Climate review seeks detachment
There's little doubt, I think, that the forthcoming review of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) can make quite a lot of difference to the organisation itself.
(This is the review that was demanded last month by ministers, and whose terms of reference and operating agency the UN has just announced, entrusting the running of it to the Inter-Academy Council, an umbrella body for science academies independent of the UN.)
Many scientists who have served in the IPCC believe its 22-year-old shape is no longer fit for purpose, and have said so publically.
Its chief, Rajendra Pachauri, was talking about the need for an internal review before the UN announced this external one; and it is surely impossible that there is nothing that can be improved in the working practices of an organisation that was conceived before instantaneous electronic distribution of information became the norm and before climate science became the political battleground it is now.
A bigger question is whether the review can have much impact outside the organisation. Will governments be any keener to act on the recommendations of a reformed IPCC? Will the public find its currently rather impenetrable phraseology easier to decipher? Will it be more widely trusted?
It's possible to divide published opinions on the issue into three broad categories: those who are only concerned with getting the message across that man-made climate change is an over-riding threat requiring urgent action, those who are concerned about the issue but are more concerned by what they see as lack of rigour and transparency within the IPCC, and those who are convinced that global warming is a fraud anyway and the IPCC one of the lead swindlers.
Those in the first group are unlikely to be influenced by the review, even if it eventually contains damning passages.
Those in the third group are unlikely to be swayed by anything praiseworthy; in fact I have e-mails coming in right now that are already assuring me that the review will be a whitewash, which is I suppose a logical conclusion if your frame of reference is that everything about climate change is just a conspiracy.
It's the second group that intrigues me, including as it does some pretty smart and independent-minded people.
Most are yet to comment. One who has, Roger Pielke Jr, describes what we know about the review so far as a "good start", but has some words of caution as well. I'll be watching the blogosphere and the op-ed-o-sphere with interest over the next couple of days to see what other thoughts come up.
One issue that was raised at the UN news conference - who raised it I cannot tell, as I listened to the conference remotely in London - was how independent the scientists on the Inter-Academy Council's review panel will be from the scientists who contributed work to the IPCC in the first place.
It's a natural question to ask. There's clearly a chance that the first people you would think of to take part in such a panel would be the most eminent climate scientists of the day, and they're wholly likely to have been intimately involved with the IPCC at some juncture.
There's also the wider point that some of the institutions involved with the Inter-Academy Council, such as the UK's Royal Society, have taken a very public stance on climate change.
But to assume this will automatically cause problems for the review is, I think, to misunderstand its nature and purpose.
It is not a review of climate science - some would say it ought to be, but it isn't, it's a review of IPCC practice - and it will surely draw more interesting and meaningful conclusions through involving scientists working in completely different fields, with experiences of completely different collating organisations.
They do exist; medicine alone has many. One that provides an interesting comparison is the Cochrane Review process, which aims to provide something analogous to IPCC reports - regular assessments of the evidence base on its chosen subject - but works very differently.
Will the Inter-Academy Council choose to make use of expertise from fields apparently unrelated to climate science? We shall see - and that, perhaps, will be one of the factors that determines how meaningful and visionary the review turns out to be, and how it is eventually perceived.
I'm Richard Black, environment correspondent for the BBC News website. This is my take on what's happening to our shared environment as the human population grows and our use of nature's resources increases.
~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~58~RS~)
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George Monbiot on Climate Science:
"The problem is not only that most climate scientists can speak no recognisable human language, but also the expectation that people are amenable to persuasion."
- "The Unpersuadables," March 8, 2010.
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2010/03/08/the-unpersuadables/
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This is a stunning article. It nicely sums up the situation - right up to the minute, something any panel on global climate change should strive to achieve.
As Mr. Monbiot points out, as usual with cited backup, the prospects look bleak in conveying the AGW message to the world community.
Some may remember my recent post, "Operation Cloudrunner."
I gave 'Red Alert' status to world scientific literacy. From the tone of this article, I think Mr. Monbiot might agree.
----------------
On a personal note:
I am wondering what to do next?
Having blogged now for some fourteen months on this site exclusively, it is time for a personal re-assessment of 'time spent here.'
The lobby is either the lobby, or at least so entrenched as to be effectively refractory - not amenable to logical argument.
It has always occurred to me that many who are invisible and voiceless may read 'warmists' here with some positive effect, but that is a long way from feeling 'on the path.'
On the last thread I posted a link indicating the curtailment of funding to climate science here in Canada, governed by a 'business as usual' Prime Minister.
The writing is on the wall, is it not? David Barber just published a bombshell article on the dramatic disappearance of multi-year Arctic sea-ice in 'Geophysical Research Letters,' and then - there goes the funding.
We need a different system.
The Inter Academy Council may be a lead-in to the Inter Academy Panel on International Issues, which is the right direction I think.
But is it enough?
Not being a seer or augur, I cannot say.
- Manysummits -
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Good balanced article Richard, however, your comment "I have e-mails coming in right now that are already assuring me that the review will be a whitewash, which is I suppose a logical conclusion if your frame of reference is that everything about climate change is just a conspiracy." does not properly reflect the views of many skeptics. Many skeptics simply recognize that the "alarmist" side of man-made Gobal Warming (as per IPCC head, GOre and countless other once reputable institutions) is merely driven by self-interest on the part of scientists, politicians and media: they seek notoriety, importance, promotion, greater funding or higher readership.
There is really no need to resort to a "conspiracy" theory when a fraud lines the pockets, provides employment, power, newspaper sales or suits the personal political ambitions of those perpetrating same.
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Re the headline: aren't there just two ts in "detachment"?
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I have recently dedicated a day to trying to wrap my head around the jargon in some of the core scientific papers that explain anthropomorphic global warming. I don't believe that the communication breakdown resulting in a confused public is the fault of the scientists; scientists speak a language which uses words that are necessarily efficient when expressing complex ideas. Imagine trying to provide a comprehensive explanation of the endocrine system to someone who has no knowledge of the Pituitary Gland, the Parathoid or the Pancreas. For that matter, imagine the confusion if a newspaper article attempted to inform the public on such a complex system. It would be like trying to cram a senior year highschool biology class into a single page newspaper article.
Until the public are able to understand...
1. Why global warming actually means MORE snow in some parts of the world
2. Why the Vostok ice cores DO NOT disprove that CO2 causes global warming (scientists never stated that CO2 has always been the ONLY cause of global warming)
3. And, most importantly, that the very real complexity of the global warming phenomenon, such as the roles of negative feed-back systems, are BEYOND the comprehension of anyone who does not dedicate hours to trying to learn the jargon and understanding the theories
...the public is destined to be enslaved by their own ignorance and the simple statements of uninformed ideologues.
As I continue to try to understand climatologists' scientific papers, and compare them to the strongest arguments made by the skeptics, I am not only learning about the nature of climate change, but the nature of our global community, where having a negative opinion is too often considered to be better than having an informed opinion.
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Climate Review Seeks Detachment? No it seeks legitimacy, something it now lacks in the eyes of many people around the world. Why? Because right or wrong it has been cast under a cloud of suspicion that it is composed of liars who were more outraged at being discovered than contrite about disguising their work. People who demanded that the entire world should turn itself inside out to avert what it claimed what it said was looming catastrophe not only didn't openly and freely reveal everything they had discovered, every method they used to draw their conclusions, they refused to explain it in terms that those who would have to make enormous sacrifice could easily understand. Well that idea backfired, the world is now more skeptical than ever. It will take a lot of doing before the damage has been undone and a credible case can be made for the reality of it if in fact such a case can be made. So far as many are concerned, at this point it hasn't. Not merely a betrayal, a typically arrogant "we know what's best for everyone because we are smarter" attitude may fly in Europe but in America where it counts, it's a lead balloon that sinks to the bottom of the lake like an anvil. For all practical intents and purposes at this moment, the impetus for anything compelling reduction in CO2 production to mitigate the effect it is having on the climate is politiccally dead in the United States.
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@Manysummits
I understand your dilemma - I have also noticed you are spending less time here. I blogged here and a few other sites off and on before I got sick. Really as an 'escape'. When I got sick, I blogged a lot more.
Now, as my health is improving somewhat, I am asking the same questions.
It really is a bit of a time waster. I mean, being honest, its nice to post an opinion and get comments from other people (both good and bad). I also enjoy many of the debates. Sometimes it is good, sometimes, I let it get the best of me.
But reality speaking - what is it one can hope to accomplish blogging on the BBC? What impact will it have? What value is derived from all the hours spent - and I have no doubt that you have spent a great deal of time creating some of your posts - and while I don't necessarily agree with you on some things - CO2 in particular - I certainly have a great deal of respect for you.
I reached the conclusion that this is entertainment - and nothing more. Perhaps I can open a few people to put their thinking caps on and question things. I look at the time I have spent here - a great deal of it - and I think I have made a few friends, opened a few minds to some other perspectives - but nothing that 'made a difference' in the world.
That is something I have thought about a lot in the last year and a half or so - what have I really done in my life? What have I done that made a difference? Oh, I have done a lot of things in my life - but nothing earth-shattering - and I always expected that 'I would make a difference' in the world. While I have done a lot of good things I believe, I have failed.
I have no family to speak of, no children (except an 'adoptive daughter' who became 'adoptive' when she was fifteen. I made a difference in her life - but its not the same. I have no legacy.
And here I sit, blogging on the BBC. Hmmm...
While you and I disagree on a lot of issues, I think that we have also found that we do have a lot of common ground. I would like to think that despite our differences, I have made a friend in you. While you can't post email addresses or anything here - my profile on the Guardian does have my website on it...hint.
BTW, you can find some interesting stuff related to clouds here:
http://skydivernetwork.ning.com/profile/CrazyLarry
You do have to become a member to post - and I think to see everything, but its free and everyone is welcome.
In any case - I think the question you are asking is what difference do I make by being here? And that is something I think only you can answer.
Kindest & Heartfelt Regards.
Kealey
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@Richard,
Interesting classification:
"It's possible to divide published opinions on the issue into three broad categories: those who are only concerned with getting the message across that man-made climate change is an over-riding threat requiring urgent action, those who are concerned about the issue but are more concerned by what they see as lack of rigour and transparency within the IPCC, and those who are convinced that global warming is a fraud anyway and the IPCC one of the lead swindlers."
I would suppose that you would probably classify me as being of the third category. I would place myself in the second category.
In my view, man has certainly had an impact on the climate of planet earth. While I don't have a lot of faith in the 'IPCC', nor much of what is passed off as 'climate science', nor of people like Al Gore...
I don't think there is this gigantic conspiracy to defraud the world. I think there are a lot of misguided people - some trying to do the right thing, some taking advantage of the situation.
As stated, I do think man has had an impact on climate - and a significant one at that. However, I think the impact is more due to land use than CO2 emissions. I also think that the land use (and many other) issue is one which is better understood and is also something that we can really do something about - by that, I mean if we directed our efforts, we could have a real, measurable impact.
I am sure many people think I am part of the coal or oil lobby - I wish I was getting paid. I live off Social Security Disability Income and a few odd jobs here and there (when I am able to do them).
I am not a big fan of coal, but I view it as a necessary evil for the time being - and we have invested a lot into making it 'cleaner' and have less impact upon the environment. I am optimistic that coal will be pretty much completely out of the picture in 50 years (displaced by fusion). I also don't think that anything we do in the meantime is going to have a real impact upon CO2 emissions - so why not focus on areas where we can have a real impact?
I am also not a fan of the IPCC, nor of the UN period. There is just too much corruption and too great a lack of transparency across the board (the whole UN). I also view politics as a necessary evil, which should be watched very closely. I simply don't trust politicians, and I think with good reason.
I don't have the answer - but I also don't think that the IPCC nor the UN for that matter are 'it'.
As a side note - I have enjoyed the recent spate of articles from you.
Thanks for that.
Kindest.
Kealey
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
Having taken on trust the AGW proposition for many years I have changed my mind. Having spent a long career in research and supporting the research of others in a discipline not too disimilar to climate science I have become alarmed by the relatively poor quality of the much of the research employed and some of the methodological assumptions that underpin it. Having a solid background in maths, science and statistics meant that the academic papers on the topic were pretty easy going. Why then the change of mind? First, the cost of error on both sides is huge. If AGW is correct and we do nothing then the cost of mitigation will be immense falling especially on the parts of the world that can least afford to bear it. If the argument for AGW is incorrect and we do divert substantial resources trying to solve a non-problem then the loss of GDP will again hit those who can least afford to sustain it. In a world where population growth is estimated to rise from 7 to 9bn in 30 years we need all of our effort and resource to feed and support a population growth of that size.
I do not like the term 'skeptic' in that it privileges AGW. I prefer the fairer term of those who support AGW and those who support the notion of naturally forced global change (NGC). Essentially the argument boils down to this: AGW is based on the idea that over millenial time scales natural forcing is essentially random in its impact and that, therefore, the warming in the 20th century and particularly since 1990 is atypical and therefore human induced. The contrary argument underpinning NGC is that climate change is cyclical and of unpredictable amplitude and frequency and that change can be sudden and also unpredictable.
There is no doubt that AGW is the simpler theory and many scientists applying the logic of Ockham's Razor assume therefore that it is more likely to be true. Unfortunately the simpler theory only has primacy in that it is easier to test or in Popper's terms refute. It does not mean that it's claims to truth are necessarily correct. The history of science is littered with simple theories that have been undermined by tiny inconsistencies and empirical problems and then, in the face of huge opposition from the established scientific community overturned. The greatest example of that was when Newtonian mechanics was overturned by a young man, with little scientifc credentials, a weak track record in published research who worked as a clerk in a patent office in Berne.
AGW v NGC? This is the big issue. Are the inconsitencies, the empirical problems and the ad-hoc justifications necessary to maintain AGW now at the point where the alternative needs to be seriously considered? The problem with climate science is that it has become synonomous with AGW - alternative theorists are debunked, derided and marginalised in the literature. That is what the IPCC review panel should be very worried about.
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Good piece (again) - thank you Richard. I can see from the comments already posted, that at least two of your categories of reactions are likely to be well-filled!
I am looking forward to seeing what a review of IPCC practice might suggest. In terms of governments implementing any recommendations, I can imagine that this could be informed by some of the debate around how best to establish and structure the work on strengthening the science-policy interface for biodiversity and ecosystem services (i.e. as discussed in the IPBES).
Thank you especially for the mention of the Cochrane reviews. This was something new to me and very useful indeed.
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a while ago I said in a knee jerk reaction that the IPCC should be disbanded. After thinking about it, i said thorough reform would be a better way forward and I still think this.
Changing the name isn't good enough, the IPCC is as good a name as any. What is really needed is absolute transparency and support for real sceptical scientists from which ever side of the fence. For example, the sort of scientist I have in mind (if she were one) is JaneBasinstoke - reading through her posts the the women appears to be a sceptical AGWer (meant in a nice way) and generally receives the respect she deserves on this site - even if she is wrong!
I don't necessarily think the reports need to be dumbed down, if the public is interested, we will take our time to understand the language.
The IPCC should abide by it's own rules and not allow papers that are not published to be referred to, because it suits a particular groups agenda or supports their case.
And of course all references to articles should be thoroughly checked ;)
/Mango
(I really need to stop rushing posts!)
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I think this is a very unfair remark:
"It's possible to divide published opinions on the issue into three broad categories: those who are only concerned with getting the message across that man-made climate change is an over-riding threat requiring urgent action, those who are concerned about the issue but are more concerned by what they see as lack of rigour and transparency within the IPCC, and those who are convinced that global warming is a fraud anyway and the IPCC one of the lead swindlers."
I don't think global warming is a fraud at all. I think the theory that is supposed to explain it is a non-starter scientifically, and that its proponents are completely sincere but naive.
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@Mango re: #11
While I agree with you completely regarding JaneBasingstoke and have a great deal of respect for her, even if I do not necessarily agree with her - she is certainly worthy of respect, her opinions are her own and very worth reading.
I am still inclined to go with your 'knee jerk' reaction.
We do not need a political body - particularly part of the UN playing this role.
I completely agree with the need for complete transparency with regards to the science of climate change. We need much more research. We need a wall between politics and scientific research and reporting of findings.
We need real peer review with regards to climate science. We need for everything which is published to be scrutinized very carefully - and for all work which is published to be 'reproducible'.
We need for the bias to be removed from 'scientific publications' - we need to have alternate points of view published with most every article.
We need all assumptions to be clearly stated and justified.
We need the scientists to clearly admit their uncertainties.
At this point - there is a great deal of trust with regards to climate science which has been lost. Once lost, trust is very difficult to regain. We must have scientist in the field of climate science working extra hard to regain that trust.
We need an audit of pretty much all that has been published with regards to climate science in the last ten years. We need that audit to ensure that all data, corrections, assumptions, models, etc are available to make all results reproducible.
We need to deal with the 'scientific credibility crisis' before we have anything like an IPCC making recommendations or 'compiling consensus'. That is years away - if we work very hard on it.
Cheers.
Kealey
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No this will not have any effect - the uprising of ordinary people against eco-facism is well underway and will not be deterred by yet another group of government funded scientists saying government funded scientists are good old boys.
You need to look at the root cause of the uprising.
The root cause is NOT climate science. The root cause of the uprising is the use of climate as a pretext for other agendas - chiefly tax and back to year zero anti-capitalism.
Stop worrying about 'science' and 'panels' - if you want to persuade ordinary people then change the package. Most people will be quite happy to continue their current life style, powered by non-fossil energy. They are NOT going to agree to being taxed back into the dark age - no matter how many 'panels' you have.
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It is obvious that all that is needed is for an external firm of independent QA auditors to put in place rigorous QA management procedures in accord with ISO-9001 and for other independent QA auditors to monitor all the IPCC outputs and ensure thay are fully compliant with the procedures. It is done in private companies and does not cost a fortune.
You don't need big reviews and you don't need scientists to get involved in the process. Just get some procedures in place and make sure they are followed.
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When the announcement was made yesterday, one of the co-chairs of the IAC, Robbert Dijkgraaf (who is a Dutch mathematical physicist), gave some outlines of what is being planend.
He said the review would include a close look at IPCC's procedures for assuring quality of data in its reports, the kind of literature used in its assessments, its review procedures, and ways it might publicize errors found in the future. In addition, he said the review would look at IPCC's leadership structure, including issues about transparency and how it conducts its affairs. Lastly he noted that the review would be forward-looking, so that any new procedures cold be implemented for the next IPCC report.
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@Flatearther
One the money. Independent auditors to first assess the process and then to review the published materials of the last ten years to assure that the process was followed.
I think independent auditors that corporations use for accounting and SOX compliance would work just fine.
Any publication which does not have a standard process and the documentation to back it up - needs to get one real quick.
Every peer-reviewed publication should be audited from the perspective that the peer review and publication process was followed.
The process needs to ensure that all 'peer-reviewed' papers are reproducible by any independent third party. It's ok to criticize the paper, its assumptions and conclusions/results - that is how science progresses - but they key here is that the process must ensure that results are reproducible.
The argument: I am not going to give you my data and my model because you will just try to attack it holds no water. Again, that is how science advances.
A political body such as the IPCC is not the right body to perform this role.
Cheers.
Kealey
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@15. i'd go with that 100%.
that's sort the issue out once and for all i reckon.
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I don't think it's unfair at all to label the third category as conspiracy theorists. Like it or not, it is an undeniable fact that the scientific mainstream fully supports AGW. Given that science is inherently self-correcting, it's impossible to put this down to simple money-grabbing or naiveté alone. So therefore, the only way to reconcile this with the belief that AGW is false is to assume there are individuals out there actively involved in suppressing the truth. If that's not the very essence of a conspiracy theory, I don't know what is.
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#16 simon-swede wrote:
"He said the review would include a close look at IPCC's procedures for assuring quality of data in its reports, the kind of literature used in its assessments, its review procedures, and ways it might publicize errors found in the future."
No change there then. We can all rest assured that no one will ask the fundamental questions that need to be asked, which show that whole enterprise is utterly misconceived, because it misunderstands the nature of science, the nature of evidence, and the nature of data.
This is an intellectual embarrassment that future generations will be aghast at!
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@Larry. I'm with you 100%. Transparency, independence, nothing hidden, complete open-ness to all contributors, fully audited and documented.
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A good example of a decisive contribution to an enquiry by a completely independent scientist was that of the late, great Richard Feynman on the Challenger enquiry. The experiment conducted during the session involving a section of seal and a glass of iced water demonstrated what had gone wrong, despite all the obfuscation of interested parties. Feynman you should be living at this hour, the World has need of thee!
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@ 19
so james, you're 100% happy with all the data issues, the integrity issues, the lies, the half truths and the downright fraudulant attempts to manipulate data?
This isn't about any 'weird conspiracy' it is about scientific malpractice. I don't care why it was done, or by whom- all i care about is that it looks right no: like they are lying through their teeth and the one thing they can do to make this go away overnight, releasing their data/models/assumptions, is the one thing they WONT do.
it smacks of scientific fraud.
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@Forlonehope I was brought up on Richard P F's lecture books. I still pick them up and read bits again from time to time. If only he or someone of his stature were around today to debunk this cargo cult science that goes by the name of climate science.
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The pseudo-scientists who unwittingly put a stake through the heart of what should have been a scientific investigation wasted 20 precious years where a respectable effort by objective people who wanted to get at the truth instead of advance a political agenda might have persuaded the world to make a drastic change, assuming the conclusion was correct. Instead it is probably already too late. By turning the discussion into a political football, they assured that their side would lose. You don't overpower the most important vested political and economic interests in the world through trickery and deceit. Now that it has blown up, if there is any chance at all left, it should begin by getting rid of everyone associated with this sorry effort and starting all over again with people who are new to it and have no biases one way or the other. It should also include economists who will figure out a way that will actually work without bankrupting many nations. That appears to me to be what was really behind much of what was done, an effort to destroy the economy of the US by Europeans because they can't compete with it.
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REF:-
#14 Thank goodness - I was beginning to think I was the only one to #15 think the lord of misrule was governing this subject.
#20 No expert or scientist I but something does need to be sorted out as #23 quickly as possible before we bankrupt ourselves in the pursuit of a
theory. I could envisage savage culling of the still wild herds, as well as all domestic animals. All Palm plantations instead of forests - except forests of windmills! Logically this would be followed by plans toward the forced depletion of the population - wonder where that was tried?
Silly - perhaps but not as silly as some of the prdictions which abound!
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@25
"That appears to me to be what was really behind much of what was done, an effort to destroy the economy of the US by Europeans because they can't compete with it. "
i wouldn't quite go that far.
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The conspiracy crazies and the fossile fuel hacks will all scream and cry no matter the outcome. Like passing a day-care center, pissing and crying for attention.
Scientist tend to think that science trumps politics. No amount of facts or data changes the mind of a politician like a check from a coal or oil lobbyist.
Governments are corrupt, it is all a matter of degrees in this time.
The only real change will occur when an alternative fuel is available that is non-fossil and readily available. The existing power structure will do all it can to prevent this from happening. Power is never given up willingly, it is always taken.
Conversion is the job of missionaries.
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#24 Flatearther wrote:
"I was brought up on Richard P F's lecture books. I still pick them up and read bits again from time to time."
I highly recommend his The Character of Physical Law, one of my all-time favourites.
"If only he or someone of his stature were around today to debunk this cargo cult science that goes by the name of climate science."
I agree, but I think I would ask for more radical changes than you ask for in #21. There has to be an awakening to the central role of hypothesis in science, and the fact that observations do not function as a "basis" or foundation for hypotheses. That is something that Feynman was acutelty aware of.
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Some very thoughtful posts here.
What bothers me greatly about the proprosed process is Ban Ki-moon's presumpton that: 'the threat of global warming is real'.
Frankly, if that is his presumption, then any reassessment of the IPCC's findings is a complete waste of time - yes, the expression 'whitewash' comes to mind.
Even if you are prepared to overlook the link between 'the right result' and funding for the science involved, and are prepared to accept that the scientists involved were simply naive in the way they presented their findings, what on earth can be done about the way the results have been politicised, and about the Al Gore's of this world who have jumped on the bandwagon and stand to make huge sums of money from trading imaginary 'carbon credits'..?
We have a situation where politicians and others have 'gold plated' the scenario to such an extent that a whole generation have been brainwashed into believing that the simplest processes involved in living our everyday lives are now wrapped in guilt, and must be either stopped completely or, preferably, taxed. Many of these scenarios are so far-fetched as to be laughable, if it wasn't for the fact that they have become embedded in our psyche.
There are just so many misconceptions in the minds of the public now - and the political elite, for the reasons above, have no wish to dispel them. Take carbon dioxide - which currently forms less than 0.04% of the atmosphere, and is the essential chemical to enable photosynthesis in plants, enabling them to flourish. Government-produced tv propoganda would have us (children especially) believe that it is some sort of evil black cloud hanging over the land, blocking out the sunlight. The fact that CO2 is invisible has of course got nothing to do with the story - any evil black clouds are composed of water vapour, which is a far more potent greenhouse gas, the behaviour of which climate scientists freely admit they do not understand, and tend to dismiss. Furthermore, anyone who cares to take the trouble to read the Kyoto Protocol will note that it talks about a reduction in CO2 EQUIVALENT - not even CO2 itself..!
Then there is the 'Antarctic ice will melt and seas will rise 60m' scenario. Cliff Ollier in the March issue of Geoscientist, the magazine of the Geological Society, effectively scotches that one because, as he points out (amongst other detailed explanations), melting ice would have to flow uphill - something its not very good at.
Frankly, I have no solution as to how this matter is to be resolved. This review - and it has to be a 'quickie' if it is to be completed in time for the October summit, will simply come up with; 'Yes - we made a few minor errors - but our findings stand. Nothing to see here, ladies and gentlemen, move along.'
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Like many, my previous certainty regarding anthropogenic climate change has been shaken by recent revelations, but remember, just because some of the evidence has been falsified does not mean that the theory is wrong, how many dangerous criminals have been put away by dodgy evidence? There is too much at stake, not just climate change but many related issues, poverty, equality, responsible life styles etc, if the disinterested masses get conflicting messages on climate change then what hope is there for building a better society?
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To LarryKealey #6:
That's quite the post!
And I thank you for it.
Soul-surfers know that there are downs as well as ups. Just now I am in the trough of a big wave, but your post has me still 'hangin' ten.'
The world we have created is so big - so out-sized. It is not on a human scale. Our expectations are likewise too big - or perhaps misguided, by the all pervasive influence of the 'fabulous' society we live in.
Your reminisce reminds me very much in its tone and even in some of its detail to that of John C. Cremony, who wrote the classic "Life Among the Apaches," ca mid 1800's.
He had been in the US military, had served on the US/Mexico Boundary Commission, been in the California Volunteers, was a journalist who could write, and had been the man to put the Apaches on the reserve at Bosque Redondo, later becoming their 'friend' and I think admirer.
He too said almost identical words to yours, about his life etc...
When Merriwether Lewis was leading his expedition across America in the early days of the 1800's, he was in his elememt, and as good as one gets.
When he later returned and was 'rewarded' for his eforts with tiitle and position in Missouri, I believe, he became involved in business and politics, lost all, and killed himself.
Perhaps the blog, and writing here, is a form of entertainment.
In my Year of the Pilgrim in 1994, I came to the conclusion that we put too low a premium on 'fun' in this society - that fun, or entertainment, is nature's tastebud, telling us what is important.
This is very confusing at times, fiddling while Rome burns type of thing.
But where there is smoke there is fire.
I have reached my conclusion as regards this blogging business - I will continue.
This conclusion was expedited by your sincere post - a catalyst.
Look at George Monbiot's latest post! His last words were:
"Perhaps we have to accept that there is no simple solution to public disbelief in science. The battle over climate change suggests that the more clearly you spell the problem out, the more you turn people away. If they don’t want to know, nothing and no one will reach them. There goes my life’s work."
We are not alone in questioning the 'worth' of what we do, neither now nor in the past.
I think Churchill may have been wrong - there is no time when 'doing your best' is not enough.
You are a decent man Larry Kealey, even if you don't believe CO2 is the problem.
Not only that, but you have demonstrated a consistent humanity in your posting.
I 'found myself' with wife and child late in life, at fifty-four years of age, when I least expected it.
Curiously, I was at the time following my heart, climbing mountains as a devotion, and had become a part of the natural world, which is human in scale.
It has not escaped my attention that you are an American. Between yourself and Ghostofsichuan from China, we are a quickly linking the world, are we not? Though the internet here is faceless, it need not be. Perhaps the BBC could remedy that, and present 'faces' beside our call-signs?
Why not?
We are here on this blog a part of something 'bigger than ourselves.'
And that is a good thing.
Hasta Luego, y mucho suerte,
Miguel
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To Ghostofsichuan #28:
"Power is never given up willingly, it is always taken.
Conversion is the job of missionaries."
---------------------------------------
Reading you 'five by five' Ghost.
We are going to take the initiative.
- Manysummits -
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The IPCC is to be reviewed, by its peers presumably? Now, I wonder how independent this review can hope to be as all participants will inevitably be financially and career dependent of there still being anthropogenic climate change at the end of the review.
It is really unfortunate that this field of science went off at half-cock and blamed CO2 when the evidence is poor and further the evidence is even less strong that any alteration to the climate one way or another will result from changing man's emissions of CO2. This is the error.
The error is not that the climate changes. Nor is it that changes to the climate (that is accumulative and persistent weather changes) can and do harm the planet and its flora and fauna, including man. Unless and until there is a satisfactory model and explanation of how all the different elements that may contribute to the changes in climate fit together it is extremely unscientific to blame one possible cause over another. That is the reality. I personally prefer models that give more influence to the sun, the solar wind, the moon, changes in obliquity and perhaps high altitude water vapour rather than the CO2 emissions of man for a whole complex set of good reasons.
The problem with the IPCC was that they were taken up by the financial community as a way a gambling on carbon credits and associated derivatives. This further destroyed any hope of scientific rigour or objectivity.
PS I recall Richard Feynman's, books 1-3 pinky red in colour and oversized, didn't fit well on bookshelves (probably why I can't find them!) - I must still have them somewhere. He died in 1988 I think, but he lived in a simpler less political age where scientific experiments either worked or they didn't and your career went on regardless (he was involved with Oppenheimer et.al. in the 'bomb' after all.) The politics of science has come to the fore mainly I think due to the lack of tenure in academic life.
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\\\ Hot Spot - Cyprus ///
"The alarming thing, for those working to ease this new conflict, is that Cypriots don't even seem to realise that hostilities between them and nature have begun...
The island has reached what geographers call Peak Water - when demand meets and then outstrips supply."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/8560424.stm
---------------------------------
- Manysummits -
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6. At 04:30am on 11 Mar 2010, LarryKealey wrote:
But reality speaking - what is it one can hope to accomplish blogging on the BBC?
The BBC has been one of the biggest cheerleaders for global warming for some time, driving a coach and horses through its requirement for impartiality. It does no harm to point this out to Messrs Black, Harrabin et al - the fact that other points of view exist is now at least acknowledged, if only through gritted teeth and I think would not have been but for bloggers who refused to let them ignore "Climategate".
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\\\ From Where I Stand ///
I am here at Mount Royal University, and rather than post more on AGW, I am going to see the Outdoor Program here. They have something on outdoor leadership and ecotourism, and I want to find out more.
My new-found mountain partner is anxious for another backcountry trip this weekend - and I have agreed.
We have done one backcountry mountain, one ice-climb, and one dry scramble so far.
This is real - this works.
I was discussing on our last trip how best to convey AGW to outdoor pursuits people, perhaps on guided environmental tours?
We came to the conclusion that just being out here in the natural world is enough.
Who knows - maybe it is?
- Manysummits -
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Was it "Men at Work" who sang
"Rip it up and start again"
h/t Richard North
The BBC blog seems to be a large contributor to global warming which should be stopped immediately. Therefore, Mr. Black perhaps you need to apply for one of these :)
http://www.kaufda.de/umwelt/carbon-neutral/1-tree-1-blog-how-it-works/
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From what we can glean on Robbert Dijkgraaf is as follows.
1. He announced he was a strong supporter of 'consenus science' at Copenhagen.
2. He has already downplayed the IPCC errors in comments on Dutch radio prior to his appointment.
3. He is a firm supporter of President Obama and his crusade on global warming.
Robbert Dijkgraaf has been outed as an out-an-out warmist.
This review of the IPCC process will neither be independent nor comprehensive. It is basically a PR exercise by the UN. It has already failed to meet public expectations.
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I am nuclear power skeptic (because is neither clean, nor cheap, nor safe), believes that air pollution and combustions must be stopped and are Bush´s skeptic about the treat given to James Hansen when he talked about climate change and was censored by the same that tries to censor to IPCC and promotes non-agreement about climate change mitigation. Said in few words : I am neoCON skeptic, because I do not believe in CON (Coal, Oil, Nuclear). System change, not climate change .
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I always become sceptical when I am told that I MUST believe something, because some eminent person has said so. My disagreement with the AGW true-believers is based on what I see as their lack of scientific method - that is, non-trivial predicted outcomes which are falsifiable, and the ability to replicate findings. I do not see why it is beyond the wit of those who think the AGW theory is correct to produce temperature forecasts year-by-year for northern and southern hemispheres and for the sea surface, by day and by night, for the next 20 years. That would give a set of 120 predictions, which could then be tested against outcome. I also fail to see why the datasets on which reconstructions of past climates are based cannot be made public, in particular those underlying the MBH98a model.
Until these points are cleared up, I will remain a sceptic.
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#32 manysummits quoted George Monbiot:
"Perhaps we have to accept that there is no simple solution to public disbelief in science."
I think he ought to give the public more credit. They have a high regard for genuine science, and are impressed by marvels of technology, but they recognize that AGW is a religious orthodoxy rather than the real thing. It just doesn't deliver the goods, and even misunderstands what the goods are in science. Science doesn't deliver more certainty -- it delivers more understanding. And the more climate "scientists" grind out their spurious claims of certainty, the more the public see that they are trying to deliver the wrong thing, and failing even at that.
Climate "scientists" don't have any clear idea how their methods could work, and with good reason -- because their methods are completely confused. They are like people who have seen conjurers utter the word 'abracadabra' and think that if they simply utter the same word without comprehension, "magic" will happen for them too.
The public see through that sort of thing. They may not understand how good conjurers make apparent "magic" happen, but they see men walking on the moon, they see awe-inspiring computer wizardry, fear-inspiring nuclear weaponry, and they get quite a few clarity-inspiring explanations. Even complicated theories have simple analogues that ordinary people can benefit from.
And they know a bad conjurer when they see one.
The philosopher David Hume had the wisdom to see that "the abstruse reasonings of philosophers" were less trustworthy than clear common sense. (To his credit, he included his own "abstruse reasonings".) The abstruse reasonings of even the best science is not more trustworthy than common sense, just more insightful. The worst science is neither more trustworthy nor more insightful than common sense.
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Apart from correcting the data and checking the information included in the IPCC reports, there needs to be a re-evaluation of some of the issues that the IPCC was disregarded.
I am thinking for example of information on the relation ship between solar activity and climate.
The BBC this week for example in its excellent "Wonders of the Solar System" programme showed a graph indicating a precise relationship between water flow in the Amazon and solar intensity. This looked like compelling evidence that solar intensity controls cloud formation and therefore (probably) global temperature. I was also disappointed to learn elsewhere the same day that CERN had problems and that the "Cloud" experiments it was scheduled to carry out to look at this issue will be still further delayed.
This kind of work has potentially a fundamental influence on Climate Sensitivity which contributes the majority of the warming currently forecast and which many suspect the IPCC has grossly over-estimated.
Until issues like this are better understood is it really wise for the world to embark on expensive programmes to mitigate an influence it quite simply does not understand?
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I would be happy if we had an International Panel of Climate Research.
IPCR: this would cover NATURAl climate change, and the 'possibility' of man made global warming..
Also drop the governments contribution to reports, as this would seem make it political rather than scientific
For all we know because of the obsession with co2. we could be heading for another mini/little ice age. which we would be very wise to prepare for, much more hazardous than warming for humans.
The CRU/IPCC scientists just seem to have the wrong attitude, to be taken seriouly.
They are on a mission, they have descended into groupthink, rather than be dispassionately open to contradictory evidence.
As a thorough review of the climategate emails would indicate.
HAVE the bbc even looke at more than half a dozen, since december?
I saw the transcript of a meeting where Richard Black was present, saying they had not looked at it at all serioulsy due to work involving copenhagen.
From: Phil Jones
To: John Christy
Subject: This and that
Date: Tue Jul 5 15:51:55 2005
at the end of the e-mail:
This is partly why I’ve sent you the rest of this email. IPCC,
me and whoever will get accused of being political, whatever we do. As you
know, I’m not political. If anything, I would like to see the climate change happen,
so the science could be proved right, regardless of the consequences. This
isn’t being political, it is being selfish
January 5, 2009: email 1231190304
I hope you’re not right about the lack of warming lasting till about 2020. I’d rather hoped to see the earlier Met(eorological) Office press release with Doug’s paper that said something like—“half the years to 2014 would exceed the warmest year currently on record, 1998”!
Still a way to go before 2014.
I seem to be getting an email a week from skeptics saying “where’s the warming gone”? I know the warming is on the decades scale, but it would be nice to wear their smug grins away.
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I am not surprised that many people are already denouncing this as a whitewash. Look at the "independent" review into the climategate emails. The guy running the show turns out to be a climate scaremonger who worked at UEA for 18 years.
The institutions like our formerly great Royal Society are now totally wedded to AGW so there is little hope for any truly objective investigation.
The only solution is for independent scientists from other fields, NOT CLIMATE SCIENTISTS, to be brought in to look at things independently. I nominate Marcel, Labmunkey, Bob Ryan and John_from_Hendon.
Meanwhile the IPCC carries on as usual. Roger Pielke, who you mentioned, was nominated for IPCC AR5 as an expert in the field of disaster analysis, (where the IPCC messed up badly last time), but then not appointed, with the IPCC selecting them same discredit bunch as last time around.
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@Kamboshigh #38
"Was it "Men at Work" who sang "Rip it up and start again""
No
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rFrJ-3qCuo&feature=related
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@minuend #39
Previous opinion polls have shown that many scientists outside the climate science community take AGW seriously. Are you going to write off their expertise?
Remember, combining the views of people from both sides of the debate resulted in that IoP submission to the parliamentary inquiry that so many of you sceptics liked.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/mar/05/climate-emails-institute-of-physics-submission
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Are we experiencing some sort of group think?
post 6 LarryKealey
I understand exactly what you are saying but I have to say that your input has got many people thinking. I am glad you are experiencing better health, it has bothered me that you have been ill. Just as if you were a personal friend, I read your posts, and think about our collective future from your perspective.
Manysummits, you brighten my day, and so does ghostofsichuan. Nothing is wasted. All of the random thoughts, meaningful or otherwise, add to some sort of social glue that holds humanity together when the going gets tough.
Richard Black, at the end of the day, what will really count is our understanding of each other. All of the technical know-how and the specialist language means nothing without personal connectivity. The regulars on this blog bring intellectual oxygen to our collective thinking.
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Credibility is like virginity.
When it's gone you can't get it back.
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no...
it a group hug!!!!
useful, when the next little iceage starts....
just a little bit of humoour.
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I have a general question to AGW sceptics.
Just what would it take to make you believe the consensus view that CO2 is largely responsible for the warming in the past 50 years, and sensistivity of temperature atmospheric CO2 is between 1.8 and 4.5C?
Just what would it take?...more specifically, if the current crop evidence is verified, would that be enough?, if not, what else on top would sway you? What do you think the symptoms of AGW would be if it were true?...Just hypothetical questions...
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What are the potential forces that could cause a reorientation of the Earth's axis and therefore rather dramatic climatic change?
1. shift of the poles
2. plate tectonics
3. magnetic field change
4. earth crust movement
5. high-velocity asteroid or comet which interferes with earth’s standard orbit (without – we hope – hitting the earth)
6. bunker busters or nuclear blasts that penetrate deeply into the earth’s core disturbing crust and core and
7. HAARP - High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) - ionospheric research program, which is fully operational and can be used to induce earthquakes, thunderstorms, floods, draughts, hurricanes, avalanches, power outages, and other “natural” catastrophes.
Categories of proponents:
a) those who are only concerned with getting the message across that man-made climate change is an over-riding threat
b) those who are concerned about the issue but are more concerned by what they see as lack of rigour and transparency
c) those who are convinced that global warming is a fraud anyway and the IPCC one of the lead swindlers.
Unlike you, Richard, I’m mist interested in the first group because I believe in man-made climate change on an overwhelming scale. I deem it the terrorist weapon of the future, and right now it sits in the hands of the United States of America.
I couldn’t care less about IPCC because what’s happening is beyond IPCC expertise. It is truly man-made (but not by breathing out carbon dioxide or cutting down trees). It is man-made as in constructed.
HAARP.
I am one of the growing number of people who believe that HAARP played a role in the devastating, highly damaging earthquakes that occurred in Sichuan, China in 2008, Haiti and Chile in 2010, recently in Eastern Turkey and the magnitude-7.0 quake that hit Ryukyu Island, Japan.
HAARP is newest, most dangerous man-made weapon ever created. HAARP is why the Americans no longer care about nuclear proliferation. HAARP is infinitely more dangerous.
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Climate science is a textbook example of the cargo-cult science that Richard Feynman warned us about in 1974.
They had seen scientists on TV and they genuinely thought that by wearing white coats and sitting in labs drawing graphs they would develop an understanding of the world's climate.
They hoped to uncover and name some new laws - like Hooke's Law, Boyle's Law, Ohm's Law. Maybe it was going to be Jones' Law or Keith's Coefficient.
This explains why their record-keeping was so awful. They hoped that the laws would stand on their own and someone else would do the hard work of calculating the exact value of Keith's Coefficient.
Detail and diligence was for someone else.
They went to conferences, wrote papers, held seminars. But the cargo didn't arrive. The planes didn't land.
It must have been a terrible moment of self-awareness, of insight. Psychological vertigo - by now they had senior positions and highly-regarded departments.
In public they had to bluster and bluff their way forwards. Unprecedented levels of cognitive dissonance.
In private, their real views are shown by the Climategate emails. They knew that the game was up.
Ernest Rutherford explained the two types of science: physics with its numbers and its correct predictions, and stamp collecting.
The climate scientists had hoped to be at the hard end - the physics end. They realised that they were only ever going to be stamp collectors - describing and recording the world's weather. Except that other people were already doing a better job at this.
They were stamp collectors without any stamps.
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Jack Hughes at post 49 wrote:
'Credibility is like virginity.'
'When it is gone you can't get it back.'
I say, virginity is overrated. Everyone makes mistakes, it is what you do to correct the mistakes that counts in the end.
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@Bluesberry 52
"What are the potential forces that could cause a reorientation of the Earth's axis and therefore rather dramatic climatic change?"
It would be obvious that the earth's axis would have moved by the change in solar irradiance. To my knowledge, no significant change has been observed.
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BluesBerry at post 52,
Brave, foolhardy or both?
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
@sensibleoldgrannie, @ManySummits
Thank you both very kindly.
Kindest.
Kealey
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#47 janebasingstoke
"Remember, combining the views of people from both sides of the debate resulted in that IoP submission to the parliamentary inquiry that so many of you sceptics liked."
found it rather ironic that the IoP made such a song and dance about openness and then refused to say who were on the panel that drafted the statement. also interesting that i've seen no reference here to the statement by the royal society of chemists - a much more considered statement imho - but not exiting fodder for the 'lobby'.
