Global Warming...New Report...and it ain't happy news

old europe wrote:

And the data from the ice cores confirms that. It is well-known that there have been warmer periods in the Earth's history. Yet, CO2 levels have never been as high as they are now.

The EPICA core extended the record of Antarctic climate back to maybe 800,000 years, and the first 650,000 years have been analysed for atmospheric greenhouses gas concentrations, saved in tiny bubbles in the ice core:

Yet, since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the concentration of CO2 has increased from 280 ppm to 380 ppm.

The current rise of CO2 concentration is not a consequence of climate warming. In fact, it seems to be inexplicable when relying on climate warming as the only reason, according to the data from the last, uh, 650,000 years.

I didn't say the current rise of CO2 concentration IS solely caused by GW. But as I already said it, if you plot fossil CO2 emission and CO2 atmospheric content, you'll see no correlation except an upward trend.

Anyway, the current rise is an invisible blip in the geological radar, the resolution of past CO2 measurements is dozens or even hundreds of years, so you can see the trend you want to see. That is a basic rule in the science: as long as variations are smaller than uncertainties, there is no trend or any trend. Uncertainties in climate change are huge and just because the IPCC or the general media don't tell it doesn't mean they don't exist.

And as you say it yourself, the fact that some past climate was WARMER (for example at Holocene Optimum) whereas CO2 atmospheric content was LOWER shows that CO2 is not the main driver of global temperature.

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okie wrote:

Parados, I think it is appropriate to point out that the term "consensus" lends itself more appropriately to the political world, than to the scientific world. Thinking like the rest of the the sheep is not conducive to better science and newer more sound scientific discoveries. Nobody should have to point out again that climatic science is really in its infancy, and there are far too many poorly understood factors to come up with any intelligent consensus. Your political agenda can continue to try to browbeat everybody into a consensus to serve your political ends, but I think sound science will eventually win out.

Meanwhile, you push a political agenda that goes against the sound science that presently exists.
Is there more CO2 in the atmosphere today than 50 years ago? Sound science says yes.
Does more CO2 in an atmospheric mix cause it to retain more heat? Sound science says yes.

I don't know what sound science says that those 2 things are wrong. Nor do I know of any sound science that says that fossil fuels don't produce CO2

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Foxfyre wrote:

Okay, here's more than just a shot across the bow aimed at the AGW advocates. And if it catches on, look for this debate to really heat up. ...
The programme, to be screened on Channel 4 on Thursday March 8, will see a series of respected scientists attack the "propaganda" that they claim is killing the world's poor.
...

You can watch this (and other programs by Cahnnel 4 via Channel 4 on Demand.

(Legally, only UK residents can watch it - but when I installed the program, I was marked [automatically?] as UK resident - due to my provider, everyone else believes I'm in the USA)

I've tried it and watch "Dispatches - Greenwash"

Nothing new, if you've followed the discussions and are able to read.

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miniTAX wrote:

I didn't say the current rise of CO2 concentration IS solely caused by GW.

Yeah, it probably only sounded like that when you wrote:

miniTAX wrote:

This pretty long perspective tells us that temperature is responsible for atmospheric CO2 content and NOT the reverse.

But I see that you now admit that there's an anthropogenic factor. That's something.

miniTAX wrote:

But as I already said it, if you plot fossil CO2 emission and CO2 atmospheric content, you'll see no correlation except an upward trend.

An upward trend, correlation on the timeline (starting with the beginning of the Industrial Revolution), and unprecedented levels of atmospheric CO2 concentration...

That the trends do not correlate proportionally isn't really that hard to understand. Actually, you even pointed out that this correlation is not to be expected.

If you add CO2 to the atmosphere some of it will have to go into the ocean. This is very basic chemistry. If you take a bottle filled half with water and half with pure air that has no CO2 in it and add CO2 to the air in the bottle, some of the CO2 will dissolve in the water, resulting in less CO2 in the air that you have originally put in.

I think that was precisely your point - that oceans will absorb and release a certain amount of CO2.

