern certification.
I would go to WUWT for advice on what kind of makeup would make me look best on TV.
I go to RC to learn about science.
#417: for the mathematics start here:
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/Radmath.htm
Then start chewing through this link:
http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~rtp1/ClimateBook/ClimateBook.html
The mathematical equations are going to be similar to the equations that we went over in my undergraduate astrophysical stellar envelopes course. Even at the advanced undergraduate level, we did not directly solve the equations of state for an atmosphere and extracurricularly I validated that runge-kutta methods blew up. The planetary atmosphere is arguably more difficult to model than a lot of stellar models since you need a stratosphere and you need to care about convection.
There’s this idea that if science isn’t simple enough for the average man on the street to figure out numerically that it must be incorrect. In many cases, however, once you get out there it gets difficult. Good luck trying to do anything numerical with Quantum Chromodynamics or anything non-trivial with General Relativity (and those are far less understandable and unapprochable than AGW).
Re: Comment by Curmudgeon Cynic — 21 December 2009 @ 11:11 AM
It is oft quoted that 2500 scientists can’t be wrong and that the science is settled. The denier camp casts doubt on this and claims that the IPCC report is written by just a few scientists
[Response: Not true. Many thousands of scientists have participated in the IPCC process
They are lying with the truth. What they are referring to is the number of people who literally typed out/edited the final sections of the full report. They are attempting to diminish the import by lying that a few tens of scientists participated in doing the science.
2. I also understand that we pump sea water underground to get oil to come out. Is the amount of sea water that is now “underground” as a result of the years f pumping ina any way “material” to overall sea level?
If it were, it would be a reduction in sea level, masking a higher level, so not good news, if so. We have produced around 1 trillion barrels of oil. That’s 42 trillion gallons. If this were replaced by sea water on a 1:1 ratio, then we’ve put 42 trillion gallons of water in the ground.
First, only wells that are in declining production use advanced recovery techniques such as water flooding. Second, not all of it is sea water, iirc.
Even if it is 42 trillion gallons, I can’t help but think this is a vanishingly small percentage of total sea water.
[Response: This may be a factor. Depletion of ground water resources is a global problem, and in IPCC AR4 they discuss (p418) some of the estimates but they are quite uncertain. Recent results from GRACE point to a larger contribution than may have been expected. – gavin]
He asked about sea water, but I do think this is the far more important issue. Aquifers are dropping all over. This is a very bad thing for agriculture, in particular.
Cheers
Well, here’s a fine how-do-you-do. I wrote some radio program, CrossTalk, that comes on my local Christian station re their discussion of climate change, and corrected some of their mistakes. They wrote back, “We recommend ClimateDepot.com for a more scientific assessment of the fraud called ‘climate change.'”
I briefly checked out the site and figured this one is really over the top denialist. I hate to even go to those sites.
But if anyone can stomach it, it might help to assess these denialist sites — rank them from bad to worse, or something.
ClimateDepot is a shame on our nation, a shame on Christians who use it for their science, and a shame on all of humanity. Man’s inhumanity to man never fails to shock me, even at my age.
My idea for a topic to discuss is
“The great AGW Debate”
I would bill it as a *completely* unmoderated event where scientists, “alarmists,” and “deniers” alike can try and contribute to the discussion.
Assuming the science is overwhelming (sadly I have no expertise in this field), it should not be a contest, but it would be interesting to see what people said.
Admittedly signal to noise would be issue, but this happens all the time on the internet and it is really not that hard for intelligent people to discern the contenders from the pretenders.
Anyway, on my wishlist.
jsc
There was an interesting recent comment on the ‘peak fossils’ oildrum thread that I posted an excerpt from suggesting the author was being over optimistic
‘You ask above if climatologists read this. Sure. Myself working at least with atmospheric aerosol particles and clouds.
Here some general critic, loosely connected to your question above concerning linear scenarios, hope you like it and can see opportunities for improvements of your text, so to speak:
You write “but it is starting to appear clear that geology is placing a major constraint on anthropogenic CO2 emissions and, therefore, on global warming. Here, I present a brief summary of some of the recent papers that have appeared on the subject.”