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#42 bowman
"I think he ought to give the public more credit. They have a high regard for genuine science, and are impressed by marvels of technology, but they recognize that AGW is a religious orthodoxy rather than the real thing."
i've met the public and they didn;t say that. which public have you been speaking to?
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#43 bandythebane
"Apart from correcting the data and checking the information included in the IPCC reports, there needs to be a re-evaluation of some of the issues that the IPCC was disregarded.
I am thinking for example of information on the relation ship between solar activity and climate."
they have covered that. but what i thought was disgraceful of the ipcc was to underestimate the agw threat. their upper level sea level rise was only based on 5.2oC not 6.4oC (the projected max), was computed to 2095 not 2100 (that's another 5cm) and assumed snow accumulating in antartica (which it most certainly hasn;t been).
on top of this they've deliberately hidden the fact that sea levels have been rising far quicker than their models predicted. this is an agw cover up of the worst kind.
the ipcc has been far too conservative imho
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#60 rossglory wrote:
"which public have you been speaking to?"
The public whose "faith" in AGW "science" has been dropping like the temperature!
If you want to persuade the public of the magnificent potency of your "science", I suggest you pull a rabbit out of a hat by simply getting your stupid so-called "theory" to pass a test. Can you?
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bow,
What exactly would it take for AGW to 'pass the test'? If AGW was real, would would you expect to see that we already haven't seen?
I mean, CO2 has risen, temperatures have risen, there is a staggering amount of evidence linking CO2 PHYSICALLY to warming. What else would you expect to see?
If, as I expect, you just use the 'science is misconceived' card, explain what perfect logical scientific endeveur, or simply if someone had a 'truthmeter' doing the experiments for them, would observe if AGW were true in a way the consensus view suggests.
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@51, SR wrote:
“
I have a general question to AGW sceptics.
Just what would it take to make you believe the consensus view that CO2 is largely responsible for the warming in the past 50 years, and sensistivity [sic] of temperature atmospheric CO2 is between 1.8 and 4.5C?
“
If you could explain why the more vociferous dendroclimatoligists consider the failure of R2 verification statistics to be immaterial I might be impressed.
Failing that perhaps you could explain why other climate scientists haven't questioned the validity of these papers.
In fact, with your 'mathematical/statistical background', why haven't you?
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@ 52. At 8:48pm on 11 Mar 2010, BluesBerry wrote:
You are either young or mad. HAARP does not exist. And I question myself for questioning the scientific "concensus"!
@51. At 8:46pm on 11 Mar 2010, SR wrote:
It would take some solid facts to be honest. I am simply not convinced from reading both sides of the story that CO2 forcing is as high as the doomsday scenario suggests, and think that evidence sugests that other factors dampen its impact.
I see a planet at its temperature optimum after an ice age, with temperatures that looking at a lot of evidence, are not unique, dangerous or global.
I see people panicking at any slight climate change, when it has always happened and cannot be stopped, as in even if it was CO2 to blame for the increase, getting rid of CO2 would return us to the ice age cycle which would be even more damaging.
I see political agendas, money to be made.
I see lefty-green trojan horses pushed through the gates by people who until the end of the cold war were standing in a field screaming for unilateral nuclear disarmament, and who now see a way into the mainstream for extreme left views.
I hear people telling me temperatures have risen. But how do they look in context, compared to the longer trend, I see little evidence today is unique or dangerously incomparable to the past.
I read the fact that ancients walked through alpine passes now full of snow, the possibility of a comparable warmth during Roman and Medieval times, increased crop production at high altitudes in South America, the anecdotal historical evidence goes on and on.
I see graphs with tree ring and other proxy data that simply is not robust enough.
I see possible mis-management of weather stations globally and a lack of accuracy in the data they produce.
I see a north pole that is allegedly melting. But when I look at the data I see most of the loss is from the 15% extent, which is being broken up more and more by ice breakers and fisherman heading north as fish become scarcer, and I see this new loose ice pushed south by a changing pattern in the north atlantic. I also see a current trend that is well above the 2007 minimum, depending on whether you believe the 2007 minimum was measured accurately, considering they have only just started to understand what effect ice bridges have up north.
I see El Nino having several record years without comparable La Nina's, storing up heat for years down the road.
I see NOAA heat maps with 1200km smoothing and 1000 weather stations covering more than 600 1200km grids on a map, and wonder how they extrapolate the data to make everything red.
I also see, read and hear un questioning bias in most media, with photos of polar bears on tiny blocks of ice in the sea to alarm us, despite the fact that sight is nothing unusual. I also read about the fact polar bears may die out if the ice disappears, despite the latest fossil evidence suggesting that they are at least 150, 000 years old and therefore must have survived a comparable warm period.
I read about countries like Bangladesh sinking, yet I can find no evidence that extreme flooding (over 40% land mass) has increased in 200 years.
I read about the younger dryas, before human emissions, when a 7+ degree jump in northern hemisphere, possibly global temperatures occurred in less than a decade.
And at the end of all that reading, looking, thinking and discussing, I am still sitting here saying "prove its happening and that it is unprecedented".
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Rather than treat GW, if it is occurring, as a dependent variable with just one driver, a more traditional approach would examine the possibility that global temperature is a function of SEVERAL independent variables: 1) the approx. 11 year sunspot cycle, where Sunspot maxima coincide with slightly larger heat output from the Sun; 2) major volcanic eruptions, e.g. Krakatoa in 1887, Pinotubo & St. Helens in the 1980s. Variable 2) operates with a 12-24 month time lag, and volcanic dust shields the earth's surface from sunlight to some extent; 3) Amount of water vapor in atmosphere (problems: How to measure? What influences increase or decreases in this?) 4) Amount of dry pollution (think sulfur dioxide from coal burning, and other particulate residue which may either absorb heat or block it from reaching the surface; and 5) CO2, Methane and other gaseous components in the atmosphere. Again, how to measure, and how many of them to consider are problems.
IMO the workers involved leapt to a one-variable conclusion w/o trying to solve for probable coefficients applicable to each variable. They also ignored evidence from past centuries of persistent (across 400 years) warmer temperatures (Medieval Warming Period) and colder temperatures (Little Ice Age - 1420 to 1770AD approx.) that did not correspond to any human-caused activity. Ignoring the facts does not make them go away.
Now if a non-biased group solved for coefficients for the applicable variables, and determined that ALL were small EXCEPT for CO2, that would have been impressive, and IMO, convincing. But that isn't what they did.
Richard, Good Luck on your continuing to report on these developments.
TeaPot562
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Jack Hughes at #49 wrote:
'Credibility is like virginity. When it is gone you can't get it back.'
I don't want the latter back thank you! Fortunately losing one did not entail the loss of the other, as far as I can tell!
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@SR #51
Just what would it take to make you believe the consensus view that CO2 is largely responsible for the warming in the past 50 years, and sensistivity of temperature atmospheric CO2 is between 1.8 and 4.5C?
Observational evidence including the cloud effect, not based on calculation excluding clouds, that can be verified by others (not sure 50 years is correct though, although if you wish to argue the trend has been warming for the last 50 years, I would argue the trend has been warming since the little ice age and the last ice age)
Now, right back at you:
"Just what would it take to make you believe the consensus view that CO2 is largely responsible for the warming"
/Mango
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Mango at #68
How would you then set about testing for this in an effective way within a reasonable timeframe?
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66. At 04:30am on 12 Mar 2010, TeaPot562 wrote:
Rather than treat GW, if it is occurring, as a dependent variable with just one driver, a more traditional approach would examine the possibility that global temperature is a function of SEVERAL independent variables...
----------------------------------------------------------------------
How about hundreds of interrelated and interdependent variables? As opposed to 'several' or the 'one'...many of which we may only be vaguely aware of - or have yet to discover...
Cheers
Kealey
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@SR
What exactly would it take to get you to question your beliefs in AGW and the current 'doomsday' theories around CO2????
What exactly would it take to make you skeptical? If it were found that some prominent climate scientists had 'inappropriately' monkeyed with their data? What if were found that the 'peer review' process in climate science was badly flawed and we couldn't possibly reproduce the results of so much work which has been done in the last ten years?
Would you be skeptical then?
What would it take>
Cheers.
Kealey
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real shame the late, great richard feynman (i too treasure a copy of his physics lectures) has been dragged into this. the guy was a genius and nobody here can have the vaguest idea what his thoughts on agw and climate contrarians would be.
one thing is sure, he was a brilliant science communicator and could have made a big contribution to preventing some of the ludicrous misrepresentations of science i've seen recently.
and this "physics good, other science bad" meme is just nonsense.
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I thought I would take a look at HAARP as it has been discussed here. Forget the cranky sites and go straight to the official web site, not Wiki. Here you can access learning, meanings of words, graphs of real time geomagnetic activity and loads more info. I recommend the site as an interesting learning activity. I had a look at the graphs from right now, back to early 2008. There was a lot of activity back in June and July of 2009, but I notice that we are still here;-) (even though those graphs looked a bit excited back then). It is good to know that we ordinary folk can access scientific information.
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#mango
"Just what would it take to make you believe the consensus view that CO2 is largely responsible for the warming" - eh? did you mean 'not believe'?
if so, some solid peer reviewed papers would be a good start.
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#62 bowman
"The public whose "faith" in AGW "science" has been dropping like the temperature!
If you want to persuade the public of the magnificent potency of your "science", I suggest you pull a rabbit out of a hat by simply getting your stupid so-called "theory" to pass a test. Can you?"
whoops, struck a nerve. the arch 'devils advocate' should know better.
so you mean the public that doesn't believe in agw is the public that doesn;t believe in agw. a bit circular that.
and if by test you mean one of 'your' tests, i don;t think that would contribute anything.
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51. At 8:46pm on 11 Mar 2010, SR wrote:
"I have a general question to AGW sceptics. Just what would it take to make you believe the consensus view that CO2 is largely responsible for the warming in the past 50 years....."
============================
There is no 'evidence' that would change my position.
The problem is not evidence. The problem is the 'solution' which people have piggy backed onto the science. Tax, tax, tax. Live in the dark in a shack, a return to famines, no personal transport, poverty etc etc.
People are not willing to sign up to being taken back to the dark ages. They are rebelling. No matter what 'evidence' you provide they are still going to rebel against that 'solution'
Start asking for people to do something more acceptable. Drop the hidden agendas piggy backed onto the 'science'
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#75 rossglory wrote:
"so you mean the public that doesn't believe in agw is the public that doesn;t believe in agw. a bit circular that."
Huh? -- The public that doesn't believe in AGW is more trustworthy than the specialists who do. That's why we have jury trials. Think about it.
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#72 rossglory wrote:
"real shame the late, great richard feynman (i too treasure a copy of his physics lectures) has been dragged into this. the guy was a genius and nobody here can have the vaguest idea what his thoughts on agw and climate contrarians would be."
I think I have a pretty good idea what his opinion would be. He would think it stinks, because he understood the role of hypothesis and testing in scinece. If you have read lots of Feynman you would have noticed that.
"this "physics good, other science bad" meme is just nonsense."
It's more like: physics, biology, chemistry, engineering, good. Sociology, psychology, astrology, phrenology, numerology, climate science, bad.
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Bowman at #78
One problem with your "climate science" = "bad" notion, is that "climate science" is made up of a range of disciplines including those in your good list. Another is that many of those researchers working in the field of climate would identify themselves first and foremost as physicists, chemists, biologists... Look at the work, not the label.
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#79 simon-swede wrote:
Bowman at #78
"many of those researchers working in the field of climate would identify themselves first and foremost as physicists, chemists, biologists... Look at the work, not the label."
Fair enough. Not everyone working in climate science is a charlatan. I imagine quite a few have to get involved just to get funding. When I started teaching philosophy I had to teach all manner of codswollop, such as existentialism and "philosophy of psychology". The memory makes my flesh creep!
So I take it back. But a lot of climate science is conducted by anti-scientific nitwits in a sort of "moral rapture" about "saving the planet".
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
@Mango,
@JaneBasingstoke
@Manysummits
Would greatly appreciate your thoughts, ideas and criticisms of post #81
(first round of peer/beer review...lol)
Cheers.
Kealey
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#35 Manysummits do you actually beleive that bbc story you linked to?
Simply there is not one grain of truth in any part of it, in fact most of it is distorted to the point that it is lies.
1) There has always been water shortages on Cyprus its due to geography, the average rainfall is 14 days a year.
2)Water is not charged at the supply cost (will be from 2011)so it is taken for granted and wasted as it is so cheap.
3) The water inferstructure has not been updated and is in a desperate state of repair so leakage is enormous although vast efforts to patch it up took place last year.
4)Farmers grow cash crops such a bananas but will not irregate with desailinated water.
5)There has been massive building in the past 15 years of tourist homes and hotels, were water is wasted in construction rather than domestic usage. We have water rationing (just lifted) but not in tourist areas.
6)The trees aren't rotting what total BS in the blazing sun, in fact my Cherry Tree is about 2 weeks behind flowering, although the plums are coming along, lemon/orange trees are happy.
7) There has been zero change in the rainfall for Cyprus in the past 100 years. In fact we have just come out of the 7 year dry cycle. This time last year the reseviors stood at 17% of capacity today they are at 67% and rising with 2 more wet months to go. That is how much rain we have had.
8)Water rationing is expected to be holted completely from 2011 once all new desalination plants come on line. Perhaps the idiot author can suggest how we get water other than oil fired power stations, we don't have wind, we don't have tides, we don't have hydro, we don't have coal deposits. We have a load of sun but were not stupid enough to release that solar is vastly inefficient.
9)The pipeline from Turkey is set to be completed in 2012 but is a political hot potato.
10)People swim in the sea and hotel pools, I would not recommend the dams especially as some local idiot put a dozen "Nile Crocodiles" in one of them.
11) When was Cyprus ever know as the "Green Island"? An "Open Landfill" as described by the Interior Minister yesterday, okay, but never a green Island
Just shows how low the BBC is and ManySummits I know because I live in Cyprus
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#78 bowman
"I think I have a pretty good idea what his opinion would be."
that is astonishing arrogance. i have read some feynman, his was a unique mind and you could not have a clue what his opinion may or may not be if he were still alive....no ifs no buts.
in reality you're just trying to pull in an authouratative name to support your bizarre view of the scientific method. why not stick to the guys you have today, nigel lawson, viscount monckton, delingprole......oh, sorry I can see your point.
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@simon-swede #69
How would you then set about testing for this in an effective way within a reasonable timeframe?
Hasn't the testing effectively been done by Pinker?
@rossglory #74
"Just what would it take to make you believe the consensus view that CO2 is largely responsible for the warming" - eh? did you mean 'not believe'?
if so, some solid peer reviewed papers would be a good start.
Yes, you are correct - this is what happens when you rush
You want solid reviewed papers?
How about this one:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/308/5723/850
which even RC cannot really fault, even if they draw different conclusions and only warn "There must be some slight cautions about the quality of the satellite data" and the results should not be over interpreted." Hardly a robust rebuttal of this paper.
/Mango
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@Larry #82
In my humble opinion, #82 needs to be reworded
;)
/Mango
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#77 bowman
"Huh? -- The public that doesn't believe in AGW is more trustworthy than the specialists who do. That's why we have jury trials. Think about it."
hold on, just grabbing my 'free thinking' hat...there we go.
now going to apply feynmans three step method for solving any problem:
1. state the problem clearly
2. think very hard
3. write down the answer
so here's my answer
Two-thirds of jurors in criminal trials do not fully understand a judge's legal directions, a study of juries suggests.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8519138.stm
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I'm an early career climate researh scientist and I'm pretty dismayed by the politics that continues to pervade my field as well as the image of my honest efforts protrayed by the media. It is true that politics is too much entangled in what I and many of my colleagues are trying to do, but we are helpless to get away from it as everyone, at every level, has an opinion and calls for action from scientists.
I agree that an investigation of the machinations of the IPCC is long overdue and I appreciate the difficulty in making that investigation and efficient and unbiased one. Any organisation needs regular review to work well and the IPCC has not benefited from this. Furthermore, there are some awful gaffes that simply should not have made it into AR4.
As I see it, policy should always be kept out of science and scientists need to be given room to breathe to conduct their research. Speaking from within the field, I can confirm that a full and proper understanding of climate change is far from complete; and I don't say this simply to keep research funding coming in as many crass cynics would have people believe. Science needs time to investigate the physics of the Earth's climate rationally and policy-makers should respect the information they are given in proportion to that understanding. At present, every ignorant man and his dog has a strong view on climate science and use scientists as a football to their own ends. The truth is that there are much more dangerous issues facing humanity than climate change!
In summary, don't blame scientists for climate change (or lack thereof), blame the people who choose to politicize that science, not me or the majority of my hard-working, open-minded colleagues.
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@LarryKealey #82
You pique my curiosity.
But I am completely unable to comment on its actual content and am only able to try and guess which House Rule #81 has broken. PDFs (again)?
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"There is no 'evidence' that would change my position.
The problem is not evidence. The problem is the 'solution' which people have piggy backed onto the science. Tax, tax, tax. Live in the dark in a shack, a return to famines, no personal transport, poverty etc etc."
That's amazing. So because of your political beliefs you would be unable to accept man has caused most of the warming of the past 50 years even if it was true.
And really doesn't this describe most of the more vocal skeptics out there? They won't accept AGW because they have a political position on the matter which predisposes them to denying AGW (or anything they percieve as connected to it) at much cost.
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I'm about to link to a very interesting piece on CO2 measurement and recording, and how the 280 ppmv pre-industrial level may not be correct. If the following link doesn't work google:
"Historic variations in CO2 measurements" "Guest post by Tony Brown"
it's right at the top
The piece is very long, very interesting, but not peer reviewed
/mango
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and here's the link the BEEB may not allow:
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2010/03/06/historic-variations-in-co2-measurements/#more-8370
/Mango
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@stormchaser #88
well said
/Mango
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#84 rossglory wrote:
"you're just trying to pull in an authouratative name to support your bizarre view of the scientific method."
Feynman was first mentioned in this discussion by Forlornehope (#22) and mentioned again by Flatearther (#24) before I mentioned him (#29). He is a good example of a genuine scientist who wrote about science. Other members of that exclusive club are Einstein, Darwin, Pierre Duhem, Galileo and Robert Boyle. Feynman is of particular interest, because although dismissive of academic philosophy (and who can blame him?) his own view of science is pretty much identical with the view I have been defending, and which you describe as "bizarre".
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@Jane, @mango, et al
I wrote out my theory about sensitivity not being a constant with detail and suggested that I was going to formalize it and try to publish - I think that is what broke the house rules. I included support from the current body of knowledge for this idea along with some inductive reasoning to support the hypothesis.
I have to run out, will re-post later as something more informal - which I hope will pass the moderators.
Cheers.
Kealey
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86. At 1:13pm on 12 Mar 2010, MangoChutneyUKOK wrote:
@Larry #82
In my humble opinion, #82 needs to be reworded
;)
/Mango
-------------------------
@Mango, I beg to differ, I believe you are referring to post 81. (see post 95 [hope that isn't moderated]
Cheers.
Kealey
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@Mango
Will repost when I get back. I am doing some plans for a $50,000 remodeling job on a home here - belongs to a friend of mine, a Welshman actually.
You will be happy to know that I have incorporated a number of passive efficiency and energy saving features into the design.
Its the first 'real work' I have done in the last year and a half - feels good to be doing something.
Cheers.
Kealey
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"The only solution is for independent scientists from other fields, NOT CLIMATE SCIENTISTS, to be brought in to look at things independently. I nominate Marcel, Labmunkey, Bob Ryan and John_from_Hendon. "
yeah you would, thanks for the honesty. hope for your sake that was a poe, not some denialist drivel. you cant tell with fundies, as they normally talk .... like that. but, taking it at face value, it seems you'd rather believe the opinion of a bunch of scientifically illiterate internet trolls over qualified experts then?
just one more to add to my scrapbook of laughably idiotic denialist nonsense.
basically, your saying lets get rid of those pesky experts who frustratingly keep coming to the same conclusions when faced by REALITY, and replace them with those who are not even slightly interested in science but rather motivated by defense of profits and lifestyle. great !
yes, well theres a problem. they are idiots. labmunky etc will tell you you are right, but they will be lying to you. and on a scale not even remotely similar to the trivia contained within some hacked private emails. the very nature of that criminal act, its timing for political ends, lack of any REAL content, and how its aim was confusion and diverting the opinion of laymen should tell you everything you need to know about the horror of climate change denialists. but no, it seems you are still clueless.
hope this doesnt get modded out, cos it needs to be said. climate change denialists talk .... and are jacked up laymen with blatant self interest for core motivation. basically everything that spews forth from their mouths on this subject goes through some kind of utterly self delusional, conspiracy theory driven, reality filter.
i used to say these denialists were like creationists. but they have got so desperately delusional im now accusing creationists of being like climate denialists.
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#87 rossglory wrote:
"Two-thirds of jurors in criminal trials do not fully understand a judge's legal directions"
I imagine two-thirds of judges give the wrong directions anyway!
If the jury has difficulty understanding the judge's directions, the directions are too complicated or unclear for the ordinary person to grasp. In which case they're bad directions, which cannot be trusted.
A jury's job is to determine whether the accused is guilty as charged beyond reasonable doubt. Specialists with a shared specialism and partisan attitudes to their own favoured theory are worse at determining that sort of thing than a group of people with a range of different specializations, or none at all.
The general public is in many ways like a jury trying to decide whether there is reasonable doubt about AGW, and whether it is worth taking action given the doubts that do exist. At the moment, the verdict seems to be that there is considerable doubt, although this may change.
We are faced with a decision: to take action, or to forbear, on the basis of how much a theory can be trusted. If you think specialists are better at making that sort of decision, I think you must have missed the point and the power and indeed the magic of science. Science gives us better understanding, at a significant cost: that of giving us a worse assurance that what it says is true.
It's interesting how poorly people grasp this point, so I'll spell it out more clearly: when science gives us greater understanding, it usually does so by penetrating the unobservable aspects of the world more deeply. The deeper it goes, the further away it tends to get from ordinary observable checks on whether it's true or false. For example, you can easily check whether someone's at the front door, but you can't easily check whether the origin of the universe was the Big Bang.
If climate science really is reaching deeper and deeper into the mysteries of the Earth's climate, then the deeper it goes, the less able it is to give us an assurance that what it says is true. (But from what I've heard, climate science isn't reaching deeper and deeper so much as simply going through the motions of what psychologists typically assume science involves.)
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@MangoChutneyUKOK #11
@LarryKealey #13
Thanks. But I think you may be underestimating the honesty of many of the scientists.
I do need to say that in posting here I have big advantages over the scientists. I get a lot of feedback, this allows me to clarify when I have been misunderstood and correct my work when I have made mistakes. And I think I now understand enough about people posting here to avoid some of the misunderstandings that affect the scientists.
And I will remind you that scientists write papers for peer review with a particular audience in mind. They may not bother repeating doubts that they believe are sufficiently well known to be assumed.
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@MangoChutneyUKOK #86
LOL
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@infinity
And really doesn't this describe most of the more vocal skeptics out there? They won't accept AGW because they have a political position on the matter which predisposes them to denying AGW (or anything they percieve as connected to it) at much cost.
I consider myself to be one of the more vocal sceptics on this site. I would disagree this describes most of the more vocal sceptics.
I would point out when asked what it would take to persuade Manysummits that AGW was false, he stated only the complete reversal of the IPCC position. In other words, no amount of evidence against the IPCC’s position would make Manysummits a sceptic.
Isn’t that just as bad as jon112uk’s response?
/Mango
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#98 andy765gtr wrote:
"a bunch of scientifically illiterate"
Would you mind telling when you first heard or used the phrase 'scientifically illiterate'?
I see it being used more and more in discussions like these, and I flatter myself with the thought that yours truly is the origin of the meme!
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Okay gang who nicked Andy765gtr's happy pills?
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\\\ Hot Spot - China ///
From the BBC, March 12, 2010:
"China's demand for oil jumped by an "astonishing" 28% in January compared with the same month a year earlier, the International Energy Agency (IEA) says...
The IEA has increased its global oil demand forecast for 2010 by 1.8% to 86.6 million barrels a day." [my emphasis]
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8563985.stm
-----------------------------------------------
The to and fro is counterproductive, and as Ghostofsichuan has pointed out, 'conversion is the job of missionaries.'
We are at or past "Peak Oil" [1], and the energy companies are pursuing at this minute and in this time every last drop of hydro-carbon, no matter the environmental cost.
This is an unvarnished 'fact.'
Another unvarnished 'fact' is that the cryosphere is melting [2], and sea levels are rising [3].
- Manysummits -
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryosphere
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_level
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i find it laughable that people who, quite wrongly call themselves 'skeptics', immediately jump up and cry conspiracy about this ipcc review, long before any outcome. wouldnt an honest skeptic welcome it and, in fairness, accept the conclusion of analysis.
not if you have already made up your mind.
the best outcome for their dead duck, and they know it, is that there were a few stupid human errors , hyped up to fever pitch by the right wing media, and industry disinformation groups and sucked up by legions of ignorant homopackageholidayians, that do not in any way detract from the serious conclusions the IPCC had already drawn - that there is massive evidence of climate change, that it is being caused by astronomical human industrial activity and will have dire consequences for millions of people. and that the IPCC is a correct and sound body of objective professionals. and this was a wasted inquiry, and can we get on with doing something about this nightmare, pretty please.
however, its instructive to consider why the denialists don't generally think the whole edifice will come crashing down, like the house of cards they paint it as ad nauseum. they are in fact quite stupidly predicable. they were always going to rubbish any inquiry. they were never going to welcome it as a chance for their claims to be vindicated, because they know their claims are rubbish and dont stand up to any scrutiny, even when reviewed by informed laymen like myself. they know that when MORE properly qualified people are dragged in to waste time doing this, they will act in exactly the same manner as the first lot. however, thats not the point. the denialists have met their objectives - slowing things down (FUD). they dont even remotely believe that their own people will be listened to, because they lack any form of credibility and they know it. industry vested interest disinformation groups and hords of ignorant laymen fighting for their toys are just not going to get a look in in any weighty science discussion. but it doesnt matter as this was never their object. even in their crazed minds a positive outcome for their delusion is far fetched, and their prior rejection of the outcome illustrates this. their only option, and excuse for what will be failure for them and vindication of the climate scientists is to cry conspiracy first. like any other group of pseudo science cranks whos crackpot notions have no chance of gaining scientific legitimacy.
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#74 rossglory
I think the Jones e-mails demonstrated quite clearly why there are very few sceptical peer-reviewed publications. Because the AGW proponents kept them out of the publications. Simple.
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I will be posting less in the next little while.
So I thought to leave you with what is still the most concise summary that I have seen as to the way forward to our collective future.
\\\ Plan B 4.0, by Lester Brown ///
"An initiative that has no precedent in either scale or urgency."
"It has four components:"
1) "Cutting net carbon dioxide emissions 80 percent by 2020."
2) "Stabilizing population at 8 billion or lower."
3) "Eradicating poverty."
4) "Restoring the Earth's natural systems, including its soils, aquifers, forests, grasslands, and fisheries."
"The ambitiousness of this plan is not driven by perceived political feasability but by scientific reality."
[adapted from Lester Brown's book, "Plan B 4.0," p.23 & 24, chapter 1, 'Selling our future' (pdf)]
http://www.earthpolicy.org/index.php?/books/pb4/pb4_table_of_contents
- Manysummits -
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"The general public is in many ways like a jury trying to decide whether there is reasonable doubt about AGW, and whether it is worth taking action given the doubts that do exist. At the moment, the verdict seems to be that there is considerable doubt, although this may change."
but they are not relevant, despite their numbers. although i can see why a denialist would consider unqualified humans as relevant, as qualified humans are so markedly at variance with your opinion.
the 'masses' are also biased against the idea of climate change legislation, due to an obvious pro lifestyle/high carbon use agenda. so, not only uninformed, (or rather misinformed) but severely biased.
no judge would have such a jury.
not by the standards on this board, and i'd hope the bbc attracted a better educated group of denialists.
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in 51. SR wrote:
"I have a general question to AGW sceptics.
Just what would it take to make you believe the consensus view that CO2 is largely responsible for the warming in the past 50 years, and sensistivity of temperature atmospheric CO2 is between 1.8 and 4.5C?"
Quite simply - some nice sensible maths that would link the CO2 rise to the observed temperature rise. It isn't enough to say that both have gone up so it must be CO2.
The IPCC report says that the radiative forcing due to CO2 rise since 1750 is 1.6W/sqm and let us accept that figure for now. The problem is that 1.6W/sqm is nowhere near large enough to cause the warming you talk about: it would only cause a temperature rise of about a quarter of a degree. Note that I am not saying that man is not a factor in the global warning - merely that CO2 is not the main mechanism and so by chasing the shadows of CO2 we are not addressing the root causes.
Look at it another way - if we agree that CO2 has risen from 280ppm to 380 ppm and that this increase gives 1.6W (all numbers from the IPCC) we can work backwards and deduce that the initial 280ppm of CO2 gives rise to about 5W/sq m of warming. Now the IPCC report says that the normal back radiation absorbed by the surface is 325W/sq m. So the warming caused by CO2 is only 1.5% of the warming needed to keep the earth at it's natural temperature.
Now if you are expecting me to believe that a 30% increase in 1.5% of the normal warming is going to have a significant effect you would need to come up with some meaningful mechanisms and numbers to back it up. So far all we have had is 'the computer models say so'.
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90. At 1:41pm on 12 Mar 2010, infinity wrote:
"There is no 'evidence' that would change my position.The problem is not evidence. The problem is the 'solution' which people have piggy backed onto the science. Tax, tax, tax. Live in the dark in a shack, a return to famines, no personal transport, poverty etc etc."
That's amazing. So because of your political beliefs you would be unable to accept (MMGW)...And really doesn't this describe most of the more vocal skeptics out there?
========================================
Yes, that's what I'm saying. I'm wording it strongly to get the point accross, but basically that.
Don't make out this is just me - you guys who accept MMGW hook, line and sinker are now in the (small) minority.
I think this IS why so many people are resisting. I think you are flogging a dead horse with the 'evidence' thing. You are trying to sell a package normal people are just not going to accept, no matter what the dodgy dossiers or climate of fear.
If you want to pursuade normal people then change the package. No more governments using it as an excuse for tax. No more anti-capitalists using it as an excuse to destroy our standards of living.
Let people keep the life style, change the energy source.
If you make your message more acceptable I suggest you will probably see the resistance drop.
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@Mango, 91
I've looked into this argument that CO2 may not have been 280ppm pre industrial revolution. The argument is severaly flawed. Researchers replicated the methods used by pre-1850 and got the same spread of results they did! If you take the measurements at ground level then factors such wind, time of day, local conditions and other complications come into play and this is why the spread is so large.
The only 'true' measure of atmospheric CO2 is where the air is fully mixed. When this was realised and proper observatories were set up, the rise in CO2 was smooth, and the extrapolated curve goes back to what the proxy records said it should be pre-industrial revolution.
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To Sensiblegrannie; to Richard Black; to All:
Before I leave here for awhile to once again 'scramble for a living,' I thought to respond, Sensiblegrannie, to your thoughts on 'inter-connectedness.'
In "One Native Life," by the Ojibway Richard Wagamese (2008), I came across two introductions to his first two 'Books,' that I thought especially appropriate here.
He has divided "One Native Life" into four books, in the traditional Native American way.
Book 1: AHKI (EARTH)
"The time we spend in communion with the earth is the time, my people say, that we are truly spiritual."
Book 2: ISHSKWADAY (FIRE)
"In the Ojibway world, great stories and teachings were shared around a fire."
======================
Here, around Richard Black's virtual campfire, which is how I have always thought of it, we do connect, don't we.
The medium is strange - like the time we are in, and the time we are approaching, all too rapidly I fear.
In the end, interconnectedness, or its lack, will perhaps make us or break us.
Trust - necessary in a world of specialists.
I am off to commune once again with Nature, tomorrow, and then, back to the fray.
Regards,
Manysummits
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#102. MangoChutneyUKOK
I can't speak for yourself, but I think the unacceptable nature of the package is why most ordinary people are rising up against the eco-tyrany.
The average person has never heard of half the stuff being debated on here.
What they can see is MMGW being used as an excuse for 400% tax on their petrol, blocking the road they use to get to work, not emptying their bin etc etc etc They can also hear the message that they will have give up what is left of their standard of living - the ecozealots say they are going to 'have to make sacrifices'
Ordinary people are not buying into it, an uprising has begun and it is about the things that are being done under the pretext of MMGW - not the evidence.
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#105 Now you Know it is a religion.
None of that is true it is designed to scare you, peak oil, peak water (give me a break), what it is now methane so you have been blaming the wrong gas for 20 years. What sea level rise?
Suggest the faithful look up the Argo Bouy project.
Manysummits do me a favour buy your lad a TV before his peers rip him apart. The Simpsons might be crap but it is mindless, you never know he might end up with my lad's current fix of virology. If I see another tape worm I'll go nuts, and no I don't want to know about that insect that lays eggs on my skin whose maggets eat my heart muscles.
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And while we are at it, China's oil demand jumped 28% in Jan, it wasn't because it had the coldest winter for how many years? and how much snow?
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"It's interesting how poorly people grasp this point, so I'll spell it out more clearly: when science gives us greater understanding, it usually does so by penetrating the unobservable aspects of the world more deeply. The deeper it goes, the further away it tends to get from ordinary observable checks on whether it's true or false. For example, you can easily check whether someone's at the front door, but you can't easily check whether the origin of the universe was the Big Bang.
If climate science really is reaching deeper and deeper into the mysteries of the Earth's climate, then the deeper it goes, the less able it is to give us an assurance that what it says is true. (But from what I've heard, climate science isn't reaching deeper and deeper so much as simply going through the motions of what psychologists typically assume science involves.)"
yawn. correct me if im wrong but thats just a load of inappropriate cod philosophy isnt it.
its not actually very complicated science you are trying to cleverly dismantle here. nothing to get all deeply philosophical to wow the masses into thinking you have a point about.
look, we are not discussing the higgs bosun, dark flow, string theory or ultimate nature of reality. there is no dispute about climate change. its pretty established, prosaic branch of science, not an out there cutting edge thing like theoretical particle physics. carbon dioxide has long been proven to have observed physical properties. fact. we are increasing its atmospheric amount. fact. the earth is getting hotter. fact. we have ruled out other causes and so carbon dioxide is the culprit, and acting out its predicted physical characteristics. fact.
its ...... simple science. no need for any cod philosophic meanderings.
you can talk forever about the philosophy and nature of the science process, in the vain hope that facts you dont like will evaporate, but mr nasty reality doesnt do that. reality is something that still slaps you in the mouth when you stop believing in it.
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post #106 & probably other posts
all this from the man who keeps a "scrapbook of laughably idiotic denialist nonsense"
/Mango
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"I would point out when asked what it would take to persuade Manysummits that AGW was false, he stated only the complete reversal of the IPCC position. In other words, no amount of evidence against the IPCC’s position would make Manysummits a sceptic."
manysummits is quite right. if mainstream science was to disprove AGW i would accept it like a shot. because i am not arrogant enough to think i know better than experts. unlike denialists im not very convinced by spurious conspiracy theory whipped up by vested interest groups and pseudo scientific cranks on the periphery of sanity, doing very well for themselves surfing a lucrative wave of popular denialism.
the real question is why YOU dont accept the conclusions of mainstream science. what is this knowledge that drives you to reject the opinion of experts.
and why do you see conspiracy when theres no evidence whatsoever. why is there no conspiracy evident in those cracked emails?
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@rossglory #59
I agree it is ironic that the IoP won't tell us the names of those involved in their submission. I also agree that the RSC's submission was important.
But it isn't a case of either the IoP's submission or the RSC's submission being the better submission. Both looked at the same issue from slightly different angles. Both covered topics that the other missed. And importantly between them they spoke to those willing to listen on both sides of the debate.
I also point out that both submissions confirmed their institutions' respective beliefs in the importance of transparency in science.
IoP
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmsctech/memo/climatedata/uc3902.htm
RSC
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmsctech/memo/climatedata/uc4202.htm
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Please note that andy765gtr has moved.
His new address is the third cave on the left next to the once proud McDonalds golden arches. He can be reached by banging very loudly on the bit that still stands in a rythmic tone. If no answer look for the place without fire. Please note that he is very well versed in the IPCC AR4 and you will have to convince him that his current abode, once worth a million pounds,is now just a cave and that he is completely right all along.
He will try and sell you a couple of carbon credits but it is advised not to pay the over inflated price just for breathing. Our advice is a good hot meal and a nice cup of tea but above all do not give him cash.
In the case he calls you a denialist then we advice a slow basic approach is taken, and the usaeg of calming words.
If that gets through it will be a miracle but mods you allowed the hate in post 98? Which rhyms rules for some and rules for others?
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#107 JLOrpington
"I think the Jones e-mails demonstrated quite clearly why there are very few sceptical peer-reviewed publications. Because the AGW proponents kept them out of the publications. Simple."
nice idea, but totally untrue. take a look again. the papers referred to did get published and didn;t stand the test of time.....in fact they were pretty comprehensively trashed.
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#99 bowman
"It's interesting how poorly people grasp this point, so I'll spell it out more clearly: when science gives us greater understanding, it usually does so by penetrating the unobservable aspects of the world more deeply."
thankyou for that. but i think the point you miss is that it is nothing to do with the depth of the science and everything to do with the shortcomings of our perception. sea temperatures for example. i haven't a clue what they are, i dont live by the coast and even if i did i could only measure the temp on my coast very near the surface. but measuring sea temps globally and at different depths (not the depths you're talking about!) is not rocket science (although there are complications).
and public opinion in general is swayed enormously by what our education systems and mainstream media dump on us.
so given a choice between science (even the science you dont like), my personal observations and public opinion, give me science every time.
re the feynman thing, he was a childhood hero and a genuine 'free thinker'. i genuinely do not believe anyone can/could predict his brilliant maverick mind.
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#109 andy765gtr wrote:
"i can see why a denialist would consider unqualified humans as relevant, as qualified humans are so markedly at variance with your opinion."
The classic case for the existence of God, as given by authoritarian men of the church.
Everyone knows that a "long shot" at a distant target is less reliable than a shot at a target right in front of your eyes. Even if we that pretend climate science were not corrupted by its erroneous logic, predicting the climate is a "long shot", and therefore unlikely to hit its target. The general public know that, and if the experts don't, they are self-important fools.
Everyone knows that an ambitious project is more likely to come unstuck than a modest project. Often, the errors are laughably obvious -- such as overlooking the fact that O-rings get brittle in the cold, just like everything else. Or that you need to use the same units of measurement when building anything, including telescope reflectors.
Those famous and obvious errors were caused by experts not paying attention to amateurs because amateurs are "not qualified". Countless air accidents have been caused by captains not listening to co-pilots because they're "not as highly qualified as I am".
It's amusing to watch climate scientists plodding their inevitable way towards the standard authoritarian's banana skin. In the immortal words of Kathleen Turner (in Body Heat): "You're not too bright. I like that in a climate scientist!"
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"Would you mind telling when you first heard or used the phrase 'scientifically illiterate'?"
ive been using it a decade or more. its probably one of richard dawkins charming, but accurate phrases for the delusional.
useful when addressing people that prove themselves to be ignorant, but still annoyingly arrogant enough to pretend they are greater experts on the subject than the experts. even though they havnt studied it or shown previous interest in nature or science.
these ppl usually silent and feed happily off the goodies and long life science gives them.... until science backfires and tells them something not so positive about themselves. then they turn against that part of science and usually only that part. intimately related to 'intellectual dishonesty'.
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#115 kamboshigh
"None of that is true it is designed to scare you, peak oil, peak water (give me a break), what it is now methane so you have been blaming the wrong gas for 20 years. What sea level rise?"
phew, haven't had a ranter for a while. makes it so much easier. what were you saying manysummits?
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Oldterry2, 91,
The response of temperature to CO2 is logarithmic. This means that at lower concentrations, incremental rises in CO2 have larger effects than at higher concentrations. Each doubling of CO2 will result in the same increase in temperature, so an increase from 50 to 100ppm will enhance the greenhouse effect the same as a 280 to 560ppm rise. This increase in temperature for every doubling of CO2 is called sensitivity, and has a massive amount of emperical evidence. Your 5 W/m^2 extraplotation, thus 1.5% estimation, is wrong. CO2 contributes A LOT more than this to the greenhouse effect. Sensitivity is probably between 1.8 and 4.5C (95% confidence limits) for every doubling of CO2.
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#117 andy765gtr wrote:
"correct me if im wrong but thats just a load of inappropriate cod philosophy isnt it."
I wouldn't say so myself! Even if you don't agree with what I'm saying, do you not find it interesting to reflect on what science is all about, how it works, and all that? I find it endlessly fascinating, and I've met many scientists who do too!
"there is no dispute about climate change"
I wonder what have we all been disputing about on this blog? Is this not one of the most active blogs in the world?
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#85 mango
"How about this one:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/308/5723/850"
is that it? one five year old paper?
maybe contrast that with the words (March 9) of Georg Woodwell founder, director and senior scientist at the woods hole institute (so should know a thing or two but i'm sure has written a bad email or three):
"The climatic disruption is not a theory open to a belief system any more than the solar system is a theory, or gravity, or the oceanic tides, or evolution......This is not the time to wring our hands over the challenges to hyper-scientific objectivity, the purity of scholars, and to tie ourselves in knots with apologies for alleged errors of trifling import."
eminent scientists are not pulling their punches anymore. the senior uk govt scientist, the senior scientist at defra and the head of the met office recently at the parliamentary enquiry all said pretty much the same thing when asked - agw is a fact and we should do something about it. but i can relax because of pinker et al's 5 year old paper.
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"Quite simply - some nice sensible maths that would link the CO2 rise to the observed temperature rise. It isn't enough to say that both have gone up so it must be CO2."
want more maths? yeah like they dont use maths. thats how theyve been doing those pesky models for decades you dont believe in. not much point pointing it out, but they told you already what ranges of carbon dioxide increases will lead to various range of rises. its been calculated.
but theres a disingenuousness about denialists about what would persuade them, illustrated nicely by your post. because, i dont think anything would really change your mind, short of a time machine, and even then im not sure. you'd just move the goal posts, just like a creationist and their silly missing links. its just whack a mole with denialists. bash them on the little heads and they pop down their burrow to pop up with some other fantasy. but everytime its more delays, and its the delays that are the motive.
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@andy765gtr #119
the real question is why YOU dont accept the conclusions of mainstream science. what is this knowledge that drives you to reject the opinion of experts.
and why do you see conspiracy when theres no evidence whatsoever. why is there no conspiracy evident in those cracked emails?
Andy,
If you bothered to read posts by sceptics, you will have noticed I have repeatedly explained the exact reasons why I don't accept the conclusions of climate scientists who support AGW. My reasons are based on climate scientists who reject AGW and who show by observational evidence that CO2 is incapable of raising temperature significantly due to climate sensitivity.
read through my posts and show me where i am wrong and i will change my mind
did i say there was a conspiracy? Personally, I think a small number of scientists, clearly shown by those released emails, who may have an agenda have used the system to further their own views for whatever reasons they may have, but that's hardly a conspiracy. I think you listen to too many people say all "denialists" (that's not even a word by the way) are flat earthers and conspiracy theorists. Well, here's news, we're not
open your eyes and look at the evidence for yourself - don't take my word or anybody elses word, for it
/Mango
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#123 rossglory wrote:
"the point you miss is that it is nothing to do with the depth of the science and everything to do with the shortcomings of our perception."
