Climate Change & Global Warming

[ArabiaTerra]

It had been common knowledge for a couple of years before Al Gore's 'Inconvenient Truth' came out that over geological time periods the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere lagged behind temperature changes, typically by 800 years, so was driven by temperature rather than causing it. His graph was therefore a falsehood. CO2 has never driven climate change, or the Earth would not have cooled as it has after every past warming episode - runaway warming would have occurred instead, a long time ago.

This is an interesting one so I'm going to give it a comment of it's own.

 

It's true that over the last half million years or so, as the world has moved from ice age to interglacial back to ice age again, CO2 has lagged temperature. But what does this mean?

 

Ice ages are caused by cyclical changes in the Earth's orbit, obliquity and precession. This is known as the Milankovitch cycle. However, if the Milankovitch cycles were the sole cause of the changes in temperature you would expect those changes to be gradual, as the cycle gradually changed. Much like a sine wave:

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e9/Wave.png

 

So, how does this compare with what we see in the ice core data

 

http://www.skepticalscience.com/images/Milankovitch_Cycles_400000.gif

 

It doesn't look much like a sine wave, does it? In fact it is much closer to a sawtooth pattern

 

http://www.thedawstudio.com/wp-admin/Images/Sound_Waves/Sawtooth_Wave.jpg

 

Why is this?

 

It's all about feedback. The thing is, the Milankovitch cycle starts the change. As the Earth moves along the sine wave of the orbital cycle, from the bottom of the curve upwards, it warms up. After a time this warming begins to affect the oceans. Warmer oceans hold less CO2, so CO2 is released into the atmosphere. This warms the atmosphere, which in turn, warms the oceans which release more CO2, which warm the.... you get the point. It's a feedback loop. The Milankovitch cycle may start things, but the CO2 quickly takes over and amplifies the warming.

 

So why don't we get runaway warming?

 

There are two main reasons for this. First, there is only a finite amount of Carbon "in the system" so to speak, so there is only a finite amount of amplification that can come from this carbon. And secondly, the Earth is still moving along the sine wave like curve of the Milankovitch cycles, and as it passes the peak of the cycle, the amount of extra solar energy to be amplified by the CO2 falls, the oceans begin to cool and re-absorb some of the extra CO2 and the Earth begins the long, slow descent back into the next ice age.

 

What this cycle shows is that with only a small increase in temperature caused by the Milankovitch cycles, an entirely natural CO2 feedback loop can be triggered which can, on it's own, cause the dramatic changes we see between glacial and inter-glacial conditions.

 

Another, rather alarming, point to consider is the fact that, since the beginning of the Industrial age, we have increased the total amount of carbon available to this natural amplification mechanism by 30% by digging up billions of tons of carbon safely buried and unavailable for millions of years, and chucking it back into the atmosphere right at the warmest point of the whole cycle.

 

More here.

[mikeyboy]

Bloody disgusting the public servant who cam up with that one should be sacked with no pension.

[Evil Inky]

^^^^

Perhaps you could provide some context, so that we could further understand your remark.

[ArabiaTerra]

Bloody disgusting the public servant who cam up with that one should be sacked with no pension.

Eh?

[ArabiaTerra]

A couple of videos:

 

 

[ArabiaTerra]

Given the deafening silence of the mainstream media on the subject, you may not have heard of the recent resignation of Professor Hal Lewis from the American Physical Society. The Society's stance on AGW is his reason - you can read his whole resignation letter on the Watts Up With That page about it.

 

He describes AGW as "the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist" (he was a member of the society for 67 years), and says of the "Climategate" leaked documents "I don’t believe that any real physicist, nay scientist, can read that stuff without revulsion. I would almost make that revulsion a definition of the word scientist". A serious read, and sobering to think that the integrity of the scientific establishment has declined to the point where one of its top brains feels he has to step down like this.

Just another tired old man who can't handle the paradigm shift.

