Continuation of the open thread. Please use these threads to bring up things that are creating ‘buzz’ rather than having news items get buried in comment threads on more specific topics. We’ll promote the best responses to the head post.
Knorr (2009): Case in point, Knorr (GRL, 2009) is a study about how much of the human emissions are staying the atmosphere (around 40%) and whether that is detectably changing over time. It does not undermine the fact that CO2 is rising. The confusion in the denialosphere is based on a misunderstanding between ‘airborne fraction of CO2 emissions’ (not changing very much) and ‘CO2 fraction in the air’ (changing very rapidly), led in no small part by a misleading headline (subsequently fixed) on the ScienceDaily news item Update: MT/AH point out the headline came from an AGU press release (Sigh…). SkepticalScience has a good discussion of the details including some other recent work by Le Quéré and colleagues.
Update: Some comments on the John Coleman/KUSI/Joe D’Aleo/E. M. Smith accusations about the temperature records. Their claim is apparently that coastal station absolute temperatures are being used to estimate the current absolute temperatures in mountain regions and that the anomalies there are warm because the coast is warmer than the mountain. This is simply wrong. What is actually done is that temperature anomalies are calculated locally from local baselines, and these anomalies can be interpolated over quite large distances. This is perfectly fine and checkable by looking at the pairwise correlations at the monthly stations between different stations (London-Paris or New York-Cleveland or LA-San Francisco). The second thread in their ‘accusation’ is that the agencies are deleting records, but this just underscores their lack of understanding of where the GHCN data set actually comes from. This is thoroughly discussed in Peterson and Vose (1997) which indicates where the data came from and which data streams give real time updates. The principle one is the CLIMAT updates of monthly mean temperature via the WMO network of reports. These are distributed by the Nat. Met. Services who have decided which stations they choose to produce monthly mean data for (and how it is calculated) and is absolutely nothing to do with NCDC or NASA.
Further Update: NCDC has a good description of their procedures now available, and Zeke Hausfather has a very good explanation of the real issues on the Yale Forum.
#297 – Keep writing your long well-reasoned and researched replies.
But, keep in mind you will not convince the denier you are responding to. However, there will be many lurkers who are sitting on the fence and they may appreciate your well reasoned and mature post.
Write for the fence-sitters and you will not feel as frustrated.
Matthew L.,
Blaming other environmental problems on too much concern over global warming is disingenuous. Do you think, for instance, that EU fisheries ministers are ignoring dire scientific warmings about overfishing because they’ve got too much global warming on their minds? Seriously?
If your claim is that global warming distracts public concern: How can we assume that there’s only so much environmental concern to go around? Sounds like a lump-sum fallacy. Isn’t it at least as likely that increased concern over global warming sensitizes the public to environmental issues in general?
(There ought to be some public opinion research addressing this; anyone got pointers?)
There *are* synergies. Halting deforestation was a central issue in the Copenhagen talks. Reducing fossil fuel use will cut a range of harmful emissions. Of course there are conflicts, too, such as adverse impacts of renewable energy.
Re #284 ; Mathew L (again)
[I see that Ray has already answered you; I’ll post this all the same]
I have not run any climate models, but from what I have read, clouds contribute substantially to the range of values for the climate sensitivity which can be estimated from climate models. With regards to your comment, you must be careful not to double count the uncertainty involved. In addition there are other ways of estimating the climate sensitivity which have been discussed in Realclimate and in Mann and Kump’s book.
As for relative humidity , whose possible variation still holds you in thrall, I believe it is an emergent property of the models (constancy not assumed), but observational evidence , the models and the theoretical physics * appear to be more or less consistent as far as I know, so that particular mechanism is less likely to lead to significant uncertainty in the conclusions.
* Discussed by Raymond Pierrehumbert in some papers and his book on line.
Peter H. asked suggestions about books.
Good place to start:
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/01/our-books/
With Newton’s help astronomy and astrophysics were very mature before Einstein came along and turned it all upside down.
Newton’s laws still hold up pretty well, last I checked. Einstein helped revolutionize the science, but he didn’t “turn it upside down”. Nothing in Newton’s understanding of planetary motions was fundamentally wrong, we simply know more now than we did then. You argue as though you believe scientific knowledge is simply the fad of the day to be tossed aside wholesale every few generations.
When you say “is it really safe to hitch our entire economic and political system to an attempt to reduce CO2” you apparently accept without evidence the denialist argument that doing anything about global warming is a fundamental threat to our way of life. And yet you’re highly dubious of the scientifically backed counter argument that doing nothing will.
Re: CO2 not sinking.
Its because common bog standard energy is not the only thing to learn about in physics. The sinking tendency is overwhelmed in this case by the drive towards disorder ; that is one way of introducing the concept of entropy.
