Give me your opinions about global warming

[SkepticLance]

To Chris

 

You obviously just jumped in onto this thread. To get you up to date, my argument has been that greenhouse gases have been the dominant driver of global warming since about 1976, but earlier than that, the correlation gets shaky. In fact, before 1976, sunspot activity correlates much better and has done for at least 1000 years into the past.

 

I believe that there is a real confusion between solar irradiance and sunspot activity, which has other effects above and beyond simple irradiance changes.

 

More references

 

http://www-das.uwyo.edu/~geerts/cwx/notes/chap02/sunspots.html

 

A quote from this paper.

 

"Using a global climate model based on energy conservation, Lane et al (3) constructed a profile of atmospheric climate "forcing" due to combined changes in solar irradiance and emissions of greenhouse gases between 1880 and 1993. They found that the temperature variations predicted by their model accounted for up to 92% of the temperature changes actually observed over the period -- an excellent match for that period. Their results also suggest that the sensitivity of climate to the effects of solar irradiance is about 27% higher than its sensitivity to forcing by greenhouse gases. "

 

The next reference contains an error that was later corrected. The authors overstated the number of sunspots since 1960, but their earlier estimates were pretty much correct. I am not sure why the error occurred. I doubt it was scientific dishonesty - more likely a human mistake.

 

http://www.oar.noaa.gov/spotlite/archive/spot_sunclimate.html

[bascule]

You obviously just jumped in onto this thread. To get you up to date, my argument has been that greenhouse gases have been the dominant driver of global warming since about 1976, but earlier than that, the correlation gets shaky.

 

Actually, your argument has been that model-tested theory showing that the greatest radiative forcing since the late 1950s is greenhouse gasses is actually the work of:

 

enormous number of bureaucrats... politicians... agenda... personal agendas... non scientists.

 

And that its mathematical basis is:

 

the results of calculations, that work on the results of other calculations, that work on the results of yet more calculations.

 

Of course, that doesn't imply that all those calculations are wrong! However, you go on to say:

 

They are so far removed from reality that the error factor is huge.

 

Without providing any evidence for this accusation, of course. It seems like your argument is that they're doing sooooo many calculations that there must be an error in there somewhere! There's noooo possible way that they could do so much math and actually be right.

 

It guess it makes more sense to say that there's a certain abstraction limit on the amount of math you can do and still get accurate answers, and the scientists obviously don't know what that is, and you do. Yes, atmospheric scientists don't concern themselves with the precision of their calculations!

 

Oh wait, perhaps they do... and perhaps it is for that reason that they quantify their answers with a degree of error. That's why they're only over 90% certain of the very claim you seek to discredit...

[Chris C]

To Chris

 

You obviously just jumped in onto this thread. To get you up to date, my argument has been that greenhouse gases have been the dominant driver of global warming since about 1976, but earlier than that, the correlation gets shaky. In fact, before 1976, sunspot activity correlates much better and has done for at least 1000 years into the past.

 

I believe that there is a real confusion between solar irradiance and sunspot activity, which has other effects above and beyond simple irradiance changes.

 

More references

 

http://www-das.uwyo.edu/~geerts/cwx/notes/chap02/sunspots.html

 

A quote from this paper.

 

"Using a global climate model based on energy conservation, Lane et al (3) constructed a profile of atmospheric climate "forcing" due to combined changes in solar irradiance and emissions of greenhouse gases between 1880 and 1993. They found that the temperature variations predicted by their model accounted for up to 92% of the temperature changes actually observed over the period -- an excellent match for that period. Their results also suggest that the sensitivity of climate to the effects of solar irradiance is about 27% higher than its sensitivity to forcing by greenhouse gases. "

 

The next reference contains an error that was later corrected. The authors overstated the number of sunspots since 1960, but their earlier estimates were pretty much correct. I am not sure why the error occurred. I doubt it was scientific dishonesty - more likely a human mistake.

 

http://www.oar.noaa.gov/spotlite/archive/spot_sunclimate.html

 

The level of solar activity is related with several aspects, such as solar magnetism, solar wind, solar UV levels, solar 10.7 cm emission, and total solar irradiance (TSI; due to the appearance of dark sunspots and faculae). Changes in solar activity tend to involve changes in all of these aspects.

 

The sunspots themselves play a minor role - they are usually only taken as an indicator of the solar state. There are 3 proposed main mechanisms whereby changes in the sun affect our climate:

1 - change in TSI

2 - change in solar UV, which alters the absorption of energy in the stratosphere and the temperature of the upper atmosphere. May affect circulation and distribution of heat.