 

http://rabett.blogspot.com/2009/12/darth-data-destroyer-as-all-good.html

 

http://climateprogress.org/2010/10/11/hal-lewis-resigns-from-the-american-physical-society/

 

Edit: He was also the driving force behind this petition, which, I think, shows more accurately where the majority of the American Physical Society's members stand on the subject.

[Guest Anonymous]

AT. As this is so obviously your thread and probably the only thing you imagine you have a certain control over I'll direct this question to your good self.. Why do you want the stop climate change?

[ArabiaTerra]

AT. As this is so obviously your thread and probably the only thing you imagine you have a certain control over I'll direct this question to your good self.. Why do you want the stop climate change?

Short answer. I don't have kids myself, but my sister has a little boy, now 2 years old. I want him to have the chance to live in a world which is at least as good, but preferably better, than the one I've had the privilege of living in.

 

Right now, it's not looking as if this will be the case.

 

The kicker is, this is not because of some unavoidable natural disaster or change. It is entirely down to the hubris, greed, arrogance and blinkered stupidity of the human race.*

 

It is an entirely avoidable disaster. We know it's coming. We know what has to be done to avoid it, and yet, we are doing nothing.

 

This infuriates me.

 

*Edit: I should actually qualify this statement somewhat. When I said "the human race", I actually mean business leaders and politicians, those of us who actually have the power to do something about this. In other words, the rich.

[ArabiaTerra]

And, as promised, here is the next instalment of "Debunking Gorgo's post".

[***mod edit - de-rudified above sentence***]

 

Temperature and other data do not say anything about their causes. In addition correlation is not the same as causation, so neither settle anything either way

This just sounds like a restatement of the "But you can't prove it" argument, and just like it, shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how science works.

 

Science works in probabilities, not proof. When we have a line of evidence (data) which points to a conclusion, then we can say that something is probably true. When we have multiple, independent, lines of evidence all pointing to the same conclusion then we can say that something is likely or very likely to be true.

 

We have multiple, independent, lines of evidence suggesting that AGW theory is true.

 

See here , here and here.

 

CO2 is already absorbing almost all of the energy that there is to be had in the relevant bands. Moreover, it does so fairly close to the Earth's surface. The effect is logarithmic so increasing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere now only has a slight effect. In addition, CO2 and the other trace gases are pretty unimportant as greenhouse gases go. The warming industry has been concentrating on the wrong atmospheric processes. Water vapour and the atmospheric processes associated with it, especially negative feedback from the cooling effect of low level clouds, seem to be a more fruitful line of research.

We have direct satellite measurements of the amount of energy being absorbed by CO2 and other greenhouse gasses. These measurements show a clear increase in the amount of energy being absorbed since the first measurements were taken in 1970. This shows that the idea that CO2 is saturated, or even close to saturation, is false.

 

Also, if CO2 energy absorption became saturated at anything near the less than 1% concentration currently in the Earth's atmosphere, then why is Venus so hot? 94 of the 95% of Venuses atmosphere which is CO2 should be doing nothing, yet the surface of Venus is hot enough to melt lead. Again, this falsifies the "CO2 is close to saturation" argument.

 

More here.

 

There are two critical differences between water vapour and CO2. The first is that the amount of water vapour in the atmosphere hasn't changed since the temperature stabilised at the start of this inter-glacial a few thousand years ago (there's been a small increase estimated at around 4% due to rising temperatures but nothing like the increase in CO2) whereas humans have increased the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere by 40% in the last 200 years. If the amount of water vapour hasn't changed significantly, then how can it be driving the observed temperature rise?

 

Secondly, the amount of water vapour in the atmosphere varies in direct relation to the temperature. Warmer equals more and cooler equals less. This means that the amount of water vapour in the atmosphere varies in real time. Also, water vapour doesn't just heat the atmosphere, it also forms clouds which have a cooling effect by reflecting sunlight.

 

More here.

 

Svensmark, a Danish physicist, has found empirical evidence in support of his hypothesis that a weaker solar magnetic field allows more high energy cosmic particles to reach the lower atmosphere, where they enhance the conditions for low level cloud formation, leading to cooling, and vice versa. This has been covered in the book 'The Chilling Stars' by Svensmark and Calder.