Peter Houlihan @298, although it does not focus on the biology, David Archer’s Global warming: Understanding the Forecast covers the physics and earth science for non-science majors:
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/01/our-books/#Archer06
The best part is that David’s lectures are available for free on-line here:
http://geoflop.uchicago.edu/forecast/docs/lectures.html
As are the computer models used in the labs:
http://geoflop.uchicago.edu/forecast/docs/models.html
David Wojick (298):
“You AGW folks have a real problem in logic. You have to insist that the evidence for catastrophic AGW is beyond debate, which is a very difficult line to take. ”
Given that your 2nd sentence is a classic Straw man fallacy, perhaps you are the one with a “real problem in logic”.
Just a quick question. Any answers or pointers to where I can find the answer would be much appreciated.
Is the raw data used by GISStemp (and Crutemp) actual single observations (as in e.g. 3 hourly), or do the NWS deliver aggregation (like monthly means), or both?
Cheers,
D.
[Response: Monthly means. They use the CLIMAT reports to WMO. – gavin]
Matthew L. wrote: “I question whether it is worth going to (metaphorical) war over the single issue of CO2 when there are much more current, certain and devastating problems that need tackling …”
You keep asserting that there are “more current, certain and devastating problems” than anthropogenic global warming. You are wrong. That is false. AGW is happening now — it is “current” — it is not mere speculation about what might happen in the future. It is already “certain”. It is already “devastating”.
You keep implying that our ability to deal with other environmental problems will somehow be diminished by reducing CO2 emissions. You are wrong about that also. That is also a false assertion. In fact, all of the other problems you have mentioned will be greatly exacerbated by AGW. We simply CANNOT even hope to address those problems successfully, if we don’t also address AGW.
Does the “L” in your handle stand for “Lomborg”? Because you are basically reciting Bjorn Lomborg’s script, which like all denialist propaganda, always boils down to one very simple message: under no circumstances should we adopt any government policies that will reduce the consumption of fossil fuels.
Alas, my request to Kevin Aylward (Please remove anti-science blogs from the Best Science Blog category)is now moot.
Update – The 2009 Weblog Awards are off
Peter Houlihan — Also consider W.F. Ruddimans testbook, “Earth’s Climate: Past and Future” as well as Gavin Schmidt’s new book.
Re#293: Sorry but we were specifically talking about human biochemistry/metabolism, not about larval fragility as a result of some reduction in ocean alkalinity.
“The greatest fear out there among reasonable people is that this much-tweaked data ”
And the DUMBEST thing about that fear is that if the data HADN’T been tweaked, Anthony Watts would have proclaimed that AGW was just an artifact of UHI and urbanisation of observing stations.
Heads the denialists win. Tails IPCC loses.
The greatest PARANOIA is “these tweaks were to confirm AGW”. NOT ONE SHRED of evidence that this happened, but these “truthers” don’t want to understand that, the CONSPIRACY IS TOO STRONG!!!
Sheesh.
“For those paranoid about the choir…”
You mean those who are “questioning” AGW???
They’re always bringing up the choir meme. Or “singing from the same hymnsheet”.
Or, since you then ramble off in to “AGW is reasonably disbelieved … $SOME UNSUPPORTED BLATHER$” maybe you’re just making stuff up there too…
“and we are healthier now, for lots of reasons…”
… completely unrelated to adaption to higher CO2 levels.
Figured I’d complete the sentence you forgot to end properly, Bill.
The Annual climate Statement from the Australian Government Bureau of Meteorology has just been released:
http://www.bom.gov.au/announcements/media_releases/climate/change/20100105.shtml
Regarding Matthew L and his worry about opportunity costs, why bother thinking about C02 when you can make decisions entirely divorced from that consideration, and even better find that you can make useful choices that have no negative impact on future opportunities?
I have a nice little case in point to describe, and by circumstance it’s neatly tied together with the general topic of climate change.
Every month, I get a certain amount of money from petroleum royalties. That money is dumped into the overall household kitty and spent on various things, some tangible and useful and some not so much. Much of it is wasted, frankly.
As a fun project to do with my kid and because I like anything that is free, I took a little bit of that money (~$900) and spent it putting together a pragmatic, easily reproducible and aesthetically acceptable system to reduce energy input into our domestic hot water system. To emphasize, the objective was not to eliminate DHW energy input, just reduce it to the extent we could without going to absurd lengths.
With the measured results of the completed project and taking into account our situation, second only to Anchorage for lousy sunshine in the major metro areas in the US, this system appears able to capture something like 17MWH of energy over the next 10 years. Assuming our remarkably low electric rates don’t go up we’ll end up about $400 in the black if the system requires major renewal at that point, which I doubt since it has only 2 moving parts.
Out of curiosity I ran that $900 through some investment scenarios and unless I take on a lot of risk, I do better putting the money on my roof, where my return is guaranteed.