3 - change in galactic cosmic rays (GCR). Svensmark & co reckon the GCR affects the cloudiness. Others, such as Tinsley, think it affects the atmospheric fairweather electric field, which again may have an effect on the cloud micro-physics.

 

Then, you have feedbacks which can amplify or dampen impacts, etc- a lot of details on the subject- Rasmus Benestad has a whole book on the subject:

 

Benestad, R.E. (2002, 2005) Solar Activity and Earth's Climate,

Praxis-Springer, Berlin and Heidelberg, 287pp, ISBN: 3-540-43302-3

[SkepticLance]

To Bascule

 

I think it would take a calculator to count the number of times you have accused me or someone else of straw man arguments. What do you think you are doing when you argue against something I never said ?

 

When a climate scientist uses the results of calculations to make more calculations to make more calculations etc., it is not some accumulated mass of arithmetic mistakes that leads to the final accumulated error. It is instead the accumulated mass of errors coming from imprecise data, and the accumulated errors coming from various inaccurate assumptions.

 

For example : one criticism made by a variety of climate scientists is that exisitng climate models do not take into account changes in cloud formations. The assumption that is built into the models is that such formations do not affect overall climate. In fact, I have seen this written down in a report by those modellers. However, that is not a demonstrated empirical fact. It is simply an assumption, and one that is probably wrong.

 

There are also numerous negative feeds-back mechanisms that have been proposed. While some of these ideas are probably wrong, some are probably correct. Current climate models do not take these into account, which is another source of error. Excessive complexity in computer models can be tolerated if all factors are known to great precision. This is not the case with climate models.

[1veedo]

If I am reading the last two posts correctly, then there are a couple of ostriches with heads in sand. If I am not, please explain.

 

The big global temperature changes over the past thousand years, except the last 30, were all preceded by relevent sunspot activity changes. The concept that the sun has nothing to do with global warming/cooling seems to be real ostrich country.

No, Fred56 had his head in the sand, not me.

 

 

j/k

 

But if I read your post correctly SkepticLance all I saw was one big straw man. Neither one of us suggested the sun had no effect on the climate, just that it's not causing global warming.

[SkepticLance]

To 1veedo

 

to suggest that the sun is not causing global warming as a blanket statement is a bit moot. While I agree that is not the case right now, and has not been for 30 years, surely you must agree, at the very least, that changes in sunspot activity have been a part of the total picture over the 1000 years before?

 

As I said, repeatedly, and gave references to support, sunspot activity increased before global temperature increase, and dropped before global cooling on a number of occasions over that 1000 year period. This is as close in science to cast iron 'proof' as we can get that it is a powerful influence. If it were less than a dominant influence, we would expect temperature to go up and down independently of sunspot activity change over that time, as more dominant influences exerted their influence. This has not happened.

 

If your statement that the sun does not cause global warming refers only to the present situation, I agree with you (even though the statement is technically incorrect. With no sun there is no warming, by definition. However, I assume you were referring to changes in sunspot activity.).

 

If it is meant to refer to most of the last few centuries, then I have to say that is not correct.

[ghstofmaxwll]

Give me your opinions about global warming

 

 

The insistence that climate change is due to man is scientifically ignorant. Primarily its ignorant to natural peaks and troughs present in complex(multi variable) systems such as the earths climate.

 

Yes there is compelling data that could be consistent with man-made compounds contributing significantly to the earths greenhouse effect. But It is wholly unscientific to claim any certainty what-so-ever, and any scientist who asserts "we are changing our climate" is not a scientist but a political tool.

[iNow]

When has anyone claimed that there are not natural cycles or that all change is due to anthropegenic causes? :confused:

 

 

The climate change caused by humans is, however, the most dominant and significant.

[swansont]

The insistence that climate change is due to man is scientifically ignorant. Primarily its ignorant to natural peaks and troughs present in complex(multi variable) systems such as the earths climate.

 

Yes there is compelling data that could be consistent with man-made compounds contributing significantly to the earths greenhouse effect. But It is wholly unscientific to claim any certainty what-so-ever, and any scientist who asserts "we are changing our climate" is not a scientist but a political tool.

 

What would be the opposite of "wholly unscientific" would be to back claims up with evidence. You know, like the the way science actually works.

[Fred56]

Fer chrissakes, how many scientists are able to say there is absolute certainty about anything? Name more than one thing that we are 100% certain of (apart from "knowing we're alive")...

[ghstofmaxwll]

When has anyone claimed that there are not natural cycles or that all change is due to anthropegenic causes? :confused:

When just about every layman (who has never studied natural planetary greenhouse effects and climate changes) farts out the latest fad.