However, in 650,000 years, CO2 concentration has never been as high as it is today. We are putting a bunch of CO2 into the atmosphere very quickly. Nature doesn't do that.

miniTAX wrote:

Anyway, the current rise is an invisible blip in the geological radar, the resolution of past CO2 measurements is dozens or even hundreds of years, so you can see the trend you want to see.

Hundreds of years? That's a pretty ridiculous claim. Or maybe you just haven't kept up with the recent results from sites like Law Dome or Siple Dome. Those ice cores have sub-annual resolution in many cases for the temperature records, and at least decadal resolution for the greenhouse gases like CO2.

The current rise is pretty well-documented since the start of the Industrial Revolution, and can hardly be brushed aside as "an invisible blip". Try to get your facts right, okay?

miniTAX wrote:

That is a basic rule in the science: as long as variations are smaller than uncertainties, there is no trend or any trend.

Good. Then we both agree that there is, in fact, a visible trend.

miniTAX wrote:

Uncertainties in climate change are huge and just because the IPCC or the general media don't tell it doesn't mean they don't exist.

What an elegant chance of topic. You know, a careless reader would probably think that you were still talking about CO2 concentrations (which are well-documented, and newer findings confirm the existing data), but in reality you're now talking about "uncertainties in climate change". Funny, but irrelevant.

miniTAX wrote:

And as you say it yourself, the fact that some past climate was WARMER (for example at Holocene Optimum) whereas CO2 atmospheric content was LOWER shows that CO2 is not the main driver of global temperature.

Sure.

As you know, the global climate does hardly react on the spot to factors like increased CO2 concentration. Your argument goes along the lines of "Well, we are seeing the highest atmospheric CO2 concentrations in history, but there have been higher global temperatures in the past. Therefore, CO2 concentrations won't have any significance in the future, either."

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parados wrote:

High Seas wrote:
Wegener, the man who discovered continental drift, was by training a climatologist; he was roundly ridiculed by the geologists of his day - but he, one man, was right, and they, all of them, were wrong.

Science can't be decided by majority vote!

And the first person to suggest global warming was ridiculed too. What is your point? The scientific consensus today is that continential drift exists. The scientific consensus today is that global warming exists and some of that warming is most likely caused by human activities.

Whether someone is ridiculed or not doesn't matter as much as the science does.

Present science:

Earth is warming.
CO2 is produced by burning fossil fuels.
The CO2 produced from burning fossil fuels have to go somewhere.
CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere have increased.
increased CO2 concentrations cause heat retention in a mixture of atmospheric gases.

All of the above are true. There is really no argument about them

I agree - there is no argument about the truth of the (incomplete) encapsulation of contemporary scientific consensus, listed above.

However that is far short of what is alleged and forecast by the protagonists of the popular GW hysteria to which Walter and MiniTax so amusingly referred above.

The essential proposition being offered by proponents of this fantasy is that the certainty, immediacy and magnitude of the forecast consequences of runaway GW are so great as to require the creation of entirely new and oppressive regulatory regimes that will have enormous negative effects on the world economy (and with it all the attendant effects on food production, health, and human welfare), not to mention human freedom.

On this point there is clearly no consensus, and much rerason for doubt. Your attempt to suggest the contrary is pure sophistry. (While European governments talk a lot about it and wring their hands so assiduously, I suspect they secretly thank the United States for so effectively providing them the excuse for failing to do what they talk so much about, but, as with so many other things, take no effective action to deal with.)

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I'm curious....

Will conservatives now doubt our very own Pentagon?

http://www.greenpeace.org/raw/content/international/press/reports/an-abrupt-climate-change-scena.pdf

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In the spirit of fairness, I'm duly reporting this very serious consequence of global warming:

Quote:

Brothel owners in Bulgaria are blaming global warming for staff shortages.

They claim their best girls are working in ski resorts because a lack of snow has forced tourists to seek other pleasures.

Petra Nestorova, who runs an escort agency in Sofia, said: 'We have hired students, but they are temps and nothing like our elite girls.'

SOURCE

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Foxfyre wrote:

In the spirit of fairness, I'm duly reporting this very serious consequence of global warming:

Quote:
Brothel owners in Bulgaria are blaming global warming for staff shortages.

They claim their best girls are working in ski resorts because a lack of snow has forced tourists to seek other pleasures.