Strictly as an intangible, I trade some of my squeamish feelings about petroleum revenue for a little bit of smugness about reducing my energy footprint.
Now, as it happens I’m persuaded by the preponderance of evidence supporting the whole notion of AGW, but even if I were a die-hard contrarian, why would I choose to turn down free energy and pass up the opportunity to be paid for capturing it?
What was my opportunity cost for offsetting my DHW energy input? What did I give up by taking the steps I did?
This is just one example of many where we can make choices that can be viewed as entirely selfish and disconnected from AGW concerns yet end up helping to ameliorate that problem. I can’t think why one would end up paralyzed in indecision about whether or not to make a guaranteed improvement in financial health and environmental impact because of some degree of uncertainty about AGW.
Peter at 301:
Perfectly stated.
Matthew L @ 257:
There are two possibilities, neither of which are pleasant.
1). GCRs play little or no role in long term weather patterns (meaning, less than 30 years or so that people here call “climate”). If that’s the case, the run-up in temperatures leading to the 1998 record high year is caused by something else, and the only “something else” we’ve got going is CO2, in which case we’re screwed. The current “pause” is just natural variation, and once it ends, we’re going to be warming again. Tough luck.
2). GCRs play a larger role than many of the scientists here accept. If that’s the case, the run up during SC22 and SC23 is caused by high solar activity, and the current “pause” is evidence of that. Once the current “pause” ends, we’ll return to the same level of temperature rise as before because of rising CO2 concentrations, which is to say something between close to “very little” since 1998 and “a helluva lot” before 1998. Since the direction is generally “up”, there still needs to be something else doing it, and the only other “something else” is CO2.
In other words, whichever way GCRs go, “up” is the direction and the only other hypothesis with legs is CO2.
But there’s more, and that has to do with scientific credibility. Here, I’ll do that again.
1). GCRs play little to no role in long term weather. The current pause is just a pause, and CO2-dominated global warming will go back to business as usual. Once the pause ends, more people will be convinced of a need to act.
2). GCRs play a larger role than many of the scientists here accept. The current “pause” is here to stay for the life of SC24, and will likely result in longer periods of little or no warming as GCR related cooling counteracts CO2 related warming. As the global temperatures continue to move sideways, people will become convinced that CO2 isn’t a big deal, and oppose action. Once the pause ends, we’ll be 10 or 20 years further down the road and the situation will be even more dire.
Now, let’s look outcomes based on ideology. I’ll divide that into “CO2 only” supporters and “GCRs rule supporters”.
CO2 only —
If the GCR hypotheses are wrong, we’ll be warming again soon, and people will embrace CO2 mitigation and the planet is saved. WIN!
If the GCR hypotheses are right, we’ll be warming again in a few decades, but it’ll be too late because people won’t have acted. FAIL …
GCRs rule —
If the CO2 hypotheses are wrong, we’ll be cooling again soon and CO2 will be completely debunked. WIN!
If the CO2 hypotheses are right, we’ll be warming as soon as GCR influences cease dominating CO2 influences, but it’ll be too late because people won’t have acted. FAIL …
Notice — the worst scenarios are that both CO2 =and= GCRs affect weather in the long-enough-to-almost-be-climate time frame. Conveniently, picking which of the two ways things go — CO2 only or GCRs rule — has a short time horizon. And even more conveniently, the temperature trends to debunk the “wrong” scenario diverge.
But more obviously, the current “pause” has only one possible cause in the above set of scenarios: CO2 =and= GCRs are both involved. The implications of that are that we’re screwed because few people seem to be able to say “Yes, both are causing the observed temperature trends”.
Has anyone evaluated this site?
http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/climatedata.aspx?Dataset=GHCNTemp
It appears one can select any weather station in the NOAA GHCN database and get the program to automatically translate the temperature data into a graph of recorded temperatures. It even averages the curve.
Here’s one for my neck of the woods.
http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/climgraph.aspx?pltparms=GHCNT100AJanDecI188020080900110AR42572334000x
The site seemed really cool until I reached the index page
http://www.appinsys.com
Nice picture of Al Gore. I wish I could do that.
Then my eyes started opening.
29 Dec 2009 – Nature Admits No Real Evidence for Anthropogenic Causation
http://www.appinsys.com/globalwarming/
“Nature published an editorial admitting there is no real evidence of anthropogenic greenhouse gas warming – just computer models. There is no empirical data to support it. They say denialists are hindering the CRU scientists. See the new Nature: No Anthropogenic Evidence page examining the Nature editorial.”
,,,somehow derived from
Editorial
Nature 462, 545 (3 December 2009) | doi:10.1038/462545a; Published online 2 December 2009
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v462/n7273/full/462545a.html
Climatologists under pressure
I can’t find it. Any help here?