That's an interesting, new, and worthwhile point, and I'll have to think about it for a bit. I agree that measuring instruments, and telescopes, microscopes, etc., definitely add to our powers of perception. One of the statistical methods I do approve of (unlike extrapolation) is the careful logging, averaging and presentation of large amounts of otherwise indecipherable data -- the sort of thing a retina does.
I will probably get back to you on this one.
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@SR #112
I've looked into this argument that CO2 may not have been 280ppm pre industrial revolution. The argument is severaly flawed. Researchers replicated the methods used by pre-1850 and got the same spread of results they did! If you take the measurements at ground level then factors such wind, time of day, local conditions and other complications come into play and this is why the spread is so large.
The only 'true' measure of atmospheric CO2 is where the air is fully mixed. When this was realised and proper observatories were set up, the rise in CO2 was smooth, and the extrapolated curve goes back to what the proxy records said it should be pre-industrial revolution.
The argument is deeply flawed and yet the researchers replicated the methods and got the same results. How is that deeply flawed? Did you read the article which explains how accurate the readings were, where they were taken (in the open air - well mixed! - at sea level, in the mountains and at points in between)
Ever considered that the reason why the accurately measured level of CO2 was so widespread is because it is widespread?
You dismiss this article because it doesn't fit in with your preconceptions, not because it has merit or not
/Mango
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@rossglory #129
you have a closed mind
No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong.
Albert Einstein
/Mango
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"The climatic disruption is not a theory open to a belief system"
What on earth is he talking about? Anyone have a clue?
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#126 bowman
"Often, the errors are laughably obvious -- such as overlooking the fact that O-rings get brittle in the cold, just like everything else."
glad you made that point. that was never overlooked by the specialists. they thought challenger would probably explode on the pad so wanted it postponed. nope, it was only when you got 'business managers' involved in technical matters they didn't understand, that 7 people were sent to a totally avoidable horrific death.
thought you might have understood that a bit better since richard feynman played a key part in the investigation (remember the glass of iced water?)
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#130 andy765gtr wrote:
"its the delays that are the motive."
Motive for what? -- Do you think I have a Bond-villain scheme to "destroy the planet" while you are trying to "save the planet"?
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#bowman
#andy
""there is no dispute about climate change"
#bowman
I wonder what have we all been disputing about on this blog? Is this not one of the most active blogs in the world?"
i think he meant scientific dispute. this debate is all good fun but nothing to do with science.
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#135 bowman
""The climatic disruption is not a theory open to a belief system"
What on earth is he talking about? Anyone have a clue?"
why not look up the full article and learn?
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#134 mango
"
you have a closed mind
No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong.
Albert Einstein"
why do i have a closed mind? because i put more weight on hundreds of peer reviewed papers by very senior, eminent and well qualified scientists than one dug up 5 years ago by yourself? it takes a very closed mind to ignore the imbalance.
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bowmanthebard #126: "Often, the errors are laughably obvious -- such as overlooking the fact that O-rings get brittle in the cold, just like everything else."
rossglory #136: "that was never overlooked by the specialists. they thought challenger would probably explode on the pad so wanted it postponed. nope, it was only when you got 'business managers' involved in technical matters they didn't understand"
Have you some way of telling which climate scientists are "business managers" as opposed to "specialists"? For instance, which category would you put Rajendra Pachauri into?
Whichever one it is, members of both categories seem awfully dismissive of simple-minded questions and awfully respectful of the "authority" of "experts" -- something no one could accuse Richard Feynman of. He saw scientific inquiry as pretty much what children do, as do I.
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#bowman
"Motive for what? -- Do you think I have a Bond-villain scheme to "destroy the planet" while you are trying to "save the planet"?" - come to think of it....do you have a white cat?
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#138 rossglory wrote:
"this debate is all good fun but nothing to do with science."
It is not itself science, but it is still all about science. There is a very good reason for that. No scientific theory says anything about how much it ought to be believed. So whenever scientists make a judgment about such things, as they must every day, they have to move a bit beyond the theories themselves and "mucky their hands" with more subjective stuff. That subjective stuff is pretty much what we are doing.
Unlike andy765gtr (#109) -- who wrote "not by the standards on this board, and i'd hope the bbc attracted a better educated group of denialists" -- I'm very impressed by the standards of this discussion, which is why I continue to read almost all messages with interest.
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This comment by Richard Black, "everything about climate change is just a conspiracy." seems to have had the intended effect on his troops.
I commented @2 that this was an unfair label to stick on skeptics who, given the sad state of climate politics (no longer a science), naturally expect none other than a whitewash.
However, one can take heart in that it is actually extremely encouraging to see that the alarmists are resorting to labelling skeptics as "deniars", "denialists", "conspriacy crazies", "flat earthers" etc. There is no better sign that the house of cards of "man-made" global warming catestrophe is tumbling down. In the absence of any convincing scientific evidence for significant man-made warming, alarmists can only resort to using labels to vociferously defend their misguided end-of-teh-world dogma.
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#135 bowmanthebard: "What on earth is he talking about? Anyone have a clue?"
#139 rossglory: "why not look up the full article and learn?"
Because the first quoted sentence is a conecptual disaster area. It's like an escapee sentence from Ayn Rand or L Ron Hubbard. I'm not going to bother wasting my time trying to decipher confused nonsense. Neither should you.
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My earlier post was " moderated" so here is an edited version , cutting straight to the point .
Why are BBC members of staff moonlighting at the RI , coaching scientists in how to get their message across ?
Why is my licence fee being used to push a political agenda ?
Any answer Mr. Black ?
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@145, bowmanthebard:
From leaked emails Mr. Woodwell acknowledged that he is advocating taking "an outlandishly aggressively partisan approach".
I would never have guessed!
I think Gavin 'the science isn't settled' Schmidt needs a quiet word with the gentleman ;)
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@Mango #133
Be very, very careful when reading non peer-reviewed internet articles. It is very well known (and emperically proven) that readings taken in towns are typically 5% to 20% higher than the 'well mixed' free air (i.e., the true value). Often, the 19th century readings were taken at known CO2 hot-spots, like cotton factories. They were almost always taken in towns, at ground level and in areas not free of contamination and pollution. Don't you care that doing the same measurements today yield the same results they got? Does that not make you think? This should make you think too - Muntz and Aubin are regarded as the best source of 19th century CO2 because they took readings from an altitude of 2900m and obtained the same readings on both windy and non-windy days! They obtained a value of 281ppm in 1981. The point is, and this was well known even in the 1950's, is that readings at ground level and near towns, or pollution, or any contaminated area are going to vary dramatically and in no way represent the 'free ar' value, no matter how accurate your technique. The only measurements in the pre-industrial era free from these effects show CO2 between 280ppm and 290ppm, as is also shown in the proxy records. This is not cherry picking, this is quality control.
For more info, read Callendar's 1957 paper (before AGW was an established theory, least not a political football)
[Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]
Propaganda websites ignore the REAL SCIENCE in a quite outrageous manner. They are designed to sway people by sounding convicing. Read it again and then read Callendar's paper. You need to keep your guard, whatever side of the debate you're on.
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This interview is worth watching because it accurately presents the complexity and our lack of understanding about the climate in general and specifically about man-made global warming due to CO2.
http://www.tvo.org/TVO/WebObjects/TVO.woa?videoid?71356252001
It accurately points out that we do not understand all the feedback mechanisms and how they ultimately combine to influence/amplify temperatures/radiative balance (positively or negatively) when concentrations of CO2 increase.
Sadly, our current state of knowledge more or less still reflects the same basic understanding that we already had 30 years ago when I studied atmospheric physics. It seems there simply hasn't been any breakthroughs in this area of science despite enormous amounts of funding and research. We still don't understand clouds!
My hope is that the ongoing CLOUD experiments (Kirby) at CERN and new information from satellites may help us better understand water vapor and clouds. Perhaps the CLOUD experiment will be a failure (Cosmic rays are not the link) but at least it may get people thinking about going back to basics and doing basic experimental research into the fundamental mechanisms that control our climate. Frankly, we have wasted far too much effort & money on computer modeling/correlations/predictions and not nearly enough effort towards hands-on real experimental physics research to help understand physical mechanisms.
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@Mango
@Jane
@bowmanthebard
@Manysummits
@Paul Briscoe
@SR
@infinity
[To the Moderators: This is my own words, written myself this morning by me - nothing copied from anywhere, no copyright. Look at my name on the BBC - LarryKealey - then read "Kealey's Theory" – now renamed to “LarryKealey’s Theory – just for the moderators ;)
You can see from previous postings of mine how I developed this idea. I just finally wrote it all down as one posting this morning. The original hypothesis was posted to The Blog of Bloom last summer
I can also assure you the mathematics are all mine as well. Nothing copied from anywhere... I also rephrased it a bit for you]
As one of the cornerstones of the IPCC reports is sensitivity associated with CO2 forcing and the assumption that it is a constant – “A Number”, I wish to present my counterargument:
LarryKealey's Theory Regarding Climate Sensitivity Associated with CO2 Forcing:
Sensitivity associated with CO2 forcing on temperatures is not constant but rather a function of a number of interrelated variables. Thus, the net sensitivity of CO2 can in fact be highly negative, slightly negative, negligible, slightly positive or highly positive, depending upon the current conditions and changes with regards to those variables continuously.
Mathematically, my theory suggests sensitivity due to CO2 is not of the form:
k*ln( CO2a/CO2o) [k being a constant] (as suggested in the IPCC reports and much of the current literature on the subject)
but rather of the form:
f1(x1,x2,x..xN,y1,y2,y3,...yN...z1,z2,z3...zN,CO2a,CO2o, T) X f2(x1,x2,x..xN,y1,y2,y3,...yN...z1,z2,z3...zN,CO2a,CO2o, T) X
...
fN(x1,x2,x..xN,y1,y2,y3,...yN...z1,z2,z3...zN,CO2a,CO2o, T)
Where x1 thru zN are a set of interrelated variables (vectors), CO2a is future concentration of CO2, CO2o is baseline (starting) concentration of CO2, T is temperature and f1, f2...fN are functions of these interrelated variables
[Paul, the above is mathematically described as a tensor field]
These variables include but are not limited to:
a) Output of the sun [i.e. the 'weather' on the sun] over the entire electromagnetic spectrum which includes sunspots, solar winds, variations in output due to things we have yet to learn about the sun.
b) Extra-solar cosmic radiation
c) variations in water vapor in the atmosphere
c) The hydrological cycle of the biosphere
d) Clouds and their associated feedbacks
e) Ocean oscillations and cycles, such as the ANSO, PDO, ENSO, etc
e1) variations in heat uptake efficiency of the oceans
f) Atmospheric Climate Patterns such as the AO
g) Variations in albedo due to snowcover as well as changes in land use
h) Relative concentrations of other gases within the atmosphere, in particular other GHG's such as Methane, Sulfur dioxide, Nitrous Oxides, Ozone (both ground level and in the ozone layer (which is far from being constant and has had dramatic changes in the past).
g) lower atmospheric particulate matter (everything from aerosols to massive duststorms here)
h) upper atmospheric particulate matter (which also changes pretty dramatically with volcanic eruptions)
i) Variations in earths orbit
j) Temperature
k) Pressure
l) other natural processes which provide inputs and feedbacks to the climate system
As evidence I submit:
(1)
from @Paul Briscoe’s Post:
"The Skeptical Science article I linked to showed that different research teams have come up with slightly different estimates for climate sensitivity."
Thus differing research has indicated different values for the climate sensitivity and for a doubling of CO2 concentrations.
Although, I would not use your term 'slightly different' - the pro-AGW climate researchers generally ascribe a range of 1.8 and 4.5C as the value for this sensitivity.
(2)
Published research indicates that there are both positive and negative feedbacks associated with CO2 - the 'sensitivity' ascribed to CO2 forcing is the net (cumulative) value of all these feedbacks.
(2a)
These feedbacks and mechanisms are not constant, for example, particulate matter in the upper atmosphere can vary significantly due to volcanic eruptions and other natural processes, this affecting the quantity and spectral input to the lower layers of the atmosphere.
(3)
These climate sensitivities as in (1) and (2) are generally derived from models, which assume differing values for the variables in my hypothesis - in other words they come up with differing values for sensitivity because they use different values for these variables.
(4)
The variables (as in 3) where differing values are assumed, are in fact variable - as in my example of particulate matter. Another good example is albedo - which changes dramatically between summer and winter, particularly in the Northern Hemisphere due to things like snow cover and extend of the the Arctic Icepack.
(4b)
Many of the variables are interdependent – heat transfer efficiency of the ocean is affected by particulate matter in the upper atmosphere, as is direct spectral absorption by CO2 (CO2 forcing).
(5)
Empirical Evidence from the Vostok Ice Cores which indicates a 'lag' of approx 800 years between temperature and CO2 concentrations. Yet other empirical evidence would suggest to some that CO2 drives temperatures.
(6)
Empirical Evidence from the Vostok Ice Cores which show that just prior to the onset of each glaciation, CO2 concentrations were at or near their peak for that inter-glacial period. Yet temperatures dropped dramatically. (possibly a negative feedback ‘tipping point’??)
(7)
Published research which suggests that the dramatic drop in temperatures [described in (6)] at the onset of each of the glacial periods cannot be solely attributed to Milankovitch cycles - as the variation in solar radiation reaching the planet due to these orbital cycles are too small and too slow - so some feedback mechanisms must be driving this.
But, most importantly:
(8)
If one accepts that the variables described in my hypothesis are in fact variable - and that these have an affect upon both direct and indirect (feedback) forcing associated with CO2, then this net sensitivity of CO2 must also be variable and a function of the described, interrelated variables.
QED.
While my hypothesis is only a theory - it is supportable by the current body of knowledge and does also explains many inconsistencies with current theories (i.e. that sensitivity is constant in particular).
In addition, I have researched and found no justifications published in the literature for the assumption that forcing associate with CO2 is in fact constant.
I challenge @Paul Briscoe to disprove my theory.
I would also appreciate any feedback, thoughts or criticisms of my theory from all others [especially criticisms].
I would also greatly appreciate it if anyone can site a source which provides justification to the widely held assumption that sensitivity is a constant. I have reviewed much literature and can find no justification for this assumption.
I admit it needs some work – but the ideas and analysis are sound (in my humble opinion – your opinions appreciated]
Of course, realize, this is the easy part, actually figuring out all the variables, coefficients and functions is the hard part – I would guess ten or twenty years hard work – and then the objective would not be predictive – but to be able to create a model which displays similar behavior to earth’s climate on all (geologic) scales. The development of this ‘model’ actually tells us more about what we don’t yet know rather than what we do know. The objective is to learn how it works – chaos theory tells us it is unpredictable – but that does not mean that we cannot learn a lot from the model. It leads us to new avenues of research as we start to develop models which do indeed exhibit similar behavior for all conditions and timescales.
Cheers.
Kealey
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Sure, AGW is real - but what are the real causes and true impacts - those things we probably will never really know for sure. However, I would suspect land use has had a much more significant impact than CO2 emissions.
The main point being, that while we may not know what the real impacts are - I have not seen any viable solutions for the 'CO2 problem' - but I do see a lot of viable solutions for land misuse. We can really have an impact on a lot of environmental issues.
Does anyone think that OPEC is going to stop producing oil as fast as they can by 2020? That China and India (and just about everyone else) is going to stop burning coal? Or Natural Gas? Please be realistic. If you make it more expensive in the West with cap and trade and carbon taxes and paying offsets, then it is just going to hurt our economies and help those who are not taxes as such.
Be realistic. Until we have something like fusion and inexpensive electric cars, we are going to burn fossil fuels at an ever increasing rate. So lets spend money on fusion and electric car research and have a real impact elsewhere while we can. Deforestation and other abuses continue at an alarming rate. I suspect that this has much more impact on the overall environment (including climate) than CO2 emissions.
Cheers.
Kealey
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100. At 2:50pm on 12 Mar 2010, JaneBasingstoke wrote:
@MangoChutneyUKOK #11
@LarryKealey #13
Thanks. But I think you may be underestimating the honesty of many of the scientists.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
@Jane
I have no doubts that there are a great many honest scientists who exhibit the greatest integrity with regards to their work.
However, particularly with regards to climate science, trust and confidence has been badly eroded. The only answer I can see to restore that trust is to ensure that a complete audit is done and that going forward, the appropriate checks and balances are in place with the right processes to ensure the integrity of the science.
I have no doubts that there is only a 'very small minority' of people involved in 'shady science' - but the lack of rigor in peer review described in the hearings in the House of Commons is very disturbing and needs to be addressed.
It needs to be addressed in such a way as to be beyond reproach.
Regards.
Kealey
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@LarryKealey #151 who wrote...
"Be realistic. Until we have something like fusion and inexpensive electric cars, we are going to burn fossil fuels at an ever increasing rate. So lets spend money on fusion and electric car research and have a real impact elsewhere while we can."
I assume you mean electric cars in conjunction with fusion since electric cars wouldn't necessarily do anything to our fossil fuel use. Personally I think we might as well hit the ground running with fission since that already works well and with a high energy return. The world has PLENTY of thorium and enough uranium to kick-start thorium fuel use.
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#150 LarryKealey wrote:
"the objective would not be predictive"
What's the point, then?
" – but to be able to create a model which displays similar behavior to earth’s climate on all (geologic) scales."
How could you tell it was an accurate (enough) model if it didn't have considerable powers of prediction?
And as I've been saying all along, what possible reason do we have for thinking that a mathematical recording/model of the first line of "Mary had a little lamb", however perfect, would go on to recite "its fleece was white as snow"? -- We don't have any reason, because the mathematical model doesn't capture the relevant features of the first line.
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Can anyone enlighten us as to why the AMSU sensor global near surface temperatures are going up off the scale in March? After record highs for January and February this is starting to look like a major trend.
Looks like Hansen and the MET office will be right for 2010 as a record year for global surface temperatures, assuming the ground station instruments reflect the satellite data.
http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/
We shall see.
This while Canada has had an extremely warm winter (3 months) with average temperatures 4 deg C above average.
‘…"It's beyond shocking," David Phillips, a senior climatologist with Environment Canada, told Canwest News Tuesday. Records have been shattered from "coast to coast to coast."…’
http://www.calgaryherald.com/life/Warm+winter+broke+records/2664971/story.html
Australia has had a very warm summer, heatwaves in Perth and Melbourne and now early heatwaves in the Middle East and South Asia.
Hope something can be done about carbon emissions soon as I notice there was a big jump in the atmospheric concentration of CO2, for February, of 0.7 ppm, for just one month. Now over 389 ppm for the first time.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/
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Bowman, as usual, takes philosophy to its rarified conclusion that shows that an apple may be an orange.
This nonsense is all totally meaningless and impractical as a tool for real life.
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#155 thinkforyourself wrote:
"This while Canada has had an extremely warm winter (3 months) with average temperatures 4 deg C above average."
The weather is the climate, all of a (convenient) sudden, is it?
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Further to #155, it looks like the Earth itself is letting us know the results of our ‘little’ experiment.
Method:-
Add 1.4 trillion tonnes of fossilized carbon to one atmosphere.
Continue process.
Results:-
Atmospheric chemistry changes and near surface temperatures rise.
Conclusion:-
Earth’s surface likely to become uninhabitable for large mammals.
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#158 thinkforyourself wrote:
"Conclusion:-
Earth’s surface likely to become uninhabitable for large mammals."
Ever noticed the way large mammals tend to live where it's quite hot?
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No Bowman, it is a climate trend:-
‘….But the pattern of heatwaves across Australia was evidence that our climate was warming, Professor Nicholls said…..
"A consistent string of extreme events of the same type - such as the run of unprecedented heatwaves that have hit Australia in the past few years - starts to look a lot more like climate change and less like a fluke," he said….’
http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/newshome/6872077/summer-scorcher-a-freak-event/
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/perth-water-supplies-could-dip-50-wong-20100303-pioq.html
‘…….Charalampos Theopemptou is the Greek Cypriot side's Environment Commissioner and it was he who told me the story about the old man in the classroom. He explains its meaning: that within living memory Cyprus was wet - there were plenty of rivers and lakes to swim in. Now, they are all gone………
……..This is why the European Commission believes Cyprus is the canary in the coalmine: what happens on this island is threatened to happen all across the drier parts of the continent………’
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/8560424.stm
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More on Cyprus water shortages from 2007:-
‘…..The sun-baked earth in the empty pit at Kouris is a sign of the unprecedented water crisis facing the Mediterranean island. As climate change takes effect, authorities face the dilemma of how much to use energy-intensive desalination to beat the shortage…….
…… "Climate change is clearly evidenced in Cyprus," said Costas Papastavros, head of the island's national climate change unit.
"Climate change is not only about a rise in temperature, but also about extreme weather conditions, and drought is one of them. Desertification is also becoming a serious problem……..
…….With one of the highest concentrations of reservoirs in the world, Cyprus is no stranger to water shortages. While hydrologists can factor in inevitable periods of drought, the island can do little to arrest climate change……..
…..Two desalination plants running at full capacity are not enough. Plans include emergency drilling to tap precious underground water deposits, further cuts to agriculture and a new desalination unit to come on stream next July……..’
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSL132562720071119
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Bowman #159 says, to be contrary, (no surprise there):-
‘….Ever noticed the way large mammals tend to live where it's quite hot?....’
What, like polar bears and caribou and walrus?
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No Bowman at #157, it is a climate trend:-
‘….But the pattern of heatwaves across Australia was evidence that our climate was warming, Professor Nicholls said…..
"A consistent string of extreme events of the same type - such as the run of unprecedented heatwaves that have hit Australia in the past few years - starts to look a lot more like climate change and less like a fluke," he said….’
http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/newshome/6872077/summer-scorcher-a-freak-event/
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Further to #163, more on emerging climate trends:-
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/perth-water-supplies-could-dip-50-wong-20100303-pioq.html
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To thinkforyourself #155..., et al:
GISS Table Data (including February, 2010 - anomaly plus 0.71 C)
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt
Just off to the mountains in about five.
=======================================
To Larry Kealey:
Good work!
James Hansen pretty much invented the GISS models, from what I understand, and has been at it for some forty years.
- Manysummits -
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#162. What, like polar bears
Yes. In Canada (where I live) polar bears are for the most part increasing in numbers because where the bears are is warning. Where it is cooling the bears are not doing so well and the numbers are decreasing. Bear numbers are increasing beyond the food source. Natures way of population control.
**************
I think that temperature data must be recalculated as it appears that the 3 sets of data are of dubious quality (have been massaged to support a desired end result). If temperature data is incorrect this would invalidate any science that relied upon this data. Put Steve McIntyre on it, he seems to have the mathematical skills to do the job.
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To thinkforyourself:
Had to post this again: (from the Kamloops area in the mountains west of the continental divide)
Richard Wagamese, "Global Warming is Real."
http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/todays-paper/Global+warming+real/2650735/story.html
- Manysummits -
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#165. GISS Table Data (including February, 2010 - anomaly plus 0.71 C)
Look at http://wattsupwiththat.com/
All kinds of funny stuff seems to happen data before it makes it into the official temperature records.
Professor Jones said that for the past 15 years there has been no ‘statistically significant’ warming. And the anomaly continues to increase. There must be some kind of new math where 2 + 2 = 5.
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#167 manysummits
> (from the Kamloops area in the mountains west of the continental divide)
Yes the North end of the Okanargan (the banana belt of British Columbia)
It is a different story in Williams Lake.
> Richard Wagamese, "Global Warming is Real."
> http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/todays-paper/Global+warming+real/2650735/story.html
El nino is real. Western Canada is much warmer than usual (it is still below zero at night) while the rest of Canada gets colder and snowier conditions. Europe gets colder and more snow.
El nino is cyclic and has nothing to do with global warming.
You should try my local when there is no El nino. Cold long winters, we want any global warming that will come our way. When its 30 below for 2-3 weeks in a row it is (very very) hard to buy into global warming. When the snow plow goes by and plows you in, again, you get excited but its not global warming. The previous 2 winters were long and cold, I suppose global warming did that. Not, it was the lack of any El nino effect.
Half of what you read in the media is bull and 95% of the rest is all s***.
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#1 manysummits wrote:
"I gave 'Red Alert' status to world scientific literacy. From the tone of this article, I think Mr. Monbiot might agree."
The state of George Monbiot's own scientific literacy is revealed by his use of the term 'science' as a blanket term of approval. Nowhere does he distinguish between good science and bad science, presumably because he can't.
Since he has no way of telling what is genuine science and what is pseudo-science, he has to take other people's word for it -- hence the reliance on (what he hopes he has correctly identified as) "authorities".
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Cariboo @169
The only meaningful way of deciding if the globe is warming is to examine temperature trends over a period greatly exceeding the cycles of natural variation. The instrumental temperature record is several decades old and shows statistically significant warming of around 0.7C. A good approximation is a linear, straight line increase in temperature with the usual cycles of natural variation super-imposed on top.
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Just to add to Cariboo's post @169.
BC Premier Gordon Campbell jumped on the AGW bandwagon saying that the mild weather during the 2010 Winter Olympics was due to Climate Change. This statement was immediately kicked into touch.
To Quote:
Andrew Weaver, a leading climate-change scientist from the University of Victoria, cautioned against using a single balmy winter as proof of climate change. "You can never point to a single weather event and say it is due to global warming," he said. "The scientific community would get creamed for that."
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/british-columbia/campbell-blames-climate-change-for-spring-games/article1486344/
Thanks
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@bowmanthebard #141
(@rossglory)
Interesting use of the word "expert" in the following transcript
Feynman: Could you tell me, sirs, the names of your four best seals experts, in order of ability?
Thiokol manager: Roger Boisjoly and Arnie Thompson are one and two. Then there's Jack Kapp and, uh ... Jerry Burns.
Feymnan: Mr Boisjoly, were you in agreement that it was okay to fly?
Boisjoly: No, I was not.
[Feynman then asks Arnie Thompson]
Thompson: No, I was not.
Feynman: Mr Kapp?
Lund (a Thiokol manager): He is not here. I talked to him after the meeting, and he said, 'I would have made that decision, given the information we had.'
Feynman: And the fourth man?
Thiokol manager: Jerry Burns. I don't know what his position was.
Feynman: So, of the four, we have one 'don't know', one 'very likely yes,' and the two who were mentioned right away as being the best seal experts, both said no.
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154. At 09:48am on 13 Mar 2010, bowmanthebard wrote:
#150 LarryKealey wrote:
"the objective would not be predictive"
What's the point, then?
------------------------------------------
Thats a bit of a narrow focus - the models will never be accurate in a predictive sense. At least that is what the mathematics tells us. (unpredictable, but deterministic)
The point (of all science) is to figure out how things work - not to 'make predictions'. Its only this tomfoolery come lately with climate science that has everyone abuzz with 'predicting the future'.
The science is about 'learning how it works'. The models are nothing more than tools, to help us do that. They will never be good at predicting the climate for the summer 25 years from now, or any other such predictive work. They do help us to understand what we know about the system - and what we don't know - and like I said, helps lead us to new avenues of research.
Cheers.
Kealey
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@LarryKealey #152
I am not trying to play down the seriousness of some of the shocking admissions in the parliamentary inquiry, or the need for transparency and rigour in science.
I am trying to show that genuinely honest climate scientists may have problems showing that honesty to the general public. I am very keen to see that they don't get tarred with the same brush.
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@thinkforyourself #155
@bowmanthebard #157
OK, context.
A lot of people have been saying, oh we've had a cold winter, so global warming can't be happening.
However globally it hasn't been cold. thinkforyourself's examples of parts of Canada and Australia helps show the balance.
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@bowmanthebard #159
@thinkforyourself #163
@manysummits (reference to Lovelock)
Ever noticed the way that seawater is at its bluest and clearest and emptiest furthest from the poles. Ever noticed the way whales' feeding grounds are near the poles.
Global chlorophyll distribution during Northern Hemisphere summer:
http://www.gma.org/herring/biology/distribution/comparing_oceans.asp
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Larry @150
In reply to your theory....
The evidence supporting your theory that CO2 has a sensitivity that can be both positive and negative is as follows: 1) There is a lag of 800 years between temp. and CO2 as shown in the Vostok core, 2) Also from the vostok core, that prior to each glaciation, CO2 was at its peak, 3) Glacial periods cannot be described by milankovitch cycles (only inter-glacials can, I think).
You will have to clarify how point 1 is evidence for the existence of net negative CO2 sensitivity. The emperical evidence shows that an external driver is responsible for the first bit of warming and CO2, as you would expect, is purged from sources (e.g, ocean de-gassing). So the 800 year lag exists AND CO2 drives temperature. Both are true.
With 2, why wouldn't CO2 be at its peak before the onset of a glaciation? - does this show that CO2 is acting with negeative sensitivity?...no way, it shows that there is an external force pusing temp. down slightly and CO2 contributes to the feedback cycle back towards the glacial maximum (colder oceans are more soluble to CO2, so it gets colder, allowing more CO2 to be absorbed etc etc). Furthermore, observed maximum's of CO2 are at around 270-280ppm. If atmospheric CO2 shows a negative sensitivity at this concentration, wouldn't we have already observed it? Why do we now suddenly get a rise in temperature AND rise in CO2 together? With 3, I don't know, but because there is uncertainty does not really indicate negative sensitivity.
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@Coprolite #172
Whoa, that is not a nice name you have given yourself, it looks like a highbrow insult. If you ever want to change it the BBC blogs allow changes of display names.
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Larry: Sensitivity associated with CO2 forcing on temperatures is not constant but rather a function of a number of interrelated variables. Thus, the net sensitivity of CO2 can in fact be highly negative, slightly negative, negligible, slightly positive or highly positive, depending upon the current conditions and changes with regards to those variables continuously.
Larry,
If you watch the interview in my previous post you will see that Richard Lindzen is saying exactly what you are saying.
Essentially Richard is saying that you cannot simplify the global climate to one average mean temperature and you cannot simplify the processes down to one equation. Richard believes that the effects of CO2 and other factors will behave differently at different locations and at different times depending on a huge inter-mix of factors.
What Richard is saying should be obvious to anyone who has studied atmospheric physics - the complexity is so great and effects so varied and localized that you simply cannot boil things down to X amount of CO2 = Y amount of warming on a global thermometer (it is just plain silly to even speak this way).
The global atmospheric system does not behave in a simple manner of a Grade 6 student's science fair experiment!
Why people do not understand this I don't know.
I am appalled at the general scientific illiteracy and lack of integrity exhibited on this website and in major institutions, media and by governments.
As for your theories - good luck ! I don't expect a deep understanding of our climate for at least another 100 years or more - and it is very likely we may never be able to fully understand this chaotic atmospheric system to make meaningful predictions of a few tenths of a degree celsius in response to small changes in atmospheric compositions.
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At #172
And this is what Dr Andrew Weaver also says:-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25x_sSvZUIo
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@Shadorne
Can you point me towards the emperical evidence for Lintzen's theory? It was my understanding tht satellite measurements show that what he thought would be a negative feedback is actually a positive feedback. Because there aren't any compelling experimental or theoretical reasons why his theory is correct, most climate scientists have rejected it.
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#174 LarryKealey wrote:
"The point (of all science) is to figure out how things work - not to 'make predictions'."
There are two separate reasons why predictions might be of interest. First, a theory might portend doom, or the opposite of doom. This of interest at the moment, because most of the world is currently in a state of religious hysteria over such portents -- such as polar bears sitting on smallish bits of ice, which it is no longer possible to not see when you pick up a daily newspaper. (They always did sit on smallish bits of ice, because they're very good swimmers and enjoy the occasional rest, but nowadays it has a doom-laden "meaning"!)
Second, a much more general point, if you wonder whether we should believe a scientific theory, the usual place to look is for empirical evidence -- in other words, at its performance in tests. And you can't test a theory unless it yields observational predictions, which may or may not turn out to be true.
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#173 JaneBasingstoke wrote:
"Feynman: So, of the four, we have one 'don't know', one 'very likely yes,' and the two who were mentioned right away as being the best seal experts, both said no."
The "don't know" was not what the expert said, but what is known of the expert in question's opinion. So really it is two versus one -- a remarkably indecisive proportion -- and the Shuttle was launched anyway, presumably by someone "higher up" in the NASA hierarchy.
What's the moral of the story? -- The moral I draw is don't trust people at the top of a hierarchy. The people who made the decision to launch overruled people they considered beneath them.
Experts must be listened to carefully, on all sides. But important decisions on what action to take are usually best left to more "democratic" bodies than hierarchies. The decision of a hierarchy is usually the decision of "the guy at the top". He's usually at the top because of his political skills, and he usually overrules opinions that differ from his own.
By the way, if you're lookling for an expert in philosophy of science, I offer my services! -- I would urge to to listen to what I say, but don't let me make any decisions on your behalf. You must decide for yourself.
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#161 Cannot thinkforyourself, obviously the only thing you find convincing is twisted distorted newspaper reports.
1) There is no such thing as the Cyprus National Climate Change Unit
2)Your idiotic report comes from 2007 which states 9% water level in our dams, when in 2009 the level was 17%. 2007 was year 5 of a cycle that is mentioned in the bible.
3)Cyprus temperatures are no different to those 100 years ago, the hottest ever temp recorded was in the 1930's of 54C. It is common for us to have July and August temps of 42-45C yes hotter than the Sahara.
4)As it has rained yet again today our dams currently stand at 67% with 2 wet months to go.
5)The cause for our lack of water has been massive over development and local wastage with out building infrastructure. Locals us water without thought, such as washing the road to try and keep the bust down. Now they want to open 9 golf courses?
6) Rain water for Cyprus is finite due to geography, locals beleive it is provided by god and even have the saints bones to prey to for rain. However, they have no idea of conservation.
7) My water bill was 37.75 Euros for last year including sewage. From 2011 once the EU sticks it's finger in it will rise 211.50 Euros. I have no objection if it saves water, but there will be riots in the street once the locals find out.
8)All dams suffer from evaporation, and most of Cyprus dams look like this in the summer months. As a fisherman I can tell you know the place the Reuters photograph was taken from is now under water.
9) On the south side of the Island 1 million euros of damage was cause 2 weeks ago because of flood water. In the North similar amounts of damage also occurred, namely bridges and roads being washed away and houses been flooded. I have a picture of 2 meters of water outside my house and my car floating around.
So as usual you have no idea what you are talking about as I live here. I can easily prove these reports both the BBC rubbish and the Reuters reports as being purely scare stories, which are without fact, research or knowledge as being pure lies. Rather like the IPCC AR4 it is fiction.
As Dave allen use to say "Goodnight and my your God go with you"
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#150 Well said Larry that is exactly that the warmists want to hid so they carry on with their funding and glory hunting.
As you said QED there is no arguement against it, apart from trying to shoot the messenger.
Wasn't there some German scientist I think Max Plannix who stated all this in the 1930's.
Oh wait the faithfull don't beleive in sciennce they want to make up their own.
Well said sir
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SR: Can you point me towards the emperical evidence for Lintzen's theory?
Richard has written many papers. He is an expert in atmospheric physics from MIT. If you listen to the interview he does not propose a grand theory of the simple grade 6 science fair kind of the IPCC. Richard's position (after a lifetime studying atmospheric physics) is that the complexity involved and our lack of understanding does not permit jumping to conclusions of a 9 year old (X increase in CO2 = Y increase in average global surface thermometer temperatures is just to stupidly oversimplified to have any meaning at all) Richard refrains from making predictions and warns us that bold predictions of thermageddon are very likely exaggerated given the complete lack of empirical evidence of unprecedented warming.
Grade 6'ers can be really tiring. The real world just does not work in the simplified manner people want. It is the same in medicine - eat X and you will live y years longer just does not work - nevertheless you find formulas everywhere for healthy eating and longer life...
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@kamboshigh
" As you said QED there is no arguement against it, apart from trying to shoot the messenger."
ALL the evidence is against it.
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LarryKealey @ #150
Larry,
You appear to put yourself forwards as an expert on this subject. That being the case, I'm at a loss to explain why you are posting your ideas here and asking me (a PhD scientist, but hardly an authority on AGW) to disprove your theory. I can't help but wonder why you are not subjecting it to the far more rigorous scrutiny it would get from the real experts. Perhaps you should ask Gavin Schmidt over at Realclimate.
Now, given your area of expertise, I have no particular reason to doubt your working...... and given that this was never a specialist area of mine I don't intend to challenge it. In fact, I don't need to, for reasons that will hopefully become clear.
However, as SR pointed out, you have still failed to address the key question I raised over on the other thread - you have no scientific mechanism to explain how increasing CO2 could "tip" the Earth into a cooling cycle.
Consider instead the following scenario........ At the end of an ice age, the switch in the Milankovitch cycle produces a slight increase in temperatures. This in turn leads to some deglaciation, leading to decreased albedo and hence more warming. The warming oceans start to lose their CO2, hence adding to the warming, leading to more deglaciation........ and so on until only the ice caps are left frozen.
SR has already explained why CO2 levels would be at their highest just as the slip back into the ice age starts, but I'd like to take it a step further by introducing another concept - that of "thermal inertia", described in this paper:
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abstracts/2005/Hansen_etal_1.html
The implication of this is that even if we stopped emitting greenhouse gases today, global temperature would continue to increase for many years and would probably equilibrate at a temperature more than 0.5 C higher than we are seeing today. This is mainly because the oceans take such a long time to respond to any warming of the atmosphere.
Of course, warming oceans also lead to more degassing of CO2, leading to the highest CO2 levels being just before the Milankovitch cycle switches the Earth back into a cooling cycle.
Why does the extra CO2 not overcome the cooling by the Milankovitch cycles? Simply because the maximum difference in CO2 level between ice age and interglacial is at most 100ppm, which equates to a warming effect, including feedbacks, of 1 C or so (compared to a total temperature change of up to 10 C). The point is that the very gradual warming effect from the CO2 is not sufficient to overcome the sudden impact of the changing cycle.
I cannot easily PROVE this scenario, but it does at least have a sound basis in science and fits well with the observed sequence of events. In contrast, your theory lacks a key element - a mechanism by which increasing CO2 can cause cooling. It has little value without this.
The thing I find most extraordinary in your attitude is your apparent presumption that you know better than scientists who have made this subject their whole life's work. Do you REALLY believe that a multi-disciplinary team of hundreds of scientists would have failed to give this issue careful consideration? A look at IPCC AR4 confirms that they have considered it at length.
Now, why do I not have to disprove your maths? Simply because, as I tried to point out on the other thread, climate sensitivity IS a constant by simple virtue of the way it is defined. It is defined in terms of the difference between 2 fixed equilibrium points (generally the difference between pre-industrial CO2 levels (280ppm) and doubled CO2 (560ppm)).
The following section of IPCC AR4 (Chapter 2 from WG1), explains this concept and shows that the scientists HAVE put a great deal of thought into this:
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch2s2-2.html
My reading of this section is that the scientists have approached the problem as they have for a good reason - they have taken a "linear view" of radiative forcing and climate sensitivity simply because it would be very difficult to model the far more complex response of the climate system as a whole. Also, in practice, this linear approach works extremely well at predicting future temperatures response to increases in greenhouse gases.
So, as far as I can see, the scientists have been perfectly open about the approach they have used and have even justified it. If, despite this, you feel that you can contribute a mathematical model which would describe the climate response as a whole, I'm sure the scientists would be glad to talk to you about it. Perhaps it's time to write that paper!
Paul
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@187 Shadorne
But Lintzen's theories have been disproved by experimental evidence. The weight of evidence is firmly on the alternate view, i.e., that CO2 has a sensitivity that can be roughly described as logarithmic. There have been hundreds of studies into feedbacks and a lot of his theories have been discredited by them. There is no experimental evidence for his theory - if there were, he would be taken a lot more seriously. Maybe i've missed it - can you show me where the evidence is? There is plenty of experimental evidence for him being wrong and I will produce it if asked.
Another strange thing is that Lintzen does not believe in the strong link between smoking and lung cancer. I think the guy enjoys the attention!
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@LarryKealey #150
The following is not a full review. I am not familiar with tensor fields except in the very specific instance of vectors and matrices, and am currently looking at the blurb.
However as a first impression it looks like your x, y and z might be Cartesian co-ordinates. In which case
1. Should xn, yn, zn perhaps be replaced with n(x, y, z) for variable n at position (x, y, z)? Otherwise you would seem to be dealing with three values of variable n in three mutually perpendicular planes, rather than one value of variable n at a point.
f1 term
f1(x1,x2,x..xN,y1,y2,y3,...yN...z1,z2,z3...zN,CO2a,CO2o, T)
would become
f1(a1(x,y,z), a2(x,y,z), ... aN(x,y,z), CO2a, CO2o, T)
or would become
f1(a1,a2, an, CO2a, CO2o, T, x, y, z)
2. Temperature and CO2 concentration are not evenly spread, they also need to be a function of location.
3. If you are covering the globe, I think you may want to consider replacing Cartesian co-ordinates with polar co-ordinates.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_coordinate_system
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Mangochutney @ #85
Mango,
We discussed the paper by Pinker et al on a previous thread.
Gavin Schmidt didn't dismiss the findings of the paper because, presented in their proper context, they do not throw a question mark over AGW. In fact, IPCC AR4 actually cites the paper here:
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch3s3-4-4-2.html
The key part of Schmidt's comment is that the results "should not be over interpreted". I think this may be a reference to claims Lord Monckton has made.
Paul
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171. At 2:16pm on 13 Mar 2010, SR wrote:
Cariboo @169
> The only meaningful way of deciding if the globe is warming is to
> examine temperature trends over a period greatly exceeding the cycles
> of natural variation. The instrumental temperature record is several
> decades old and shows statistically significant warming of around
> 0.7C. A good approximation is a linear, straight line increase in
> temperature with the usual cycles of natural variation super-imposed
> on top.
And the longer the time period the less the anomaly. Go back far enough and the anomaly is in the negative realm.
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@190, SR wrote:
“Another strange thing is that Lintzen does not believe in the strong link between smoking and lung cancer.”
Not often you are right but you're wrong again.
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#188 SR wrote:
"ALL the evidence is against it."
I'm not much interested in what "it" may be, but it never, never, never happens that ALL evidence is against any empirical theory. For a start, what on earth do you mean by "all"?
If you think there is a theory somewhere and ALL of the evidence is against it, you must be on a religious head-trip! And if other AGW supporters agree with you on this one, heaven help us all!
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I take this back, with thanks (fake rictus smile, grinding teeth, annoyed embarrassment at being wrong, etc.) to JaneBasingstoke:
'Those famous and obvious errors were caused by experts not paying attention to amateurs because amateurs are "not qualified".'
As JaneBasingstoke rightly pointed out, the errors were made by people overruling experts -- i.e. non-amateurs.
My take on this is that the people who were overruled were lower down in a big-business-type heirarchy. I have an anti-clerical streak a mile wide, and I hate hierarchies. I think they are pure poison to real science.
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Bearing in mind the second law of thermal dynamics. Lets suppose that the earth warmed a couple of degrees. Thee are vast areas of Canada and Russia that would become arable and inhabitable. This would provide a place for any "warming" refugees to live and feed them with enough surplus capacity to feed the third world as well.
Flora does better in a warmer and CO2 enhanced environment (commercial greenhouses). If the earth gets warmer with an enhanced CO2 content, not only will flora do better but fauna as well. That includes us.
So what if low lying areas get flooded, lying areas will always flood. It is not a case of IF but WHEN. Advancing the when is geologically speaking, irrelevant. To the natural world it is irrelevant. To the displaced people, sorry but it was going to happen eventually.