Petra Nestorova, who runs an escort agency in Sofia, said: 'We have hired students, but they are temps and nothing like our elite girls.'

SOURCE

Maybe to you, perhaps.

How've you been holding out? Laughing

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parados wrote:

Meanwhile, you push a political agenda that goes against the sound science that presently exists.
Is there more CO2 in the atmosphere today than 50 years ago? Sound science says yes.

But do we know the exact cause with a high degree of certainty, given the fact that man caused CO2 is a very small percentage of all CO2, and all CO2 is only a very small percentage of all greenhouse gas.

Quote:

Does more CO2 in an atmospheric mix cause it to retain more heat? Sound science says yes.

Apparently, if all other factors are static, but to what extent, we do not know for sure, as other factors have also been indicated by sound science, Parados. Factors, like solar cycles, for one significant one. Sound science attempts to consider all factors, and currently the only thing we hear much about is man caused CO2 as about the only possible cause for the perceived global warming.

Quote:

I don't know what sound science says that those 2 things are wrong. Nor do I know of any sound science that says that fossil fuels don't produce CO2

If science only looks at those 2 things, it is not sound science. Sound science is not overly simplistic, as it would look at all factors instead of just 2.

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okie wrote:

parados wrote:
Meanwhile, you push a political agenda that goes against the sound science that presently exists.
Is there more CO2 in the atmosphere today than 50 years ago? Sound science says yes.

But do we know the exact cause with a high degree of certainty, given the fact that man caused CO2 is a very small percentage of all CO2, and all CO2 is only a very small percentage of all greenhouse gas.

As mini pointed out, it is called Rauolt's law You can figure the amount of CO2 that the ocean can hold based on math and science. The math shows that the current increase in atmospheric CO2 could not have come from the ocean.

Quote:

Quote:
Does more CO2 in an atmospheric mix cause it to retain more heat? Sound science says yes.

Apparently, if all other factors are static, but to what extent, we do not know for sure, as other factors have also been indicated by sound science, Parados. Factors, like solar cycles, for one significant one. Sound science attempts to consider all factors, and currently the only thing we hear much about is man caused CO2 as about the only possible cause for the perceived global warming.

Where the heat comes from doesn't matter. The facts are the facts. We can measure how heat moves through objects. Solar cycles have nothing to do with heat flow.

Quote:

Quote:
I don't know what sound science says that those 2 things are wrong. Nor do I know of any sound science that says that fossil fuels don't produce CO2

If science only looks at those 2 things, it is not sound science. Sound science is not overly simplistic, as it would look at all factors instead of just 2.

Gee, you think? So since we have to look at all factors that means we SHOULD look at all factors. Certain factors don't change. The second law of thermodynamics always applies. Raoult's law always applies. Basic chemistry always applies. You don't get to throw any of those things out because the result is not what you want it to be.

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Dookiestix wrote:

Will conservatives now doubt our very own Pentagon?

I don'd consider myself a conservative; but even if I did, I wouldn'd accept the Pentagon as a scientific authority on climatology or economics.

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Quite!

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old europe wrote:

Hundreds of years? That's a pretty ridiculous claim. Or maybe you just haven't kept up with the recent results from sites like Law Dome or Siple Dome. Those ice cores have sub-annual resolution in many cases for the temperature records, and at least decadal resolution for the greenhouse gases like CO2.

Blah blah, no period, no date, no number, no excerpt, as usual.
If you mean sub-annual temperature resolution for recent years, a simple thermometer has a much better resolution and is way cheaper.

I was talking about comparison with past temperatures when thermometer didn't exist ! Do you know what is the time resolution of measurements of temperature by icecore proxies for the Optimum Medieval or the Altithermal ? Of course you don't !

old europe wrote:

The current rise is pretty well-documented since the start of the Industrial Revolution, and can hardly be brushed aside as "an invisible blip". Try to get your facts right, okay?

No, you, do your howework instead of claiming ridiculous things. Mad

You know nothing about past climates, about how temperatures were and were measured. So stop pretending you know something whereas you know nothing. Show me a single ref where it is stated that we have sub year resolution for temperatures 500+ years ago. A single one. If you can't, then shut up. Mad

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parados wrote:

The math shows that the current increase in atmospheric CO2 could not have come from the ocean.