I would be interested in RC comments on the following article
http://news.discovery.com/earth/nitrogen-deficit-global-warming.html
which describes new research showing that future global warming is being underestimated due to the models not taking into account that lack of fixable nitrogen will not be available to plants in sufficient quantity in the future. Thus leading to a higher level of CO2.
Txs
[Response: This is related to the magnitude of any future carbon cycle feedback – which as we have discussed is quite uncertain. This might be one of the factors to account for, but there are lots more and so in and of itself it’s unlikely to make that much of a difference. – gavin]
David Wojick, Scientific debate is important in science (not the heart, maybe the liver). Debate with ignorant food tubes or anti-science stooges serves no purpose.
In the end, it’s about evidence. You’ve yet to cite any, so there’s not much to debate, is there?
RE Jim Galasyn
Awww. And we were having so much fun over there. Partners in slime, indeed.
Jim Eager, I’ve written on Lake Nyos, and as it turns out, I was within about 30 km of the lake about 5 years after the disaster. The limnic eruption that gave rise to the disaster was not a very powerful event, and the CO2 simply flowed down into the valley below. The thing is that within a km or so, the cloud had dissipated sufficiently that it was no longer lethal. That is, the fall of the gas itself was sufficient to introduce enough turbulence to mix the CO2.
When I was there, a large portion of the population believed that the event had been the result of a CIA neutron bomb test, so conspiracy theories are not a uniquely American enterprise. BTW, the area around the lakes (Nyos and Monoun) is beautiful. Evidently, there are also legends in the vicinity about angry spirits, so this has probably happened before.
“Thinking a bit further – snow absorbs CO2 as it forms, falls to the earth, let’s say at the antarctic, over time compresses and becomes ice, thus trapping the CO2 content. Can this new ice absorb/release CO2?” Leo G — 4 January 2010 @ 1:17 PM
http://www.igsoc.org/journal/54/187/j07j102.pdf
“Assuming an atmospheric CO2 concentration of 278 ppm (microatm/atm) (Indermuhle and others, 1999) at the gas age of 2.74 kyr BP and surface pressure at Siple Dome of 937 hPa, we expect 16 230 ppm CO2 (micromol CO2 /mol total air) dissolved in 0degC meltwater in equilibrium, 58 times greater than in the atmosphere (Table 1).”
“Unfortunately, the solubility of CO2 in ice is not well known at present, as it is too small to be measured precisely (Hondoh, 1996). Improved measurement of CO2 solubility in ice in the future would allow a better estimate of the diffusion coefficient of CO2 in polar ice. We estimate the solubility of CO2 in ice to be 5.1e-11 mol/m3/Pa at -23.8C, using the permeation coefficient divided by the modeled diffusion coefficient of 7.8e-11m2/s (Ikeda-Fukazawa, 2004, table 3).”
The mechanism for trapping atmospheric gasses in ice sheets is dependent on the creep properties of ice crystals under stress. The weight of new snow accumulating on top of the older layers forces the crystals to deform; the air filled spaces around the ice crystals, maintained in equilibrium with the air above by diffusion, slowly close, eventually trapping bubbles of gas in the ice. The time required to close off diffusion results in an offset of gas versus Ice age which is dependent on accumulation rate.
Hank @279, thanks. Took a second look: the first Science Daily article in November is from Bristol U., where Knorr works. The second is “adapted from” an AGU press release. The differences are interesting, because the November article didn’t feed the “skeptical” echo chamber. I think it’s a matter of how the lead is phrased in each. In the november article, there’s no room for mistaking a steady fraction for a steady C02 level:
New data show that the balance between the airborne and the absorbed fraction of carbon dioxide has stayed approximately constant since 1850, despite emissions of carbon dioxide having risen from about 2 billion tons a year in 1850 to 35 billion tons a year now.
That lead goes to some lengths to avoid ambiguities. In the December version, the first sentence doesn’t assertively prevent the (mistaken) ambiguity to which the “skeptics” fell prey:
Most of the carbon dioxide emitted by human activity does not remain in the atmosphere, but is instead absorbed by the oceans and terrestrial ecosystems.
And since that sentence came verbatim from the AGU press release, yes, AGU is somewhat to blame… (And had I written something like that, I’d have deeply regretted the word “most,” which is not at all an accurate representation of 55%.)