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@Rob 194
"Not often you are right but you're wrong again. "
Richard Lintzen does not believe there is a strong link between smoking and lung cancer. This is a fact. If it isn't, I challenge you to prove it.
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RobWansbeck @ #194
I think SR was probably referring to this article:
http://www.newsweek.com/id/78772
Paul
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#197 Cariboo wrote:
"Flora does better in a warmer and CO2 enhanced environment (commercial greenhouses). If the earth gets warmer with an enhanced CO2 content, not only will flora do better but fauna as well."
But as JaneBasingstoke pointed out, warmer seas contain less CO2, which is bad for 70% of the surface of the Earth.
The Earth has got over much "worse" before, of course, but it's worth bearing in mind!
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Cariboo @ #197
I think the following page brings together the pros and cons of AGW better than most:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-positives-negatives.htm
There are plenty of scientific papers linked to.
Paul
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SR,
You keep repeating yourself.
You obviously have not watched the video of the interview I linked to. If you did then you will understand that your comments make no sense at all.
I mean what does lung cancer have to do with global warming - geez! Richard makes no mention of lung cancer in the interview.
Richard does NOT OFFER A THEORY - all he is saying - and he makes no claims to have figured it all out - is that he has serious doubts about the accuracy and usefulness of climate models and predicting global temperatures to tenths of a degree. Watch the video - he has perfectly valid points that shoot huge holes the ridiculously simplistic assumptions made by alarmists. He does not offer an alternative theory to "man-made CO2 thermageddon" because he is not pretentious enough to know all the answers. All he is saying is that we are jumping to conclusions that are not justified or supported by empirical evidence.
You cannot "disprove" his theory as you repeatedly say because if you actually bothered to watch the video you would be aware that he does NOT expound a theory or explanation for what we currently observe. All he is saying is that it is TOO COMPLEX. He actually states that he is hopeful that better satellite data may one day help atmospheric physicists find some answers about the effects of clouds (a HUGE unknown - and potentially a factor that could swamp infra-red absorption by additions of man-made CO2)
Capiche?
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@bowmanthebard #200
(@Cariboo)
"But as JaneBasingstoke pointed out, warmer seas contain less CO2, which is bad for 70% of the surface of the Earth."
Did I?
Oh, I see, you're confusing my ocean fertility post (#177) with the effect of temperature on dissolved CO2. Yes, CO2 is less soluble in warmer seawater than cooler seawater. However because atmospheric CO2 is going up faster than solubility is coming down, more CO2 is dissolving in seawater.
Meanwhile the ocean fertility thing that I referred to is actually to do with ocean circulation supplying other nutrients to surface waters.
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@193 Cariboo
"And the longer the time period the less the anomaly. Go back far enough and the anomaly is in the negative realm."
How far back are you talking about?....If we go back are far as the start of the instrumental record, there is warming. If we go back as far as the start of the tree ring proxy record...we see warming....
What temperature record are you using to back up your statement?
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@Shadorne 202
You state that Lintzen does not have a theory and he just moans and groans about how we can't make predictions about the climate because it is too complex. But this is his theory! Unpredictability of climate is a theory! It goes against the mainstream theory that climate is predictable to a useful degree of accuracy over a given timeframe. The mainstream theory has lots of evidence, Lintzen's theory has no evidence that I am aware of, this is why I asked you to enlighten me on where this evidence is.
If someone makes a claim and want people to take it seriously, they must provide evidence for it....Yet it seems there are a great deal of people willing to take what he says as scientifically strong and therefore relevant to the debate on global warming. What he says is not scientifically strong and this is why it carries very little relevance in the field. All I really care about is truth in this debate, I have no vested interests - looking at this objectively, his views seem unsubstantiated by evidence. I will be happy to admit i'm wrong if you give me the evidence.
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@thinkforyourself #158 who wrote...
"Method:-
Add 1.4 trillion tonnes of fossilized carbon to one atmosphere.
Continue process.
Results:-
Atmospheric chemistry changes and near surface temperatures rise.
Conclusion:-
Earth’s surface likely to become uninhabitable for large mammals."
It is blatantly obviously by these statements that you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. Mammals have survived and thrived during much warmer periods than the highest of the IPCC models and not very long ago.
--------------------------
@SR #190 who wrote...
"But Lintzen's theories have been disproved by experimental evidence. The weight of evidence is firmly on the alternate view, i.e., that CO2 has a sensitivity that can be roughly described as logarithmic."
You are confusing the raw absorption math with the impact on the climate system. The coldest part of the atmosphere is more or less the part absorbing within CO2's spectrum. The gradient between the tropause and the ground is what allows the absorption to work in the first place. Many conditions within the climate system modify this gradient as well as the overall distribution of energy...which in turn modifies the sensitivity.
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@205 poit
You do know that Lintzen's assumptions about the factors involved in sensitivity are completely out of sync with the assumptions made by the vast majority of practising climate scientists - and the reasons why he is wrong are spelled out, with evidence, again and again and again. Why is he right and everyone else wrong? Why do people feel the need to gamble on him being right and most other people being wrong?
Believe me, I would change my mind if the consensus view shifted, but Lintzen is not going to change the consensus view. The extent of his contribution is to use strange, unjustified assumptions and hypothesise on processes that too have no justification. Think of him as one independent view amongst hundreds - is he any cleverer than the others?, does he have a unique insight not shared by the others?, Is he more trustworthy than the others? These questions cannot be answered, but what I can say for sure is that it is irrational to gamble on one contrarian view being right when the vast majority of other experts in the field disagree. Let's not forget that more than one of Lintzen's previous hypotheses on climate change have been shown to be completely wrong - this is the price you pay for gambling on unproven/unjustified assumptions being right.
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#203 JaneBasingstoke wrote:
"because atmospheric CO2 is going up faster than solubility is coming down, more CO2 is dissolving in seawater."
What excellent news!
"Meanwhile the ocean fertility thing that I referred to is actually to do with ocean circulation supplying other nutrients to surface waters."
I wonder why this makes warmer waters clearer than temperate waters?
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SR: I will be happy to admit i'm wrong if you give me the evidence.
The evidence that you are wrong is substantial.
Please examine every climate model ever made (or as many as you can find - as countless papers have been published).
No climate model has accurately predicted global temperatures. Not one. Not a single one. None. Nada. Zero. Zip. None predicted a substantial flattening or leveling off of temperatures from 1998 onwards. Since you are an expert and claim to have read much of the evidence then you will surely be aware of this evidence. I expect you also should know that anyone can create and tweak a model to match the past - modeling the past proves NOTHING except enough variables to get a good curve fit.
Now go ahead and admit you are wrong because ALL the evidence supports Richard's contention (in the interview you do not appear to have watched): climate scientists are currently completely unable to accurately forward model global temperatures to a few tenths of a degree. (We do not know or physically understand the forcings/feedbacks which are simply variable in the models - a prime example being clouds)
I await your admission of error but i won't hold my breath.
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in 127. SR wrote:
"The response of temperature to CO2 is logarithmic. This means that at lower concentrations, incremental rises in CO2 have larger effects than at higher concentrations. Each doubling of CO2 will result in the same increase in temperature, so an increase from 50 to 100ppm will enhance the greenhouse effect the same as a 280 to 560ppm rise. This increase in temperature for every doubling of CO2 is called sensitivity, and has a massive amount of emperical evidence. Your 5 W/m^2 extraplotation, thus 1.5% estimation, is wrong. CO2 contributes A LOT more than this to the greenhouse effect. Sensitivity is probably between 1.8 and 4.5C (95% confidence limits) for every doubling of CO2."
You are quite right - I had finger trouble when I got to 5W/sq m.
However you repeated the fallacy that CO2 contributes lots to the grenhouse effect. Note that you are also propogating an error in saying that the temperature is logarithmically related to the CO2 level - it is the radiative forcing that is so related.
So lets do the elementary logarithmic maths together - note there are inconsistencies in between the IPCC numbers so lets do it for both main cases.
The IPPC says that doubling the CO2 from 280ppm would give a radiative forcing of 3.7W/sqm; now going backwards that means that the original 280ppm had to have double the radiative forcing - so 7.4W/sqm.
Now using the increase from 280ppm to 380ppm giving a radiative forcing of 1.6W/sqm the forcing due to the original 280ppm is giving by 1.6 time 2 to the power 2.8 or 1.6 times 6.96 giving approximately 11W/sqm. (*)
I don't care whether you use 7.4W or 11W, they are both only very small compared to the total forcing (324W/W/sqm) required to keep the earth at its 'normal' temperature.
Sorry folks, CO2 just does not have a big enough heating effect for any of the changes in CO2 level being discussed to have any real significance for temperature.
(*) and yes this means that the 1.6W due to the 280-380 ppm and the 3.7W
due to 280-560ppm can not both be correct.
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@bowmanthebard #208
"What excellent news!"
If the solubility and the extra CO2 were exactly balanced then yes it would be excellent news or at least neutral news. Unfortunately there is more CO2 dissolved in seawater. And when CO2 dissolves in water it reduces the pH, making the seawater less alkaline. This causes problems for corals, snails and other organisms with exposed calcium based skeletons.
"I wonder why this makes warmer waters clearer than temperate waters?"
Less nutrients means less phytoplankton. Which is the bottom of the food chain, so there is less of any other type of plankton.
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@198, SR wrote:
“
@Rob 194
"Not often you are right but you're wrong again. "
Richard Lintzen does not believe there is a strong link between smoking and lung cancer. This is a fact. If it isn't, I challenge you to prove it.
“
It is not up to me to prove your statement is wrong; it is up to you to provide evidence that your statement is correct although I do appreciate that some anthracophobes find this confusing.
I will assume that you are new to this debate or have spent too much time reading advocacy blogs and need to get out more.
The Lintzen-Smoking slur has been going for years. Lintzen has never said that there is no strong link between smoking and lung cancer. Lintzen HAS said that there is no strong link between PASSIVE smoking and lung cancer. Although politically incorrect this does appear to be factually correct.
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in 130. andy765gtr wrote:
" "Quite simply - some nice sensible maths that would link the CO2 rise to the observed temperature rise. It isn't enough to say that both have gone up so it must be CO2."
want more maths? yeah like they dont use maths. thats how theyve been doing those pesky models for decades you dont believe in. not much point pointing it out, but they told you already what ranges of carbon dioxide increases will lead to various range of rises. its been calculated."
Having in the past had many years of experience in writing and using models of physical systems, I well know that it is the implementation of the physics into the models and the assumptions of the interrelations and especially the deduced physical values that affect the results. You don't need very much to be wrong internally for the model's results not to match reality. The difficulty I have is that the results of the models are so very different from the values that come out when using basic physical mechanisms to deduce what happens from the heat input.
Models of physical systems normally turn out to be valid when they improve on the basic physics results and invalid otherwise.
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SR @ 205 On Lindzen
“If someone makes a claim and want people to take it seriously, they must provide evidence for it....Yet it seems there are a great deal of people willing to take what he says as scientifically strong and therefore relevant to the debate on global warming. What he says is not scientifically strong and this is why it carries very little relevance in the field. All I really care about is truth in this debate, I have no vested interests - looking at this objectively, his views seem unsubstantiated by evidence. I will be happy to admit i'm wrong if you give me the evidence.”
Richard Lindzen presents a lot of evidence at the Fermilab Colloquium on 10 February 2010. His presentation can be seen on youtube.
The first of nine parts is at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMkyjyk-VEk.
SR @ 198
“Another strange thing is that Lintzen does not believe in the strong link between smoking and lung cancer. I think the guy enjoys the attention!”
The only reference to this appears to be the link provided by Paul Briscoe.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/78772
The author of the article wrote
“Lindzen clearly relishes the role of naysayer. He'll even expound on how weakly lung cancer is linked to cigarette smoking. He speaks in full, impeccably logical paragraphs, and he punctuates his measured cadences with thoughtful drags on a cigarette.”
I would like to read his full, impeccably logical paragraphs explaining the weak link between lung cancer and cigarette smoking before commenting on it. In any case there is no connection between smoking and AGW.
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in 155. thinkforyourself wrote:
"Can anyone enlighten us as to why the AMSU sensor global near surface temperatures are going up off the scale in March? After record highs for January and February this is starting to look like a major trend.
Looks like Hansen and the MET office will be right for 2010 as a record year for global surface temperatures, assuming the ground station instruments reflect the satellite data.
http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/
We shall see."
SIGH. If you actually bothered to look at the data you would find that although the 2010 data is higher than the 2009 data, it is actually slap in the range observed between 2000 and 2004.
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@Shadorne 209
You will not find a climate scientist claiming to be able to model temperature to tenths of degrees. Similarly, you will not find one who claims to be able to *accurately* model internal variability of the system. But an entirely different question is whether the models can predict dacadal changes with accuracy and on this point, a substantial amount of evidence exists that they can. Lindzen's views on the feedbacks used in the models have no evidence beyond his own opinion. The feedbacks used in the models are based on assumptions that are BACKED UP. You can get stroppy about this all you want, but you are essentially gambling on a single contrary view being right whilst completely ignoring hundreds of other scientists' opinions.
@oldterry2 210
Why did it have to be 7.4W/m^2 at 280ppm? I'm confused by that. Can you explain that please? Secondly, CO2 contributes about 20% to the radiative forcing of the natural greenhouse effect, with water vapour contributing 50%. More important than this, however, is that CO2 is the 'control knob'. If CO2 goes up, water vapour responds by going up too. The same is true in reverse. This is why increasing CO2 has far more of an impact than just the net effect of its own radiative forcing.
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In post 215 oldterry2 said
"SIGH. If you actually bothered to look at the data you would find that although the 2010 data is higher than the 2009 data, it is actually slap in the range observed between 2000 and 2004."
Are you sure you are looking at the right graph?
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SR:You will not find a climate scientist claiming to be able to model temperature to tenths of degrees. Similarly, you will not find one who claims to be able to *accurately* model internal variability of the system.
Aha. So what Richard Lindzen says it correct (in the interview I linked to) and you are now admitting that you are WRONG.
Of course, you will not say it and keep dancing around the issues trying to twist what Richard said so that you can claim that what he said in the interview was wrong.
I am still not sure you even watched the interview because if you did then you would see how irrelevant your points about "lung cancer" and that Richard is "proved wrong" really are.
I may be stroppy but at least I have integrity.
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@Jane
Regarding equations the x,y,z are not meant to represent coordinates, they are just variables to represent all of the items listed as variables which provide feedbacks to CO2 forcing...If I could have used superscripts and subscripts here, I would have described it a bit differently.
You can use the form f1(a1,a2,a3...aL,b1,b2,..bM,c1,c2,c3...cN...z1,z2,z3...Zk) for the equations.
The real point is the last bit...
...if one accepts that sensitivity is the net of all CO2 forcing and feedbacks - and that the feedbacks are variable (due to factors such as changes in albedo, water vapor content in the air, particulate matter in the upper atmosphere - all of which vary - then sensitivity must vary as well.
@Paul, please read the last paragraph.
Cheers.
Kealey
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@ shadorne
What am I wrong about? I asked you to produce evidence that his views were correct, in particular, this one
"All he is saying is that we are jumping to conclusions that are not justified or supported by empirical evidence."
There are hundreds of scientists that would disagree with this and i'm completely confused about on what basis he makes this claim. I'm also confused by how ready some people are to completely accept what he says even though it is scientifically weak, unsubstantiated and regarded as a minority, contrary view by his peers (i.e., the other experts in his field).
Also, I did not say that smoking and lung cancer has anything to do with global warming, but it does say a lot about his character - he is well known to take the contrary view on important issues by gambling on key assumptions. The scientific evidence that passive smoking increases the risk of lung cancer is actually pretty strong and to say otherwise requires you to interprete key parts of the evidence in a way that falls way outside of how the vast majority of experts interprete it. Unfortunately, in the context of AGW, any scientist who does this without substantiating their claims will gain instant and underserved plaudits from the layman community of sceptics.
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@Paul Briscoe wrote:
“However, as SR pointed out, you have still failed to address the key question I raised over on the other thread - you have no scientific mechanism to explain how increasing CO2 could "tip" the Earth into a cooling cycle.”
Paul, you missed the whole point – there are feedbacks and they are interrelated. Under some conditions that we really don’t understand yet, CO2 reaches a certain point and this negative feedback kicks in big time, causing temperatures to decrease dramatically. This in itself would imply that sensitivity to CO2 is not constant but depends upon a variety of conditions and feedbacks which are interrelated.
Consider instead the following scenario........ At the end of an ice age, the switch in the Milankovitch cycle produces a slight increase in temperatures. This in turn leads to some deglaciation, leading to decreased albedo and hence more warming. The warming oceans start to lose their CO2, hence adding to the warming, leading to more deglaciation........ and so on until only the ice caps are left frozen.
See – now here is a scenario where feedbacks from CO2 forcing (and other forcings) cause the beginning of the interglacial period. As pointed out above, under other conditions, the net climate feedbacks and forcings cause the temperature to plummet and the onset of the glacial periods – so these feedbacks and forcings are not constant – and they are obviously interrelated.
climate sensitivity IS a constant by simple virtue of the way it is defined. It is defined in terms of the difference between 2 fixed equilibrium points (generally the difference between pre-industrial CO2 levels (280ppm) and doubled CO2 (560ppm)).
Why do I waste my words? Under a certain set of conditions and circumstances, one would find a value for sensitivity – change any of the variables associated with the feedbacks and forcings, and sensitivity would evaluate to a different value. It cannot be constant. Unless all other conditions remain constant. Also, the IPCC is concerned with present conditions – their formulation suggest it doesn’t matter what the starting concentration is – it is for a doubling of CO2 – so according to the IPCC, if the starting point was 560 ppm and we doubled that – we would have the same change in temperature as if we went from 280 to 560ppm.
Following that logic, if we had a large volcanic eruption and CO2 levels rose, we would expect temperatures to rise as well – this is not the case (even the models show this). So forcing and feedbacks (sensitivity) due to CO2 cannot be constant. The implied assumption is that ‘all other things remain constant’ – which is not realistic unless you live in a glass bottle…
Kealey
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@Jane,
You needn’t worry about the math – I do realize that to model the climate, one would use polar coordinates and the finite element method – this is where we divide the earth into small 3-D sections, do our calculations for conditions within each section, then look at the boundaries for each section (or element) and use a set of vector equations to describe the flows from one section to all the surrounding sections – to calculate new values for that section and iterate. You would actually calculate CO2 forcing and feedbacks for each ‘element’ using the formulation given. It gets really complicated – from a math perspective. What I am suggesting is that CO2 forcing and feedbacks are dependent upon a number of conditions – you would actually calculate specific values for each element in the model which would change for each iteration. [The models calculate the ‘climate trajectory’ through iteration]. That is how climate models (and a lot of other models – like modeling stressing on an airplane wing – work).
There are really two points: first, that sensitivity to CO2 forcing cannot be constant and secondly, it is just this type of complex formulation which would be required to describe it – with thousands of equations and variables – some of which we are aware of and understand a little, many others we are not even aware of at this point (can you honestly say that you think we know about all the factors which drive our climate and how they work?) and all of them interrelated – if not directly, then indirectly.
I would guess that it would take at least 20 years of hard work to start to be able to fill in the variables, coefficients and variables – and then, it would still be full of holes, but it would be valuable in helping to point out those things we don’t understand – avenues for new research and discovery. That is the real value of the models. The mathematics says that climate will never be predictable – yet it is deterministic.
Cheers.
Kealey
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@SR #207 who wrote...
"You do know that Lintzen's assumptions about the factors involved in sensitivity are completely out of sync with the assumptions made by the vast majority of practising climate scientists - and the reasons why he is wrong are spelled out, with evidence, again and again and again. Why is he right and everyone else wrong? Why do people feel the need to gamble on him being right and most other people being wrong?"
Actually he's not contradicted. AGW "scientists" spit out unsupported garbage that everyone has heard so much that they believe it. You keep demanding support for the opposing viewpoints but you've never backed up your own...nor have the scientists.
Look at all of the predictions they made about the behavior of a warming world. Have you noticed that just about all of those predictions have failed? Warmer weather will make for more hurricanes...oops, wrong. The snow will stop...oops, snowiest decade ever recorded. It will continue to warm nonstop...oops it's just natural variability...oops maybe it will cool for a while.
I don't have to propose ANY alternative hypothesis...to point out that this AGW "science" is failing at every turn. Failing is failing is failing is failing. HOWEVER, if YOU want to support it you have to actually provide some sort of supporting data...not just some garbage science from a branch of the sciences that has clearly been corrupted by unscientific methods, political pressure and dangerously short sighted, rabid environmentalism. That's how science works. All I have to do is point out where you fail and presto...you are proven wrong.
If you or the climate scientists want to be able to claim with even the slightest hint of certainty what is going on...they need to be able to explain the numerous peaks and valleys of the holocene. Without that starting point we know nothing with any certainty. They'll also need to verify the strength (heh, and sign) of the feedbacks and the initial forcing of CO2 (which has NEVER been verified within a dynamic atmosphere)
For now...and I want you to burn this fact into your brain...the predictions climate scientists have made that are verifiable are doing worse than random chance. You can't get much worse than that without knowing how it actually works and picking the wrong answer intentionally.
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Please ignore post #221
It should read:
@Paul Briscoe wrote:
“However, as SR pointed out, you have still failed to address the key question I raised over on the other thread - you have no scientific mechanism to explain how increasing CO2 could "tip" the Earth into a cooling cycle.”
----------------------------------------------------
Paul, you missed the whole point – there are feedbacks and they are interrelated. Under some conditions that we really don’t understand yet, CO2 reaches a certain point and this negative feedback kicks in big time, causing temperatures to decrease dramatically. This in itself would imply that sensitivity to CO2 is not constant but depends upon a variety of conditions and feedbacks which are interrelated.
-----------------------------------------------------
@Paul wrote
"Consider instead the following scenario........ At the end of an ice age, the switch in the Milankovitch cycle produces a slight increase in temperatures. This in turn leads to some deglaciation, leading to decreased albedo and hence more warming. The warming oceans start to lose their CO2, hence adding to the warming, leading to more deglaciation........ and so on until only the ice caps are left frozen."
-----------------------------------------------
See – now here is a scenario where feedbacks from CO2 forcing (and other forcings) cause the beginning of the interglacial period. As pointed out above, under other conditions, the net climate feedbacks and forcings cause the temperature to plummet and the onset of the glacial periods – so these feedbacks and forcings are not constant – and they are obviously interrelated.
--------------------------
@Paul wrote:
"climate sensitivity IS a constant by simple virtue of the way it is defined. It is defined in terms of the difference between 2 fixed equilibrium points (generally the difference between pre-industrial CO2 levels (280ppm) and doubled CO2 (560ppm))."
-------------------------------------------------
Why do I waste my words? Under a certain set of conditions and circumstances, one would find a value for sensitivity – change any of the variables associated with the feedbacks and forcings, and sensitivity would evaluate to a different value. It cannot be constant.
Unless all other conditions remain constant. Also, the IPCC is concerned with present conditions – their formulation suggest it doesn’t matter what the starting concentration is – it is for a doubling of CO2 – so according to the IPCC, if the starting point was 560 ppm and we doubled that – we would have the same change in temperature as if we went from 280 to 560ppm. It is a doubling with any given starting point.
Following that logic, if we had a large volcanic eruption and CO2 levels rose, we would expect temperatures to rise as well – this is not the case (even the models show this). So forcing and feedbacks (sensitivity) due to CO2 cannot be constant. The implied assumption is that ‘all other things remain constant’ – which is not realistic unless you live in a glass bottle.
Just so that I am clear about the volcano. Volcano erupts - spews out massive amounts of CO2 and particulate matter, we use more energy heating our homes and burn more CO2 - so CO2 is rising - but the particulate matter has a negative feedback on CO2 forcing as so much light is reflected and refracted in the upper atmosphere. Absorption off electromagnetic energy by CO2 is reduced as a result. Temperatures decrease even though CO2 concentrations rise.
Of course, it is difficult to say what would happen after such an event. If large enough, it could have a significant effect on temperatures for a number of years. If enough snow and ice formed across the landmasses, the albedo of the planet would have changed - causing much more electromagnetic energy from the sun to be reflected back into space - particularly in the dry cold air...
Kealey
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@Jane
Some of the favorite feeding grounds for whales are in the very warm waters of the Sea of Cortez. Check it out….lots of whale watching in Baja. I leave it to you to use google - pick your website...;)
Cheers.
Kealey
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@Shadorne
I don’t believe that SR nor Paul Briscoe will ever express any doubts whatsoever to what they see on realclimate or the other sites they like to view.
Paul actually pointed me to an article which is supposed to explain why the tenets of chaos theory (and non-linear dynamics) do not apply to Earth’s Climate System. This was supposedly written by a ‘climate scientist’. Well, the guy understands just enough of the math to be dangerous – but not to prove anything. And it turns out that he is not a ‘climate scientist’ but rather a biologist who has an ‘unprofessional interest’ in climate modeling. And Paul takes this guys word like its gospel and you can’t get him to admit to any doubt or skepticism whatsoever.
I find you to be another voice of reason – most of your arguments are sound. But don’t let these guys get you excited – you will never get them to admit any doubt whatsoever to anything they read from their ‘sources’. There is no room for skepticism.
Consider ourselves fortunate that most scientists are skeptical of their own work – that’s part of science.
Cheers.
Kealey
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223. At 04:36am on 14 Mar 2010, poitsplace wrote:
@SR #207 who wrote...
"You do know that Lintzen's assumptions about the factors involved in sensitivity are completely out of sync with the assumptions made by the vast majority of practising climate scientists - and the reasons why he is wrong are spelled out, with evidence, again and again and again. Why is he right and everyone else wrong? Why do people feel the need to gamble on him being right and most other people being wrong?"
Actually he's not contradicted. AGW "scientists" spit out unsupported garbage that everyone has heard so much that they believe it. You keep demanding support for the opposing viewpoints but you've never backed up your own...nor have the scientists.
--------------------------------------------------------
@Paul Briscoe - I take it from your words that you imply that you are aware of the assumptions made by the 'vast majority' of climate scientists. In order to back this claim up, one would have expected that you personally read the vast majority of papers written by the vast majority of climate scientists and reviewed their assumptions to provide a comparison.
I find this supposition very difficult to believe. Additionally, recent testimony in the House of Commons and the climategate emails would suggest that many of these 'prominent climate scientists' are never asked to provide their data, assumptions, algorithms, anything really, except their paper and results.
Cheers
Kealey
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@xtragrumpymike
We haven't been graced by your presence...what gives. I really hope you are doing ok. I wrote you a long letter about 'alternatives to traditional treatments' - but it is not something I wish to post here. You can post 'private messages' at the link I provided you on the last thread. I can also be sent a private message through the website listed on my Guardian profile.
Basically hard work is the best medicine - and a lot of anger and attitude helps - there is a lot more - but thats the jist.
Kindest.
Kealey
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@Manysummits
I hope the summit was good for you this weekend. I should be able to get one or two jumps in tomorrow (a far cry from doing a dozen in a morning...but still very nice to be in the air...flying at canopy at ten thousand feet ;)
I shall think of you on top of the mountain as I sit under my chute and look out over the Galveston Bay complex and the Gulf of Mexico. A skydiver friend came over last night - him and his wife (also a skydiver), he said it was -5F at twelve thousand feet here yesterday morning...I hoped it has warmed a bit, but not likely...;) Crisp, clear, cold, beautiful, sky all around. It brings an important peace to one's inner self - just as the summit does for you.
That aside, consider this. Regardless of our disagreement on the magnitude and urgency of the CO2 emissions 'problem' - I think we would both agree that land use (or misuse, I should say) is also a big, urgent issue - particularly at this juncture.
At this time, we can't really do anything about CO2 emissions - windmills are not going to do it...they will continue until we have a nice viable, cheap alternative to fossil fuels - 50 years - fusion and who knows what else. So emission are going to rise, no matter what we do for the time being.
We can do something about land use. We can stop the rape, restore natural environments, create more reserves and sanctuaries...we can have a real impact.
So, what is that smart thing to do? Particularly that we really don't know the magnitudes (nor relative magnitudes) of the two issues?
Enjoy the summit
Kealey
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Thanks, Larry
Still trying to work out how to use the link.Found all the skydiving from the link you posted but no joy in getting any further. Should I join up or what. don't use facebook or twitter.
Cheers
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@Richard
You suggested that it would be interesting to see if the review included expertise from fields unrelated to climate science.
Do you mean scientific expertise?
Or do you mean, auditing expertise?
If you mean the former - I would suggest that you would be putting a number of scientists and researchers in a very uncomfortable position.
I firmly believe to obtain the appropriate 'detachment'- the review should be about auditing the process - to first ensure that the process is documented and in place.
Secondly, to ensure that the appropriate documentation is in place to ensure that the process is and has been followed.
This is clearly auditing expertise. One can argue the science until the cows come home - that is the underlying issue here, but in order to have faith and trust in the science, the most important thing in my view is to ensure that the processes (like peer review) are in-place, documented and followed.
Only then will those who put their names down as 'peer reviewers' be very sure that they follow the process and review and report appropriately, to ensure the integrity of their reputations.
Lets be honest - this article and discussion is taking place because a great deal of trust has been lost - the question is how to restore it - and what of that which has already been done can be trusted and believed?
Am I wrong?
Cheers.
Kealey
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@extragrumpymike
Very good to see you.
Yes, sign up for an account - then you can send a mail - and I will reply.
Cheers.
Kealey
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#203 JaneBasingstoke wrote: "Meanwhile the ocean fertility thing that I referred to is actually to do with ocean circulation supplying other nutrients to surface waters."
#208: bowmanthebard: "I wonder why this makes warmer waters clearer than temperate waters?"
#211 JaneBasingstoke: "Less nutrients means less phytoplankton. Which is the bottom of the food chain, so there is less of any other type of plankton."
No, I'm wondering why "ocean circulation supplying other nutrients to surface waters" occurs less in warmer waters than cooler waters, as it would if it is the cause of the correlataion you mentioned earlier between warmth and clarity.
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@204. SR
>@193 Cariboo
>"And the longer the time period the less the anomaly. Go back far >enough and the anomaly is in the negative realm."
>How far back are you talking about?....If we go back are far as the >start of the instrumental record, there is warming. If we go back as >far as the start of the tree ring proxy record...we see warming....
>What temperature record are you using to back up your statement?
The instrumental record seems to have been massaged, frequently.
So ice core data has to be used going back as far as possible, since the last ice age would be good.
Ice core data indicates that the instrumental record is too short a period to make any realistic judgment.
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There was a time when our atmosphere was 30% CO2. Then these little water born critters started combining CO2 and calcium making calcium carbonate to make their shells from. Over time these cute little critters have managed to reduce the CO2 to 0.038%. (Bearing in mind there is a percentage locked up in fossil fuels) These little critters are still at it. Eventually all the CO2 will be gone and along with that all carbon based life.
Could it be that efforts to reduce CO2 in the atmosphere are counter productive for the long term greater good of all of the biodiversity.
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LarryKealy @ .... many posts!
Larry,
If a debate was to be settled on volume of output alone, you would win every time! However, the problem is that the most of points you make are merely unsubstantiated assertions.
I also fear that you are confusing the terms "forcing" and "feedback".
In the case of the ice age/interglacial scenario, CO2 is a feedback because its concentration is responding to changes in temperature and merely amplifying the warming and cooling trends. In this situation, the effect of CO2 can obviously be negative as well as positive - it is negative when the concentration in the atmosphere falls.
In the present scenario, CO2 levels are rising consistently due to Man's activities and CO2 has become the forcing.
"Paul, you missed the whole point – there are feedbacks and they are interrelated. Under some conditions that we really don’t understand yet, CO2 reaches a certain point and this negative feedback kicks in big time, causing temperatures to decrease dramatically. This in itself would imply that sensitivity to CO2 is not constant but depends upon a variety of conditions and feedbacks which are interrelated."
No, I didn't miss the point at all. You have nothing to support what you are saying. I also refer you to the points I made above regarding the difference between feedback and forcing.
"See – now here is a scenario where feedbacks from CO2 forcing (and other forcings) cause the beginning of the interglacial period."
..... but it's NOT a forcing in the interglacial scenario, Larry!
"Why do I waste my words? Under a certain set of conditions and circumstances, one would find a value for sensitivity – change any of the variables associated with the feedbacks and forcings, and sensitivity would evaluate to a different value. It cannot be constant."
I think IPCC AR4 makes it quite clear why the scientists have dealt with the present scenario the way they have. Within the boundaries of the fixed points approach that the scientists use, the effect of CO2 on temperature is ASSUMED to be linear and in practice models constructed using this approach work well.
I fully understand the point you are making - the relationship isn't strictly linear (and the scientists don't pretend that it is). However, I put it to you that if you had been in the scientists shoes you might have reached the same conclusion they did.
Simply rubbishing the scientists' work on blogs such as this, when they have been perfectly open about their decisions and approach, achieves nothing (except perhaps to gain kudos with sceptics). As I said, feel free to tell the scientists that you could do it better!
"@Paul Briscoe - I take it from your words that you imply that you are aware of the assumptions made by the 'vast majority' of climate scientists. In order to back this claim up, one would have expected that you personally read the vast majority of papers written by the vast majority of climate scientists and reviewed their assumptions to provide a comparison."
We've discussed this point before, Larry. I don't have time to read lots of scientific literature, so I do have to take certain things on trust. The point here is that IPCC AR4 describes the approach used in general terms. They have no reason to lie and that is sufficient for me. Can you honestly say that you have read every paper by every scientist? ....... yet you are criticising the scientists en masse!
"Paul actually pointed me to an article which is supposed to explain why the tenets of chaos theory (and non-linear dynamics) do not apply to Earth’s Climate System. This was supposedly written by a ‘climate scientist’. Well, the guy understands just enough of the math to be dangerous – but not to prove anything. And it turns out that he is not a ‘climate scientist’ but rather a biologist who has an ‘unprofessional interest’ in climate modeling. And Paul takes this guys word like its gospel and you can’t get him to admit to any doubt or skepticism whatsoever."
In fact, the article I linked to affirms descriptions of the same thing from other sources. I also made another post on the subject with some additional thoughts of my own. You express OPINIONS to the contrary, but that is all they are.
Now, it being Mother's Day here in the UK, I have other things I need to be doing!
Paul
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#211 JaneBasingstoke wrote:
"If the solubility and the extra CO2 were exactly balanced then yes it would be excellent news or at least neutral news. Unfortunately there is more CO2 dissolved in seawater. And when CO2 dissolves in water it reduces the pH, making the seawater less alkaline. This causes problems for corals, snails and other organisms with exposed calcium based skeletons."
Apologies for mentioning religion again, but I think unacknowledged, residual religious assumptions corrupt this entire debate. And I think you have just assumed that "there is a way things were meant to be" -- a religious assumption.
As a rule of thumb, I tend to discount claims that there is a "delicate balance" anywhere in nature, although I realize you haven't quite made that claim yourself.
Why? -- Such claims amount to the idea that there is an exact balance which is in unstable equilibrium, like a round boulder at the top of a mountain, waiting for the slightest disturbance to send it crashing down. I think you are assuming something like that in what you just wrote.
But there simply cannot be many such "situations of unstable equilibrium" in nature, because nature is constantly in flux, and constantly undergoing minor disturbances of the sort that would lead to major disaster if a "balance" were in unstable equiulibrium.
Wherever we see "exact balances" in nature, we can be reasonably confident that nature itself has settled on them. We can see this happening all over the place, for example, with predators and prey. Their numbers oscillate around a "correct" value for each, and even their respective maximum running speeds converge so that they become finely tuned to match each other. This is an "exact balance", sure, but it is one that nature itself achieves naturally, it is in stable equilibrium, and most importantly it isn't part of a divine plan.
There just isn't a "way things were meant to be". Most AGW anxieties are "religious" because they assume that "we humans are wrecking God's plan". What a load of unthinking rot!
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OldTerry2 at #215 says bizarrely:-
‘….SIGH. If you actually bothered to look at the data you would find that although the 2010 data is higher than the 2009 data, it is actually slap in the range observed between 2000 and 2004….’
How do you guys misrepresent data like this? You are totally wrong for 2000 to 2004. What data are you actually looking at!
Near surface temperatures for 2010 are currently running at about 1 deg centigrade higher than 2000 to 2004.
What is the source of your false assertion? If you’re just going to make stuff up you need to frequent the appropriate ‘conspiracy theory website’.
Retraction please!
http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/
Trends – Near surface layer.
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So Kambos-oil at #185 claims ‘stridently’ that everything with respect to rainfall and temperatures on Cyprus is stable.
Shame so many others don’t share his confidence.
‘…..The forecasts for Cyprus predict that, by the end of this century, the highest day temperatures will increase by 3.5 degrees centigrade in coastal areas and by 4.5 degrees inland, while rainfall will decrease by 20 to 40%.....’
‘…..We can expect to have 60 more hot days with temperatures higher than 35 degrees centigrade each year and two more months of tropical nights with lowest temperatures above 25 centigrade. Drought periods will increase by one month per year. And all of this points to the extreme importance of the whole planet, and Cyprus in particular….’
‘….The main threats to the environment in Cyprus, continued Professor Panayotou, stem from the expected decrease of rainfall by 20 – 40% by the end of the century, which can lead to the desertification of Cyprus…’
http://www.ciim.ac.cy/easyconsole.cfm/id/1446
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The Met Office is apparently making forecasts that are (trying to be nice) not very good.
I think that the problem lies with the Met Office using their climate modeling software to forecast the weather.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6320515.stm
Now check the statement by the Met Office at the top of this page.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climatechange/science/projections/
To me it reads like they are relay guessing. All the weasel words like:
- project plausible scenarios
- limitations on our knowledge
- Different climate models can give different projections
- uncertainty in climate prediction
"Project plausible scenarios" just who decides what is plausible. This sound very subjective and in no way objective.
"Uncertainty in climate prediction" what do they do chuck out the ones that come out all beer and skittles. When one does come out all beer and skittles, do they tweak it some more so the results come out all doom and gloom then leak it to the press?
Any one who wants to bet the farm on what amounts to a very costly computer game has to be three bricks short of a load.
Worse yet you Brits are paying for this. To see how much.
http://dailybayonet.com/?p=2683
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Cariboo at #234 says:-
‘….The instrumental record seems to have been massaged, frequently…..’
What is your source for this false assertion?
Please don’t say Anthony Watts.
Do you even understand that the surface instrument record has nothing to do with the satellite record?
By the way cariboo (#166), if the polar bear likes warmer temperatures (never was a more bizarre assertion made!) enlighten us all
a) Why it hasn’t previously been found in Wyoming?
b) Why is its coat white and not brown?
At least you do confirm that there is a long term warming trend in Northern Canada. Thanks.
I wish you guys would stop just making anything you like up. It just makes you all appear more and more uninformed.
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Cariboo, please…
The Met office and Hansen (GISS) have predicted last year that there was a 50 % chance that 2010 would be the hottest year in the instrument record. All kudos to them so far.
That is certainly the way it looks so far from the satellite data.
I don’t think you have any evidence to be so ‘relaxed’ about the long term prognosis for the global climate - especially in Northern Canada – unless we cut carbon emissions pretty quickly.
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It's mothers day in the UK and there is a touch of globe-in-the-sky warming( it is sunny), we should all be off to admire mother nature while the sun shines :-)
Enjoy the fray. I am off to enjoy the day.
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@241. thinkforyourself
if the polar bear likes warmer temperatures (never was a more bizarre assertion made!) enlighten us all
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=1ea8233f-14da-4a44-b839-b71a9e5df868
http://www.nnsl.com/northern-news-services/stories/papers/sep17_07bear.html
http://www.polarbearsinternational.org/polar-bears/what-the-experts-say
Me thinks you need to stop thinking for your self and do a little googleing.
a) Why it hasn’t previously been found in Wyoming?
Wyoming was a warm wet climate so you would get brown bears (grizzly bears).
b) Why is its coat white and not brown?
Would that be adaption? The grizzly bear and polar bear are genetically very close, so close that the polar bear is considered an adaption of the grizzly bear. The range of polar bears and grizzly bears do overlap and the do interbreed.
‘….The instrumental record seems to have been massaged, frequently…..’
What is your source for this false assertion?
Where is your evidence that it is a false assertion. Don't have any do you.
Please don’t say Anthony Watts.
Would you prefer Steve McIntyre or Tim Ball? No I do not suppose you would.
I know you do not like wattsupwiththat but you should read this. It is not the original work of Anthony Watts but rather where it can be found.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/08/the-smoking-gun-at-darwin-zero/
and this
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/25/uh-oh-raw-data-in-new-zealand-tells-a-different-story-than-the-official-one/
I wish you guys would stop just making anything you like up. It just makes you all appear more and more uninformed.
You seem to have sprung a venom leak.
And just who is uninformed?
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Thinkforyourself
The Met Office and Hansen have predicted that nearly every year in the past 5 would be "the hottest ever". Eventually one would think they must be right.
The year 2007 looked pretty good until we got to July, but after only 2 warm months of 2010 and the El Nino beginning to fade, my money is still on 1998 (or possibly 1934?).
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@242. thinkforyourself
Cariboo, please…
The Met office and Hansen (GISS) have predicted last year that there was a 50 % chance that 2010 would be the hottest year in the instrument record. All kudos to them so far.
There is a 50% chance that I can flip a coin and get heads.
If you are correct 50% of the time then you are wrong 50% of the time. Perhaps a better way of judging this would be to see what the guys in the betting shop are giving for odds. The seem to get their sum right.
I don’t think you have any evidence
I did not claim to have evidence, I just found it amusing that some people put so much faith (the absolute belief in the absolutely unprovable) in the results of climate model assumptions based on "plausible scenarios" and "limited knowledge".
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More on the Polar Bear in Alaska:-
‘….. Arctic National Wildlife Refuge - Global warming is causing the McCall glacier to retreat up the flanks of the Brooks Range and the loss of sea ice off the shore of the Arctic Refuge threatens many marine mammals, particularly the polar bear, which is vulnerable to extinction……
…….According to a 2007 study by the United States Geological Survey, two-thirds of the world's polar bears – including the entire Alaska population - could disappear by 2050 as global warming continues to melt the Arctic's sea ice……
……In 2004 scientists found four dead polar bears floating in the ocean 60 miles offshore of northern Alaska, at a time when the polar ice cap had retreated a record 160 miles north of Alaska’s coasts……’
http://www.alaskawild.org/
So, according to a 2007 study by the United States Geological Survey, two-thirds of the world's polar bears could disappear by 2050.
Quote:-
‘…..5. Concluding Remarks ….Climate model simulations are in universal accord that greenhouse gas increases will cause Arctic sea ice cover to decline, with the greatest reductions occurring at the end of the summer melt season…..
…… The physical principles underlying this behavior are simple and well established: the decline is a consequence of the heat-trapping effect of greenhouse gases and the inherent sensitivity of sea ice to a warming climate, particularly due to the sea ice-albedo feedback…….
……. A further consistency in climate simulations is the uneven latitudinal distribution of global warming, which always has its greatest simulated impact in the high northern latitudes……
…The models also simulate the recent decreasing trends in area and extent of sea ice, although the September extent trend is underestimated……
…..The implication is that, if anything, models may be too conservative in their estimates of the rate of future decline……….