 

The climate change caused by humans is, however, the most dominant and significant.

....You see! unscientific and evidencless assertions!

 

Fer chrissakes, how many scientists are able to say there is absolute certainty about anything? Name more than one thing that we are 100% certain of (apart from "knowing we're alive")...

 

Exactly!

 

What would be the opposite of "wholly unscientific" would be to back claims up with evidence. You know, like the the way science actually works.

 

The opposite to unscientific would be to make no claims at all on the basis of an inconclusive peak in global climate temperature, that we have no way of telling from a natural fluctuation.

[1veedo]

When just about every layman (who has never studied natural planetary greenhouse effects and climate changes) farts out the latest fad.

He means where in this thread. You were arguing against something that nobody had claimed -- it's known as a straw man.

....You see! unscientific and evidencless assertions!

How can it be unscientific if that's exactly what the scientific community agrees upon?

[bascule]

SkepticLance,

 

I'd really prefer you ignore the rest of my post and answer this one question:

 

If GCMs are as error prone as you seem to be alleging, how is it they've managed to reconstruct the historical record so accurately?

 

I'd really prefer you answer that question than respond to anything else in this post.

 

But, if you wish to continue this pointless argument that never goes nowhere, feel free to respond to the following:

 

I think it would take a calculator to count the number of times you have accused me or someone else of straw man arguments. What do you think you are doing when you argue against something I never said ?

 

Because I am arguing against something you said... you're simply missing the point...

 

When a climate scientist uses the results of calculations to make more calculations to make more calculations etc., it is not some accumulated mass of arithmetic mistakes that leads to the final accumulated error. It is instead the accumulated mass of errors coming from imprecise data, and the accumulated errors coming from various inaccurate assumptions.

 

And as I said, they calculate the margin of error...

 

For example : one criticism made by a variety of climate scientists is that exisitng climate models do not take into account changes in cloud formations. The assumption that is built into the models is that such formations do not affect overall climate.

 

That's a funny claim, considering I did support work on a project which was using observations from clouds performed by half a dozen satellites to help improve the accuracy of GCMs...

 

In fact, I have seen this written down in a report by those modellers. However, that is not a demonstrated empirical fact. It is simply an assumption, and one that is probably wrong.

 

You are completely out of touch with reality if you think that climate models do not account for the effects of clouds.

 

There are also numerous negative feeds-back mechanisms that have been proposed. While some of these ideas are probably wrong, some are probably correct. Current climate models do not take these into account, which is another source of error.

 

Non-linearities and feedback loops in the climate system are emergent from the models themselves. They do not need to be built into the model directly. In fact modeling is how many feedback loops have been discovered.

 

Excessive complexity in computer models can be tolerated if all factors are known to great precision. This is not the case with climate models.

 

Climate scientists know far more about the degree of error in their models than you. How high do you think the error rate actually is?

[iNow]

When just about every layman (who has never studied natural planetary greenhouse effects and climate changes) farts out the latest fad.

Try to understand what you're talking about prior to attacking it. Your basic premise is that the reason claims of anthropegenically induced global climate change are wrong is because so many people support it. If people continue to disparage those who recognize that humans are impacting our planet in a negative way, it will only slow our progress toward achieving a solution.

 

We are changing our planet. We must change our behavior. Why continue wasting time trying to persuade people that the data is inconclusive? The data can only be classified as inconclusive to the person who does not understand it. There really is no disagreement among those who are experts in the field. Trusting them is not a fad, it's the first step in our own survival.

 

 

 

I see a mass extinction event coming very soon. Too bad it's not just the morons who will die.

[ghstofmaxwll]

He means where in this thread.

I was giving my opinion to the opening question, not a response to any moron here.

How can it be unscientific if that's exactly what the scientific community agrees upon?

Jesus Christ ! More blanket assertions of fact for a thing that certainly is not fact(opinion is very much divided among scientists on this matter). Dont you guys ever stay true to scientific accuracy in presentation of figures?

 

Try to understand what you're talking about prior to attacking it. Your basic premise is that the reason claims of anthropegenically induced global climate change are wrong is because so many people support it. If people continue to disparage those who recognize that humans are impacting our planet in a negative way, it will only slow our progress toward achieving a solution.

 

We are changing our planet. We must change our behavior. Why continue wasting time trying to persuade people that the data is inconclusive? The data can only be classified as inconclusive to the person who does not understand it. There really is no disagreement among those who are experts in the field. Trusting them is not a fad, it's a method of survival.