But in some respects the practices of journalism are to blame. A journalist is charged with writing a “story.” Stories have to follow the rules of narrative. A narrative begins with a character or two, and setting and action. In some senses, the November article is poor journalism, because the lead is so cluttered with facts and figures and details that the average reader is going to have too many questions: what’s meant by “fraction” in this context? What’s the significance of the balance between airborne and absorbed C02? How is that all related to the dramatic increase in emissions? A good journalist, pitching to a reasonably educated audience, tries to limit the number of variables introduced in the lead. Certainly, there’s a place for them later in the article, when the readers who have the time and attention to continue reading have done so, but not in the lead. Never in the lead: that’s when you’ll turn away a potential audience if it’s too technical. Some of the posters here might insist that the reader then needs to educate him or herself… but that’s what they were attempting to do by reading articles in Science Daily, which presumably do more than merely summarize. That’s what abstracts do. They also simplify, provide context for, and explain developments in science. And they do so in the genre of journalism.
So, is climate science inevitably going to be misrepresented in the press? No. But only if scientists work hard at simplifying the picture. Each element of the global warming picture has to be distilled into simple story elements. What is the most relevant implication (if any) of Knorr’s study on climate science? That’s what needs to be in the lead. Whoever wrote up this little article for AGU blew that one. The thing to do in response isn’t to go chasing after denialists, but to devise quick and direct clarifications of the results and their implications.
Suggestion for a thread. How fast does the ocean respond to forcings? Re:
http://www.usclivar.org/Newsletter/VariationsV4N1/ClivarCPT_Emilie.pdf
by R. Farrari, MIT.
> Wyoming
Just because some plants could use more nitrogen doesn’t mean that increasing nitrogen would be a good idea. This is another example of saying that because things are out of balance, the answer is to throw more stuff on the other side of the balance to even them out.
See, just for example (much more can be found)
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v433/n7028/full/433791a.html
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2007.04.024
See also http://www.rhymes.org.uk/there_was_an_old_lady.htm
which begins:
“There was an old lady who swallowed a fly
I don’t know why she swallowed a fly – perhaps she’ll die!
There was an old lady who swallowed a spider,
That wriggled and wiggled and tiggled inside her;
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly;
I don’t know why she swallowed a fly …..”
Matthew L., The question is not whether there will be new discoveries. There most certainly will. The question is whether those new discoveries will significantly alter our estimation of how much a doubling of CO2 will raise the planet’s average temperature. The answer to that question is almost assuredly no. It is virtually impossible to understsnd Earth’s climate if CO2 sensitivity is below 2.1 degrees per doubling. At the same timea sensitivity of 4.5 is not ruled out. By presuming that there will be new discoveries that will magically make the threat vanish, you are betting the future of human civilization on a 20:1 longshot. We have wasted 2 decades waiting for known unknows and unknowns to save us. In the end they’s wound up all adding up to a sensitivity of 3 degrees per doubling. It’s now time to either do what the science tells us, rather than, as you would have us do, go 180 degrees against it. Those are the only two choices left to us.
Just ran across a very nice summary of the doubt industry, by Wundergound founder Jeff Masters:
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=1389
Succinct yet comprehensive.
If you’d like to see examples of just how impervious folks are once they’ve ossified around an opinion, scroll down the comments following Dr. Masters’ essay.
Right, here goes;
#205 – Doug
You misunderstand my point. I have never seen a single “scrupulously researched environmental crisis that went away all by itself”. I have seen lots of scare stories about population explosions causing mass starvation, imminent ice ages, widespread crop failures and so on. None of them turned out to true and hence my natural tendency to scepticism when a new theory crops up telling us we are all imminently going to die.
#292
Ray, I am not ignoring the different lines of evidence. What is not yet certain is the magnitude of the feedbacks or that all the feedbacks are known. As I stressed clearly in my first post I am convinced that AGW is happening, but not convinced that we have enough knowledge to know the extent.
There is one thing that to me seems to me to defy common sense, and perhaps you could explain. CO2 does not by itself create the feedbacks, it is the warming it creates. That warming could (totally hypothetically) be caused by any heat source such as volcanic activity or an improbably large increase in solar energy. What the models tell us is that a warming of the air by 1deg C will lead, over time, to a warming of the air by 2-3 degrees. Surely then if that is the case, a warming of the air by 3 degrees will lead to further warming (or even tiping points) – and so on. Obviously some positive feedbacks are self limiting such as once all the ice has melted there will be no further change in albedo but generally speaking if you run a positive feedback model indenfinitly it will eventually create a runaway greenhouse effect and we all die.
However this has clearly not happened in the past when the globe has significantly warmed, even in the presence of much higher CO2 levels. Clearly major negative feedbacks have kicked in at some point to limit the growth in temperatures. So why do we think it is different now? Surely we should be looking for those negative feedbacks?
302 – CM
I have thought a lot about this myself, but the tenor of a lot of the press I read is that every climate disaster is caused by global warming. For instance I read a piece by an NGO stating that global warming was causing destertifcation in the Sahel region of central Africa. I know for a fact that this is just plain wrong. That desertification is caused by regular droughts that have happened intemitently for over 3000 years(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahel_drought). This is exacerbated by increased population and grazing cattle eating away the vegetation and destabilising the soil leading it vulnerable to ‘dust bowl’ like wind erosion. However the implication of the NGO article is that if we solve global warming we solve desertification.