This I do not agree to; it is not “appearing clear”, only a few individuals ponder today on these questions; on a large timescale, (that you should define for the discussion), there is a constraint on emissions, yes, but you write “therefore, on global warming”. With the current scientific knowledge today, I cannot agree, (and it seems as if many would not,) that global warming for the next say 5 generations (my suggestion, again you do not mention the timescale you like to discuss) will be “constrained” with that scenario. It is not excluded that global warming can be large (ie there could be “pain” for humans, eco-systems and or the economic system we live in) even if “anthropogenic CO2 emissions” would become small!
(Do you mean now all CO2 or only from fossil fuels, btw? Not clearly written, a scientific text can be done better!)
Thus it is risky to recommend to study “tipping points” more, then to only study the current climate, just because a few individuals suggest scenarios/models which include smaller CO2 emissions…
You further write you present papers on this, but at least a few papers that you present seem to me, to arrive to the opposite then what you describe, namely that with a constraint in CO2 emissions climate change can be at least substantial. i e Kharecha and Hansen, and Hansens 350 ppm paper, Brecha and the reply from Zecca and Chiari. I find your introduction thus not clearly describing your content.
You further write “simulations of future climate have been run without taking into account “peaking” of the major fossil fuels”. I suppose you mostly mean in the IPCC. Scenarios are there defined. Not simulations. The scenarios include for example A1T which foresees use of “non-fossil energy sources”, and the B1 group including “introduction of clean and resource-efficient technologies”.
——
A further point you mention is that these are the only papers with both scenario/model and climate simulation, this is not very surprising, as mostly a scenario is used as input for the climate simulation, thus the two processes can be done apart.
Only if you do a new “unexpected” scenario you might need to run that yourself, as it is not mainstream. A point to think about?
—–
This is critical: you write “These values are far below those of the “business as usual” (bau) scenario of the IPCC that predicts a CO2 concentration of about 1000 ppm by the end of the century.”
Are you talking about ppm CO2, or are you talking about CO2 equivalent ppm? This you should clearly write out. 600 ppm CO2 correspond roughly to 1000 CO2 equivalent ppm!!!’
Breaking News!
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=119745
[Response: Oh my!. – gavin]
Comment by Dougetit — 22 December 2009 @ 12:21 AM
Indeed. We can’t have real scientists editing science topics with… real science.
DocumentTheData
22 December 2009 at 5:09 PM
Ok, sounds reasonable….
Or is this what you truly believe?
You contradict yourself.
Choose:
a. The science is probably right, but you should try harder to make the process more transparent.
b. Scientists are conspiring to mislead the world with junk science and no matter what you say or do will ever make me change my mind.
Jiminmpls
22 December 2009 at 5:17 PM
There are some more that I know of:
Lee Nuclear Station: 11 billion for ~2200 MWe.
Or the *only* compliantbid the Ontario Power Authority received for a new 2400 MWe station was 26 billion (canadian dollars).
None is even close to 2$/W. And these are only the projections. Cost overruns are standard when constructing nuclear plants, so the real cost will end up even higher.
I am not afraid of nuclear, but I don’t see it surviving in a post cold war capitalist market place.
While the post-1998 flattening of temperatures was not predicted by any of the models, it is claimed that this period is nevertheless still consistent with the models, ie within their bounds of error I assume.
How much longer would it need to not warm significantly before
(a) minor doubts arise ?
(b) major doubts arise ?
(c) they are rejected ?
Theo van den Berg
22 December 2009 at 7:42 PM
I call it ‘preemptive conscience protection’.
Most people can’t be bothered to deal with climate change, but will never admit that they simply don’t care. Somewhere deep inside they feel it is likely true and are afraid of feeling guilty once the consequences manifest themselves in an undeniable fashion. They will actively tell themselves that the signals are unclear and climate science is suspect so they can later claim innocence by ignorance.
I have asked before, so again, what is this “noise” that swamps the signal of the underlying warming trend, other than the myriad effects that we just don’t yet understand?
[Response: The unforced component. The stuff is not predictable as a function of changing boundary conditions. But note that one scientist’s noise is another scientist’s signal. – gavin]
318 Completely Fed Up: You haven’t considered the costs of protesters. It is the anti-nuclear protesters who create this self- fulfilling prophecy thing. The protesters make nuclear power financially risky, and they have made nuclear power far safer than is reasonable.
re #396 Jiminmpls
“I’ve been over to Brave New Climate. They claim that ….”