……..Sea ice decline in future projections is linked to the present-day sea ice simulation. Thus, a selection criterion based on present-day model performance should be used to choose a subset of models for use in considerations of future polar bear habitat loss……’
http://www.usgs.gov/
Note the words –
‘The physical principles underlying this behavior are simple and well established: the decline is a consequence of the heat-trapping effect of greenhouse gases and the inherent sensitivity of sea ice to a warming climate, particularly due to the sea ice-albedo feedback’.
.A completely opposite conclusion to the ‘assessment’ by Cariboo at post #166.
Should we believe anonymous blogposters or the USGS, who actually have to justify their findings…..?
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Cariboo. So, based on your ‘opinions’ - you have no concerns whatsoever about anthropogenic global warming? Just so we are clear.
Good luck.
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Cariboo
This from your posting at #244
(‘methinks’ you should read stuff you post)
‘…..Today the threat polar bears face is loss of the sea ice habitat essential to their survival.
…..Polar bears rely on sea-ice habitat to hunt, breed, and, in some cases, den. In 2009, the summer melt-off in the Arctic was equal to the size of Alaska, Texas, and the state of Washington combined—a shrinkage that was not predicted to happen until 2040…..
….Today the polar bears’ hunting season is significantly shorter, which has led to a scientifically documented decline of 22% since 1987 in the best-studied population, Western Hudson Bay, and predictions of decline in the second best-studied population, the Southern Beaufort Sea…..
…..Southern Beaufort Sea bears are showing the same signs of stress—such as smaller adults and fewer yearling bears—that the Western Hudson Bay bears did before they crashed……’
http://www.polarbearsinternational.org/polar-bears/what-the-experts-say
If your source is always Anthony Watts I can see why you are confused.
Ask Anthony about the satellite record. He’ll probably have an answer for you.
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@thinkforyourself (just in general)
You realize you sound like you've gone insane, right? Most of the others are starting to realize that you can't just take this rubber stamped pseudo-science as fact. You're acting as if warming is accelerating...while temperatures are actually stagnating. Even if temperatures had continued at the warming rate of the 80s and 90s we would have only reached an anomaly of about 2C by 2100...but it just hasn't continued. Snap out of it man! SEEK HELP!
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Would perfect/better climate models change the conclusion that the earth's average temperature is increasing and anthropogenic CO2 is largely responsible?
The answer is probably no. There are extremely good reasons for this (not least that the current crop of models are extremely good at hindcasting the last 100 years). The possible level of uncertainty created by not knowing how cloud feedback works, or the other poorly understood feedbacks, are small compared to the effect of increasing CO2. We know this because of ensemble runs. Lindzen basically argues against the entire field when he says this is not the case - one view amongst hundreds, yet for some reason there are a bunch of rank amateurs who will trust what he, and a handful of other rogues, says over the vast majority. Why trust an extreme view? Do you even realise that you are supporting an extreme, unsupported view? This is symptomatic of the cult of the amateur layman in the internet age - it is dangerous. Scepticism should be channeled through the scientific literature.
People can accuse me of not being able to show scepticism. This is bizarre. Does not supporting the extreme view indicate an unfair dismissal of sceptic arguments? No, it just means I am basing my view on the most sensible, balanced information. If you don't agree, publish a paper than rips apart the current thinking.
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@LarryKealey #225
"Sea of Cortez"
This isn't a pure temperature thing. It's a nutrients and currents thing. That is why I gave a link to the NASA chlorophyll map.
Here's a higher resolution link, again Northern Hemisphere summer. I think it demonstrates both my point and yours.
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2008/images/globe1.jpg
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@bowmanthebard #237
Do you know that Douglas Adams line about a sentient puddle "waking up one morning" finding itself in a hole that is the perfect shape for it?
http://www.biota.org/people/douglasadams/
Have you ever heard the phrase "just in time"?
It's part of a business philosophy that says we can't afford any slack. We need to perfectly take advantage of the business niches we find available.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-in-time_(business)
And that's our civilisation now. No slack. Everything just-in-time.
There are also limits to how fast organisms can adapt to changing circumstances.
All in all, the situation is a bit like someone put jelly powder in Douglas Adams's sentient puddle making it set, or at least extremely viscous.
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@thinkforyourself, @Caribo
The myth of the 'declining Polar Bear rises once again - just as Polar Bear populations have grown from an estimated 6,000 bears some 30 years ago to over 25,000 bears today.
Here is an interesting article about the Polar Bear:
http://www.examiner.com/x-32936-Seminole-County-Environmental-News-Examiner~y2010m1d8-Canadas-growing-polar-bear-population-becoming-a-problem-locals-say?cid=exrss-Seminole-County-Environmental-News-Examiner
It would appear the locals in Canada are having issues with the growing polar bear populations...
And whoever said Wyoming is warm and wet needs to spend a (very long) winter there...lol...its too cold there even in the summer (very short summer) for my tastes...
As for the 'Brown Polar Bear' - they are very rare and considered a great omen by the intuit and others. Polar Bears are not turning brown because it is getting 'warmer'...LOL.
The USGS has been known to be almost as prominent scaremongers regarding the Polar bear as the WWF. Polar Bears eat a lot more than seals and have no problem getting along during a warm summer without local sea ice. Note, all the USGS reports on Polar Bears use the words if, possibly, could, maybe and the like - while ignoring the fact that the population has increased some 5 or 6 fold in the last 30 years, 'while the world was warming'...LOL
Cheers.
Kealey
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@Jane,
Thanks for the map - but with no story to go with it...it does not really tell me a whole lot.
I would expect more intense chlorophyll blooms in the arctic regions as the season is so short. Also, the 'rich' waters of the North Atlantic have a lot to do with the Gulf Stream - which starts down here were I live and brings very warm water all the way up there where you are ;).
The blue patches in open ocean make sense as well - you have deep ocean upwelling and a completely different ecosystem than in the shallow waters of the continental shelf.
The waters of the sea of cortex look pretty inviting to me. ;)
Cheers.
Kealey
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@LarryKealey #255
"I would expect more intense chlorophyll blooms in the arctic regions as the season is so short."
This effect is not confined to either hemisphere's summer.
http://www.seafriends.org.nz/issues/global/greening.jpg
"The blue patches in open ocean make sense as well - you have deep ocean upwelling and a completely different ecosystem than in the shallow waters of the continental shelf."
Well that explains why the maps show chlorophyll relatively close to land. It doesn't explain the differences between chlorophyll in deep ocean at different lattitudes.
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#253 JaneBasingstoke wrote:
"Have you ever heard the phrase "just in time"?"
Not sure I understand that! Nor am I sure I get the "moral" of Douglas Adams's puddle and hole... That we tend to think the world was made for us, but in fact it's the other way round?
Fine -- the world made us, we are its natural products, we are not so different from all the other living things that inhabit it, or at least not as different as we tend to imagine.
"There are also limits to how fast organisms can adapt to changing circumstances."
Actually, despite what people often say, organisms don't adapt to changing circumstances. Every individual organism dies, no matter what happens, leaving behind descendants that may be more or less like it. What adapts is not an organism, or even organisms (plural), but the line of descent. And it seems to me to be pretty unimportant which direction a line of descent takes. Nor is it important whether its route can "twist and turn" fast enough to prevent some other line of descent taking over the niche that it used to occupy. That is really all that is involved when a line of descent successfully adapts to changing circumstances, or fails to do so, so that success belongs instead to some other line of descent. There is no extra suffering or cruelty involved in either process, just the usual amount of each as change occurs.
If the seas get warmer and increasing acidity causes one line of descent of shellfish, say, to be replaced by another line of descent of something else (most likely another kind of shellfish), why should that bother anyone?
I think it only bothers those who fear that we might be "disrupting God's plan for the world". I'm not one of them!
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@bowmanthebard #233
@LarryKealey #255
"No, I'm wondering why "ocean circulation supplying other nutrients to surface waters" occurs less in warmer waters than cooler waters, as it would if it is the cause of the correlataion you mentioned earlier between warmth and clarity." bowmanthebard
"Also, the 'rich' waters of the North Atlantic have a lot to do with the Gulf Stream - which starts down here were I live and brings very warm water all the way up there where you are ;)." LarryKealey
The temperature thing isn't absolute, temperatures affect currents, but so does topology. The mechanism is temperature induced stratification. Warm surface waters are much less dense than cool bottom waters and therefore much more resistant to mixing. This reduces deep ocean nutrients reaching the surface photosynthesisers.
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#255 LarryKealey wrote:
"the Gulf Stream - which starts down here were I live and brings very warm water all the way up there where you are ;)."
As I guy who swims through the summer and into as much as I can of the autumn, I assure you the water here isn't "very warm", or even slightly warm. James Joyce more accurately described the seas around here as "snotgreen" and "scrotumtightening"!
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#239 Thinkfor yourself or should we just call you "noclueatall"
You need to look at things before you post your links and think. Your supposed expert was laughed off the Island.
I would agree with better infrastructure the rest as both the current gov't and the previous totally and correctly ignored it.
What do you expect from a third rate private organisation that failed in it's core principal and has tried to re-invent itself has an education establishment.
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@249, thinkforyourself wrote:
“ …. scientifically documented decline of 22% since 1987 in the best-studied population, Western Hudson Bay …. “
There is substantial evidence that polar bear numbers have increased since the 1980s with present estimates of between 25,000 and 40,000.
Most populations are poorly studied but rather than study these populations, where numbers are believed to be increasing, a region where numbers are declining is studied over and over again.
As for the bears found dead, it is widely accepted that they died in a storm or do you suggest that more than 100 miles of ice instantly melted leaving them unable to swim to shore?
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@bowmanthebard #257
I know you don't like clicking on links. I know you like people here to prove they understand the stuff they write about without relying on links and preferably without even quoting the words of others.
But sometimes links complement what people say rather than just doing the work of explaining stuff. Some links may genuinely interest you. (I thought you'd like the Douglas Adams link.) Some explanations may be too good to ignore and good to just borrow without crediting the author. And some stuff just works better with pictures.
[sigh]
OK. In my own words.
We have fine tuned our civilisation to the planet in its current state. This is business in action. There is no slack. If we speed up the rate at which the planet changes its state we will have problems retuning our civilisation to cope.
Does that sound religious?
Other species are also adapted to the planet in its current state. If that state changes too fast then migration and evolution may have problems keeping up. In the short term this is liable to cause problems. In the longer term species will adapt. But we have to live with any short term effects before the longer term adaptations kick in.
Also we may not like some of the adaptations. For instance, if we create a selective pressure against vertebrate fish like tuna, then jellyfish and squid may replace tuna in that niche.
Any religion there?
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#noclueatall generally today, is this the great loss of sea ice you are talking about
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_daily_extent.png
sorry that is 2 weeks old maybe it all disappeared by now???
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#203 Hang on a minute Jane, you said that "COs is less soluble in warm sea water".
How?
Heat and motion are exacly the right combination, to dissolve a gas in a liquid.
or are you pointing at the potential problem of CA ions being more active with other elements within the liquid.
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#248. thinkforyourself
Cariboo. So, based on your ‘opinions’ - you have no concerns whatsoever about anthropogenic global warming?
My concern is that megela maniacs who would cause starvation by advocating bio fuels, wind farms as a panacea for getting off carbon fuels. The list of stupid ideas goes on and on.
We use fossil fuels because to date there is no other viable alternative. The only clean source of energy we have is hydro electric and that has ecological drawbacks.
Burning oil is burning up a chemical soup that has far more useful properties. When a source of energy is discovered that has the energy density of fossil fuels and is affordable we can all switch over.
You seem to have a lot of mouth. I challenge you to put you money where your mouth is. Have nothing and use nothing that has a fossil fuel component. Until you that you are just one far too many who know how the rest of us should lead our lives and you will do your worst to enforce your will on the rest of us.
Tell me what I must do and I will ignore you, show me and .....
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@Kamboshigh #264
I gather it's something to do with Henry's Law. Henry's Law is about the solubility of gases at a constant temperature, but it involves a constant that changes with temperature.
I also gather that it isn't one of the disputed issues amongst the scientists, although debaters may have different takes on its implications.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry%27s_law#Temperature_dependence_of_the_Henry_constant
There's an easy way to check it. Get a chilled bottle of fizzy drink. Pour out identical amounts into two identical glasses. Stick one glass in the fridge. Leave the other glass in a warm room. See which goes flat sooner.
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@254. LarryKealey
@thinkforyourself, @Caribo
It is Cariboo (2 O's), it is the region where I live.
And whoever said Wyoming is warm and wet needs to spend a (very long) winter there...lol...its too cold there even in the summer (very short summer) for my tastes...
The question re no polar bears in Wyoming, I found so ludicus I was thinking of the fossil record. Wyoming being where there are dinasour fossils. Deumheller in Alberta has more though, it was once warm and wet.
It would appear the locals in Canada are having issues with the growing polar bear populations...
Where I live it is black bears, almost vermin. Lots of cougers as well.
An hour away I can find the largest heard of Californa Big Hornd Sheep in North America. Wolves have almost decimated the Mountain Caribou in the Cariboo Mountains.
The wildlife seems to like "global warming", there may be a lesson here.
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Cariboo @ #244
Thinkforyourself was indeed correct about not trusting Anthony Watts' site as a source of reliable information.
Here are explanations of why the 2 articles on his site about "fiddled" temperature data are utterly wrong:
http://www.gilestro.tk/2009/lots-of-smoke-hardly-any-gun-do-climatologists-falsify-data/
http://hot-topic.co.nz/nz-sceptics-lie-about-temp-records-try-to-smear-top-scientist/
I can perhaps forgive Willis Eschenbach for getting it wrong, as he maybe didn't understand the principle behind the adjustment, which makes the data more useful for detecting trends without introducing any bias. Having said that, I've seen no retraction at Watts up with That...... and as you have proved, the original fallacious claim is still there just waiting to misinform people such as you!
However, Richard Treadgold and the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition had actually been told about the adjustments to the New Zealand data. I hate the word "lie", but "misrepresentation" is certainly in order!
You might also want to read the following:
http://zero132132.wordpress.com/2010/03/14/the-role-of-personal-attacks-in-the-climate-change-debate/
and:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/25/uea-rejects-lost-data-claims
and possibly:
http://deepclimate.org/2010/03/10/mcclimategate-continues-yet-another-false-accusation-from-mcintyre-and-mckitrick/
It is oh so easy for internet bloggers to make spurious allegations, as they can do so without any fear of comeback. The bottom line is that I have seen NO real evidence of fraud, misrepresentation or falsification by climate scientists.
Paul
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@264. Kamboshigh
#203 Hang on a minute Jane, you said that "COs is less soluble in warm sea water".
How?
There is a simple test, open a warm bottle of coke and a cold bottle of coke. See wich one goes flat first. If you must know how then research it.
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Janebasingstoke @ #266
(and Kamoshigh)
"There's an easy way to check it. Get a chilled bottle of fizzy drink. Pour out identical amounts into two identical glasses. Stick one glass in the fridge. Leave the other glass in a warm room. See which goes flat sooner."
Even more convincing...... take 2 bottles of fizzy water, put one in the fridge and the other in front of the fire, leave for an hour...... and then unscrew the lids. You might need a sowester for the bottle that's been in front of the fire!!
Yes, the solubility of most gases in water decreases with increasing temperature. There are exceptions (I seem to remember that hydrogen sulphide is one), but CO2 is not one of them. I have considerable experience of this phenomenon from brewing beer!
Paul
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Larry Kealey posts from the Examiner.com at #254 to an article hedged about with so many ifs and buts it renders it meaningless. And this is why:-
‘…The Examiner.com is a media company based in Denver, Colorado, that operates a network of hyperlocal news websites, allowing citizen journalists to share their city-based knowledge on a blog-like platform….the primary investor being conservative businessman, billionaire Philip Anshutz, owner of Anshutz Entertainment Group (AEG), Regal Cinemas, and other media and entertainment companies….’
Hardly an unbiased source, Larry. I thought you only dealt in ‘hard’ science?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Examiner.com
However, reading through the article you find a link to the Nunavut Territiory which is interesting.:-
When you follow that link it says:-
‘….Over the past 150 years, abundant scientific data has demonstrated that the earth's climate has become warmer, and that the warming has been accelerating over the past two decades. This change in the climate has become a global issue of concern. This map series aims to provide policy makers, researchers and the general public with a geographical perspective to climate change. The series also attempts to integrate human activities and the environment, and links science and government policy……’
http://atlas.nrcan.gc.ca/site/english/maps/climatechange
Hardly a ringing endorsement of the newspaper item, is it? There are other links to human emissions and societal responses. Pretty much debunks the whole article.
They also have an interesting map of likely temperatures in Northern Canada by 2050.
4 to 6 deg C warmer to the north of Alaska and northern Canada. If I lived in this region I don’t think I would this complacent, especially for those under thirty. But they’re probably not posting here, more’s the pity.
This was after all a link in your post Larry!
http://atlas.nrcan.gc.ca/site/english/maps/climatechange/scenarios/globalannualtemp2050
As for poitsplace at #250.
Not nice to describe someone as insane. People with psychotic illness have a very difficult time indeed, without your crude jokes. This kind of thing is the last resort of the desperate.
Nobody has ever understood any of your pseudo-nonsense posts that you claim are science, anyway.
Poor old Rob at #261 thinks he’s quoting me when in fact he’s quoting an article in another article posted by fellow ‘sceptic’ Cariboo. Unfortunately for both of you he didn’t read the article before posting. Probably just copied and pasted direct from Anthony.
Kambos-oil at #263 doesn’t realise that water freezes in the Arctic winter, when the sun is either constantly below the horizon or only just above it. But he never lets the facts get in the way of a good story. Let’s see how this develops during the summer sea ice melt, especially with the warm sea surface temperatures showing up in the satellite record at the moment.
http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/
Trends – Sea surface layer.
Still nothing from OldTerry2 regarding his colossal misrepresentation of the recent satellite record for near surface temperatures – but don’t hold your breath anyone – like Anthony Watts, ‘sceptics’ never retract their errors (but expect everyone else to):-
http://climateprogress.org/2010/03/11/wattergate-tamino-debunks-anthony-watts-wattsupwiththat/
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216. SR wrote:
"Why did it have to be 7.4W/m^2 at 280ppm? I'm confused by that. Can you explain that please?"
Because as the radiative forcing effect is logaritmic wrt CO2 density and you get a 3.7W/sqm going from 280 to 560 ppm simple arithmetic gives you a 7.4W/sqm effect in going from 0 to 280ppm.
"Secondly, CO2 contributes about 20% to the radiative forcing of the natural greenhouse effect, with water vapour contributing 50%."
Sorry but 20% is way way too high - that would put the base CO2 radiative forcing near 70W/sqm and that would imply that doubling the CO2 would give rise to about 35W/sqm - that's 10 times the IPCC claim.
" More important than this, however, is that CO2 is the 'control knob'. If CO2 goes up, water vapour responds by going up too."
Yes but by how much is the big question? From the IPPC report the WP level doesn't seem to be that sensitive - and then in what direction is the forcing, given that increased water vapour gives two components - an increase in RF from water vapour concentrations and a decrease in RF due to the albedo from increased cloud cover. Ploughing through the IPCC report implies an overall negative RF between 1980 and 2005 (but making that deduction requires pulling together numbers from different pages - it would have been so much more sensible if they had done the aggregation).
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in 217. SR wrote:
""oldterry2 said
SIGH. If you actually bothered to look at the data you would find that although the 2010 data is higher than the 2009 data, it is actually slap in the range observed between 2000 and 2004.""
"Are you sure you are looking at the right graph?"
Yes, the AMSU temperature trends - those graphs show that this year is slap in the 2000-2004 values for heights 25000ft and higher and unfortunately the sea level results don't go back to 2000. It is only at the one height 14,000 feet that 2010 seems high.
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Cariboo at #265 says:-
‘….Until you that you are just one far too many who know how the rest of us should lead our lives and you will do your worst to enforce your will on the rest of us.
Tell me what I must do and I will ignore you, show me and .....’
No, Cariboo, you and many other ‘sceptics’ are completely wrong to attempt to portray this issue as some sort of ‘enforcement’ conspiracy.
In fact, the trouble is that by continuing to obfuscate and undermine perfectly sound scientific findings, ‘sceptics’ are confusing the public and creating a political atmosphere where it is becoming more and more difficult for governments across the world to decide to act in weaning all of us off fossil fuels.
The longer we leave it the more dependent humanity becomes on the carbon economy and the harder it becomes to move to alternatives. We could have started this process thirty years ago, when the alarm was first sounded, and we would be well on the way now but by continually spreading doubt about the science, fossil fuel industries have helped to back humanity into a corner.
That is all. No left wing conspiracy, just plain scientific fact and bucket loads of common sense.
So to your point. The way forward for you, me and everyone else is to accept we have this problem and help governments make the changes necessary.
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oldterry @272
"Because as the radiative forcing effect is logaritmic wrt CO2 density and you get a 3.7W/sqm going from 280 to 560 ppm simple arithmetic gives you a 7.4W/sqm effect in going from 0 to 280ppm."
This arithmetic is incorrect. VERY incorrect. Think of a graph. The Y axis is radiative forcing. The X axis is CO2 concentration. The logarithmic relationship means that radative forcing goes up by a certain amount for every doubling of CO2. CO2 doubles at a faster rate as lower concentrations, for instance, from 1 to 2, 2 to 4, 4 to 8, 8 to 16, 16 to 32....each one of these jumps is equal to the jump from 280 to 560 (~3.7 W/m^2). This accounts for the graph going up really fast to start up with then saturating. Hopefully now you will realise that you have seriously underestimated the role of CO2 in the natural greenhouse effect.
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OldTerry2 amazes us with this statement at #273:-
‘…..It is only at the one height 14,000 feet that 2010 seems high……’
Carefully ignoring the near surface temperature (about 1 deg C above the 2000-2004 value) and the sea surface.
Correct us if we’re wrong, Terry, but I think that we and all other species, plus the ice sheets, reside at or near the earth’s surface and definitely below 25000 feet!
You do win today’s most incredible factual doublethink award, however.
It’s like the Tee-Shirt I saw which said:-
‘2+2=5. But only for very large values of 2.’
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Thinkshecansavetheworld: We could have started this process thirty years ago, when the alarm was first sounded, and we would be well on the way now but by continually spreading doubt about the science, fossil fuel industries have helped to back humanity into a corner.
You mean to say that you and your ilk sounded the alarm thirty years ago.
Gosh and we are still around and alive discussing thermageddon?
I figured by the reckoning of you and your ilk we should all have drowned or starved by now.
I guess this time you alarmists really really really really mean it - the great climate wolf is really really really really about to kill all the sheeple.
And you call man-made warming skeptics "conspiracy crazies"?
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To LarryKealey #229; & to All:
\\\ Climate Change at Skoki Lodge - Main Ranges, Canadian Rockies ///
No summit this time Larry. A friend and I intended to ski into Skoki Lodge, accessible by backcountry ski-in, some twelve kilometers from Lake Louise Ski Resort. This is a rustic log cabin, originally put up in the early 1900's, and into final form, more or less, in 1936.
The main ridge timber was brought in by by Ken Jones, a famous Canadian guide, in an epic feat, in that year. I had the pleasure to meet Ken several times at Skoki when he was in his nineties.
With a twinkle in his eye, he regalled me with stories of his past, and once, when I was considering a risky exit route, he simply said, again with the same twinkle, "Mike, I've always been very careful in the mountains."
Anyway, my friend and I arrived just as the skies were clearing after six to ten centimeters of new snow down low and twenty up high, thanks to a dead accurate Environment Canada forecast, and away we went. We changed our minds an hour later, and were set to climb a nearby mountain by a thread the needle route, as the avalanche danger was 'High' yesterday. But the ski patrol wouldn't let us, as the route involved passing through 'their territory' into off limits terrain - so we deferred and went to Skoki, our original target.
Over Deception Pass and down in lightly wind-packed fresh snow to the lodge.
A homey conversation ensued between myself principally, and two former Czeck/Slovak citizens, an older couple with thick accents, in for tea, like ourselves.
Global warming came up - how surprising!
The gemtleman said in all honesty, "but wasn't there a lot of ice sitting right here in the last ice-age, and it went away naturally," the implication clearly that natural cycles were capable of doing away with hundreds of meters of glacial ice all by themselves, and no industrial man.
We comically started invoking volcanic eruptions to cool our rapidly warming planet, for he was totally aware that the North in particular was warming quickly.
A lot of fun, positioning 'tropical volcanoes only,' for maximum effect, and of requisite size, of course. Geoengineering/terraforming at Skoki Lodge.
On a more serious note, this conversation highlighted for me one of the main problems in conveying to the population at large the AGW argument.
But I noticed very clearly the same worried and concerned wrinkles around the eyes of this couple as regards AGW - just as reported by Richard Wagamese the Ojibway writer I have linked to in earlier posts.
This couple was 'aware,' rightly worried, and 'in doubt' as to cause.
And why should they not be!
I have been following the thread here on this post - we're getting pretty technical.
However, the result is the same I think.
Normal people, like this couple, will be unable to make heads nor tails of differential equations, and highly specialized rebuttals and counterpoint etc..., which coincidentally, or not, has the effect of distracting the public, or even driving them away, from the central findings of empirical science and evidence:
CO2 hasn't been this high in at least fifteen million years.
The world's ice is melting everywhere - atop tropical mountains, and at both poles, and in the temperate regions, and the rate is accelerating these last three decades.
Sea Level is rising, at something like one point six times the predicted rate of the IPCC scenario.
Virtually all mainstream science is of the opinion that this is primarily due to increasing CO2, and that the main culprit is industrial energy related CO2 emissions from the fossil fuel industry.
===============================
I applaud your work on modeling - James Hansen would applaud it too I imagine - all the while pointing out, as he has always done, that models are the weakest link in this whole AGW debate.
We need the Cinderella of Science, Field Studies, to ratchet up to whatever level it takes to make or break the case for AGW due to Fossil Fuel Emissions.
And, coincidentally, or not, in Canada, this is where the business as usual government in power of Stephen Harper IS CASTRATING FUNDING.
I wonder - did he read The Art of War by Sun Tzu?
- Manysummits -
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Shadorne at #277 comes on with his usual ‘Mr.Angry’ nonsense but forgets his usual good debating manners and his ‘lexicon’ of ‘putdowns including but not limited to,
Koolaid
Circling the wagons
The sky is falling
Chickenlittle.
Etc.
Of rational scientific discussion came there none. Just plain weird.
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@249. thinkforyourself
‘…..Today the threat polar bears face is loss of the sea ice habitat essential to their survival.
Obviously you find thonking something through is difficult for you. Are you one of those who have had all vestiages of common sence educated away?
Why do polar bears go onto the sea ice? That is where they find their lunch, seals that is.
Why do seals haul out onto sea ice? There are no beaches.
What if there were no sea ice? There would be beaches.
What if there were beaches? Seals would haul out onto the beaches.
Now where do you suppose polar bears are going to be lunching. That is between lounging around on the beach while wearing the latest designer shades.
I have no proof of this but common sence would lead any thinking person along these lines. More to the point can you prove that the senario is false. I leave this up to you as you seem to know all about everything.
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Thankyouforscaringme,
It looks like skeptics now have the full weight of the LAW on their side.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7061162.ece
Thank goodness for checks and balances in democracy - inventing unsubstantiated alarmist doomsday stories and trying to pass if off as the truth or as science is NOT PERMITTED even when perpetrated by Governments using taxpayers funds.
Now if only we can get unjustified the EPA CO2 endangerment finding overturned.
There is hope.
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LarryKealey @ 230
I've signed-up to your page. Lookm forward to hearing from you.
Cheers
277. At 9:34pm on 14 Mar 2010, Shadorne wrote:
"I guess this time you alarmists really really really really mean it - the great climate WOLF is really really really really about to kill all the sheeple."
In the story, didn't the WOLF eventually turn up? Not the best analogy.
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You don't have to be a climate change sceptic to think the government were really stupid for running adverts as extreme as that.
That doesn't mean climate change isn't a serious threat though.
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Cariboo at #280
Who are you quoting and what are you trying to say?
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Cariboo, maybe this is what you were trying to say?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/mar/12/polar-bears-endangered-species-listing
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Shadoil at #281 quotes article by ‘sceptic’ journalist Jonathan Leake in the Times.
Here’s a piece on Leake’s track record:-
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/02/leakegate_how_jonathan_leake_c.php
Here’s a more balanced piece on the actual ASA adjudication from the Guardian:-
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/mar/13/government-cleared-climate-change-adverts
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Re: the wolf analogy.
Well spotted Xtragrumpymike at #282
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in 238. thinkforyourself wrote:
"How do you guys misrepresent data like this? You are totally wrong for 2000 to 2004. What data are you actually looking at!
Near surface temperatures for 2010 are currently running at about 1 deg centigrade higher than 2000 to 2004."
Really? the near surface temperature series doesn't go back as far as 2000. (starts in 2003).
In 8 out of the 10 still active altitudes my statement is perfectly true - the 2010 values are within the range of 2000-2004. I would suggest you need to consider more than the minority results.
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@LarryKealy #150:
Bravo! Presumably one or more of the AGW enthusiasts will point us to a paper showing that most of your suggested variables have been investigated, and that the coefficients that give best correlations to the global temperature for each independent variable are much smaller than the coefficient for CO2.
Side note: an article published back in 2009 noted that the surface temperature on MARS had increased by about 1 degree in the last century, and w/o pausing for breath, declaimed that this increase had nothing to do with the increasing temperature on Earth, but was a consequence of Mars having had "an increase in albedo". So, in absence of human beings, what item/items on the surface of Mars or in its atmosphere would cause an increase in albedo?
Somehow, the approach of the govt.-sponsored scientists to analysis of CO2 in the atmosphere seems like the task they were assigned was not "Is the Earth's temperature changing? and if so, what is/are the cause or causes?" Instead, the assigned task looks like "We know that fossil fuel supplies on this 8000 mile diameter rock are limited; provide a justification for us to increase the taxes the govt. can collect from those who use this fuel." The work of science is sometimes to provide a theoretical justification for a course of action that senior management has already decided upon.
TeaPot562
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Xtra: In the story, didn't the WOLF eventually turn up?
You are right. There it is. More solid proof and scarier than anything the IPCC ever dreamed up. What cam I say. The alarmists are right.
We're doomed.
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in 276. thinkforyourself wrote:
"Correct us if we’re wrong, Terry, but I think that we and all other species, plus the ice sheets, reside at or near the earth’s surface and definitely below 25000 feet!"
But we are supposed to be aware of at what is happening up in the troposhere in trying to understand the interactions of climate.
However if you want to just look at the sea surface temperatures - then 2010 is currently only 0.1C higher than the 2005 temperature, but there isn't data back to 1999 at that altitude. Now 0.1C is hardly "going off the scale" as you said in 155.
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in 275. SR wrote:
" This arithmetic is incorrect. VERY incorrect. Think of a graph. The Y axis is radiative forcing. The X axis is CO2 concentration. The logarithmic relationship means that radative forcing goes up by a certain amount for every doubling of CO2. CO2 doubles at a faster rate as lower concentrations, for instance, from 1 to 2, 2 to 4, 4 to 8, 8 to 16, 16 to 32....each one of these jumps is equal to the jump from 280 to 560 (~3.7 W/m^2). This accounts for the graph going up really fast to start up with then saturating."
OK so maybe you will care to work out for us all what the 'normal' CO2 radiative forcing value is?
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@oldterry
CO2 has natural RF of around 30W/m^2. This is approximately 20% of the greenhouse effect. This figure has come about from studies on IR spectra carried out since the 70's and has been derived independently in several different ways. This is not the full story though. Water vapour is not variable like CO2, rather it responds only to temperature, so it has an amplifying effect on temp. rises and falls. This makes CO2 all the more important.
I'm all for careful scrutiny of scientific endeveur but one must have a very high (and unjustified) opinion of themselves to be so confident that an entire field of experts are wrong and you are right, especially when you are not an expert yourself. It amazes me.
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@oldterry
CO2 has natural RF of around 30W/m^2.
Carbon Dioxide has an average RF value of 1.66 W/m² with a range between 1.49 and 1.83 W/m².
Source
http://atoc.colorado.edu/~seand/headinacloud/?p=204
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#262 JaneBasingstoke wrote:
"We have fine tuned our civilisation to the planet in its current state. This is business in action. There is no slack. If we speed up the rate at which the planet changes its state we will have problems retuning our civilisation to cope.
"Does that sound religious?"
No, as long as you aren't assuming "there's a place for everything and everything in its place". What you say here sounds more conservative than religious: you are anxious about overly-quick change, because we might not be able to accommodate it. I'm sympathetic to that. And it's refreshing to hear that we've "fine-tuned our civilization" to fit the planet as opposed to "we've raped the planet" by trying to get it to fit our civilization. But I wonder is civilization really as fine-tuned as all that? There are quite a few different civilizations, or at least different cultures that behave very differently, some of them in conflict, and medium-sized disasters are going on all over the place -- such as wars, famine and life-threatening poverty. I don't think I'd use the word 'fine-tuned' so much as "roughly beaten into shape"!
"Other species are also adapted to the planet in its current state."
I'm afraid "current state" does sound a bit religious to me. I would argue that the planet doesn't have a "current state", and never did, because it's always in flux, not least because living things are constantly finding new ways to undermine each other, constantly seeping into new niches and so on, and of course the climate is constantly changing.
I'm not a huge fan of Matt Ridley, but he did write one very good book called The Red Queen, about the way living things have to "keep running just to stay in the same place". I guess like Plato I'm instinctively inspired by Hera-"you can never step into the same river twice"-clitus.
"If that state changes too fast then migration and evolution may have problems keeping up."
Maybe, but yet another of my "rules of thumb" says that evolution works much faster than is generally realized. Has anyone ever seen a trait "catching up with the environment"? I honestly doubt it. For example, creatures that live in total darkness have vestigial (i.e. practically no) eyes. But has anyone ever seen a creature with "in-between" eyes? Are there medium-grey peppered moths? It used to be thought that the human appendix was a useless organ in the process of shrinking, but almost everyone now thinks it serves a purpose.
"we have to live with any short term effects before the longer term adaptations kick in."
By "we", do you mean we individuals who are currently alive? -- If so, I'd say the best thing we can do is alleviate poverty as best we can. It's mostly poverty that puts people at risk -- in Bangladesh, New Orleans, etc.
"Also we may not like some of the adaptations. For instance, if we create a selective pressure against vertebrate fish like tuna, then jellyfish and squid may replace tuna in that niche."
But we might just as well like the changes. I'd prefer the waters off the coast of the British Isles to be like the Aegean. If there are lots of jellyfish and squid, there will be lots of leatherback turtles and sperm whales, which we usually welcome, although fewer Japanese trawlers. But I think it's unlikely that an animal whose modus operandi is so different from tuna could replace it. It's much more common for some variant species to do a bit better, for example as the white egret is said to have partially replaced the grey heron.
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Cariboo @294
We are talking about natural, not human induced CO2 forcing. It is 30 W/m^2.
Source: Every peer reviewed journal paper on the topic since the 1980's.
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@bow
Biodiversity is the attribute of the natural world that most contributes to human welfare.
Most of the studies point towards a decrease in net biodiversity as the world gets warmer, especially in areas populated by the poorest humans.
The human race should be compus mentis enough to attempt to preserve human welfare. Adaptation is synonymous with mortal struggle.
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#297 SR wrote:
"Biodiversity is the attribute of the natural world that most contributes to human welfare."
This is a religious fantasy. The attributes of the natural world that most contribute to human welfare, in no particular order, are: (a) oxygen to breathe, (b) warmth to counter the cold of space, (c) water to drink, and (d) food to eat, which need not axhibit all that much vatiety to sustain human life.
If you are just goung to talk in mystical terms, talk to someone else.
You've been watching too many National Film Board of Canada sermons!
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Bowman at #298
It is not religious or mystical at all. Have a look at ecosystem services and see which of your valued attributes are not connected to biodiversity.
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#299 simon-swede wrote:
"It is not religious or mystical at all."
The idea that biodiversity matters more than oxygen is nutballsville!
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Bowman at #300
So where does the oxygen come from then? Stop been needlessly offensive and think a little!
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The word 'biodiversity' is so vague and encompasses so much without any clear criteria of demarkation that it is worse than useless, except as a term of religious veneration. It refers to just about anything the user wants it to refer to.
Over the course of history, more humans have died of infectious diseases than of any other cause of death. Infectious diseases are one aspect of "biodiversity". So "biodiversity is the biggest killer on the planet". Or, just as good: infectious diseases are also one aspect of "life" itself. So "life is the biggest killer on the planet". And so on, ad infinitium, substituting any vaguely nice-sounding and completely loose words such as 'sex', 'love', etc., etc. you'd care to think of.
Please: let's get real. Let's get clear. Let's be more careful in our use of words.
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#301 simon-swede wrote:
"So where does the oxygen come from then?"
It is extracted from CO2 by plants -- it is not extracted from CO2 by "biodiversity"! Whatever exactly biodiversity might be, it is something like an abstract measure of the range of difference that exists between living things, and it does not itself photosynthesize. That's what plants do, not what biodiversity does.
Just one kind of plant would do.
"Stop been needlessly offensive and think a little!"
I'm not being as offensive as you think, just lightheartedly vehement! And I am thinking, a little!
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in 293. SR wrote:
"CO2 has natural RF of around 30W/m^2."
Yes I know that's the measured value, but I was asking you to deduce it from the CO2 density changes (and trying to force you or any other COOer into doing the sum yourself by my writing flaky maths [but that didn't work])- but fine : that value is consistent with a log2 of 8.13 for 280ppm (and 9.13 for 560ppm). Now the point is that at 380ppm (log2 8.57) we have an increase if RF from 30 to 31.6: so the 30% change in CO2 is only a 5% change in the forcing from CO2.
"This is approximately 20% of the greenhouse effect."
Nope, not according to the IPCC - the total back radiation is about 324W so normal CO2 forcing is more like 10%. So you are asking us to believe that a 5% change in a 10% component, ie a total of half a percent change is sufficient to change the surface temperature by nearly a degree.
Now it takes that 324W to raise the surface temperature from -19C to +14C ie 35C. If you want to assume any further increase is linear that means about 9W is needed for a degree rise (and you've only got 1.6W - so les than 0.2C rise). However as radiation is actually a square law effect 1.6W would result in a smaller temperature rise, but to be friendly I'll accept 0.2C as an upper limit.
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in 293. SR wrote:
" This is not the full story though. Water vapour is not variable like CO2, rather it responds only to temperature, so it has an amplifying effect on temp. rises and falls."
Not quite, as both the extent of WV sensitivity is still being questioned and, even more importantly, the direction of the effect is still under discussion. WV itself causes warming but when it becomes clouds you get a net cooling from the increased albedo. The IPCC report says that increased WV from 1750 - 2005 gives +0.1W from WV and a -0.7W from increased cloud albedo (that to me is a net cooling effect - so negative feedback in action). It is how any further increases in WV presents itself that is the critical question under examination.
" This makes CO2 all the more important."
No - CO2 induced temperature change has exactly the same effect on the feedback system as any other causes of temperature change.
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Bowman #302
Begin with yourself!
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SR wrote: "Biodiversity is the attribute of the natural world that most contributes to human welfare."
Thinksscarythoughts: 249‘…..Today the threat polar bears face is loss of the sea ice habitat essential to their survival. "Conclusion:-
Earth’s surface likely to become uninhabitable for large mammals.""
We're all doomed. Doooomed.
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Bowman at #303
Then I suggest you look up 'ecosystem services' and think some more!
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@xtragrumpymike
Sent you a friend request and posted a note on your page - it explains how it works...catch up with you soon.
Care to comment on the 'plight of the polar bear'?
Kindest.
Kealey
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@Manysummits
Must be brief this morning.
Glad you enjoyed the day.
I don't know about CO2 levels, but I do know that the Vikings had an agricultural colony in Greenland a thousand years ago, that they traveled to in wooden longboats. The community is just now being uncovered from beneath the ice - so it was obviously warmer them
It is believed that the colony was abandonded due to crop failures and the increasing sea ice, making it almost impossible to reach.
Food for thought.
Cheers.
Kealey
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#307 Shadorne wrote:
"We're all doomed. Doooomed."
We are all doomed, in the sense that each one of us is an individual who is going to die. I often wonder if apocalyptic cults are an attempt to deal with that terrible fact by "externalizing" it in some way, by pretending it is "communal" and/or avoidable.
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#308 simon-swede wrote:
"Then I suggest you look up 'ecosystem services' and think some more!"
The simple fact is that some words (such as 'plant') stand for living things that photosynthsize and produce oxygen. Other words (such as 'biodiversity') stand for much more abstract measures which don't.
Analogy: an albatraoss is a bird with a large wingspan. An albatross can fly, but "wingspan" does not fly. Albatrosses with large wingspans are beautiful, but "fell beasts of the Nazgûl" large wingspans are ugly.
At least "wingspan" is a clear concept. "Biodiversity" is not a clear concept. Those who treat it with religious awe as an unambiguous good -- or worse, as the unambiguous good, in effect "God's ideal plan for the world" -- cannot be regarded as serious thinkers.
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bowmanthebard #303: "Just one kind of plant would do."
(If I may simon-swede...)
It doesn't take much thought to see that "just one kind of plant" would be an "all ones eggs in one basket" situation. If the "one plant" failed one year then the progress in generation of O2 could falter and halt.
Equally clearly, evolution has not found "one plant" to be a viable development and has progressed by means of a diverse range; ie. biodiversity.
Free O2 exists because of plants.
Plants exist because there is a diverse range able to withstand the extremes of nature.
Not religion; just evolution.
/davblo
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@308 simon-swede
I googled 'ecosystems services' as you suggested to bowmanthebard, and it appears that despite some lab experiments favouring the 'rivet' hypothesis that the entire ecosystem fails if a number of species fail, the actual fieldwork seems to be showing that the 'redundancy' hypothesis actually happens in real life, i.e. other species step into the gap left and increase their efficiency due to the lack of competition.
Funnily enough, that is what may be expected by natural selection - as the environment changes those species best adapted to that change prosper and fill the gap.
So in a sense bowman is correct, it is not the number of species that is the critical factor, provided that there are still species available to fulfill that role. As long as there is at least one plant species that can thrive in the changed conditions, oxygen production will continue. Of course, having more than one species does ensure that the damage from some random factor such as disease or natural disaster is mitigated. However, life has shown itself to be a resilient and voracious concept, and anyone that really thinks that an increase in CO2 and temperature is going to eliminate plant life probably needs to go away and think a little more...
Funnily enough, the idea that lab based results do not necessarily translate into real world results, and that natural processes have a tendency to compensate for changes rather than collapse completely, is quite pertinent to the climate change discussion as well :)
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oldterry
Let me again pick you up on a crucial mistake you've made.
The forcing for the natural greenhouse effect is 150W/m^2 (not 324 W/m^2 as you wrongly state). So CO2 forcing *is* 20% of the natural greenhouse effect. This 150 W/m^2 keeps us 33C warmer, not the 324 W/m^2 back radiation.
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To LarryKealey #310 re: the Greenland Vikings!
Larry, I'll be brief as well.
You are speaking to a geologist!
Where do you think much of the information on the paleoclimate of Greenland comes from? Of the Greenland colonies?
Hint: Geology and Archaeology - read - specialist scientists!
And of course - historical records.
You know what - they all agree - they match.
It is time to think about that - for the true skeptic, don't you think?