The danger is that the press and media tend to blame all environmental disasters on global warming. People may then think that those disasters will be averted if we fix global warming. No, what we need to do is find ways of convincing Brazilian peasants not to burn down the rain forests, we need to limit the water take from the upper reaches of the Tigris and Euphrates valleys, we need to stop the Japanese fishing fleets from wiping out the Bluefin Tuna stocks, we need to encourage the regrowth of Mangrove forests and stop Bangladeshi peasants from farming on vulnerable flood plains – and so on. I really do believe that the current obsession with CO2 driven AGW is diverting us so that by the time we have saved the planet there won’t be much on it left to save.
I disagree with your “sensitising” point, if anything I think it may be “desensitising”. People get so fed up of being told that in 90 years time it will be so hot we will boil/drown that they turn off. I may be wrong, but I think it is a real danger.
305 – Jinchi (also 300 – Dhogaza)
First point – It was just an example of how surprises and shocks can arise in even apparently settled science. That was as far as I meant the analogy to go. Of course the two areas of science are not comparable. I don’t believe climate science is anywhere near as settled as Newtonian physics and, be honest, neither do you!
Second point – I think there is plenty that we can do about limiting CO2 emissions that will not be a threat to our way of life. I am already doing a lot of them myself. I use energy saving light bulbs. I have solar hot water heating and have sold one of our two cars. I take public transport, walk or cycle whenever I can. Much of this is for personal financial gain as for any sense of civic duty.
However in the USA they currently consume about 14 tons of carbon per head per annum. Stabilising CO2 emissions at current levels will require a reduction to about 1 ton of carbon per head (we consumed more in the 17th Century!) – oh and the rest of the world will have to do likewise too. Are you telling me that reducing carbon emissions by that sort of amount will have no implications for the global economy and politics? Even if it were possible, I doubt we could ever convince the Chinese to do it.
310 – SecularAlarmist
You are a perfect example of what I am most worried about.
Yes AGW is current, but it is not “already devastating”. Name me one current “devastating” effect from global warming? I bet you that anything you mention will actually be caused by something other than global warming. Coral bleaching? Water pollution, fishing damage, tourist distubance. Bangladeshi flooding? Population extending onto vulnerable land, loss of Mangrove swamps. Reduction of Polar Bear population? Isn’t happening – polar bear populations are stable or increasing. I could go on – there are lots of devastating environmental disasters going on a the moment but none of them are caused by global warming and all are caused by Man. AED, Anthropogenic Environmental Destruction.
Sure, some might have been exacerbated by the 0.4 dec C of warming we have seen since 1979 to a minor extent – but to say that we “simply cannot hope to address those problems succesfully if we don’t also address AGW” is just ludicrous and actually very dangerous – verging on negligent.
I have already very significantly reduced my consumption of fossil fuels. Have you?
Wyoming, here’s a bit more on nitrogen:
Scientists at climate talks: ‘The nitrogen cycle is changing faster than that of any other element’
Graph of the Day: Response of Nitrogen Emissions and Soil Respiration to Increasing Temperature
> appinsys
Oh, is _that_ where the AMO stuff is coming from lately?
Put that word into Scholar; they’re relying on Pielke Jr.
Yeah Deech, it was a fun ride. I posted a little howdy note to Hilary on her blog.
Bill @313, how about the health impact on that portion of the global human population that depends on the marine food chain for the majority of it’s protein and/or income?
Matthew L says: 4 January 2010 at 9:06 PM
Sorry, Matthew, but you failed to rise to the occasion, for my purposes anyway.
More, your responses to other posters all rely on highly selective use of information, far more selective than what you’re requiring for verification of climate science to your satisfaction.
I guess I’ll put you in the “contrarian” column. Thanks!
Re Matthew L @332; if you run a positive feedback model indenfinitly it will eventually create a runaway greenhouse effect and we all die
Only if the feedback amplification produces an increasing series, as in: 1 + 1.25 + 1.5 + 1.75 etc.
But not if the amplification produces a decreasing series, as in: 1 + .75 + .5 + .25 etc.
No unknown significant negative feedbacks are needed to limit growth in the latter case.
Example “Fact”:
“Reduction of Polar Bear population? Isn’t happening – polar bear populations are stable or increasing.”