You use this as a starting point to imply that all those commenting on BNC are under the misapprehension nuclear power will be cheap relative to that produced by alternative means. You continue by giving your own contrary view that it will prove too expensive to adopt.
Presumably, your attempt at brevity has led you into this trite response. The discussions at BNC are far more nuanced and balanced than you imply.
The best chance of major global emissions reduction (short of societal collapse) is to replace fossil fuels, particularly coal, with an alternative energy source that is as cheap or cheaper. Industrial societies, capitalism and democracies currently all depend on continuous economic growth. Without it, we’re in a zero sum game such that the enrichment of one nation will lead to the impoverishment of another. Access to cheap and readily available energy is a necessary precondition for economic growth. It is scarcely surprising, therefore, that the Copenhagen Conference ended in a shambles. It might be argued that rich nations may be able to maintain the quality of life of their citizens by using energy more efficiently. However, this will not compensate for the growth in human population already in the pipeline and nor will it allow for the justified and rising aspirations of the citizens of developing nations.
If energy is to be cheap, it has to have a high ERoEI – in other words it must emanate from a high net energy source. CCS coal and renewables, with the possible exception of onshore wind, cannot fulfil this criterion. Wind has other problems (see Peter Lang on BNC) which, IMO, severely constrains its utility. Nuclear power seems to be the only possible major solution since it is the only one that has the potential to provide energy with a very high ERoEI (>100) and, given successful deployment of 4th generation reactors, that can be regarded as sustainable. Admittedly, there remain concerns over economic return on investment which will only be overcome by political action. The materials and fuel costs of nuclear are low relative to those of other energy technologies. The current costs of nuclear and time to deployment are as long as a piece of string and, at present, in Western democracies largely depend upon investor uncertainty and the consequent massive interest charges.
I am not suggesting that a nuclear approach will necessarily solve the problem we all face but I would suggest that it is the only solution with the potential to provide a soft landing – one, furthermore, that, in theory, could provide sufficient cheap energy to capture atmospheric CO2 should the need arise. Finally, I would like to make it clear that I am more of a Malthusian than a Cornucopian and would not wish cheap power to be used as an excuse for future generations to continue to live in our unsustainable manner.
304 Patrick 027: Thanks for the clarification on terminology. I meant “really big” volcano that dumped out a lot of CO2. Flood volcano it is, not super volcano.
re #399 Anne van der Bom
I have spoken to David MacKay about your opinions of his book and your claims that he has treated nuclear power too favourably. I originally approached him to express the contrary view, namely that I considered fast reactors had the potential to provide much more sustainble power than he claimed without recourse to uranium extraction from oceans.
Why don’t you take your concerns directly to David rather than criticising him behind his back? He’s very approachable. Before doing so, you may wish to look at his Chapter 27 (in particular Fig 27.9). I can see no way that anyone could claim that he wasn’t treating all potential sustainable sources of energy in an equal manner.
Well! On the assumption that press release accurately portrays Lu’s findings, then how can accredited scientists continue to perpetrate this cooling myth by ignoring 2005 and 2007?
Year JD DN
2002 56 57
2003 55 52
2004 48 50
2005 63 62
2006 54 53
2007 57 59
2008 43 43
2009 ** 56
[GISS L&S]
And given
why not reference the “cooling” since 2000 or 2001?
Year JD DN
2000 33 34
2001 48 45
[GISS L&S]
Is it an egregious cherry pick? Or, given Lu has been working with stratospheric ozone, then perhaps he’s only been looking at stratospheric temperature trends.
Theo van den Berg
22 December 2009 at 8:34 PM
1. Interesting, but it fails to account for history. We Dutchmen didn’t choose to be in such a densely populated country. It just kinda happened over the centuries.
How would Monaco or Vatican City ever be able to comply?
2. I think that if ever any binding agreement is made, wouldn’t it enforce *net* CO2 emissions per country. So as long as you can guarantee that the CO2 you emit is indeed captured by the trees around you and stays there, Australia should be fine.
As of now, every projection, not to mention those of the IPCC (except temperature) have fallen short. Why is this? Why always the error goes the same side?
Moreover, how can we be sure that current values are correct and there is not only another step for further worsening? Some recent paper still go this way.