To even entertain the thought that the world's climate science specialists, in whatever discipline, have somehow managed to miss the northern climatic warming in the time of the Greenland Vikings staggers the imagination, and gives away the problem - lack of intimate knowledge of paleoclimate by skeptics, as illuminated by the findings of modern mutidisciplinary science - proxies and all...
- Manysummits -
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@A number of posts Re: Polar Bears and the Arctic Ice Pack
It looks for the minute, as though the Arctic ice coverage is increasing quite healthily:
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
And one could certainly argue that it's been relatively stable/growing a little for the last few years, so the jig may not be quite up for our furry little friends.
Certainly, it doesn't look as though the Arctic is going to be ice free any time soon.
In general though, we do need to accept the fact that the ice is supposed to be melting, it is an interglacial period after all. You can't just sit there a'la King Canute and command it not to melt, not without looking at least a little silly.......
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bow,
Your attitude to all this is so cavalier. Oxygen may be immediately more important, but then, aren't sub-atomic forces that keep our atoms locked together even more important?, Where do you stop? You are being unnecessarily pedantic.
If we ignore the warning signs (and there are PLENTY) and allow biodiversity to decrease, as the vast majority of the studies looking into a warming world say will happen, today's generation will be commiting an act of genocide on tomorrow's. I say this because we have sufficient information available to us now to predict, with reasonable accuracy, what will happen tomorrow.
The usual response to this is 'alarmist!'...but being alarmist does not automatically make you wrong. Being wrong makes you wrong, and the evidence for what will happen to a warming world is well known to those not blinded by ignorance.
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in 304. I wrote:
"However as radiation is actually a square law effect 1.6W would result in a smaller temperature rise, but to be friendly I'll accept 0.2C as an upper limit."
Ooops as everyone knows radiation is a fourth power effect with temperature and not a square law effect, which makes the temperature rise to give a given heat loss even smaller.
I am clearly in need of more coffee.
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Oh joy of joys the Catlin Artic Survey has started up again.
This time they are going to study acidification of the artic Ocean??????????????
Ooh, they are going to be drilling in temps of -75 degrees on first year ice that is 5m thick. What did they say last year?
Oh, they aren't going to the pole just going to wander around a bit as usual.
Upto you "Cariboo" they are starting at Resolute isn't there a big Navy/Army installation up there now?
And they have had their polar bear lecture namely "shoot first ask questions later"
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bow said:
""Biodiversity" is not a clear concept. Those who treat it with religious awe as an unambiguous good -- or worse, as the unambiguous good, in effect "God's ideal plan for the world" -- cannot be regarded as serious thinkers."
Biodiversity is a very clear concept in biology. There are various empirical ways to measure it. Using these empirical measurements, it has been shown many times that biodiversity loss is generally bad and biodiversity gain is generally good.
You are again dismissing an entire field because it either doesn't fit into your belief system or you do not understand it.
I'm glad people like you haven't got any real power, especially when 75% of the world's poor depend directly on biological resources for their very survival.
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#313 davblo wrote:
"evolution has not found "one plant" to be a viable development and has progressed by means of a diverse range; ie. biodiversity."
That's not how it works -- evolution is not a conscious designer. There is diversity for the reasons explained in Darwin's Origin of Species -- basically, because there is random variation and many different niches which varieties can exploit.
"Plants exist because there is a diverse range able to withstand the extremes of nature."
That's not "the" reason plants exist! How do you think the first plant emerged?
"Not religion; just evolution."
If you're going to make assertions like that, you'd better get evolution right, and your own motives clear. The word 'biodiversity' is an extremely slippery term, and it is usually left that way by the people who use it. Like ther Holy Trinity. Many people talk as if "biodiversity" were the most important thing in the world, as if the loss of a single species were something utterly blasphemous and contrary to God's plan. That is wholly disproportionate to the actual loss involved, which obviously differs from one species to the next, and can even be a good thing. Losses and gains have to be balanced against each other in a sensible, reflective way. Anyway, there are very fuzzy boundaries between species, and what really matters are individuals.
There is so little proportionality in reaction to species loss, or the prospect thereof, so little reflection, so much closed-minded, knee-jerk eco-mysticism that I call it a religious reaction.
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Matt @308
Usually, a species will leave a niche slowly and this niche is refilled over a period of time. But what happens when there are rapid, mass extinctions? There has been a lot of work on this in the past 20 years and the overall conclusion is that there will be a loss of biodiversity, leading to reductions in the food supply and other vital things required by humans.
Life on earth will survive, but as I said, adaptation means suffering. Why do we want to put ourselves through it if it can be avoided?
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@Shadorne #307
"We're all doomed. Doooomed."
That's a nice Private Frazer impression you're doing there.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgsPzydgzxE
:-)
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@oldterry2 #319
If you're going to talk about that fourth power of temperature, please can you use Kelvin (K) rather than degrees centigrade (degrees C).
Ta.
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#318 SR wrote:
"Your attitude to all this is so cavalier. Oxygen may be immediately more important, but then, aren't sub-atomic forces that keep our atoms locked together even more important?, Where do you stop? You are being unnecessarily pedantic."
It would be a great pity if many more species became extinct as a result of our activity. But that's all it would be: a pity, a shame, something to be avoided within reason like the destruction of art, or the burning of a library. It would not be anything like the killing of individuals, nor would it be anything like the running out of oxygen, water, or food, which really are essentials for life.
"If we ignore the warning signs (and there are PLENTY)"
Warning signs of what? You simply must have fallen under the spell of people who do not understand life or evolution.
"today's generation will be commiting an act of genocide on tomorrow's."
That is completely absurd. It it a grotesque misuse of the word 'genocide'. If it is some sort of sick metaphor, I suggest you attempt to put it in literal terms, to see how logically twisted it is. If we're literally talking about killing, how can we kill people who are not alive? If we're not literally talking about killing, what on earth are we talking about?
"I say this because we have sufficient information available to us now to predict, with reasonable accuracy, what will happen tomorrow."
Killing off one species leaves a niche open for another species to occupy, and almost without fail another species does occupy it. Life is opportunistic, and individual organiusm would repoduce in geometric numbers but for limitiations to the food supply. That is how ponds become choked with weeds, how wounds become infected, and how disturbed earth quckly gets covered in weeds and wildflowers. Even where poisons kill individuals organisms, new life can often adapt to resist the poison. (You can see this happening to grass at the foot of some -- but not all -- electricity pylons, by the way.)
So we can predict with confidence that killing off a species is an act of vandalism to be avoided within reason, but nothing like the apocalypse the religionists have been spouting about. These are people who simply do not understand evolution.
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I have been following the debate on this site for some weeks now. Sometimes I'm amused, sometimes dismayed and sometimes I wonder what planet we are talking about.
As a mere female, and there seems to be very, very few female contributors here, (but when you girls do it, you do it very well!) I'd like all you experts out there to explain to me how I'm supposed to know who to believe. Of the many and varied examples I could use, I'll use the Polar bear one. I've read both on this site and in various newspapers that Polar bear numbers are in serious decline, I've also read that their numbers are increasing at an alarming rate. Now, what to believe? I have the same dilemma re- ice core whatsits, tree ring things and Co2 whatmabobs.
I admit to being a natural agw sceptic. My feminine instincs tell me that humans cannot posibly control/change the climate, think King Canute here, but that does not mean that I cannot be persuaded by coherant and convincing arguments but all I seem to get are conflicting arguments, all of which sound extremely plausible.
I am very concerned about our environment and do my bit when I can, like not using plastic bags or refusing to buy anything that has Palm Oil listed as an ingredient and turning down my heating, although the last one is more to do with the shocking cost of fuel than saving the planet. I confess that I do use hairspray and other essential toiletries with abandon but hey, what's a girl to do? There was an article in newspapers recently which stated that if we all ate one sausage less a day then the planet would be saved from certain hell. I am overwhelmed with guilt. I don't eat sausages so it will all be my fault for not reducing my intake of emulsified offal tubing when the end comes. Sorry everyone!
You will have noticed that I mentioned King Canute, he wasn't a Queen! (He may have been but that is whole different argument)Are most women more pragmatic than men and feel instinctively that the planet can look after itself? Do women not care about the planet due to an overload of ironing lurking in the corner and children to wash? Are we just stupid, no, forget that one. Why the big difference? I need serious help on this one, so come on boys, and girls, give it to me.
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#321 SR wrote:
"biodiversity loss is generally bad and biodiversity gain is generally good."
I agree with that. But it's a strikingly weaker claim than this one:
"Biodiversity is the attribute of the natural world that most contributes to human welfare."
Being "generally good" is not quite the same as being the single most important human good.
Biologists may use the word 'biodiversity' in clear, careful ways, but the general public sure don't!
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bowmanthebard #322: "evolution is not a conscious designer"
I never said it was. Don't put words into my mouth please. I guess you really understand that when I say "evolution has not found..." it is figurative speech. Would it help if I said "evolution has not resulted in the existence of 'one plant', but has resulted in a diverse range of plants; ie. biodiversity.
bowmanthebard #322: "There is diversity for the reasons explained in Darwin's Origin of Species -- basically, because there is random variation and many different niches which varieties can exploit."
I said there is no "one plant". That shows that "one plant" is not a long term viable entity; whilst a diverse range is. How does what you say alter that?
bowmanthebard #322: "How do you think the first plant emerged?"
From a range of other possibilities. And why do you think there are now a wide range of plants? Because plants work, and diversity makes some plants survive when others don't.
bowmanthebard #322: "Anyway, there are very fuzzy boundaries between species, and what really matters are individuals."
Individuals may matter to us, but that is only because we are individuals; and in the long run they don't matter at all and only species persist and evolve.
Ask a salmon.
/davblo
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bow said:
" The word 'biodiversity' is an extremely slippery term, and it is usually left that way by the people who use it. Like ther Holy Trinity. Many people talk as if "biodiversity" were the most important thing in the world, as if the loss of a single species were something utterly blasphemous and contrary to God's plan."
There is a distinction between loss of a single species and a general, systematic decrease in biodiversity. One has no effect on human welfare, the other has a serious effect on human welfare. This distinction seems lost on you. I have to say the logic of your arguments are becoming more and more convoluted and its certainly exposing your prejudices.
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#323 SR wrote:
"Usually, a species will leave a niche slowly and this niche is refilled over a period of time."
I wonder when or why a species would ever leave a niche without be "pushed" or "pulled"? If if it always involves pushing and pulling, how is anything humans do different from what has happened over the ages of the Earth?
Maybe I'm not too clear on what counts as a "niche". According to the most obvious criterion of specieshood, rock doves that live on sea-cliffs and feral pigeons that live in cities belong to the same species, but they've obviously diverged quite a bit. The peregrine falcons that have followed them to the cities are probably undergoing analogous changes.
"Life on earth will survive, but as I said, adaptation means suffering."
Life involves suffering for individuals no matter what happens. Adaptation is change in a non-sentient lineage.
"Why do we want to put ourselves through it if it can be avoided?"
We as individuals will not "put ourselves though it".
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@bow
"Warning signs of what? You simply must have fallen under the spell of people who do not understand life or evolution."
I understand evolution perfectly well.
The evidence from the experts is clear that the projected climate change will result in a loss of biodiversity and consequently a reduction in human welfare. These are not flimsy statements - they are backed up by hard evidence.
In contrast, what you say has no substance to it and relies on the unsubstantiated 'opinion' that climate change will either not happen or biodiversity will not be lost or even if biodiversity is lost, it somewhow won't matter. You believe evolution will step in and repair the damage insantaneously - it will not. Read the up to date opinions of the experts rather than trust your own ill-formed logic.
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#327 knownought wrote:
"there seems to be very, very few female contributors here"
How can you tell? From blog persona names? Sounds a bit prejudiced to me!
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Hi knownought,
You sound like some of my friends from the flu blog. We need a few more girlie voices here. JaneBasingstoke does a good job ;-) Doesn't your intuition tell you that while everyone is looking in one direction, the real harm will come up from behind, leaving scientists and all, blustering and floundering around as they try to make sense of the unfathomable. Thats my thought for what it is worth.
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Re:-
327. At 6:23pm on 15 Mar 2010, knownought wrote:
"I have been following the debate on this site for some weeks now. Sometimes I'm amused, sometimes dismayed and sometimes I wonder what planet we are talking about."
I am just a mere male and a "grumpy old one " at that.
I can't answer the question you would most like answered, who to believe, who to trust.
There will always be "experts" from BOTH sides of any fence, just sit as a Jury member in any high profile legal trial and you will be asked the same question "who to believe" and "who to trust".
I doubt that there is any such person as a genuine "expert".
There are also some on this "weblog" who just enjoy a good argument/debate.
One thing all so-called "experts" will agree on is that it is NOT the Planet we are setting out to save but mankinds' prolonged existence on the Planet.
Planet Earth did very will before our arrival and would do very well without our presence.
In the end it is just as good to trust your own instincts.
Sorry I can't be of more help.
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Less King Canute character assassination please.
As many here will know, Canute ordered back the sea not because he believed he had that power but to demonstrate the opposite to courtiers who believed that he did.
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Oldterry2 at #288 still says:-
‘…..Really? the near surface temperature series doesn't go back as far as 2000. (starts in 2003)…..’
Wrong yet again Terry.
The near surface temperatures are to be found at channel 04 on the graphic and go back to the middle of 1998. The record itself goes back 32 years.
Go to http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/
Click on ‘Temperature Trends on the left. Don’t use the graphic on the left with the weather balloon, but go down to the bottom left hand corner to the box marked - ‘Show global average temperatures at..’
Then use the arrow or scroll bar on the left of that box to scroll up and down until you find the ‘Near surface temperature’ at Channel 04 (Not sea surface temperature).
You will find that the near surface and lower troposphere are tracking at record highs.
The graphic only shows temperatures for the last 12 years but these temperatures are tracking at record highs in the 32 year satellite record. This is confirmed by Dr. Roy Spencer who is the U.S. Science Team leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer flying on NASA’s Aqua satellite. He said in February this year:-
‘…The global-average lower tropospheric temperature anomaly soared to +0.72 deg. C in January, 2010. This is the warmest January in the 32-year satellite-based data record…..’
And it continues through February and now March. This is as predicted by James Hansen of the NASA Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS) and the UK Met office in 2009.
Global warming theory predicts that, due to additional greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the near surface and lower troposphere will, in layman’s terms, warm, as the CO2 ‘blanket’ traps extra heat.
Exactly what we are seeing in the satellite record.
Hope you will now have the good grace to come back on here and admit your error. Especially given that the tiniest error by climate scientists is jumped on, blogged about endlessly and then suffixed with a ‘gate, in order to try and create doubt about the entire body of evidence. Remember, too, that ‘sceptic’ Anthony (gate)Watts never retracts or apologises for his errors.
http://climateprogress.org/2010/03/11/wattergate-tamino-debunks-anthony-watts-wattsupwiththat/
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in 315. SR wrote:
"Let me again pick you up on a crucial mistake you've made.
The forcing for the natural greenhouse effect is 150W/m^2 (not 324 W/m^2 as you wrongly state)."
Really - where do you get the 150W/sqm from? The 324W/sqm figure I am using comes directly from the IPCC report.
"So CO2 forcing *is* 20% of the natural greenhouse effect. This 150 W/m^2 keeps us 33C warmer, not the 324 W/m^2 back radiation."
hmmm, BUT the back radiation reaching the earth IS what is warming the earth's surface.
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#332 SR wrote:
"I understand evolution perfectly well."
These are fatal, self-incriminating words. People who have been steeped in biology from birth are endlesly baffled by the conceptual problems that evolutionary theory throws up like a dipsomaniac.
If you think you understand evolution "perfectly well", be assured you haven't even begun to scratch its surface.
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in 325. JaneBasingstoke wrote:
"If you're going to talk about that fourth power of temperature, please can you use Kelvin (K) rather than degrees centigrade (degrees C)."
Of course, and naturally I would have made the switch if I had actually been giving the fourth power effects. However as I was only giving a limit value using the temperature difference and 35C is 35K, it did not seem worth doing the switch (and possibly confusing people). I apologise to those people who understand the physics.
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#330 SR wrote:
"There is a distinction between loss of a single species and a general, systematic decrease in biodiversity. One has no effect on human welfare, the other has a serious effect on human welfare. This distinction seems lost on you."
Yes, it is a silly and shallow distinction, a mere matter of degree dressed up to like like something profound. So no, I think it's hardly worth bothering with!
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@Manysummits,
I realize you are a geologist. It was M. Mann what 'wanted the MWP to 'disappear' and claim it did not exist... how extensive it was on a global scale is still unclear - but its affects certainly impacted Greenland and NZ.
The point was, one which I am sure you are aware - that Greenland was warmer then, than it is today. Clearly, the historical record shows this.
Cheers Mate.
Kealey
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@xtragrumpymike
Sent you a message on that other site - check it out.
Regarding your last post - who to trust - that is a big question, with a lot of question marks.
Cheers.
Kealey
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@knownought
Regarding the Polar Bear - since being placed on the endangered species list some 30 odd years ago, the population has increased from around 6,000 to over 25,000 (conservative estimates). Those are numbers you can find and check for yourself.
As for the Polar Bear being 'endangered due to climate change' - well the arguments are full of ifs, possibly, might, maybe, could, etc, etc, etc...the bears have lived through warmer periods and do just fine. They do eat a lot more than seals on ice flows.
As for all the rest, just read all you can, take it all with a grain of salt, be skeptical of everything you read and form YOUR OWN OPINION.
There are many here who just repeat other's opinions. Have your own.
Cheers.
Kealey
PS - Jane is a good example to follow, while I may not always agree with her, I do respect her - she forms her own informed opinions and is open to debate and changing her opinion over time...
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@bowmnthebard #295
"And it's refreshing to hear that we've "fine-tuned our civilization" to fit the planet"
Not quite what I said. Your words imply a fit that "works" both ways.
"There are quite a few different civilizations, or at least different cultures that behave very differently, some of them in conflict, and medium-sized disasters are going on all over the place -- such as wars, famine and life-threatening poverty. I don't think I'd use the word 'fine-tuned' so much as "roughly beaten into shape"!"
My "fine tuning" comment was about lack of slack. Not about perfect adaptation.
"living things are constantly finding new ways to undermine each other, constantly seeping into new niches and so on"
Um, this sounds like pure gradualism, the fossil record is more supportive of something involving short bursts of evolution followed by longer periods of relative stability once species are reasonably close to a good fit for a niche.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phyletic_gradualism
"I'm afraid "current state" does sound a bit religious to me. I would argue that the planet doesn't have a "current state", and never did, because it's always in flux"
And we have increased that flux, most obviously in land use.
"evolution works much faster than is generally realized"
Fast in geological timescales is still pretty slow in human timescales.
"But has anyone ever seen a creature with "in-between" eyes?"
Yes.
Intermediate stages in the evolution of the eye sometimes get portrayed by creationists as an impossibility and therefore a proof of a designer. But there are intermediate stages in the evolution of the eye, each stage being more useful than the last, and most being used by the adult of some species (especially amongst the molluscs):
1. Light sensitive cells
2. Light sensitive cells in cup shaped depression
3. Light sensitive cells in open pinhole camera
4. Light sensitive cells in fluid filled windowed pinhole camera
5. Light sensitive cells in fluid filled windowed camera with lens
6. Light sensitive cells in fluid filled windowed camera with lens and iris
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_the_eye
I know you don't normally like links, but this is Darwin's rottweiler on the evolution of the eye
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUOpaFVgKPw&feature=related
"But I think it's unlikely that an animal whose modus operandi is so different from tuna could replace it."
The balance in the oceans is changing to reflect our selection pressures. This has a clear mechanism and has already had significant measured impacts. And yes, some squid do have the same prey as tuna.
"By "we", do you mean we individuals who are currently alive? -- If so, I'd say the best thing we can do is alleviate poverty as best we can. It's mostly poverty that puts people at risk -- in Bangladesh, New Orleans, etc."
No, I also mean anyone who has to live with any significant consequences of our environmental policies.
I don't know the fix for global warming.
Perhaps there isn't one. Perhaps fusion will always be "in fifty years time", and we'll just shift to using (expensive) tar sands when the cheap oil runs out. We will have to live with any changes, whether they are Lindzen minimal or Lovelock maximal.
I do know that I want the scientists to keep looking.
I do know that I don't like either side of the AGW debate taking the p*** with the science.
And I do know that I don't like people pressurising scientists or scapegoating scientists when it was the politicians that introduced the exaggerations into the debate.
Meanwhile I don't think the cure for poverty is round the corner either. And actions like replanting coastal mangroves and providing humanitarian aid after extreme weather events help regardless of cause.
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#334 sensibleoldgrannie wrote:
"We need a few more girlie voices here."
I'm glad you're talking about voices rather than the people who have the voices.
But what would a girlie voice be like as opposed to a non-girlie voice, and why would it matter to you?
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Climate Change Threatens Migratory Birds, Report Says:-
http://www.stateofthebirds.org/
‘…..The report, a collaboration of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and experts from the nation’s leading conservation organizations, shows that climate changes will have an increasingly disruptive effect on bird species in all habitats, with oceanic and Hawaiian birds in greatest peril…..’
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/13/science/earth/13birds.html?src=me&ref=science
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re- 333 bowmanthebard thought I was prejudiced as I felt that most contributors on this site were male. Sorry! but it is a pseudo scientific site and life tells me that, on balance it will be a man orientated response vehicle. You are quite right to say that it is not possible to identify the sex of contributors from their nicknames. As a small pseudo scientific experiment I shall list the forenames (no longer allowed to say Christian names) of some of the persons whose opinions I have read on the subject of global warming and you can work out for yourself which ones you think are male/female. As with nicknames, surnames give no clues about the usage of mascara etc. Here we go- Phil, Christopher, Lord Christopher, Raj, Roger et Al! If the subject matter had been the merits of breast feeding whilst wearing lipstick then I feel it would not have been prejudiced to assume that most contributors would be female and lactating to boot.
re-335 xtragrumpymike2, thank you for a well balanced and sensible overview. I now feel more comfortable in my self professed ignorance.
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As predicted, and like all ‘sceptics’, Oldterry doesn’t answer questions or correct errors.
Just uses a rhetorical ‘really?’
Demands scrupulous integrity from everyone else.
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There are women involved in climate science so here's a 'girlie voice':
http://discovermagazine.com/2010/apr/10-it.s-gettin-hot-in-here-big-battle-over-climate-science/article_view?searchterm=michael%20mann&b_start:int=0
re. Climategate:
“
Q: What motivated you to speak out?
A: When this hit, I was probably more ready than many others to respond because I’d been thinking about these issues for a number of years.
“
It is a pity that Judith Curry did not speak out a number of years ago, still better late than never and many more climate scientists are 'thinking about these issues' but not speaking out.
Warning: The Judith Curry interview is followed by an interview with a prominent Hockey Stick manufacturer. Scientists will require a strong stomach.
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in 349. thinkforyourself wrote:
"As predicted, and like all ‘sceptics’, Oldterry doesn’t answer questions or correct errors."
ummm, what is the question that I haven't answered as I haven't spotted anyone asking me one?
"Just uses a rhetorical ‘really?’ "
No, I was just being polite while asking where this strange figure of 150W/sqm has appeared from. Now I can't find it in the IPCC report - but I can find the figure of 324W/sqm in there.
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@bowmanthebard #333
(@knownought)
"How can you tell? From blog persona names?"
From the first 100 posts
Definitely male persona
(uses boy's name or makes references to being a husband/father)
manysummits
Marcel
MarcusAureliusII [note, Marcus Aurelius is also the name of a Roman emperor]
LarryKealey
Bob Ryan
simon-swede
jon112uk
James A
david
John_from_Hendon
Roland D
Barry Woods
SamuelPickwick [note, this is also the name of a famous Dickens character]
Jack Hughes
Neil Hyde
RobWansbeck
jasconsceptic
andy765gtr
Definitely female persona
JaneBasingstoke
sensibleoldgrannie
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"But has anyone ever seen a creature with "in-between" eyes?"
"Yes."
Again, you've missed the point completely, totally, and absolutely altogether. Please read what I wrote in context!
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@thinkforyourself
Re: Migratory birds threatened by climate change...
As with all these reports, we are told that climate change could, or possibly, or even will - and given this wild story about what will happen if we don't tackle climate change.
But we are never given a story about a species currently endangered or one that has already seen decline. Its hard to believe all this bunk when the favored 'poster bear' is the Polar Bears - which are doing quite well since being placed on the endangered species list and protected some 30 odd years ago.
How about Richard's latest article? Its about Black Rhinos and Tigers - already very near extinction because of habitat loss and hunting. These are things we need to worry about now, IMMEDIATELY - for example, if you were to pick a tiger at random from all the tigers in the world - odds are it was born and raised in captivity. This is not a result of 'what might happen because of climate change' - but what has already happened because of silly superstition, corruption, and greed.
Lets worry about realities rather than conjectures - we have enough realities to deal with right now - ones we have ignored too long. You know, all the 'old environmental issues' - the one's which have been around, known about, studied thoroughly for all our lives and basically ignored. Black Rhinos, Tigers, Cheetahs, Gorillas, Orangutans, the list goes on and on and on...no 'might, could, possibly, etc - because of climate change. These are all 'no doubt' because of habitat loss, corruption and greed - all caused by man.
Cheers.
Kealey
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@sensibleoldgrannie
I hope your Mother's day was everything you hoped for and more.
I also wanted to draw your attention to Richard's latest article - the plight of the Black Rhino and the very few Tigers left on the planet.
BTW - I think we need more 'girlie voices' here as well. The female perspective, generally very grounded and well, the voice of our 'better half'.
Cheers.
Kealey
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@thinkforyourself
There might be some truth to 'birds being threatened by climate change'...but not migratory birds in particular.
It would seem that those who build windmill farms seek out the same areas as large birds of prey - areas with lots of wind and thermals. The windmills, with blade tip speeds which can reach 200 mph cause incredible vortices which can cause large birds to drop like a stone - into the spinning blades.
It was also reported in the article that a single windmill farm in Spain is responsible for a million bird deaths per year.
The article was reposted on www.junkscience.com
So, climate fears = windfarms = dead birds...hmmm
Cheers.
Kealey
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@knownought
Working out who to trust, what to believe ... if anyone could bottle that there'd be no more rip offs, and the casino in the City would be reformed ...
As for girlie voices, how about this one
http://curry.eas.gatech.edu/climate/towards_rebuilding_trust.html
(note, Judith Curry has done guest posts at both the sceptic blog climateaudit.org and the pro-AGW blog climateprogress.org.)
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mattmurdock at #314
When I suggested that Bownman consider ecosystem services, it was not just with respect to oxygen (the latter was mentioned simply in reaction to Bowman's ridiculous one plant is sufficient example).
The original context was the list of attributes of the natural world that Bowman identifies in his #298. If you look at these attributes, they are 'ecosystem services', underpinned by biodiversity.
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Davblo2 at #329
You wrote (w.r.t. Bowman) "I never said it was. Don't put words into my mouth please."
Yeah, I've noticed Mr B. loves putting words in other peoples mouths or almost seek out perverse intepretations which he then denounces ex cathedra as religious, rascist... or whatever by his standards. What he usually means is simply "I disagree with you", often from a narrow and rather obscure perspective.
As for the 'all you need is one plant' line, in a similar vein then I guess all that is required is one ganglion for thought proceeses to occur. Hmmm, doesn't sound like an intelligent thought to me though!
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LarryKealey at #356
The RSPB (royal society for the protection of birds) has a rather more nuanced view on wind turbines than you do, e.g. "The environmental impact of wind farms needs to be monitored and analysed as they operate – and policies and practices will need to adapt as we learn more about the impacts of wind farms on birds closer to home. We scrutinise hundreds of wind farm applications every year to determine their likely wildlife impacts, and object to about 7%, because they threaten bird populations."
For more, see: http://www.rspb.org.uk/ourwork/policy/windfarms/index.asp
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post 346 bowmanthebard,
Science sometimes seems a bit testosterone laden, and being a woman, I sometimes feel that we are under represented in the debate. It is good to see JaneofBasingsoke getting in there and not flinching at the jibes.
Knownought, come and ask the questions and don't let any of the put downs get in the way. I think it is even balanced, fair and reasonable, for everyone to have a say. You might be a bit like me and learn some more science on the way.
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Bowman at #312
You wrote: "Other words (such as 'biodiversity') stand for much more abstract measures which don't. ... Analogy: an albatraoss is a bird with a large wingspan. An albatross can fly, but "wingspan" does not fly."
Biodiversity can be seen as more than the sum (or 'some'!) of the parts. Analogy: An albatross colony has attributes of more than just X number of albatross individuals.
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simon-swede at post 359,
LOL!
Missing link with the one ganglion.
I expect wild birds will adapt and use wind farm sites as a new form of high rise residence and other creatures will find the bases of such structures very desirable residences. If the wind farms are developed at sea, marine life will find a new niche to create thriving communities. What we humans consider as eyesores or whatever, other creatures will consider as potential new homes.
I love the look of wind farms, they have a serene beauty which is an outcome of good design. Humans are in the fortunate position to have the skills, knowledge and practical ability, to produce wonderful structures of infinite design, unlike other creatures who are restricted to one or two design ideas. Surely, we were designed to be the stewards of the planet as we appear to be the only species so far, to be so creative?
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#359 simon-swede wrote:
"Yeah, I've noticed Mr B. loves putting words in other peoples mouths"
If you can find an example of my doing this, please show me. I regard "putting words into other people's mouths" as intellectually very poor practice, and I always try to avoid it. Really, I hate that sort of thing and I'd like to better myself.
HOWEVER...
"or almost seek out perverse intepretations which he then denounces ex cathedra as religious, rascist... or whatever by his standards."
That is rather different. I have explicitly said time and time again that I think an unacknowledged set of religious assumptions underlies AGW, and I regard it as an important and valuable duty for someone to expose those assumptions. For example, if someone says that people are responsible for what their ancestors did, then they accept the dooctrine of original sin even though they may not themselves be aware of it.
I am not at all sorry for doing that sort of thing, which is quite different from deliberately or lazily misreading someone's words.
If you or others on this blog do not see the value and importance of having their underlying assumptions made explicit, then I've been wasting my time here, and I'll leave.
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simon-swede #359: "I've noticed Mr B. loves putting words in other peoples mouths"
bowmanthebard #303: "Just one kind of plant would do."
simon-swede #358: "Bowman's ridiculous one plant is sufficient example"
You are being extremely dishonest here. Shame on you. Or do you seriously not understand the difference between a KIND and an INDIVIDUAL? If I have ten pound coins and ten pennies in my pocket, I have only two kinds of coin, but twenty individual coins in my pocket.
If the only kind of green plant were bamboo, say, then individual bamboo plants, plural, would cover the land. They would probably produce a lot of oxygen. There would probably be a large number of pandas. This would be very little biodiversity, but a lot of individuals.
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Bowman at #364
I can't speak for others, but I do not think that you have a correct insight into my underlying assumptions.
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#362 simon-swede wrote:
"Biodiversity can be seen as more than the sum (or 'some'!) of the parts. Analogy: An albatross colony has attributes of more than just X number of albatross individuals."
You are scraping the bottom of a filthy barrel of misinterpretation here. Good luck to you -- you're not worth arguing with. Enjoy yourself with your agreeable AGW budddies.
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#366 simon-swede wrote:
"I can't speak for others, but I do not think that you have a correct insight into my underlying assumptions."
Have you considered the possibility that some insights are unwelcome?
For example, most present-day scientifically-minded people blithely suppose that their thought is untainted by old-time religion. But if they think people are responsible for what their ancestors did, then their minds are in fact corrupted by religion (specifically, the assumption of original sin).
They will not welcome having this pointed out to them, and some will deny it. But the fact remains that they accept the doctrine of original sin, whether they explicitly acknowledge it or deny it.
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Bowman at #368
I think this says more about YOU than it does about me.
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bowmanthebard
glass / houses / stones / living / throw / people / in / shouldn't
heat / stand / kitchen / get / can't / you / if / the / out / of / the
We are all sensitive human beings, and making unnecessary jibes at other people will always backfire, especially if others also see or hear such remarks.
I apologize in advance for laughing at the one ganglion remark, it was very naughty of me.
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#363 sensibleoldgrannie wrote:
"I love the look of wind farms, they have a serene beauty"
I wonder how common that reaction is? I find the appearance of blades moving at high speed quite un-serene, and the swishing sound doesn't help! In general, I prefer to see as little as possible of the mark of man in nature.
That includes mountaineers on mountains, by the way. The last time I saw Mount Snowdon there appeared to be a long queue of middle-aged men in bright plastic gear on their way up.
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To all those waving the flag for biodiversity and claiming to understand evolution, do not forget that taken to its logical conclusion increased 'biodiversity' means increased species, means increased competition, means increased likelihood of extinction events as species out compete each other.
As per my previous comment, I am firmly with bowmanthebard on this one. Biodiversity is a meaningless concept when applied to climate change or human welfare, except when expressed as a deeply selfish worldview in which the 'right' species i.e. those most conducive to either supporting or entertaining humans are applauded and encouraged, and the 'wrong' species i.e. smallpox, AIDS, anything that is not conducive to supporting or entertaining humans is eradicated.
The sooner people start being honest that their desire to 'save the world' is, as xtragrumpymike observed, a selfish desire to save the human race at the possible expense of other species (remarkably, exactly the thing they accuse the sceptics, oil lobby and big business of doing through their 'anti-environmental' practises), the sooner we can all realise that our actions as a species are pretty much inconsequential on a geographical or universal time scale, and that the Earth, and various species upon it (one of which I firmly believe will be humans or some offshoot of humans as we have demonstrated time and again our adaptability to pretty much any environment) will still be here right up to the point the Sun expands and obliterates the whole lot in several billion years.
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#359 simon-swede wrote:
"Yeah, I've noticed Mr B. loves putting words in other peoples mouths"
Show me where.
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bowmanthebard at post 371
At the risk of sounding horribly nosy, how old are you, what were you doing up Mount Snowdon and what were you wearing at the time and how long ago was this? ;-)
The bright plastic gear is a survival choice, not an aesthetic one.
Wild creatures inhabit and often profit from the marks of man in nature. The wild creature doesn't have the same sense of aesthetic as us because survival is the main aim. Maslow's hierarchy of needs refers to humans who have more time to spare for other aims.
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Bowman at #373
Look at your posts.
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bowmanthebard #373: [re: simon-swede #359 "Mr B...putting words in other peoples mouths"]
You said: "Show me where."
bowmanthebard #322: [re: #313 davblo wrote: "evolution has not found 'one plant' to be a viable development..."]
You said: "evolution is not a conscious designer"
I don't think anyone else took that as literately meaning I thought evolution was conscious.
/davblo
PS you failed to answer my #329
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bowmanthebard #365: "If the only kind of green plant were bamboo, say, then individual bamboo plants, plural, would cover the land. They would probably produce a lot of oxygen. There would probably be a large number of pandas. This would be very little biodiversity, but a lot of individuals."
But probably not for long.
The fact that no such land exists is testimony to that.
/davblo
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I often use the example of coins to illustrate the difference between types and tokens. (Types = kinds, tokens = individuals.)
Obviously (to most, but evidently not all) there is a big difference between having a large number of coin tokens in your pocket and having a wide variety of coin types in your pocket.
There are many different ways of measuring the diversity of a range of coin types. For example, take a pair of coins, one a penny and the other a pound. Now compare that pair to a triplet of coins consisting of a penny, a twopenny coin, and a fivepenny coin. Which has the greater diversity, the pair or the triplet? -- It depends what your metric of diversity is. One has a wider range, the other has a wider variety.
Similarly there are many different possible metrics of biodiversity. For example, consider Galapagos finches, which are closely related to each other, but occupy a wide range of environmental niches, as some eat insects, others eat seeds, and so on. Is there a lot of biodiversity in these finches? There is no simple answer to this question.
We can measure biodiversity in terms of genetic differences, differences in relatedness, differences in exploitation of the environment (what gets eaten), differences in environmental impact (what gets left behind), differences in potential to diversify further (for example, warm-blooded animals can exploit a wider range of environments than cold-blooded animals)...
And so on. Given that "biodiversity" can be understood in so many different ways, and that "a lot of biodiversity" is obviously different from "a lot of living things", it is just too simple-minded to say "biodiversity = good", let alone "biodiversity = most important thing for human welfare". The only reason I can see why people would adopt the brainless "biodiversity good" slogan is that they are thinking that biodiversity is God's sacred plan, and that is religion, even if you deny it.
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bowmanthebard #373: "Show me where." [I put words into other people's mouths.]
davblo #313: "evolution has not found 'one plant' to be a viable development..."
davblo #376: "You said: "evolution is not a conscious designer""
"Finding" something assumes that evolution has some sort of agency, in other words that it does things by design. It is vitally important to resist that assumption, if necessary by avoiding all figurative talk when discussing evolution. This isn't just hair-splitting, since in the present context we are disagreeing about what happens if "biodiversity" is reduced. Many people are talking as if a design is irredeemably disrupted, and I'm pointing out that there simply is no design, that life is endlessly opportunistic, and that therefore there is nothing much to be "disrupted".
The question of whether or not there is a "design" at work here is absolutely vital, and you're using figurative language that assumes there is design? How do you expect anyone to react to that sort of sloppiness?
Your assumption in #329 seems to be that evolution resulted in more than one kind of plant and that indicates that that 's the way it is meant to be. But that is a mistaken understanding of how evolution works. There is no way it is meant to be. There are some environmental niches occupied by just one species. (As I recall, lobster lips are exploited by a single entire phylum!) If by chance more than one species was able exploit that niche, there would be more than one species expoiting it.
"Individuals may matter to us, but that is only because we are individuals; and in the long run they don't matter at all and only species persist and evolve."
Then you don't understand what a species is, nor have you any clear idea of why something "matters".
"Ask a salmon."
Salmon sacrifice their own lives when reproducing, not because "species matter", but because that sort of behaviour causes the genes they carry as individuals to proliferate more in future generations. Since those genes cause that behaviour, the behaviour persists from one generation to the next.
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Bowman at #378
I don't recall anyone here adopting a 'brainless "biodiversity good" slogan' (you seem to be the only one mentioning this slogan).
My point about biodiversity has absolutely nothing to do with "God's sacred plan, and that is religion" (you seem to be the only one regularly bringing up God and religion in this context also).
In your post at #298, you say: "The attributes of the natural world that most contribute to human welfare, in no particular order, are: (a) oxygen to breathe, (b) warmth to counter the cold of space, (c) water to drink, and (d) food to eat, which need not axhibit all that much vatiety to sustain human life."
The point I have tried to make here is that each of YOUR valued attributes is an example of ecosystem services underpinned by biodiversity.
It is true that this does not answer the question "how much biodiversity is necessary to sustain life" but it is certainly more than "one kind" of plant.
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bowmanthebard #365: "If the only kind of green plant were bamboo, say, then individual bamboo plants, plural, would cover the land. They would probably produce a lot of oxygen. There would probably be a large number of pandas. This would be very little biodiversity, but a lot of individuals."
davblo #377: "But probably not for long.
"The fact that no such land exists is testimony to that."
The fact that no such land exists just shows that variation occurs and that living things diversify. It does not show that lack of diversity is disastrous. Of course the bamboo would be vulnerable to a single disease like Phytophthora infestans, but fungal diseases are themselves an aspect of biodiversity. In a sense, when lack of diversity is disastrous, it's because of diversity. If variation occurred less, there would be less variety in living things, that's all.
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@sensibleoldgrannie
I don't know if you have been 'up close' to a windfarm, but they are very noisy. Its a 'human type noise' which animals don't appear to like much (at least here in Texas). It is also not a place where birds would roost. The owners also would not want birds to roost on the turbines. As for offshore, yes I would expect marine life to flourish on the supports for these structures - which of course would attract the sea birds - not a good mix.
Additionally, many of the windfarms built along the coast require that wetlands be filled in to support the structures and the roads required to service them. Then you also have all the wires - and the right-of-ways required, which must be kept cleared of vegetation as well as made serviceable by repair crews.
I suppose the thing that bothers me is that it is called 'green energy' - but it is not. There are a lot of environmental impacts which are basically 'glossed over' and never challenged by environmental groups because the windmills are 'carbon free'. Windfarms do have an environmental impact, which should be scrutinized just as closely as any other power plant - but they aren't because the environmental groups which provide the checks and balancse (and court challenges) on other plants and their environmental impacts support the windfarms - and it really is all greenwash.
One additional point - there has yet to be a single power plant which was replaced by a windfarm - we still have to have the coal and nuclear plants to provide baseload and the natural gas fired turbines as peaker units to keep supply and demand in balance.
We have more windmills here in Texas than in any other state - and all together, they produce less electricity than a single large coal plant - at twice the price. They are loud, noisy, expensive and in my view unsightly. Even Denmark, with all its wind energy, must import electricity from coal plants outside of Denmark to keep the lights on when the wind isn't blowing.
I am thankful that the windmill 'boon' is going 'bust' here in the US.
Cheers.
Kealey
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@bowmanthebard #353
I did both.
But I spent a lot more time on the evolution of the eye for three reasons.
1. It is still a favourite with creationists. For instance it got used as recently as Autumn 2009 in Ray Comfort's creationist introduction to Origin of Species.
2. Darwin vs creationism affects most of the people blogging here. The debate about creationism in school science lessons is not confined to America.
3. Evolution of the eye needs at least diagrams and preferably models to explain it. I thought my links would be useful and could be reused.
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in 337. thinkforyourself wrote:
"Oldterry2 at #288 still says:-
‘…..Really? the near surface temperature series doesn't go back as far as 2000. (starts in 2003)…..’"
Yes I did say that but in 291 I corrected myself and said 'sea surface temperatures'
"The near surface temperatures are to be found at channel 04 on the graphic and go back to the middle of 1998."
But the sea surface temperatures (bottom of the drop down list) still only go back to 2003.
"You will find that the near surface and lower troposphere are tracking at record highs."
True but at the other 8 altitudes the temperature is slap in the range seen at the start of the century. What I was complaining about was that the increase was originally claimed to be "going off the scale" but is actually not that much higher than those values seen earlier (admittedly it is significantly higher than the values seen in the last few years, but then they had dropped from the peak).
Also the NOAA say that the february 2010 combined global land and ocean average surface temperature were only the SIXTH highest on record.
"Global warming theory predicts that, due to additional greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the near surface and lower troposphere will, in layman’s terms, warm, as the CO2 ‘blanket’ traps extra heat"
As I recall, the lower atmosphere is where the water vapour resides (over 90% in the first 5Km) so in these lower regions it is the effect from WV that is dominant. The CO2 effects are swamped at these lower levels and only become a major component at higher altitudes.
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#120 janebasingstoke
thought i might also add this snippet from the iop's 'clarification' of their comment on the uea climate group:
"The Institute’s statement, which has been published both on the Institute’s website and the Committee’s, has been interpreted by some individuals to imply that it does not support the scientific evidence that the rising concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is contributing to global warming.
That is not the case. The Institute’s position on climate change is clear: the basic science is well enough understood to be sure that our climate is changing – and that we need to take action now to mitigate that change."
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#379 bowman
you are right that it's not a simple process to measure biodiversity but there are statiscal methods that deal with it pretty well.
as to whether it is always good, as we've discussed before that depends on what you're discussing. biodiversity amongst hiv viruses is not good i would suggest. but in general, if you want a healthy, robust biosphere then more biodivesity is better (and that's from someone that doesn;t believe in a sacred plan for the universe.....or at least not one that we could ever fathom with our puny brains!).