Reality:
“The PBSG reevaluated the status of the 19 recognized subpopulations of polar bears distributed over vast and relatively inaccessible areas of the Arctic. Despite the fact that much new information has been made available since the last meeting, knowledge of some populations is still poor. Reviewing the latest information available the PBSG concluded that 1 of 19 subpopulations is currently increasing, 3 are stable and 8 are declining. For the remaining 7 subpopulations available data were insufficient to provide an assessment of current trend. The total number of polar bears is still thought to be between 20,000 and 25,000. However, the mixed quality of information on the different subpopulations means there is much room for error in establishing that range. That potential for error, given the ongoing and projected changes in habitats and other potential stressors is cause for concern. Nonetheless, the PBSG is optimistic that humans can mitigate the effects of global warming and other threats to polar bears, and ensure that they remain a part of the Arctic ecosystem in perpetuity.”
http://pbsg.npolar.no/en/meetings/press-releases/15-Copenhagen.html
Now I’m guessing Matthew is going to come back with a link to a discredited paper released early last year, purporting to show that polar bear populations are increasing. I’ll stick with the findings of actual experts in the topic, thanks.
Matthew @ 332:
Nope, that’s actually NOT correct.
It means we have to consume less than 1 ton of NEW carbon per head per year. Excluding the trip in the car I took earlier (no electric car yet) and the natural gas that fed the furnace (no solar thermal yet), I’ve emitted -3 pounds of CO2 today. That’s a “negative” minus sign not an “approximately” tilde character. That’ll probably wind up closer to 0 pounds for the day before the clock strikes midnight, but that’s just because the house is lit up like nobody’s business, I think I’m up to 6 or 7 computers running (burn-in testing a hardware monitor for a client’s 8KW DC solar system), Pandora is playing music, and who knows what else. I might even practice my ELECTRIC guitar (been practicing with my classical guitar more lately) and waste even more electricity — my son has resisted my prodding to learn “Freebird”, so I’ve found the tabs and may see if I can bang it out. It’s an annoying song. Someone in the house should be able to play it.
If I =quit= wasting electricity, my daily electric CO2 might be closer to 0 pounds. I’m pretty sure we’ve been using more than 0 pounds of old carbon per head per day for a while now.
Note what I said — wasting electricity. I waste the hell out of it and maybe I get back to 0 pounds of CO2 for the day.
(Minor nit — all of my “imported” electricity is carbon-free (Green Mountain is my electric provider), so my electricity-related CO2 output is always less than zero because I “export” CO2-free electricity, and Green Mountain doesn’t credit those carbon credits (they are legally mine and I don’t sell them, and I’ve produced almost 6MWh that way), so they have to buy new ones when I “import” the power back later.)
Matthew, could you save us some time and carefully go through all the assertion you made in your post #332, correcting them when necessary? I’m pretty sure you’re wrong on coral bleaching, just as you were on the polar bears, but why should we have to do the work of undoing your misinformation? Seems to me if you s__t the bed, you need to do the laundry.
For some reason, a lot of the usual suspects were against this idea, but fortunately the grownups are in charge again:
From NY Times:
C.I.A. Is Sharing Data With Climate Scientists
“The nation’s top scientists and spies are collaborating on an effort to use the federal government’s intelligence assets — including spy satellites and other classified sensors — to assess the hidden complexities of environmental change. They seek insights from natural phenomena like clouds and glaciers, deserts and tropical forests.
The collaboration restarts an effort the Bush administration shut down and has the strong backing of the director of the Central Intelligence Agency. In the last year, as part of the effort, the collaborators have scrutinized images of Arctic sea ice from reconnaissance satellites in an effort to distinguish things like summer melts from climate trends, and they have had images of the ice pack declassified to speed the scientific analysis. ”
more:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/05/science/earth/05satellite.html?hp=&pagewanted=print
Thanks to all who have provided guidance on my attempt to respond to the skeptic who asserted CO2 would suffocate people at ground level before ever influencing climate. I found the links and basic information helpful, as well as the corrections in my initial response attempt.
I’m not a scientist, and neither, obviously, is the skeptic I engaged. The setting was a forum on a social site not particularly focused on science issues, but where any and all topics can emerge.
And it speaks to some of the general issues addressed elsewhere here. A great deal of discussion and debate occurs among the general public between individuals who do NOT have a firm grasp of climate science in particular or what constitutes good science in general. I’m often part of those discussions, as I do sustainability and environmental work and have found climate change an area of particular interest for about 15 years now.
While the scientific foundation for serious concern over what humans have done and should do to impact the climate has certainly strengthened over that time, I fear the disconnect between that science and those who elect the leaders who make critical policy decisions looms large, and I’m not quite sure what should be done about that.
As most here know too well, denial arguments and tactics can be downright confounding to deal with, and I too have been guilty of becoming less than civil with those who think they understand climate science better than climate scientists.
And frankly, it’s become more difficult for the truly impartial interested observer with limited science background to sort out sound from junk science on the matter. A google search on any related topic will yield at least as many hits on credible sounding but scientifically indefensible points of view as it will examples of diligent application of the scientific method.