The math can show nothing if you don't make real life observation, good measurments with good precision. Real life is not described by a a simplistic physics formula. Understanding climate requires hard work, open mind, good scientific background but certainly not just browsing single-sided mass media alarmist headlines.

Human emission (7 Gt carbon/year) is just 3% of total land & ocean emission whose uncertainty in accounting is bigger than 7 Gt !
We don't even know the sequestration balance of an old forest (expected not to sequester carbon but contradicted by many recent studies, for example Boisvenue, C. and S.W. Running. 2006, Midgleya, J.J. and A. Seydackb. 2006). We don't even know if forests might or might not emit substantial amounts of methane (see the study of the Max Planck Institute published in Nature).
CO2 ocean-atmo exchanges are not just explained by the Raoult law since SST is not uniformed in space or time but largely driven but unpredicted events such as oceanic currents or multidecadal oscillations. Just the 1998 El Nino event has made a huge surge and the Pinatubo or El Chichon have made a huge dip in CO2 atmo content.
10 years ago, the "consensus" was that CH4 content will rise and rise but the methane content has stabilized for 10 years and nobody knows why and nobody knows how it will be.

So don't oversell what we know about climate, measurements and the physical understanding of the Earth system. When you read the IPCC report, (have you ?), read the 10 lines describing uncertainty that systematically precede the 40 lines of climate assessment and don't make a current scientific controversy a fact.

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miniTAX wrote:

Real life is not described by a a simplistic physics formula.

Real life may not be. But the amount of CO2 an ocean of temperature T can hold is, and so is the amount of CO2 neccessary to increase concentration from the 1850s levels to today's levels. By comparing the amounts you can conclude that the buildup of CO2 in the atmosphere didn't come primarily from the oceans -- which is parados's claim, as I understand it.

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Thomas wrote:

Real life may not be. But the amount of CO2 an ocean of temperature T can hold is, and so is the amount of CO2 neccessary to increase concentration from the 1850s levels to today's levels. By comparing the amounts you can conclude that the buildup of CO2 in the atmosphere didn't come primarily from the oceans -- which is parados's claim, as I understand it.

But ocean temperature is not uniform, neither horizontally, nor vertically. And CO2 absoprtion is not solely dependant of temperature but of ocean's chemical composition, biological activity, stream circulation, mixing activity by wave, wind, weather... Oceans cover 2/3 of the planet and we know nearly nothing of deep ocean. The measument array ARGO existed only since early 2000 and covers only a small portion of the oceans. Satelitte covers all but gives only surface information.
Given this complexity, describing CO2 atmo-ocean exchanges with a simple equation is what I call a simplistic approach, to say the least.

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I'm just wondering if you take thie 100%-approach to climate change to other subjects and topics as well, especially in private life.

I've no real knowledge about all that besides some baics (from classes in various history ancillary sciences).
But in my opinion, e.g. tree-ring widths, coral growth, isotope variations in ice cores don't show the real temperature neither. Does this mean we have to wait until we can make time travels?

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Naw. The Dems will try to make as much hay as they can out of Domenici and Wilson, but I doubt they'll push it too far lest it be exposed that this is not at all uncommon in Washington.---especially on their side.

The Dems can make political points by caterwauling about corruption and all that. But you'll notice they don't do a whole lot of insisting on special prosecution etc. on this kindof stuff lest too much of their dirty laundry be exposed in the investigation. They all, GOP and Democrat alike, pull strings on behalf of their constituencies. That's how they keep getting the necessary financing and support to keep getting elected.

There have been far fewer formal investigations during the Bush administration than anytime in my memory. And there have been far fewer indictments and convictions in the Bush administration than there was in the two previous administrations and probably going back well before that.

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You might be right - though I can't imagine similar happening here without consequences (but our prosecution system is totally different, too).

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I have no idea how my immediately preceding post got onto this thread. It was intended for the Bush supporters thread and I thought it just didn't take over there. Please ignore for this thread.

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Global Warming...New Report...and it ain't happy news

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