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#371 bowman
personally i would rather not have windfarms in the mountains. i'm a glider pilot and they mess up ridge soaring big time. however, i dislike the alternatives (nuclear, coal etc) much more.
the key thing is to make sure locals benefit from the turbines around them. i think the danish coop method worked really well in that respect.
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#368 bowman
"But if they think people are responsible for what their ancestors did, then their minds are in fact corrupted by religion (specifically, the assumption of original sin)."
i think we've been here before! i still believe that if you now personally benefit from an injustice in the past then reparation is appropriate and you should be responsible for it. whether you want to call that original sin or not is irrelevant.
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#380 simon-swede wrote:
"I don't recall anyone here adopting a 'brainless "biodiversity good" slogan' (you seem to be the only one mentioning this slogan)."
As an illustration, consider SR's claim in #297 that "Biodiversity is the attribute of the natural world that most contributes to human welfare." Or again, in previous threads such as "Back to school on biodiversity" nearly universal approval was expressed towards biodiversity and nearly universal disapproval expressed towards anything that threatened it, without any attempt being made to explain what it is. My point is that the praise was unthinking, and the condemnation completely disproportionate.
"My point about biodiversity has absolutely nothing to do with "God's sacred plan, and that is religion" (you seem to be the only one regularly bringing up God and religion in this context also)."
I know you think it hasn't, and I don't doubt your sincerity, but we all wittingly or unwittingly (usually the latter) inherit assumptions from the traditions we are steeped in. Including me! A good example is the assumption that the mind is non-physical. Most scientifically-minded people will deny that, but as soon as you scratch the surface the assumption reveals itself to be deeply ingrained. For example, almost everyone assumes that "information" only gets into the mind via "experience", as if consciousness and the physical brain belongs to different realms.
It is the business of philosophy to expose assumptions like that. I'm sorry if you don't like it, but it really has to be done, especially in this blog, whose main topic is how much a theory deserves to be believed. That is what we keep returning to.
bowmanthebard #298: "The attributes of the natural world that most contribute to human welfare, in no particular order, are: (a) oxygen to breathe, (b) warmth to counter the cold of space, (c) water to drink, and (d) food to eat, which need not axhibit all that much vatiety to sustain human life."
simon-swede #380: "The point I have tried to make here is that each of YOUR valued attributes is an example of ecosystem services underpinned by biodiversity."
No they aren't. For the above, all we strictly need is a smallish number of types of plant. (I repeat: TYPES of plant, not individual plants!) That would be a much less pleasant world to live in, but we could still live in it. All of the above could exist in a world with far less biodiversity, however defined, than actually exists. In a world with no disease, we would all be healthier as well as being able to enjoy oxygen, warmth, water and food! Measles and smallpox and chickenpox and all the rest of them are part of "biodiversity" too. CO2-spewing, polar-bear-drowning, mountain-littering HUMANS are part of biodiversity!
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LarryKealey at #382
You wrote: "Windfarms do have an environmental impact, which should be scrutinized just as closely as any other power plant - but they aren't because the environmental groups which provide the checks and balancse (and court challenges) on other plants and their environmental impacts support the windfarms - and it really is all greenwash."
In an earlier post I noted that the RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds - it is an environmental group) in the UK scrutinses "hundreds of wind farm applications every year to determine their likely wildlife impacts, and object to about 7%, because they threaten bird populations."
For more, see: http://www.rspb.org.uk/ourwork/policy/windfarms/index.asp
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@ JaneBasingstoke
I was making a point about the speed at which evolution occurs. You misinterpreted my point as bog standard bit of Creationism, which you must surely know I reject.
My point was that we do not see eyes becoming vestigial, although that is what invariably happens to animals that live in total darkness. Why do we not see it? For much the same reasons as we don't (or very rarely) see acorns dropping. We see them on the ground, and we see them on oak trees, and we can be quite sure that they fall off the oak trees onto the ground. But the amount of time they spend in the air as they drop is tiny compared to the time they spend on the tree or on the ground.
The point was that evolution can occur very rapidly indeed -- or at least, rapidly enough to rule out claims that "there isn't enough time" for an adaptation to occur. (Which sounds a lot more like Creationism than anything I said, by the way!)
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bowmanthebard #379: "It is vitally important to resist that assumption, if necessary by avoiding all figurative talk when discussing evolution."
...the in the next breath...
bowmanthebard #379: "...that life is endlessly opportunistic..."
Opportunistic
"Opportunism is the conscious policy and practice of taking selfish advantage of circumstances, with little regard for principles"
Who's being figurative now?
/davblo
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#374 sensibleoldgrannie wrote:
"At the risk of sounding horribly nosy, how old are you, what were you doing up Mount Snowdon"
I was using moutaineers for a bit of target practice!
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@bowmanthebard, davblo and simon-swede
Personally, I think that you're all making some good points. Evolution and natural selection have shaped this World in which we all live, but these things happen mostly in small increments and the bio-diversity that results is not necessarily the best solution, as there was never any conscious solution or plan that required one. Some things just look like they were designed - It’s the selfish reproduction of an organism’s genetic material that’s really the only game in town, any slight mutation that aids survival and propagation will be positively selected.
As I fall into the diversity is good camp, I’d argue that if one looks at a system as a whole, then the diversity of phylum, classes, orders etc etc and the individual species within them, make the system as a whole (life itself) more robust and more able to respond to change.
Throughout geological history there are examples of mass extinction events and yet against all the odds life continues. Are we then “better” forms of life, are we the result of a grand plan – Nope, we’re just the lucky ones that have floated to the top of the gene pool.
But, does that mean that we have no duty of care to those examples of life that currently inhabit this little world of ours? I’d still argue that that the answer to that is, “No” (Sorry about the double negative).
We understand what we are doing to the world, we’ve created new selection pressures of our own and to certain extent escaped the selection pressures of our past and with that slightly privileged position comes a certain amount of responsibility - We can’t just pretend to be blunt instruments any more.
I don’t think we should try and pick and choose, what might or might not survive, but I do think we should look to preserve the habitats/environments in which things (whatever they are) may do so, if they are so able.
After that it’s up to evolution and natural selection to do the rest. Though, it should be noted that most evolutionary struggles as bowman points out are eventually terminal to one side or another.
Finally, with regard to what’s the worth of diversity – I’d offer up suggestions like, Asprin, Artemisinin and Penicillin. That’s without the things like cotton, hemp, rubber, oil and food………
As to the notion of single plants, I’d offer up the cultivated banana(not that it would exist without us) and Panama disease, as a case in point.
Mind you, I don’t want to detract from the whole bamboo thing, it’s one of my favourite plants and in my opinion the world could do with a lot more of it. Also, I quite like Pandas and Tigers, but I guess those are just personal likes rather than anything else.
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bowmanthebard #379: "Your assumption in #329 seems to be that evolution resulted in more than one kind of plant and that indicates that that's the way it is meant to be."
Seem to you maybe.
I have absolutely no delusion that that's the way it's meant to be.
I merely state that that's the way it IS.
/davblo
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#388 rossglory wrote:
"i still believe that if you now personally benefit from an injustice in the past then reparation is appropriate and you should be responsible for it."
If A is rich and B is poor, taking £1 (say) from A and giving it to B will hurt A less than it benefits B. I think some redistribution of wealth like that is justified.
But while I think it's OK to transfer £1 from A to B if A is rich and B is poor, I don't think it's OK to take it from A just because A's ancestor stole it from B's ancestor. What if A is poor and B is rich?
"whether you want to call that original sin or not is irrelevant."
What I'm calling the doctine of original sin is the assumption that blame is inherited. I call it that because it comes from our religious tradition. I don't share the assumption myself -- I think people are only to blame for what they do themselves. So I don't believe in original sin, but I do see that other people do believe in original sin. When I talk about original sin, I'm referring to their belief rather than any supposed "sin" itself.
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bowmanthebard #379: [re: "Ask a salmon."] "Salmon sacrifice their own lives when reproducing, not because 'species matter', but because that sort of behaviour causes the genes they carry as individuals to proliferate more in future generations. Since those genes cause that behaviour, the behaviour persists from one generation to the next."
Since "species" equates to the gene pool which exists within that species you are actually agreeing with what I said and you add nothing.
/davblo
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#387 rossglory wrote:
"personally i would rather not have windfarms in the mountains. i'm a glider pilot"
Gliders are among the few man-made things that I regard as welcome and indeed beautiful when I see them in out in the country. -- Unlike wind farms and mountaineers!
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#384 oldterry2
"As I recall, the lower atmosphere is where the water vapour resides (over 90% in the first 5Km) so in these lower regions it is the effect from WV that is dominant."
quite right, but in terms of climate change this is a red herring. you may not take my word for it but you could try looking up the difference between forcings and feedbacks.
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Bowman at #389
It is obvious that you don't want to acknowledge the concept of ecosystem services and the role of biodiversity in providing your chosen valued attributes of "(a) oxygen to breathe, (b) warmth to counter the cold of space, (c) water to drink, and (d) food to eat". So be it.
On the other stuff you keep on pontificating on about (God, sin, and the stuff you KNOW is so deeply ingrained in others - thought you didn't like quack psychology?), keep on doing so if it makes you happy. If nothing else, we can agree that we completely disagree on this.
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Well it seems this blog posting has been hijacked by discussions on biodiversity, and (as it the norm for comments on Richard Black blogs) therefore gone wildly off-topic.
I guess people are shoehorning loss of biodiversity in as a poster child for climate change impacts. Again, that shows an almost willful disregard for both biodiversity and the likely impacts of a changing climate.
As I believe people have pointed out before, the majority of living organisms prefer heat to cold. Therefore, if the climate is warming, regardless of the cause, it is likely to increase biodiversity as much as it is likely to diminish it (either through creation of more habitat types for new species to thrive in i.e. removal of ice and tundra/permafrost, or through increasing the survival range conditions for existing habitats). The key issues currently facing most large scale species are more due to destruction of habitat through land use changes, not due to any CO2 induced warming. It is likely, particularly for the vast majority of recorded species, that a warmer world will actually be better for biodiversity.
In addition, if it wasn't for a lack of 'biodiversity' amongst the human species we would currently be facing competion for land and resources with our Neanderthal cousins. As it is, we out competed them, just as we have effectively out competed most large mammals (hence the relative lack of megafauna in the world today). Without us doing this, we would not be in the position to be debating these subjects on the internet today, so it smacks of hypocrisy to say that biodiversity is essential to human welfare. Again, people are using a narrow, human-centric definition of the word.
And given that we have only recognised around 1% of the likely species populating the world today (although the logic followed to derive that figure is in itself highly dubious), and the vast majority of those species are at the insect or microbal level, it also smacks of hubris that the human race (in a similar manner to the current approach to climate change) believes it can actually be responsible/influence biodiversity/climate in any significant fashion...
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@bowmanthebard #389
"For the above, all we strictly need is a smallish number of types of plant. (I repeat: TYPES of plant, not individual plants!)"
Er, no.
There are two problems with your statement.
Firstly the language used suggests a bias towards multicellular life. For most of life on Earth organisms have been single celled.
Secondly although plants are important in harvesting sunlight, you also need to consider nutrient cycles. Something to break down and recycle nutrients.
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New word: "Bowmanibility": It is similar to infallibility but it means that you must never admit you may be wrong about anything. This is because everyone else is likely to be wrong on just about anything, either by being brainless or by the subtle influence of suppressed mystical, spiritual, religious or other interests.
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@bowmanthebard #389
(@simon-swede)
How physical is "2 + 2 = 4"? Is its lack of physicality mystical? Or do you only acknowledge it when it is represented in the physical world?
Is chemistry "wrong" because it can be reduced to physics? Is biology "wrong" because it can be reduced to chemistry? Or are all three useful in different situations?
Perhaps the concept of mind is no more "mystical" than the dullest computer algorithm.
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@bowmanthebard #391
"You misinterpreted my point as bog standard bit of Creationism"
No. But I thought that other people reading your comment could take it as supporting creationism. Which is why I tackled it.
"which you must surely know I reject"
Which is why I thought you would like my second link, the one to Dawkins.
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#397 davblo wrote:
""species" equates to the gene pool which exists within that species you are actually agreeing with what I said and you add nothing."
That's the strangest definition of 'species' I've ever come across!
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#394 blunderbunny wrote:
"I fall into the diversity is good camp"
I think we're all agreed that diversity is good. It just isn't the only good, not the greatest good, nor unambiguously good in all contexts. Some biodiversity is bad (such as the emergence of new strains of viruses and drug-resistant bacteria, new and nastier breeds of attack dogs, etc.).
It isn't the end of the world, nor does it spell doom for us all, if biodiversity is sometimes diminished, within reason, in exchange for some other more pressing good. That's all I'm asking: a bit of balance and proportionality.
Life is opportunistic, and if a species is made extinct by human or any other animal's activity, that's very unfortunate, but it does not mean a "delicate balance" has been disrupted or that "the sheeted dead will squeak and gibber in the Roman streets"!
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A virulently anti-biodiversity song was popular in the 1960s. It went like this:
"What we need is a great big melting pot
Big enough to take
The world and all it's got
And keep it stirring for
A hundred years or more
And turn out coffee coloured people by the score"
What a bunch of anti-biodiversity rotters!
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#400 simon-swede wrote:
"It is obvious that you don't want to acknowledge the concept of ecosystem services and the role of biodiversity in providing your chosen valued attributes of "(a) oxygen to breathe, (b) warmth to counter the cold of space, (c) water to drink, and (d) food to eat"."
It's not that I don't want to acknowledge that stuff, it's just that the four items I mentioned above are absolutely necessary for human life itself, and that stuff just isn't. If a few humans got stranded on Mars, say, they might conceivably survive with enough water, one or two kinds (not individuals) of plant, and plenty of CO2 for those plants to extract oxygen from, manufacturing carbohydrates etc. as human food at the same time.
As part of the proportionality I keep insisting upon, can you not acknowledge that important and all as biodiversity services certainly are for life on Earth as we know it to continue, the four items mentioned above are in a different league -- that of absolute necessity.
I often say that the "mark of the fanatic" is not having a scale of values, so to the religious fanatic blasphemy is as bad as murder, to the sexual fanatic masturbation is as bad as rape, and so on.
Be clear, I'm not accusing you of being a fanatic, in fact I think you're an intelligent, sensible chap. But an "eco-fanatic" is someone who thinks relatively minor losses in habitat are as bad as total destruction of the entire planet, with a bit of "planetary rape" thrown in for good measure.
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bowmanthebard at post 393
Has your aim improved? I have not heard of any mountaineers been splattered by your anti mountaineer paint.
I believe we all have switched-off genes which are residual components of our own earlier adaptations to suite novel living conditions. Do these genes will switch back on when needs must, or is it a one way trip in evolution?
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#392 davblo wrote:
"Opportunistic
"Opportunism is the conscious policy and practice of taking selfish advantage of circumstances, with little regard for principles"
I'd use a different dictionary if I were you. The word 'conscious' does not appear anywhere in any of the OED's 3 definitions of 'opportunistic'. Here is entry number 2:
2. Ecol. Of an organism or species: especially suited to unexploited or newly formed habitats or niches and occurring in populations whose size is not determined primarily by their density, being characterized by poor competitiveness and an ability to increase rapidly in numbers and to disperse readily.
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#402 JaneBasingstoke wrote:
@bowmanthebard #389: "For the above, all we strictly need is a smallish number of types of plant. (I repeat: TYPES of plant, not individual plants!)"
JaneBasingstoke #402: "Er, no.
"There are two problems with your statement.
"Firstly the language used suggests a bias towards multicellular life. For most of life on Earth organisms have been single celled."
There are single-celled plants.
"Secondly although plants are important in harvesting sunlight, you also need to consider nutrient cycles. Something to break down and recycle nutrients."
Are these nutrients necessarily recycled by non-plants?
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@bowmanthebard #353 #389
Meanwhile to expand on my earlier comment in my #345
"Fast in geological timescales is still pretty slow in human timescales."
So let's look at the examples of evolution at its fastest.
As an example of the speed of evolution at its fastest, take bacterial resistance to antibiotics. This doesn't take long to appear with each new class of antibiotics. Bacteria multiply very fast and there are relatively few genes involved. And even with this example evolution isn't "complete", we still use the oldest antibiotics because antibiotic resistance has not completely taken over.
Similarly your moth example is for a single gene in an animal with a short lifecycle.
So everything is great for species with short life cycles where only a few simple tweaks are needed. They can evolve to cope with us on timescales that we find convenient.
But what about those species with longer life cycles? The larger vertebrates? Trees? Or more complex situations?
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#404 JaneBasingstoke wrote:
"How physical is "2 + 2 = 4"?"
Mathematical claims are abstract, but I don't think that makes their subject-matter any less physical. A car has two front wheels and two rear wheels, so it has four wheels altogether, and they are all physical, even if we group them in sets.
"Is chemistry "wrong" because it can be reduced to physics? Is biology "wrong" because it can be reduced to chemistry? Or are all three useful in different situations?"
In general, when one theory reduces another theory, both theories come up smelling of roses. For example, Newton's laws plus some maths explain why planets travel in (approximate) ellipses, and why they sweep out equal areas in equal times -- all of which bears out Kepler's previous theory. Loosely speaking, it's a win-win situation for each, although strictly speaking they actually contradict each other. Since Einstein's theory reduced Newton's theory, we have to say that both Kepler and Newton were strictly wrong, but approximately right!
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Wow boys and girls we are getting a little bit silly on the biodiversity issue without considering some facts, which also included some boffin on the BBC going on about eyes and brain size this morning without actually saying anything intelligent.
We are the managers of biodiversity, we clear/cleared areas so we could change from hunter gathers into the makings of a social community to grow our own food. Namely, our big brain size said what the hell are we doing running around for, lets grow it the garden.
Nature Darwin etc. is based on the survival of the fitest, namely that species that adapts the quickest wins. In nature there are no prizes for coming second.
Creatures plants etc do not have emotion or feeling or political agendas they take without thinking or care. Foxes in chicken huts kill all the birds not just one. They are not going to stand back and think about it.
Not one plant/animal however can live alone without support of other species so a need is developed of mutual support. However, there are no rules and the game can change at anytime.
In order to creat the idealist view of biodiversity we need to manage it, and yes we get wrong because of ill conceived ideas opinons etc.
To have that biodivesity and save it the best thing we need is CO2 because the plants fed on it and it makes our job alot less complex. That in short was said by "Manysummits" poster boy Dr.Lovestock yesterday.
In short biodiversity does have the habit of fighting back against us and bitting us in the arse. I have seen how quick it takes over and destroys our very modest attempts to rule it. That is a place called Famagusta a city of 2000 years history abandened in 1974 today it is not fit for human habitation. No politics please or I'll complain to the mods
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@bowmanthebard #412
"single celled plants"
My comment was about a suggestion of a bias in your language. I am still getting that suggestion from your language.
Perhaps you aren't aware of the evolutionary origin of chloroplasts from cyanobacteria. Perhaps you aren't aware that cyanobacteria, which are amongst the oldest oxygen producing photosynthesisers, are no longer classed as plants. Perhaps you aren't aware that oxygen production is a comparatively new development in photosynthesis, older alternatives include using hydrogen sulphide instead of water and producing sulphur instead of oxygen.
"Are these nutrients necessarily recycled by non-plants?"
Strictly no. Effectively yes.
Bacteria include the chemistry specialists of nutrient recycling. The situation is similar to the gut flora of a ruminant.
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@bowmanthebard #414
So can abstract concepts such as "2 + 2 = 4" or a really dull computer algorithm be "real" without being mystical?
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#410 sensibleoldgrannie wrote:
"I believe we all have switched-off genes which are residual components of our own earlier adaptations to suite novel living conditions. Do these genes will switch back on when needs must, or is it a one way trip in evolution?"
Good question. I wish I could turn off my arachnophobic genes, the way most people's are, because it is awfully inconvenient jumping involuntarily when I see a bit a fluff blown along the ground at the height of a spider's body. (BTW, if you want girlie comments, I'm your man!)
However, if a new poisonous spider emerged on our islands -- thanks to the miracle of biodiversity -- I think I'd like those genes switched back on again.
In short, I agree with you -- evolution is definitely not a one-way trip.
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Some fantastic disinformation from creationist Dr. Roy Spencer over at UAH.
Here he is trying to infer that the whole record of surface warming in the US ‘could’ be contaminated by urban heat island effects.
Big Headline.
I read the whole article and, aside from the fact that the US occupies only 1.5% of the earth’s surface rendering the general thrust of his argument spurious anyway, I couldn’t believe it when I got to the end of his ‘analysis’ and he says this:-
‘….But, as always, the analysis presented above is meant more for stimulating thought and discussion, and does not equal a peer-reviewed paper. Caveat emptor…..’
So, if you are a ‘sceptic’ you get to say anything you like and whack in a disclaimer in the small print!
This stuff is then circulated in the ‘sceptic’ blogosphere (minus the caveats) as if it were the gospel truth.
What a world!
http://www.drroyspencer.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Spencer_(scientist)#Views_on_creationism_and_intelligent_design
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knownought at #348.
This video from Peter Sinclair gives a good summary of the science of climate change.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9SGw75pVas
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I've been away on holiday, and it seems I've just walked back into a minefield ;-)
TFY @419:
"This stuff is then circulated in the ‘sceptic’ blogosphere (minus the caveats) as if it were the gospel truth." (my bold)
And we're just supposed to take your word for that, as if it were the gospel truth?
Take a good look at WUWT, and then tell us all again how the 'sceptic' blogs leave out the caveats.
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bowmanthebard: "single celled plants"
#416 JaneBasingstoke: "My comment was about a suggestion of a bias in your language. I am still getting that suggestion from your language."
I'm using bad language?
JaneBasingstoke: "Perhaps you aren't aware of the evolutionary origin of chloroplasts from cyanobacteria."
All life on Earth, including animal life, is descended from other forms of life. An elephant is still an elephant even though it is descended from blue-green algae. A plant is still a plant even if it is descended from the same.
bowmanthebard: "Are these nutrients necessarily recycled by non-plants?"
JaneBasingstoke: "Strictly no. Effectively yes."
May I take that as a No, then?
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#417 JaneBasingstoke wrote:
"So can abstract concepts such as "2 + 2 = 4" or a really dull computer algorithm be "real" without being mystical?"
I wouldn't use the word 'real' for anything as abstract as the above, but loosely speaking, sure!
'2 + 2 = 4' is really a mathematical proposition rather than a "thing", so it's "true" as opposed to false rather than "real" as opposed to non-real. I guess an algorithm is real though, if it's clear enough in what it prescribes. If it's really dull and obvious, fine.
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@bowmanthebard #422
"bowmanthebard [#412]: "Are these nutrients necessarily recycled by non-plants?"
JaneBasingstoke [#416]: "Strictly no. Effectively yes."
bowmanthebard #422: "May I take that as a No, then?"
Only if you think it would be sensible for every factory manufacturing photo-voltaic cells to also have an on site chemical works making every major chemical that people might want to buy, regardless of its relevance to photo-voltaic cells.
Because we are talking a serious division of labour here. Most of the organisms doing the recycling aren't doing it for free. They are doing it to extract energy from the nutrients as they make them available for reuse by plants and other photosynthesisers.
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@bowmanthebard #422
"JaneBasingstoke [#416]: "Perhaps you aren't aware of the evolutionary origin of chloroplasts from cyanobacteria."
bowmanthebard #422: All life on Earth, including animal life, is descended from other forms of life. An elephant is still an elephant even though it is descended from blue-green algae. A plant is still a plant even if it is descended from the same."
As well as giving rise to the chloroplasts inside plant cells, cyanobacteria are still around as free living organisms. And no, cyanobacteria did not give rise to elephants.
Meanwhile if you are trying to work out some sort of minimalist ecosystem you cannot afford to ignore single celled life including bacteria and archaea. Multicellular organisms like us complement them, not the other way round.
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@419, thinkforyourself criticizes a paper discussing UHI in the US by stating that the paper only applies to the US.
I can understand TFY's confusion since real climate scientists can deduce the temperatures of the whole Northern Hemisphere for the past thousand years by looking at only a small part of the US.
Oh, the wonders of teleconnection!
TFY then goes on to complain that the analysis presented is only meant more for stimulating thought and discussion.
Yes, thinkforyourself is complaining because a scientist has suggested that you think for yourself.
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in 399. rossglory wrote:
"quite right, but in terms of climate change this is a red herring"
Maybe - maybe not - I was merely pointing out that the forcing causing the temperatures at those altitudes came predominantly from WV and so CO2 levels weren't really relevant.
" you may not take my word for it but you could try looking up the difference between forcings and feedbacks."
I do know the difference between forcing and feedback, but from the context you seem to be misusing 'feedback' - as you seem to be implying that raised CO2 is causing a raised WV. Now that's an effect, not feedback. The only significant feedback loop is WV causing a change in sea temperature that changes the amount of WV.
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Thinkforyourself: Roy Spencer. Intelligent Design
Intelligent design is like the Douglas Adams sentient puddle that woke up one day and became a sentient being. It was stunned to find that it occupied a depression in the ground that perfectly suited its shape. Of course any conclusion like this is just meaningless and adds nothing useful other then increasing the self importance of said sentient puddle.
This is just another religion.
It does not necessarily mean all Roy's work is bad. Famously, Einstein had trouble believing quantum mechanics - does this fact belittle everything Einstein did - I think not - after all he was simply human too - with self importance.
I can respect your viewpoint in the particular matter of intelligent design. However, although you may not realize it, "man-made CO2 causing a catastrophe" is just as much a religion. There is still no evidence for us to warrant being alarmed or for us to take actions with grave economic consequences.
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Bowman at #409
As others have pointed out, your "system" would collapse in short order. It's basic biology, not religion. Yet you still don't get it!
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thinkforyourself @419 seems to think that Spencers support of Intelligent Design means Spencer can't possibly be correct about climate science.
If thinkforyourself had of been born in the 1920's, would thinkforyourself think Winston Churchills support of the Eugenics Movement prior to WWII meant Churchill was unfit to lead the fight against the biggest proponent of Eugenics the world has ever seen?
Just a thought
/Mango
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#424 JaneBasingstoke wrote:
"Only if you think it would be sensible for every factory manufacturing photo-voltaic cells to also have an on site chemical works making every major chemical that people might want to buy, regardless of its relevance to photo-voltaic cells."
I think we're losing the plot here. My original point was not that it would a pleasant or efficient world if it only contained a few types of plant.
My point was that loss of biodiversity does not usually herald or threaten a catastrophic collapse, because most eco-systems are not in unstable equilibrium. Changes are changes, sure, but most are not absolutely crucial because life is is opportunistic. And constant changes are part of life.
Most discussion on ecology has been corrupted by brainless hysteria about "planet rape", and non-hysterical but biologically misguided cliams that eco-systems are in a "delicate balance". As I child, I got this codswollop day in day out on TV in quasi-religious, awstruck, mystical short movies from the National Film Board of Canada. The very name fills me with loathing!
In reality, there are ecological balances, but most of them are not "delicate" in the sense that they threaten total doom if disrupted a little bit. Of course if we hope to prevent any changes whatsoever, however tiny, then the balances mustn't be disrupted at all. But that's fantasyland.
So pervasive is the idea that there are "delicate balances" in the above sense, and so widely misunderstood is evolutionary theory, that I think we have to admit that most thinking on the matter is basically religious, because it wrongly assumes a teleology of life.
The ancient Greek motto "know thyself" was supposed to have been written at the entrance to the temple containing the Delphic oracle. I think that's very wise and important. When we hear authorities (such as oracles) speaking, we must constantly be on our guard against our own preconceptions, which we invariably use to interpret what the authority is telling us. To "know ourselves" is to become aware of the religious and similar impulses that we all share simply by being human -- and that we cannot slough off simply by waking up one morning and denouncing explicit religious belief.
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@382. LarryKealey
I am thankful that the windmill 'boon' is going 'bust' here in the US.
Well said. Green energy is by and large smoke and morrows. When you look beyond the surface you find a whole bunch of undesirable ramifications that make green energy look evil.
I do not believe that CO2 is evil but I do believe that fossil fuels would be better employed in the myriad of other uses. However at present there is no other viable alternative. What other energy source is there that a farm tractor can be filled up with and then run all day.
I think it is fair to say that the only clean energy we have at the moment is hydo electric and that has an environmental impact.
Hydrogen on the surface looks good but dig a little and it is not all good news. This is worth reading.
http://www.dalefield.com/slspartners/hydrogen_fm.html
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#425 JaneBasingstoke wrote:
"And no, cyanobacteria did not give rise to elephants."
According to mainstream evolutionary thery, elephants are descended from something quite similar to cyanobacteria. To make a fine point of the difference seems quite misguided to me.
But in any case, an elephant is no less an elephant, and a plant no less a plant, in being descended from something else.
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Bowman at #431
"Most discussion on ecology has been corrupted by brainless hysteria about "planet rape", and non-hysterical but biologically misguided cliams that eco-systems are in a "delicate balance". As I child, I got this codswollop day in day out on TV in quasi-religious, awstruck, mystical short movies from the National Film Board of Canada. The very name fills me with loathing!"
So, rather than try and understand the thinking and science behind the concept of ecosystem services, you cower behind the sofa because of your childhood experiences?
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#434 simon-swede wrote:
"So, rather than try and understand the thinking and science behind the concept of ecosystem services, you cower behind the sofa because of your childhood experiences?"
To be honest, it sounds like the tedious micro-economics of traffic-light management and refuse collection. And I can't say I'm much impressed by a scientific "theory" whose main point is to trace everything back to human profit. That's sounds parochial to me -- more like a distinctly human moral-political doctrine than decent a bit of explanatory science.
Everyone knows that different species affect each other. But far too often mere knock-on effects are presented as absolutely critical interdependencies whose minor disruption spells doom. That is just factually mistaken, because these ecological balances are not in unstable equilibrium. In reality, life is much more flexible and accomodating than current Canadian political correctness or half-baked 1960s thinking about "holism" would have us believe. (There is one important sense of holism, but this isn't it!)
To take an example from Darwin himslf, there are more clover flowers near English villages, because clover is pollenated by bumble bees, whose nests are damaged by field mice, which are killed by domestic cats, which are kept as pets by elderly women who live in villages.
What happens away from villages where there are fewer cats? -- Fewer clover plants. Therefore more of another kind of plant, because as I've said ad nauseam, life is opportunistic. Big deal -- this sort of thing happens all over the place.
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8571353.stm
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@bowmanthebard #407
Yep, I agree with all that, no problem. Not all outcomes of diversity are good and not all erosion of diversity is bad and yes it's very difficult to assign an arbitrary value of "goodness", if such a thing could ever exist, to an individual species or even groups of species.
So far, we've found life almost everywhere we've looked for it, deep underground, in hydro thermal vents/ponds and even under vast sheets of ice. So, it's safe to say that it's not going to be disappearing any time soon and that many of the more common memes regarding delicate balances and intricate webs are just that, memes. Life is most definitely very resilient and opportunistic and one organism's loss is another's gain.
The fact that myself and others quite like Tigers and Pandas etc makes for useful rallying calls, news headlines and touch points but it does not make any of these creatures more intrinsically valuable than others. Many of the more majestic creatures that once inhabited this world are no longer with us, and many that are with us will cease to be in short order, it's all part of life's struggle - I just think that we should give them, where possible, room to struggle.
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@thinkforyourself who wrote...
"This video from Peter Sinclair gives a good summary of the science of climate change."
Again, the problem is that this video presents effects of warming as if they were NEW evidence when they are in fact the exact same evidence, its warmer. This includes such obvious statments as "downward radiation"...because in a warmer atmosphere there is simply more radiation in all directions. There is more upward radiation as well, more sideways radiation...it makes no difference which way you look, there's more IR from warmer objects.
All of the biological impacts of warming suffer from the same problems. The habitability zones and migrations are all essentially proxies of temperature and constitute no additional evidence. One of the guys in the video seems to be stupidly implying that the creatures are "moving toward the cold" but they are in fact moving toward whatever temperature they are adapted to. The range in which tropical creatures can thrive is simply increasing. The temperate zones have moved as have arctic and special sub-climates...and with them the animals adapted to those regions.
But of course the real problem is the very notion of "back radiation". This concept is entirely incorrect. Every layer emits the same amount forward as it does back...based mostly on its temperature. Increase the amount of CO2 and absorption/emissions balance out. The temperature gradient is what allows there to be any greenhouse effect.
BUT, the temperature gradient is controlled mostly by convection and latent heat form water vapor. This is why skeptics rightfully point out scientists have not yet established what even the most basic CO2 forcing is. Absorption math is only one part of the equation and it is in fact one of the smaller parts. The notch for CO2 simply corresponds with the coldest part of the atmosphere which is demonstrably the point at which convection and other aspects of weather finally exhaust its energy. It is NOT a rigid point somehow enforced by greenhouse gases and their relative concentrations. The notch simply corresponds with the emissions of CO2 and CO2 emits at those levels because that's all the energy it has to emit.
Also, climatologists do not yet understand any of the other, numerous warming/cooling cycles through this (or any other) interglacial. There was warming long before there were any significant CO2 increase and these scientists simply ASSUME that this warming halted some time around the 1900's and was taken over by more pronounced anthropogenic global warming. There is no justification for this other than it being convenient for their hypothesis...not unlike the now discredited hockey stick.
The science is far from settled and your repeatedly spewing these links to articles claiming such things as ADDITIONAL evidence of anthropogenic warming has proven nothing but your own bias.
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@LabMunkey #436
Very glad to see the back of those adverts, as they were outrageous.
Really, not sure how you attempt to re-wind the damage that they might have done to the population at large.
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Bowman at #435
Once again you are dismissing something without understanding it. There is a difference between "ecosystem services" and any attempt to assign value to them. I never said anything about the latter. I was talking about the services themselves. To put it simply, the services are the functions that ecosystems do simply by being, and these functions include the provision of those attributes you deemed necessary.
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#51 wrote
"Just what would it take to make you believe the consensus view that CO2 is largely responsible for the warming in the past 50 years, and sensistivity of temperature atmospheric CO2 is between 1.8 and 4.5C?
Just what would it take?...more specifically, if the current crop evidence is verified, would that be enough?, if not, what else on top would sway you? What do you think the symptoms of AGW would be if it were true?...Just hypothetical questions..."
You take the same stance as so many by exerting that there is a concensus view - only amongst the small inner sanctum. If you actually count the number of scientists who are actually responsible for analysis of all of AGW data, you would have no need to even remove your socks.
A peer-review process so perverted that they contrive to review each others works, and take pride in negatively reviewing any contradictory papers ensure that the concept of "published papers" becomes a little one-sided.
I studied Geology, Mathematics and Computer Science with Stocastics and Numerical Analysis at Bristol University in the late 60's and early 70's. I feel I have a good grounding in many of the problems of the AGW proposition, and find the methodologies used (if what some have managed to glean so far is correct) show such a shonky understanding of statistics that any 2nd-year undergrad would be ashamed of - unless you want to subscribe to the alternate view of deliberate fraud.
What would it really take to convince me? Well, if everyone is so convinced of CO2's greenhouse gas properties, then perhaps using it inside double-glazing would be a start. Imagine the energy efficiencies we could make - heck if that stuffs only half as good as Steve Jones et al claim it to be it could solve the world's energy crisis on its own. But then again maybe the double-glazing companies would be hauled before the Courts for some form of misrepresentation.
Personally I take the view that we are emerging from the mini-iceage during the Tudor reign, when Henry VIII held regular Christmas Fayres on a frozen Thames around London Bridge. It has been warming generally since then yet has probably crested out being close to the prior Medieval Warm Period. What has happened over the past 20 years or so, is that Solar activity appears to have had by far the greatest influence on climate than anything mankind could possibly do.
And of course if the World population should rise to 9 billion over the next couple of decades, then we might, just might, need all that extra CO2 to promote the crop growth needed to feed them.
Finally, why be afraid of it getting warmer? Even if GW and/or AGW is true, what is wrong with that? Sure a few thousand will die from heat (unless we help with air conditioning), but that is nothing compared to the tens of thousands who die from cold.
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@441 andic said@
"What has happened over the past 20 years or so, is that Solar activity appears to have had by far the greatest influence on climate than anything mankind could possibly do."
Where is the evidence for this?
"You take the same stance as so many by exerting that there is a concensus view - only amongst the small inner sanctum. If you actually count the number of scientists who are actually responsible for analysis of all of AGW data, you would have no need to even remove your socks."
Are you some kind of mutant? There are hundreds. if not thousands of scientists involved. There are many who aren't 'famous' - they just get on with their job below the radar.
"Sure a few thousand will die from heat (unless we help with air conditioning), but that is nothing compared to the tens of thousands who die from cold."
You make out that the direct effect of heat is the only problem. What about sea level rise? What about the influence on the food supply of developing nations? What about water shortages? What about the threat of extinctions? Notice how all these impacts are backed up by evidence. Evidence is all that really matters.
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Some interesting thoughts from James Lovelock;
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article7061020.ece
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#440 simon-swede wrote:
"Once again you are dismissing something without understanding it. There is a difference between "ecosystem services" and any attempt to assign value to them. I never said anything about the latter."
OK, but the Wikipedia article you linked me to seemed to dwell on the importance of these "services" for human well-being, which sounds too political for my taste (in science).
My next problem is that "ecosystem services" are very specific to local conditions, which constantly change with the weather, and indeed with the climate, with the turbid ebb and flow of random circumstance such as invasions, and with plain old good or bad luck in life and death. For example, we all know how important scavengers are. But which scavengers "do the work" -- and the distinctive way they do their work -- can and does change from one decade to the next even in a smallish area. Red kites used to scavenge in parts of Britain where seagulls now scavenge. (And the usual idiots are claiming that seagulls moving inland is a "sign" that something "unnatural" is happening!) If there are neither kites nor seagulls, there are rats, which bring diseases, which have further knock-on effects. The foxes of Bristol do a good job of scavenging as well as a bad job of knocking over bins.
Obviously someone has to study these short-lived local conditions, much as local geologists study local rock formations. But these localized studies hardly count as very fundamental science -- the sort of thing that shades into philosophy -- so much as "necessary fieldwork". I admire anyone who does that fieldwork, in fact I have often done something like it myself in my spare time, from an early age as my mother was a zoologist. Darwin himself did much of that valuable work -- his work on barnacles, for example, remains the best yet -- but his really earth-shattering work is in his three most important books on evolution. No doubt he couldn't have written them without his vast experience in the field. But it is for them rather than his vast experience in the field that he is chiefly remembered.
If I have learned anything "earth-shattering" or at least very fundamental from my own very modest experiences "in the field", it is that popular and politically correct accounts of the dangers of a "delicate balance" being disrupted -- resulting in a catastrophic apocalypse for life itself -- are religious hoo-ha. Life is very resiliant, it springs up wherever it can, its local conditions vary, and it changes constantly, and even randomly.
Bad things can happen, and do happen, but humans nearly always err on the side of exaggerating the potential damage. Why we do this I'll leave to you as an exercise!
Happy St Patrick's Day!
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#442 SR wrote:
"Notice how all these impacts are backed up by evidence. Evidence is all that really matters."
Everyone thinks that evidence is the most important thing. But people disagree over what to count as evidence. So appealing to something that you count as evidence but your opponent rejects as evidence is hardly going to settle anything, is it?
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hiding the decline
forget the source is a "denier" please comment on the content:
http://joannenova.com.au/2010/03/hiding-a-different-decline-and-rewriting-history/
/Mango
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@thinkforyourself #286
No. Jonathan Leake's views are mainstream. Yours, mine and the Guardian's are now the minority view and treated as such by the BBC.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8571353.stm
And Jonathan Leake is allowed to make more mistakes than you or me because questioning aspects of government policy is always in the public interest.
Incidentally I think the adverts were too cringy to be worth the sceptics's complaints. They were patronising and embarrassing and they were never going to work as the "propaganda" some sceptics have alleged because their target audience is used to far more sophisticated advertising.
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@thinkforyourself #419
Roy Spencer's beliefs on Intelligent Design are not a problem.
It looks far less religious than Phil Jones's defence of his temperature data set from scrutiny by sceptics when it had never been fully scrutinised by anyone outside Phil Jones's immediate team.
However any changes to the UAH temperature set need the same scrutiny as the work done on other temperature sets.
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@bowmanthebard #431
Minor point about elephants.
Elephants are eukaryotic. Cyanobacteria are bacterial. They therefore are about as far apart as you can get.
Plants are also eukaryotic. However the involvement of cyanobacteria in the evolution of chloroplasts in plants appears to have started as symbiosis. The legacy of this symbiosis shows up in the form of chloroplasts still retaining some DNA.
There is a similar story with mitochondria, which also retain some of the DNA of their bacterial ancestors.
Incidentally keeping blueprints in a powerhouse is not a good idea designwise, nice little piece of evidence against creationism.
Also incidentally, the symbiosis behind the origin of both chloroplasts and mitochondria are examples of bacteria being great chemistry specialists.
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Bowman at #444
You are focusing on just one subset of ecosystem services and only at a very small scale. I can't understand why you seem to have such a difficulty coming to terms with what is a very simple concept grounded in basic biology.
I have to laugh at your criticism that the description of ecosystem services stresses too much the "importance of these "services" for human well-being, which sounds too political for my taste (in science)". If you can cast your mind back that far, you proclaimed the "attributes of the natural world that most contribute to human welfare". Once again, your selected essential attribues of "(a) oxygen to breathe, (b) warmth to counter the cold of space, (c) water to drink, and (d) food to eat" rely on ecosystem services (or if you prefer, functioning ecosystems) and these are underpinned by biodiversity.
At least this time you left out God and sin and the like.
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"441. At 11:54am on 17 Mar 2010, andic wrote:"
"You take the same stance as so many by exerting that there is a concensus view - only amongst the small inner sanctum. If you actually count the number of scientists who are actually responsible for analysis of all of AGW data, you would have no need to even remove your socks."
Actually there are no scientists responsible for analyzing all AGW data. Neither are there scientists responsible for analyzing all data behind the theory of evolution. But in both cases there is a consenusus in the field regarding the theory.
"What would it really take to convince me? Well, if everyone is so convinced of CO2's greenhouse gas properties, then perhaps using it inside double-glazing would be a start."
Unfortunately you don't understand how the greenhouse effect works. The suggestion about double-glazing is nonsensical.
"Personally I take the view that we are emerging from the mini-iceage during the Tudor reign, when Henry VIII held regular Christmas Fayres on a frozen Thames around London Bridge. It has been warming generally since then yet has probably crested out being close to the prior Medieval Warm Period. What has happened over the past 20 years or so, is that Solar activity appears to have had by far the greatest influence on climate than anything mankind could possibly do."
Solar activity is insufficient to explain the recent warming. Multiple studies have found this, it's a well tested result.
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438. At 11:30am on 17 Mar 2010, poitsplace wrote:
"Again, the problem is that this video presents effects of warming as if they were NEW evidence when they are in fact the exact same evidence, its warmer."
Which is necessary because certain people are trying to get away with claiming it maybe hasn't warmed over the 20th century.
"One of the guys in the video seems to be stupidly implying that the creatures are "moving toward the cold" but they are in fact moving toward whatever temperature they are adapted to."
You know what he meant - so why pick an argument with something he clearly didn't mean?
"But of course the real problem is the very notion of "back radiation". This concept is entirely incorrect."
It exists. It's not "entirely incorrect" or a problem. In fact you admit there is radiation cast back from the atmosphere - backradiation. So again why are you bothering to generate an argument for the sake of argument?