Svensmark's research has yet to be confirmed by anyone else, but even if it was confirmed that cosmic rays enhance cloud formation, the correlation between cosmic rays and temperature, while good up until 1970, breaks down sharply from 1970 onwards.

 

More here.

 

Any calculation of greenhouse warming based on CO2 alone does not come up with an alarming figure. Hence the assumption of positive forcing from water vapour, which is the only thing producing a 'doomsday' scenario. There is no empirical evidence to justify such an assumption.

This is just nonsense. Firstly, water vapour is not a forcing agent, it is a feedback. The difference is that a forcing agent, such as CO2 or Methane, stays in the atmosphere for years having a continuous effect. Water vapour, on the other hand, has a residence time in the atmosphere of mere days before it rains out.

 

Secondly, we know that rising temperatures increase the amount of water vapour in the atmosphere, and we know that CO2 is raising temperatures, so to say "There is no empirical evidence to justify such an assumption." is just a flat out lie.

 

And thirdly, nobody is suggesting that water vapour is the only feedback involved. We already know from studying the ice-age/interglacial dynamic that there is a danger of triggering a large, natural, CO2 feedback, and we also know that melting the tundra releases huge amounts of methane leading to a massive methane feedback, so to state that "Hence the assumption of positive forcing from water vapour, which is the only thing producing a 'doomsday' scenario." is another flat out lie.

 

Lies from deniers, who'd have thought.

 

And that last paragraph from Gorgo was so idiotic, that it's the first one I haven't been able to find a simple and straightforward refutation on the Skeptical Science website. So no link for that one.

[Guest Anonymous]

AT. It would take too long for me to search back through your previous posts to find the information I'm looking for but I'm sure the answer to my next question will be in there somewhere and I know you'd be only too happy to supply it.

What is the 'avoidable disaster' that 'We know' is coming? (added subquestion) And how do you think we can avoid it?

Try to keep it brief. I'm not sure many read your essays. TA

[Njugle]

And, as promised, here is the next instalment of "Debunking Gorgo's Garbage".

 

Speaking as a moderator - Gorgo is entitled to his opinion too,AT, the word "garbage" is hardly conducive to a polite exchange of information.

[Guest Anonymous]

Is intimidation the last tool in the box of our 'planet saviours'?

 

Here here. for once I agree with the Mods.

Likely won't be long before I have the 'empassioned' profanities directed toward me again!

[ArabiaTerra]

And, as promised, here is the next instalment of "Debunking Gorgo's Garbage".

 

Speaking as a moderator - Gorgo is entitled to his opinion too,AT, the word "garbage" is hardly conducive to a polite exchange of information.

Of course, sorry 'bout that. I get a bit enthusiastic sometimes.

 

Gorgo, I apologise.

 

Edit, Oops I'm past the edit deadline, could you change it to "post", Njugle, cheers.

[Njugle]

Nope, I could not, because I can't see what you want changed to "post" in either of the past two posts.

 

Any clues?

[Gorgonzola Butt-cheese]

Hello Arabia Terra, Firstly I did mention , that the big post you are now so excited about was not my own work, it was copied from a comments page about windfarms.It was just so thoroughly written I thought I would share it with everybody here .

Now like all the information out there, I dont know how credible any of it is and that includes your skeptical science which you preach from with such gusto.

Climate change is real enough (we can agree?) but I feel the panic reaction to it isn't. What's causing it remains theory and exactly the final outcome will also remain unclear .

And here is a small bit I read in a book which sums it up quite well

" Present solutions are tokenistic, opportunistic and simplistic", whilst we now have countless thousands of solar panels, and wind turbines sprouting like large overly weeds the consumption of oil, coal and gas remains undiminished, and it will likely only diminish through the reserves becoming exhausted, that A.T. is the most probable fact.

You can carry on debunking all you like and apology accepted, but no offence taken in any case.

I think the debate needs something new? , rather than just throwing what we can dredge from the internet at each other.