I’m reminded of an observation I made years ago: “even if you’re right that doesn’t mean you’re doing the right thing.”
In this context, that translates to emphasis that not only do we need the foundation of the best science available, but also need to express those findings in a manner that will seem most reasonable and easy to grasp for the benefit of those less informed, less scientifically inclined, or already influenced in the wrong direction by their cousin’s friend who used to be a weatherman or whatever other ‘reliable’ source they may choose to believe.
What matters is not only the strength of the science, but the effectiveness of the presentation of that science in adequately convincing a general population more prone to responding to the crisis of the moment than the crisis of the century.
I wish I had the answers on how best to do that. All I know is that I’ve renewed my resolve to patiently educate, persuade, and recruit all I can to support aggressive action to minimize our climate impact.
310, SecularAnimist: Because you are basically reciting Bjorn Lomborg’s script, which like all denialist propaganda, always boils down to one very simple message: under no circumstances should we adopt any government policies that will reduce the consumption of fossil fuels.
Why is such a gross distortion of Bjorn Lomborg permitted?
Environment Canada year end report “in Canada, the decade just ending was the warmest by far looking back over the past six decades“
FYI I did a piece on nitrogen in my October ‘Leading Edge’ report:
http://www.ossfoundation.us/projects/environment/global-warming/summary-docs/leading-edge/2009-oct-the-leading-edge
I talked to ORNL a few times to make sure I was characterizing things correctly. It looks like the gist is ‘refined results in predictability’.
Doug Bostrom @342:
I think that this is a great idea, glad to see that it is happening again. One thing that brings joy to my heart is the conniption fits McIntyre will throw when tries to get the original, raw, unadjusted data and finds out it is classified!
Dear Gavin,
A fellow on a Washington Post comment forum posted Alan Cheetham’s interactive Climate Data Graphing. It’s easy to plot the temperature record for most any weather station on the planet. It’s supposed to plot weather data from the NOAA GHCN database.
http://www.appinsys.com/globalwarming/
upper right sidebar >
AIS Climate Data Visualizer Provides Climate History Graphing
http://www.appinsys.com/globalwarming/climate.aspx
The poster’s point was that wherever one looks the local temperature rises in the last 30 years remain unconvincing
and hardly demonstrate global warming at all. There is no recent “spike” in temperatures. Finally, the last ten years of raw data pretty much show a cooling trend in many of the places one looks.
Here’s the web page for temperatures: http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/climatedata.aspx?Dataset=GHCNTemp
I’m concerned that people looking for raw data conversion to confirm their suspicions regarding the CRU email thefts and data manipulation as well as scientists’ cheating to prove global warming will seize on these charts to support denialists
claims that warming just isn’t happening There is no doubt this was the WP posters intent.
When I went through the drill I found the limited data average for my town confirmed warming, except for the last ten years. Austin, Texas http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/climgraph.aspx?pltparms=GHCNT100AJanDecI188020080900110AS42572254000x.
But with other towns the story was more like what the poster claimed. San Antonio.
http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/climgraph.aspx?pltparms=GHCNT100AJanDecA188020080900110AS42572253000x
It’d been much hotter in the past. So far it doesn’t look good for extraordinary global temperature rise. Of course my sample is small.
My question is, having noted Cheethan won’t hesitate to draw questionable conclusions, are these charts the real McCoy? Am I being flimflammed by a data/graphics trickster? If I’m going to take on folks like the WP poster I’m going to need as much help as I can get with this sort of thing.
I apologize for reposting this question, but so far I’m stuck.
[Response: Compare it to the GISTEMP station analyses. If there is one thing that is likely to be wrong it is probably that he isn’t using the data after homogenisation or corrections for moves, time-of-observation bias and the like. These are real issues that need to be corrected for – see Hansen et al 2001 for instance. – gavin]
290, David,
I don’t think a 3 box test would improve it significantly, considering the limited improvement of a 2 box test. I should also caution that statistically fitting the solar contribution isn’t what I would call a robust estimation process. On a single box test, I get the best results around a 5-6 year lag. On a two box test, I get the best results with 0 and 9 years. (That’s not to say that I think a 0 lag is more appropriate than 1 year).
Another observation I have is that the sun is contributing about 0.2C of 20th century warming (with decadal smoothing), about 3/4 of it is happening before 1950, and the rest between 1950 and 1980.
“Why is such a gross distortion of Bjorn Lomborg permitted?”
Answered with other questions: Why do people get to claim the population of polar bears is increasing, when it isn’t? Why do they get to say that mangrove swamps are unaffected by sea level rise, when we know that these swamps are at equilibrium for any given sea level and must in fact retreat with any rise of sea level?
Bjorn Lomborg’s precious reputation is the least of the problems you’ll find here.