"BUT, the temperature gradient is controlled mostly by convection and latent heat form water vapor. This is why skeptics rightfully point out scientists have not yet established what even the most basic CO2 forcing is."
Radiative forcing does not depend on convection or latent heat. Scientists do know and have established what the forcing of doubling co2 is with high precision.
"There was warming long before there were any significant CO2 increase and these scientists simply ASSUME that this warming halted some time around the 1900's and was taken over by more pronounced anthropogenic global warming. There is no justification for this other than it being convenient for their hypothesis"
There is justification - natural forcings cannot explain the warming of recent decades. Anthropogenic forcings can.
"The science is far from settled"
We know the cause of co2 rise in the atmosphere. We know the Earth has warmed in recent decades. We know that sea level has risen and glaciers have receded. We know that rising greenhouse gases cause significant warming and that humans must be responsible for some of recent warming. On these points the science is settled - all the debate that once existed in the scientific field has now "settled down" - ie science is settled.
It's unknown precisely how much warming human activity will produce in the future. That's not "settled", but the evidence leans towards some possibilities better than others.
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#449 JaneBasingstoke wrote:
"Elephants are eukaryotic."
Eukaryotes are descended from prokaryotes.
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#450 simon-swede wrote:
"At least this time you left out God and sin and the like."
I mention other people's belief in God and other people's belief in "original sin" so often because I think it is so important that these things be kept out of science.
To make sure these religious beliefs are put out and kept out, we must be constantly on our guard against them sneaking back in.
All of that religious stuff isn't successfully excluded just by no one explicitly mentioning them. It's excluded when people genuinely give up the common habits of thought that embody them.
It is fatally easy to unwittingly and imperceptibly slip back into these habits when discussing nature, evolution, "design", the mind, etc..
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@ Larry Kealey
@ Bowman (see about half way down regarding scientific method)
@ other interested readers
Re: climate modelling (I realise this post would have been more relevant around #150 but better late than never)
Larry, in response to your post (#6) about blogging here being a waste of time, in my case your time has been well spent as far as pointing me in the direction of some excellent reading material. As a direct result of discussions with yourself, I've spent an enjoyable couple of hours reading some papers by one E.N. Lorenz (I think you'll be familiar with his work!).
I found his work described in a paper of 2005 particularly enlightening as regards his opinion on the worth of climate modelling. Titled: "A look at some details of the growth of initial uncertainties" (Tellus, 57A, pp 1) he describes his findings (paraphrasing his conclusions section):
"[In our simple model] there are special times that are highly predictive - uncertainties introduced at these times do not grow so rapidly as those at other times. Similarly there are times that are highly predictable - uncertainties introduced previously do not acquire the magnitude then that they reach somewhat earlier or later... How might we test these ideas with real data or a fairly realistic GCM?... we would require a means of identifying the predictive states when they occur.
"In any event, we feel that anyone who might seek analogous results with state-of-the-art models would do well to work first with small but not-too-small models... Possibly our findings would not hold up, but we have an intuitive feeling that they will have wide applications."
Here he seems to be suggesting that there is the possibility of GCMs having good predictive capacity, even in the event that the initial state of the climate is not well-known (i.e. the "highly predictive state" mentioned above), but that one needs to know the circumstances (the particular form of this initial state) under which it will behave in this way. In other words, the models point towards certain aspects of climate science that are in urgent need of further study - as Larry has pointed out many times before. Furthermore, advocating using "small but not-too-small" models implies that there is worth in a model that does not capture all of the processes and feedbacks of the climate, so long as one recognises that it is being used to study an aspect of the climate and not the complete climate. The type of complete GCM model Larry talked about in post #150, though fabulous if it can be constructed (and, I hope, that with many more decades of research such things will be realised - I personally am looking forward to the application of quantum computing to this field - again, decades away!), is not necessary to gain insight into some of the global phenomena. The caveat is that one needs to be sure of the capabilities and limitations of the reduced model one is studying.
Regarding the the process of applying the scientific method as regards climate modelling, Lorenz made an interesting remark (an opinion of his - I have no fear of "appealing to authority" in this instance) in his Crafoord Prize Lecture speech (printed in Tellus (1984), 36A, pp98). To quote:
"Eighteenth and nineteenth century meteorology abounded with analytical studies which appeared to be dynamically consistent, but which lacked abundant observations to guide them, and consequently reached incorrect conclusions. I suspect that, in a similar way, current analytical studies may need both observations and computer-generated information, inspired by irregularity, [ a fundamental property of the atmosphere,] to steer them around similar pitfalls."
With this statement he appears to be suggesting that the devlopment of GCMs must necessarily progress by reference to the observational data i.e. that forming a hypothesis independently of observations can end up with expending huge quantities of effort to create beautiful scientific models that are utterly worthless. Development in conjunction with observations, then, allows one to be "steered around the pitfalls".
This is the reality of modern research. Ideally one would form as many hypotheses as one could find mathematical and phenomenological justification for and then test them all, rejecting any that fail the test. The reality is that, in complex systems research, the process of formation of the hypotheis is in itself extremely time-consuming and expensive. Since time and, particularly, funding is limited, efforts must be made to limit development of hypotheses to those that have more of a chance of being "right". The only way to do this is by recourse to observations during the development of the hypothesis (On this point I predict Bowman's response to be "This is an outrageous statement"... just a guess)
So, in conclusion, my opinion of the current state of climate modelling is:
1. That there has been sufficient study of the major components of the climate system (Lorenz's work included) that we have some insight into how the climate system may behave in response to certain pressures (land-use, pollution and GHG emissions among them) that indicates AGW is more likely to be "substantial" than "negligible" (NB I use terms which are intentionally vague and will not attch a percentage to them!)
2. There is an awful lot we don't know, and which isn't well modelled, but attempts to estimate the effects of the things we know we don't know (clouds for example) serve to extend the error range but do not substantially change the conclusion. Unknown unknowns (I sound like Rumsfeld now!) still have the potential to scupper things but parameterisations capturing unknown physics attempt to minimise this possibility.
3.Regarding the error range, the huge range of possible future temperature increase ( a crude measure but necessary to focus the discussion) of 1.8 to 6 degrees is well justified and serves to say, as I see it, "we know there's a lot we don't know - the bits we do know point to warming - the research is ongoing and this position may change."
4. Further research, guided by modelling, is critical.
5. and finally, regarding the dissemination of all this information, Politicians and the media demand disaster stories and will distort any science to their own ends. Unfortunately, at the top of this field, some scientists appear to be turning into politicians.
Apologies for the lengthy post and thanks for reading,
Dave.
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@ Poit 438
"BUT, the temperature gradient is controlled mostly by convection and latent heat form water vapor. This is why skeptics rightfully point out scientists have not yet established what even the most basic CO2 forcing is."
I agree with the first part of this statement but not the second. Again, there are multiple lines of evidence that lead scientists toward the estimates they make. I like to keep things simple. The back radiation comes about because the earth's surface and the troposphere are very closely coupled, so long wave radiation reflected from the earth is absorbed and re-emitted. Some of it goes to space and some of it goes back to the surface through convection and thermal equilibrium is maintained. If CO2 increases, more of this LW radiation is absorbed and a new thermal equilibrium established - one in which the surface temperature is higher. Water vapour concentration increases. Water vapour has already been shown to the dominant greenhouse gas, contributing about 2/3rds of the greenhouse effect. Clouds have been shown to be practically neutral (or at least exhibit a very small feedback), with the warming effect of the increased WV offset by the increased albedo. Surely, the uncertainty in the sensitivity of CO2 to temperature is only in the sense that we don't know exactly how high the sensitivity, only that it is high (i.e.,lower limit 1.8C, best estimate 3C, long tail extending towards 5C) The uncertainties have already been assessed by the practising scientists. This, to me, is no grounds to dismiss AGW.
Without my further rambling, can you explain how your insight into the feedbacks is different to that set out by the experts in the field, and why?
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@bowmanthebard #453
Prokaryotes are ancestral to all cellular life on Earth. Elephants and cyanobacteria are about as far apart as you can get.
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bowmanthebard #454: "To make sure these religious beliefs are put out and kept out, we must be constantly on our guard against them sneaking back in."
Was that figurative speech (which you claim to avoid #379) or do you really believe that "religious beliefs" are little people trying to invade us?
Sneak
"• verb (past and past part. sneaked or informal, chiefly N. Amer. snuck) 1 move, go, or convey in a furtive manner. 2 stealthily acquire or obtain: she sneaked a glance at her watch. 3 Brit. informal inform someone in authority of a person’s misdeeds."
/davblo
PS. Or have you switched to another dictionary?
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bowmanthebard #454: "It is fatally easy to unwittingly and imperceptibly slip back into these habits when discussing nature, evolution, 'design', the mind, etc.."
It seems you fail to live up to your own criteria (see #458)
/davblo
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#457 JaneBasingstoke wrote:
"Prokaryotes are ancestral to all cellular life on Earth. Elephants and cyanobacteria are about as far apart as you can get."
You seem to have missed my point, which was that if X is descended from Y, that fact makes it no less of an X. I illustrated that point by choosing living things that could hardly be more different from each other, yet which are still related by descent.
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#455 Dave_oxon wrote:
"The only way to do this is by recourse to observations during the development of the hypothesis (On this point I predict Bowman's response to be "This is an outrageous statement"... just a guess)"
No, that's fine, as long as you are aware of the way the observation and the hypothesis are related logically. In simple terms, it goes like this:
if H then O
not-O
therefore not-H.
So H is "developed" by being dumped in favour of a newer version of H, or something entirely new altogether. The word 'development' can be very inappropriate or misleading here.
It does not work like this:
if O then H
O
therefore H.
It cannot work like that for various reasons, among them the fact that H describes things that cannot be seen directly, whereas O describes things that can be seen directly.
What is outrageous are claims like the one Ed Miliband made again this morning that "scientists know with greater than 90% certainty that H" -- a claim no one would make if they understood the elementary logic above.
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#458 davblo wrote:
"Was that figurative speech (which you claim to avoid #379) or do you really believe that "religious beliefs" are little people trying to invade us?"
I'm only against figurative speech when it threatens (sic) to mislead (sic) us, as it does when we are discussing the idea of "design" in nature.
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@MangoChutneyUKOK #446
Given the current claims against the non-satellite temperature measurements, and the lack of scrutiny of HADCRUT temperature sets in particular, the National Geographic 1976 temperature set does need to be taken seriously.
But that means it needs the same scrutiny that is being demanded for the other official temperature sets and that has not been provided in your link.
Incidentally here is a better link.
http://hidethedecline.eu/pages/posts/temperature-corrections-of-the-northern-hemisphere-144.php
I believe there is evidence to support HADCRUT over the National Geographic.
There are significant differences in the timing of peaks and troughs between HADCRUT and National Geographic. There are no similar timing differences between HADCRUT and UAH when UAH kicks in.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/from%3A1978/compress%3A12/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from%3A1978/compress%3A12
Joanna Nova is wrong to suggest that scaremongering bias is the only way to reconcile the differences between HADCRUT and National Geographic. Such a bias would not have affected timings of peaks and troughs. I think a more likely explanation is that the National Geographic did not cover Northern Hemisphere as effectively as HADCRUT.
Finally a minor point about some of her wording. I think her comment "The US records show that the 1930’s were as hot as the 1990’s." is ambiguous. The US records showing warm 1930s temperatures apply to temperatures within the US. That is not clear from her wording.
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http://news.discovery.com/animals/florida-wildlife-cold-weather.html
A few months ago I made a complaint to the ASA regarding Plane Stupids cinema advert showing polar bears falling from the sky and dying as they hit the concrete pavement of a city. I received a letter from the ASA confirming the had received a 'large number' of similar complaints and as a result the advert had been banned. At this time the scare mongering from the climate lobby was reaching a peak and after paying to see a movie and then being subject to this rubbish, I was jolted into making a more detailed investigation into whether there was actually anything to worry about.
Compare Plane Stupids propaganda to this a real news article. I've just been diving in Florida and this stuff is the main talking point in the diving community down in the Keys.
http://news.discovery.com/animals/florida-wildlife-cold-weather.html
Now if 200 Polar Bears had died of heat exhaustion last summer imagine the sort of news coverage that the IPCC would have been able to cash in on. However the oposite is true and large marine mammals having been dying because of LOWER than normal temperatures. Oddly enough though the BBC seem to have missed this one.
Then I read the Hockey Stick Illusion on holiday and being a proffesional engineer myself understood the statistics it labouriously unpicks in the first 150 odd pages and it is a revaltion. It's is not a light read but if you stick with it the insights it gives into the workings of the climate business are astounding. If I produced work as badly referenced and cited as in MHB98 I'd be out of a job. And as for Al Gore's team 'mistaking' the jolly hockey stick for ice core data, well...
Climate gate, glacial retreat, medievil warm period, Africa gate, post 1980 tree cores, coldest winter in the Nothern Hemisphere for 50 years.
The wheels are coming off and it's not before time.
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@Manatee justice 464
Would you mind briefly listing the main arguments against the hockey stick as stated in the hockey stick illusion. I ask this because most, if not all, the allegations made by Montford have been completely debunked. Anyway, let's hear them, maybe one at a time ...
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@infinity #452 who wrote...
(RE:moving toward the cold)"You know what he meant - so why pick an argument with something he clearly didn't mean?"
I most certainly do not know that in a video that claims warming is dangerous...that a scientist claiming animals are "moving toward the cold" means they're simply roaming HARMLESSLY about environments to which they are well suited. Normal people would assume this meant they were fleeing heat.
-------------------------
"In fact you admit there is radiation cast back from the atmosphere - backradiation. So again why are you bothering to generate an argument for the sake of argument?"
I admit that an EQUAL amount of radiation is cast in all directions. This is radically different from the concept of "back radiation", especially when you realize that after taking the temperature gradient into account...more is always thrown forward than back.
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"Radiative forcing does not depend on convection or latent heat. Scientists do know and have established what the forcing of doubling co2 is with high precision."
No, they have established how much CO2 will absorb at a given temperature and concentration. This is not at all the same thing as the overall impact of CO2 on a dynamic, turbulent atmosphere.
-------------------------
"There is justification - natural forcings cannot explain the warming of recent decades. Anthropogenic forcings can."
Nothing explains the little ice age, medieval warm period or Roman warm period...yet they happened anyway. The ASSUMPTION of an amount of anthropogenic forcings that we feel would explain the warming could explain the warming would explain it. But that's just us blaming it on something without any verification. They never actually established what the forcing would be in the first place...they simply assumed it was enough to cause the warming.
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SR
It was Mcintyre and Mcindrick who did the work not Montfort, he never claimed to be doing anything other than documeting the episode.
1. Only two of the many tree ring proxie data showed the famous hockey stick uptick. How then were they so significant?
2. The results for these two datasets only went up to 1980 and must have therefore been projected from there.
3. Mcintyre spent three days searching for the actual trees used in Mann's work and did updated cores. All showed DECREASES in width since 1980. In Mann's world this would equate to global cooling.
4. The short centering algorithm used by Mann in his Fortran code artificially allows greater significance to datasets showing any 20th century increases and flattens out previous warm periods.
These are the main points
If I get time later I'll elaborate
Mr C
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465, SR wrote:
“
@Manatee justice 464
Would you mind briefly listing the main arguments against the hockey stick as stated in the hockey stick illusion. I ask this because most, if not all, the allegations made by Montford have been completely debunked. Anyway, let's hear them, maybe one at a time …
“
I will repeat a previous post that your claimed mathematical/statistical background has failed to answer:
“
If you could explain why the more vociferous dendroclimatoligists consider the failure of R2 verification statistics to be immaterial I might be impressed.
Failing that perhaps you could explain why other climate scientists haven't questioned the validity of these papers.
“
Actually even climate scientists are breaking their long-held silence about the inadequacies of the Hockey-Stick:
http://discovermagazine.com/2010/apr/10-it.s-gettin-hot-in-here-big-battle-over-climate-science/article_view?searchterm=michael%20mann&b_start:int=0
If you do have any knowledge of maths or statistics the problems should be obvious; there should be no need to ask.
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@bowmanthebard #460
This debate does not exist in isolation. When talking about concepts relating to other important debates I want to make sure the facts are clear.
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@bowmanthebard #431
Back to your main point.
At the time that I joined the conversation it was about you saying that all we needed to keep life going on Earth was a few kinds [= species] of plant. ("all we strictly need is a smallish number of types of plant. (I repeat: TYPES of plant, not individual plants!) " #389)
OK, so you are now pointing out that your minimalist ecosystem argument is only a side argument. But I do have an issue with your main argument as well.
It is one thing to denounce the extreme metaphors that gets used by some environmentalists. But references to "delicate balances" are not wrong per se, although they might need more qualifiers.
Designing a reasonably stable working ecosystem from scratch is beyond our science. The most notorious example of this is Biosphere 2. (Biosphere 2 was not an outright failure, it provided significant useful science, some of which was totally unforeseen by its designers.)
And there are plenty of examples where a new dominant species can change the whole character of an ecosystem. For instance when rhododendrons take over they don't just replace other plants, they also change the character of the soil.
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rob @168
This has been covered a million and one times in blogs like this, but nonetheless, i'll say it again.
The Mann (1998) and other reconstructions have been very robustly defended. McIntyre and Mcitrick have also been routinely debunked in responses published in the relevant literature. The issue with R^2 verification comes about from a series of unjustified, spurious omissions of key indicators by McKitrick and McIntyre. Again & again, skill of the proxies at predicting the instrumental record of the 19th century (the calibration period to create the reconstruction is the 20th century) is shown to be significant.
For some reason, the clearly false allegations seem to stick. We can go into this in more detail, first, do you know how the reconstructions are actually done?
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#470 JaneBasingstoke wrote:
"At the time that I joined the conversation it was about you saying that all we needed to keep life going on Earth was a few kinds [= species] of plant."
At the time I was arguing that the bare essentials for human life are more important and therefore more valuable than the complexities and niceties required for maintaining human life of the sort we are accustomed to. (And whose absence seems to upset some people greatly, as when daffodils emerge a few weeks "late"!)
Strictly speaking, all we probably need are a few simple plants species for photosynthesis, although I wouldn't presume to know what those species are, nor would I expect anyone else to know, nor would I try to bring about such conditions of misery... I'm not in favour of that sort of nightmare, just drawing attention to its mere possibility.
My deeper point was that although every ecosystem is in an exact balance or equilibrium, very few are in a delicate balance. The difference between them is in the stability or otherwise of the equilibrium.
AGW anxieties and a lot of (recent) ecological thinking go hand-in-hand, because they seem to share the assumption that both the climate and the ecology of living things are "delicately balanced". In other words, they suppose that "tipping points" will be reached, after which catastrophes will follow, because nature is basically in a state of unstable equilibrium.
Now one interesting thing about anything in a state of unstable equilibrium is that agency (i.e. design) is usually involved in getting it that way. For example, if you see a big round boulder delicately balanced atop a pointy mountain, it might be an amazing coincidence -- or you might guess that someone put it there.
An awful lot of recent AGW/ecological thinking in effect supposes that agency/design is involved, that we humans are mucking up the "delicate balance", and all that sort of thing.
In reality, we are much more likely to inadvertently start life on Mars (via stray prokaryotes attached to the Mars Rovers) than end it on Earth.
"there are plenty of examples where a new dominant species can change the whole character of an ecosystem."
I agree, but I don't pay much attention to that because first, change is absolutely unavoidable in life (understood in the broadest sense) and second, I don't think change is a bad thing per se. You can see how little most people understand of these things when they talk about the "death of a species".
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persuademe at # 443
Lovelock will be 91 in July.
Did it ever occur to you that he may now be using metaphor?
To quote the dolphins in Douglas Adams’ ‘Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’
‘Goodbye and thanks for all the fish’
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanks_for_all_the_fish
The dolphins were aware of the imminent destruction of Earth by the Vogons and had been trying to warn Mankind - but nobody listened - so they left the earth for an alternate dimension.
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bow@472 said
"At the time I was arguing that the bare essentials for human life are more important and therefore more valuable than the complexities and niceties required for maintaining human life of the sort we are accustomed to. "
You are grossly underestimating how close to the edge the majority of the world's poor live, and importantly, how reliant they are on biological processes for their very survival. It has been demonstrated that climate change is likely to interfere with these processes in a nagative way. Nobody is saying this will cause doom to all life, but what can be said is that there is a potential for misery and suffering to these people if the very educated predictions of the experts come true.
The level of biodiversity of an absolutely crucial measure of the health of a bioligical system, and again, there is a wealth of scientific findings indcating a link between the very necessities of human life and the level of biodiversity. I'm talking about things like natural sources of clean water, food security, energy supplies and robustmess of ecosystems to respond to perturbations. Forget about the developed world - we can pop to tesco. A great number of the world's people do not have this luxury. This is not being melodramatic, this is being factual.
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in 452. infinity wrote:
"There is justification - natural forcings cannot explain the warming of recent decades. Anthropogenic forcings can."
maybe, maybe not - BUT the CO2 forcing can not explain the warming - its effect is just too small. However I am happy to concede that there may well be other anthropogenic forcings contributing to the overall effect.
"We know the cause of co2 rise in the atmosphere."
Yes.
"We know the Earth has warmed in recent decades."
Yes, the big problem is that just because both have risen you are assuming a total cause and effect and that's a big assumption, and is the one causing most/all of the problems. Now CO2 has had some warming effect but can only gives rise to about a third of the claimed temperature rise.
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in 456. SR wrote:
" If CO2 increases, more of this LW radiation is absorbed and a new thermal equilibrium established - one in which the surface temperature is higher. Water vapour concentration increases. Water vapour has already been shown to the dominant greenhouse gas, contributing about 2/3rds of the greenhouse effect. Clouds have been shown to be practically neutral (or at least exhibit a very small feedback), with the warming effect of the increased WV offset by the increased albedo."
Almost right - there are only two problem areas - the first is you say clouds are practically neutral - but the IPCC report says they have a strong cooling effect. The second is the general assumption that a WV increase leads to warming. Now we know that can not be the case as, it is a basic property of a positive feedback loop that it will cause a runaway effect (until it hits some limiting factor). So if there were a positive feedback effect with WV then any sea surface temperature increase, for any reason, in the last many thousands of years (ie since the last ice age) would have set off the runaway effect. As that didn't happen we are left with two possibilities for the current situtation (a) WV is at a level where negative feedback is occuring, or (b) we have hit some limit in the atmosphere which is preventing the positive feedback having effect. To know what is happening with WV requires more research.
" This, to me, is no grounds to dismiss AGW."
I'm not dismissing AGW - what I am dismissing is the idea that CO2 is the sole/major cause of the observed warming. I am afraid that other sources of warming need to be found.
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#474 SR wrote:
"You are grossly underestimating how close to the edge the majority of the world's poor live"
I think you are. Question for you: Does higher sea level lead to more marginal tidal area, or less?
Think about it.
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#474 SR wrote:
"bow@472 said"
It would be a common courtesy to use my blog name rather than your own "witty take" on my name, but if you don't want to observe such common courtesies, you asked for it!
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Butterflies offer climate warning
‘……Researchers have found that because of a rise in temperature, caused by an increase in greenhouse gas emissions by humans, the common brown butterfly now emerges from its cocoon 10 days earlier than it did 65 years ago........
……In the case of the brown butterfly, observations around Melbourne over the past 65 years have suggested it has been emerging earlier in spring each year. …………
……..Melbourne's weather over that period has been getting warmer, said the lead author, Michael Kearney, also of the University of Melbourne, whose research is published in Biology Letters……..
……To determine if the two changes were linked, Dr Kearney and his graduate student measured how fast a group of common brown caterpillars developed at different temperatures. They then compared their lab experiments with temperature records for Melbourne over the past 65 years, to predict when the butterflies would have emerged each year………
…….Dr Kearney said these predicted emerging times ''matched'' the actual butterfly emergence times that had been observed and recorded by scientists……..
…..It was then left to the leading climate scientist, Dr Karoly of the University of Melbourne, to discover if the rise of almost 1 degree since 1944 as recorded by the Bureau of Meteorology was caused by greenhouse gas emissions released by humans……..
…..Using multiple climate models, Dr Karoly was able to show that the increase in temperature observed in Melbourne was outside the range of natural climate variability. The rise in temperature could be explained only when the effect of greenhouse gas emissions were added to the models, he said…….
….Dr Kearney said man-made climate change probably had a similar effect on other butterfly species…..’
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/butterflies-offer-climate-warning-20100317-qfqi.html
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oldterry@476
The total cloud forcing is around 13W/m^2. On the issue of WV, it is well known that other feedbacks, like the increase in IR radiation as the earth warms, offsets the positive feedback and prevents the runaway GW scenario. With a variable like CO2 in the mix, the temperature at whcih the cooling effects offset the warming effects (thereby maintaining thermal equilibrium) is set higher, so the equilibrium state of WV is increased. This is why CO2 is so important, ad WV can be regarded as a positive amplifier, rather than an initiator, of warming.
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@bowmanthebard
"I think you are. Question for you: Does higher sea level lead to more marginal tidal area, or less?
Think about it"
Please elaboorate on where you are going with that......
Also, what is your response to the innumerable studies that say that projected rises in mean global temperatures will have a predominantly and disproportionately bad effect on the world's poor - in many different ways. You're just turning a blind eye to all this are you?...Or, will you dismiss it with a characteristic wave of arrogance we've so come to expect from you. Why don't you surprise me by taking a small rest from your ivory tower philosophising and back up your statements with evidence.
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471, SR wrote:
“
The issue with R^2 verification comes about from a series of unjustified, spurious omissions of key indicators by McKitrick and McIntyre.
“
That statement demonstrates a total lack of understanding of the issue.
Perhaps you can amuse us by quoting the R2 figures for Ammann and Wahl's 'robust defence' of the Hockey Stick?
(Hint: make sure you allow enough decimal places)
“
We can go into this in more detail, first, do you know how the reconstructions are actually done?
“
Yes, do you?
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@rob 482
"That statement demonstrates a total lack of understanding of the issue.
Perhaps you can amuse us by quoting the R2 figures for Ammann and Wahl's 'robust defence' of the Hockey Stick?"
Forget about Ammann and Wahl. Seems like you have used the typical red herring. There are several other robust defences of the hockey sticks in the literature, including complete rebittals of M&M's allegations. They all expose the weaknesses in M&M's approach and highlight the erroneous conclusion that the 15th century reconstruction is statistically insignificant.
Do you want me to go into the nuances of the mathematics underpinning why their method is wrong? You won't hear about it in sceptic literaure but if you take a balanced view and read both the defences and the attacks of the hockey stick, you'll realise that the scientists are completely vindicated.
Have you read Von Storch (2005)-showing that M&M's criticisms are not relevant. Have you given a fair hearing to Mann's own rebuttal? Have you read the conclusions of more than one independent inquiry into the validity of the hockey stick? Also, there have been more than a dozen further hockey stick graphs using different statistical techniques that back up the original Mann reconstruction and verify the general shape of the graph. Why does EVERY KNOWN reconstruction look similar to Mann's? Yet the sceptic arguments still reverberate around the internet like a redundant echo. Liberate yourself from it by understanding the TRUE science - reject the pseudo-science from people who really don't understand it (De Montford for one).
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483, SR wrote:
“Forget about Ammann and Wahl. Seems like you have used the typical red herring”.
A paper used to support the Hockey Stick is a 'red herring'. Really?
Well at least you concede that we can strike that paper off the list.
“
Have you read Von Storch (2005)-showing that M&M's criticisms are not relevant.
”
That paper has been comprehensively dealt with starting here:
http://climateaudit.org/2005/10/04/reply-to-von-storch-and-zorita/
“
Have you given a fair hearing to Mann's own rebuttal?
“
LOL
“
Why does EVERY KNOWN reconstruction look similar to Mann's?
“
You're confusing every known reconstruction with constructions by Hockey Stick manufacturers.
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@SR #471 who wrote...
"The Mann (1998) and other reconstructions have been very robustly defended. McIntyre and Mcitrick have also been routinely debunked in responses published in the relevant literature."
You should probably take this up with Mann himself since even his latest work shows the medieval warm period. You are using years old propaganda that most of the other warmistas here have long since given up on. BUT...I understand completely. All the green groups continue to spout this flawed and disproved junk as absolute facts, so it's easy for people that haven't been exposed to the REAL evidence to get confused.
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@465. At 4:56pm on 17 Mar 2010, SR wrote:
Would you mind briefly listing the main arguments against the hockey stick...
One of the main arguments against the hockey stick is that it goes against the scientific consensus of the existence of a MWP from decades of work in Geology, Archaeology, Chemistry, History... in hundreds of papers. If you like the concept of a 'Global Average Temperature' then 0.5-0.75 degrees C warmer seems a reasonable estimate than now. Mann's major impact was to present a paper against the consensus of the time.
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@SR #471 who wrote...
"The Mann (1998) and other reconstructions have been very robustly defended."
Getting away from the stats, but just how accurate do you really think tree wing widths are as a proxy for global temperature?? It doesn't need an expert scientist to tell you, to immediately see the large number of limitations of just using this as a measure. One being that they haven't tracked temperature at all in the last 50 years in the studies.
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bowmanthebard: "Question for you: Does higher sea level lead to more marginal tidal area, or less?"
SR #481: "Please elaboorate on where you are going with that......"
I think you would be more likely to give an honest answer if I didn't elaborate on it just yet.
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@Bowmanthebard,# 461
"As long as... it goes like this:
if H then O
not-O
therefore not-H."
Agreed that the final step must look like this, it's the process that is undertaken to reach this version of "H" that is being referred to. Since "H" is embodied by a complex model (containing a simpler version of the kind of tensor field of interactions Larry talked about in #150), it is necessary to go through a long process of development of "H" which is informed by previous attempts at producing "H" and the observations which it failed to predict... I would imagine something like this:
1. if H(n) then O(n,p)
2. make observation O(n,r)
3. O(n,r) not equal O(n,p) therefore not H(n)
4. H(n)+O(n,r) implies H(n+1)
5. GOTO step 1
(NB subscript n denotes iteration, p denotes prediction, r denotes real observation.)
Steps 1-3 embody the method you have already described. It is the addition of step 4 that I thought you would consider outrageous where a real observation is used to in conjunction with a falsified hypothesis to come up with a new hypothesis.
Do you consider this to be against the philosophy of the scientific method?
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#489 Dave_oxon wrote:
"Do you consider this to be against the philosophy of the scientific method?"
It's certainly against MY philosophy of science! You might say that like Feyerabend, I'm "against method". Following a mechanical algorithm like that is the surest way to avoid getting any interesting simple hypotheses, because all it's really doing is plodding along, mindlessly tailoring a model to fit some data, when really any hypothesis worth the name should be making a bold stab at what the real world is like.
I suspect you're sneaking in some very traditional inductivism at step 4 ('H(n)+O(n,r) implies H(n+1)'), but I'd need to know more about what's going on with the "implies" bit -- how does one thing "imply" the other, and in what way?
Cheers.
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442. At 12:24pm on 17 Mar 2010, SR wrote:
"Are you some kind of mutant? There are hundreds. if not thousands of scientists involved. There are many who aren't 'famous' - they just get on with their job below the radar."
How kind to refer to me as a mutant! If of course one subscibes to Darwinian theory then all species evolve via mutation.
If you mean by mutant that I have a brain, that I can review all available quality literature, if I can use my modest education and apply it to the problem before me than yes I suppose I must be.
Like so many, when I first saw the "hockey stick" I was immediately swayed by the argument. It was only as the alarmist began their wailing that I actually started to look at all the facts behind the AGW debate that I saw how flawed and corrupted the arguments were.
The more I look, the more the AGW theories fail.
In order to have a proposition of AGW, first there has to be warming. To have warming we need a historical record.
There are only three available record types:- satellite (the past few decades), terrestial weather stations on land and sea (maybe to 150 years), or the so-called proxy data or reconstructions using tree-rings, ice-cores etc.
Of these, satellite data does not actually measure surface temperature, so this has to be calculated as a best estimate. Terrestial data is subject to many changes over the years in terms of location of measurement station, type of equipment, urban heating effects, loss of stations etc.
For each terrestrial station, adjustments have to be made to ensure temeratures taken a hundred years ago are comparable to today. If urban heating effects have taken place, then they have somehow to be removed. If equipment is relocated to lower altitudes then its local temperatues require adjusting. Each individual station's history requires examination and adjustment where necessary.
If an area has no local terrestrial station, then an estimate of the local temperature has to be derived.
The least accurate of these has to be proxy data. More a voodoo science than anything of practical use. Series that rely on one single tree for example just beggars belief.
There are so many things that can influence the variability of year on year tree-rings that who can say it was warm, cold, cloudy, clear, wet, dry etc just too many variables.
So once the base "global temperatures" are derived by a handful of "scientists", the data is provided in its manipulated form to the "thousands" of scientists working on interpreting the data.
Does the term "Garbage in Garbage Out" mean anything.
Much energy has been spent trying to replicate the ground-station data adjustments, but time and again flaws are found with "corrections" applied to the temperature.
So much so that Australia, China and Russia have all decryed the temperature reconstructions for their Country to be invalid. That's about 25% of the land-mass of the world saying the calculations don't match reality. It is certainly worthy of review.
451. At 2:03pm on 17 Mar 2010, infinity wrote:
"Unfortunately you don't understand how the greenhouse effect works. The suggestion about double-glazing is nonsensical. "
Sorry, my attempt at sarcasm - or should i say wit. Yes tongue-in-cheek, but I see wit is something you aspire to. Take heart - your half way there!
"Solar activity is insufficient to explain the recent warming. Multiple studies have found this, it's a well tested result."
Likewise I respect the studies, yet solar physicist Piers Corbyn has been successfully predicing long-term weather events - including this coldest winter in 30-odd years - well in advance. Whilst the Met Office predicted a mild winter, Piers predicted an extreme weather event. He was proved right.
Coincidence? Maybe, but he has been right 5 out of 5 times over the past few years. At the same time, the Met Office have got it wrong 5 out of 5 times - now that kind of result demands attention.
And yes I do see the very distinct difference between weather and climate.
But even the venerable old Beeb is now looking to ditch the Met as its providers for weather prediction - rumour has it that a New Zealand outfit will get the contract. Now that IS turning weather prediction unside down !
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@Dave_oxon
Loving it. I am getting such a feeling of déjà vu.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/richardblack/2009/10/climate_issue.html#P87581493
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@RobWansbeck #468
This version of your link may be more clickable.
http://discovermagazine.com/2010/apr/10-it.s-gettin-hot-in-here-big-battle-over-climate-science/
There is significant mismatch in what they say about AGW sceptics and the magazine does not comment on it. So I would like to point out that Judith Curry and Michael Mann are talking about very different sceptics.
Judith Curry's sceptics have this approach to the "hide the decline" email.
http://climateaudit.org/2009/11/20/mike%E2%80%99s-nature-trick/
Whereas the sceptics that Michael Mann is most afflicted by have (or at least had) a rather different interpretation of the "hide the decline" email.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/08/AR2009120803402.html
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Speeches&ContentRecord_id=9cac1e35-802a-23ad-4540-3e4706eab1bd&Region_id=&Issue_id=
Perhaps people can bear this in mind if they read the article.
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@Dave_oxon
(@myself #492)
OK, sorry about my confusing #492. This time with a link that takes correct account of page numbers.
Loving it. I am getting such a feeling of déjà vu.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/richardblack/2009/10/climate_issue.html?page=2#P87581493
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@persuademe #443
@thinkforyourself #473
Points about Lovelock's comments
Disclaimer. This is my attempt to summarise what had already been partially paraphrased by a journalist.
1. Lovelock thinks AGW science needs some of the sceptics, that they have been good for AGW science. But he does not give a blanket endorsement for all the behaviour of all the sceptics.
2. Lovelock thinks there have been problems on the pro-AGW side. But he has not issued a blanket condemnation for all the behaviour of all the mainstream scientists.
3. Lovelock doesn't like the tendency to treat AGW science as a religion, and thinks things had gone too far. But he does not say that AGW science had become an out and out religion, with no science left. And his use of past tense "had" rather than present tense "has" strongly implies that he thinks the religion problem has been significantly tackled by recent events.
4. Lovelock thinks sea level rises are going up faster than projected.
5. Lovelock thinks that uncertainties need more respect, and that we need to be more ready to look at multiple possibilities. The possibilities he mentions include both relatively extreme examples and mainstream ones.
6. He thinks we should try and avert any problems. His prescription of sea walls and nuclear power plants for Britain is not new.
7. He also repeats an earlier message of his "enjoy life while you can". I think this message is particularly applicable to people like knownought who has been badly guilt tripped by clumsy coverage and advice on climate change.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article7061020.ece
I really can't see anything in the article to threaten honest debaters on the pro-AGW side of the debate. Yes, thinkforyourself, Lovelock is almost 91, but his mind seems as sharp as ever. And despite a comment by Kamboshigh (#415, "Lovelock" misspelt "Lovestock") Lovelock's latest interview certainly shouldn't phase manysummits, who will have come across these attitudes and most of these ideas in Lovelock's books. Meanwhile I do see things in the article that should answer the accusations of some of the sceptics that pro-AGW scientists are unscientific.
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#494 JaneBasingstoke wrote:
"Loving it. I am getting such a feeling of déjà vu."
Science isn't painting by numbers. Coming up with a hypothesis is almost never a matter of diligently fine-tuning numbers. It requires lateral thinking, creativity, imagination and a critical, sceptical attitude.
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The following is loosely based on xtragrumpymike2's favourite, the Precautionary Principle. It might work as a soundbite but it is not really advertising material.
"Many of our scientists think our greenhouse gases are probably changing the climate. We aren't sure, and if so we only have a vague idea by how much. But we still want to look for any easy fixes, or fixes that pay for themselves with other benefits."
47 words. Or 48 if you count "aren't" as 2 words.
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#491 andic said
"There are so many things that can influence the variability of year on year tree-rings that who can say it was warm, cold, cloudy, clear, wet, dry etc just too many variables."
The proxy data are calibrated against local temperature records to determine the relationship between growth and temperature. There is also a verification period, where the reconstruction is 'tested' and compared with another, separate portion of the instrumental record. You can go some way to instilling confidence in your reconstruction by analysing the performance during this time. What M&M did is basically do the analysis using different proxies to the ones Mann selected - but it has been shown by all the experts in the field that the ones M&M use are not reliable indicators, therefore are BOUND to show a low statistical significance in the verification period.
Of course, the sceptics with little knowledge of the process don't know this.
It is an unjustified, subjective choice by M&M that is the basis of all their claims. Their weird analysis has, for the record, been shown to be wrong by many subsequent publications, and, importantly, other hockey stick graphs using DIFFERENT statistical techinques and more varied MULTI-PROXY approaches have yielded the SAME result. While the sceptics were screaming FRAUD, the evidence was quietly piling up in favour of the dendroclimatoligists.....with the caveat that there are uncertainties in the proxy record, but they aren't large enough to render the conclusion that the 20th century warming is outside what is possible by natural causes.
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According to the Sunday Times article linked to by JaneBasingstoke #495 about Lovelock:
"the Gaia theory has been widely accepted and now underlies most atmospheric science"
Is that really true? -- that's quite terrifying! I mean, I knew climate science was bad, but is it really that bad? I knew it had no grasp of genuine science, but I honestly didn't know it openly worshipped the burning wicker man!
It reminds me of the days when students wanted to be pointed to a real-life present-day dualist (i.e. someone with some scientific credentials who sincerely thtought that the mind was non-material "spirit" as opposed to "what the brain does"). The best anyone could come up with was a fellow by the name of Eccles...
Who, it turns out, was a brain surgeon!
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@Jane, #492
"I'm getting a feeling of deja vu". LOL, I see what you mean.
Seriously though it is an important point that if something is going to be held up as "Science" that it has properly followed the scientific method. Bowman's assertion that climate science is based on inductivism rather than falsifiable hypothesis is a serious allegation and, I feel, needs clearing up.
Since this is a public forum, and can therefore be seen as having some small influence on the public understanding of science, such debates are, I feel, of great importance - and, I note, you have been contributing greatly to this. Any further insights you may wish to offer will be gratefully received.
@Bowman again, #490
"I suspect you're sneaking in some very traditional inductivism at step 4"
In this sense of science-by-computer-modelling, the inductivism you refer to here, presumably (correct me if I'm wrong) means tuning of the included empirical parameterisations. Concerning this point I will quote if I may from a paper on this subject ("Philosophy of climate science", Petersen, Bulletin of the American Meterological society, 81 (2000) pp265)
"Randall and Wielicki (1997)* consider falsification of the whole model (including both the “principal hypothesis” and “auxiliary hypothesis”) possible. In Popperian fashion this methodology takes climate models to be corroborated by each resisted trial to falsify the model. However, the problem with this methodology is that in scientific practice one typically does not abandon a model after it has been falsified. To demand from scientists strict compliance with the methodology of falsification would stretch the applicability of Popper’s philosophy too far. Furthermore, the method proposed by Randall and Wielicki (1997) is more difficult to apply for complex than for simple models. One of the reasons is that current complex models involve tuning in many parameterizations within the model. If the model agrees with the observations against which it is tested, this could be the result of “compensating errors” (namely, the model has been tuned as a whole), and if the model does not agree with the observations, one does not know which adjustable parameters (or even complete parameterizations) are wrong."
*Randall, D. A., and B. A. Wielicki, 1997: Measurements, models, and hypotheses in the atmospheric sciences. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 78, 399–406.
I quoted this excerpt in full as I feel it adds to our discussion in two important respects:
1. The inductivist tuning of the empirical parts of the model do not render the entire model un-falsifiable. It is this falsifiability and the subsequent test that embodies the scientific method.
2. The application of the scientific method you have so keenly championed must necessarily be applied by degrees when dealing with semi-empirical modelling i.e. the corroborated model may have "compensating errors" in the empirical relations, the falsified model may have correct non-empirical components but "constructive errors" in the empirical.
The caveat is that my point 2 above puts the onus on the model creators to justify
a. Why a corroboration is a corroboration and not a result of "compensating errors" and
b.why their re-tuned model should be allowed as a new iteration of a falsifiable hypothesis.
In these respects one would ideally take a Monte-Carlo approach to assessing the impact that this re-tuning has on the range of possible results of the model, an approach which is not generally feasible with large GCMs due to computational expense, but which is carried out in part in the form of the ensembles of projections that are produced. Since the full MC approach is not possible, how then can one justify re-tuning and not carrying out an MC analysis. To help answer this question I turn to the paper of Randall and Wielicki discussed in the excerpt above. To quote:
"If an important process is well understood, there certainly is no problem, and tuning is not needed. Even if such a process is not very well understood, there is no need to include it by tuning, since it is not very important anyway...
In contrast, if a process is very important but poorly understood, then there may be no choice but to tune the model...
If we eventually arrive at a good understanding of how to parameterize [certain important processes], then there will be no excuse for continued tuning. Such a migration should be a key goal of both modelers and observationalists."
I can certainly agree with this sentiment - even better would be to arrive at theoretical models encompassing the physics currently embodied by the parameterisations - this situation is, however, an ideal goal not realisable in practise.
To conclude this note, I put it to you that certain inductivism (model tuning), in relation to the empirical parts of semi-empirical models is justified and this therefore requires care in the application of the scientific method. Equally, it requires care to frame the tests to which the models are subjected such that the requirement of falsifiability is not compromised and one can have confidence that they embody a scientific hypothesis which is being scientifically tested. This, of course, assumes that one accepts there is any place in scientific research for semi-empirical modelling.
again, apologies for the length of the post - thanks for reading,
Dave.
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