I’m very surprised, as an engineer, for the low use of dynamic systems theory, and the equilibrium analysis this technique can provide. The bottom-up approach is like trying to calculate the GNP by summing all the bills! You will always fall short, o have errors.
Why don’t use stability analysis, eigenvalues, stability margin, etc, and have CO2eq as the control input?
I guess insisting in how to get +2ºC with the heat in the pipeline and the (uncertain) cooling by sulfate aerosols (or others?) will be a general interest topic.
What do you think about fertilizing Sahara as a recent paper in Climatic Change suggests? Do you think it is technically feasible? What are the dangers?
From Barcelona, thanks for your work.
Ferran
Eric @417, Good Lord, man, where in the hell are you getting your misinformation/disinformation. Did it ever occur to you that the released UEA emails might also be cherrypicked–taken out of context to paint the science in the worst light ahead of Copenhagen.
As to the rest of your screed, all it does is raise questions as to whether you are in fact as you say an “analytical mathematician”. I sure didn’t see any math in your post, nor any understanding of data analysis or modeling. The adjustments to the data are well documented and made for valid reasons. And the models actually do an excellent job reproducing the main features and behaviors of Earth’s climate. You even get features that correspond to ENSO. My recommendation would be to educate yourself so that your understanding of the science constitutes more than just a straw man. Because all a post like yours does is wreck your credibility from the start. Start here:
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/
Elliot says, “If it’s not this volcano, it will be another one in the next decade. How will the climate community deal with the deniers once the world temperature temporarily dips?”
By using these events to validate the models, just as was done for Pinatubo. What is at issue is not whether temperatures climb continually. They won’t. What is at issue is how well we understand the climate. Climate scientists were able to put the data into their models and model the effects of the eruption. On the other hand, when denialists put the data into their models…. Oh yeah, that’s right. The denialists don’t have any models, no answers, no clues. They just throw up their hands and complain that it’s all too complicated to understand.
Rob m. @403, In the upper right corner of the page, you will find a button that says “START HERE”. Start there. Seriously. Not only will you understand this issue a lot better, but it truly is a fascinating subject.
The basic answer to your question though is that most previous warming epochs were started by changes in sunlight reaching Earth’s surface due to changes in Earth’s orbit, orientation, etc. After a few centuries, permafrost melted and CO2/CH4 was released, increasing and extending the warming period. Note that we have not yet triggered such natural releases–they are a potentially catastrophic feedback.
One epoch that was greenhouse induced (probably, at least), was the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, which coincided with one of the greatest mass extinctions in geologic history.
Go check out the resources on the START HERE page and come back and ask questions.
Eric,
22 December 2009 at 8:38 PM
I think the first thing to consider is that mathematics is a different kind of science. It is purely abstract, whereas the other fields of science deal with the real world with all its complications and imperfections. Only in mathematics you can find 100% proof, but never in other fields like physics, medicine, astronomy or climate science.
Climate science is a continuous quest to reduce uncertainties. You could say that 200 years ago the climate sensitivity was somewhere between -100 and +100 K per doubling. Over the years, a lot of research efforts have reduced that to a range of 2 to 4.5 K. With 90% confidence (IIRC). No, not 100%.
I like to compare the world to a general that has to decide: where to attack the enemy. He sends out his spies to gather information. Some of them do not return. Others come back with fragmented information, sometimes contradictory. The general has 3 options:
– Send out new spies over and over again, until 100% of them return with complete and consistent information.
– Declare the effort hopeless and do nothing.
– Act on the best available information.
Option 1: The general will wait forever, because perfect intelligence does not exist. The enemy will overrun him while he is still making up his mind and win the war.
Option 2: The enemy will take the initiative and win the war.
Option 3: He attacks the enemy at what is probably its most vulnerable point, and therefore there is a good chance he will win the war.
It is clear that option 3 has the best chance of success. In real life you never act on certainties alone, you act on the best available information.
So I would suggest that step 1 for you is come to grips with the fact that uncertainties are inevitable.
Step 2 is to realise that doing nothing is also a choice. Or better: a gamble. A gamble on the remote chance that an entire field of science has been consistently wrong for many decades.
HCG,
I can tell you that Will Happer is the nut who keeps saying we’re in a “CO2 famine” and that “the CO2 is the lowest it’s been in millions of years,” neither of which is anything like true.