 

 

 

I see a mass extinction event coming very soon. Too bad it's not just the morons who will die.

No, Richard! You know what you are talking about before claiming facts! Have you studied planetary Physics in between reading media sensationalism?

[iNow]

How many sources would it take to convince you otherwise? 10? 100? 1000? Will any amount of actual data open your eyes, or are you too busy standing on your soap box to see the impact we're having?

[ghstofmaxwll]

How many sources would it take to convince you otherwise?

It doesn't matter how many sources you looneys present it matters what they contain i.e. conclusive data, that rules out natural fluctuation is responsible for a spike in global temperature.

Will any amount of actual data open your eyes, or are you too busy standing on your soap box to see the impact we're having?

Conclusive direct data(not anecdotal) will get me off my soap box over the corruption of scientific process and caution by fad assertions.

[Fred56]

Down here in Kiwiland, we're getting the tail end of an "extended" winter. This morning was about 3-4 C, and it's the middle of spring. We haven't had weather this cold for quite a few (maybe more than 20) years, and we had hailstorms last week.

I don't think you will find many NZ'ers who are saying this means global warming is a load of cobblers, mate.

[ghstofmaxwll]

Down here in Kiwiland, we're getting the tail end of an "extended" winter. This morning was about 3-4 C, and it's the middle of spring. We haven't had weather this cold for quite a few (maybe more than 20) years, and we had hailstorms last week.

I don't think you will find many NZ'ers who are saying this means global warming is a load of cobblers, mate.

Maybe its anthropogenic global season flip, mate.

[bascule]

When just about every layman (who has never studied natural planetary greenhouse effects and climate changes) farts out the latest fad.

 

I just did support work for a climate research group for five years. I pay little attention to nonscientific information sources on climate change...

[ghstofmaxwll]

I don't think you will find many NZ'ers who are saying this means global warming is a load of cobblers, mate.

 

You see, there are magnitudes of certainty between "cobblers" and "fact".

 

The big bang would have about a 20% magnitude of certainty, relativity 90%.

Global warming by humans hasn't even got as long a history of study as those, so you wouldn't even be able to estimate a 20% surety from the indirect data of

climate history. Some of the good models with photon scatter could push the probability up a bit though I guess.

[Fred56]

Apart from the scientific certainty or otherwise, it isn't like we're trying to find out why quantum entanglement works. This research has "wider implications", you might say.

[swansont]

It doesn't matter how many sources you looneys present it matters what they contain i.e. conclusive data, that rules out natural fluctuation is responsible for a spike in global temperature.

 

Conclusive direct data(not anecdotal) will get me off my soap box over the corruption of scientific process and caution by fad assertions.

 

Ad hominems, strawmen and other fallacious arguments may be good fodder for politics, but they have no place in a science discussion.

[lucaspa]

Originally Posted by iNow

The climate change caused by humans is, however, the most dominant and significant.

 

 

....You see! unscientific and evidencless assertions!

 

Sorry, ghstofmaxwll, but neither. What iNow posted was the conclusion from scientific evidence. It's not an assertion. It's a conclusion from data.

 

In August 2007 Scientific American had a summary article of the data to back the conclusion. Included in Figure 1 are the contributions of solar forcing, volcanic activity, man-made greenhouse gasses, etc. You need to read the article and then go back to the references in the article and read those. And the references in the references. THEN you will have all the data and will realize that iNow gave a conclusion from data.

 

I have a PDF copy of the article. If absolutely necessary, I will post it as an attachment so everyone has it. I can probably get away with the copyright issue by calling this forum a "class" and distributing material to the class.

[SkepticLance]

Bascule said :

 

"If GCMs are as error prone as you seem to be alleging, how is it they've managed to reconstruct the historical record so accurately?"

 

I would be interested to know which part of the historical record you thing were 'so accurately' reconstructed. The last 30 years are easy. That can be reconstructed pretty well with a pen, ruler, and graph paper. Before that, the modellers have been struggling, re-doing models many times to try to get it right. The historical climate record, or course, goes back to Roman times. Are you suggesting that climate modellers can reconstruct it back that far? Not without better references to sunspot effects, they cannot.

 

"And as I said, they calculate the margin of error..."

 

How can anyone calculate margin of error when they do not actually know what the errors are? You can calculate known errors, sure. However, it is pretty arrogant to assume that all factors are known.

 

You are completely out of touch with reality if you think that climate models do not account for the effects of clouds.

 

Then why have several international conferences on climate modelling discussed this problem, as a problem?

 

In fact modeling is how many feedback loops have been discovered.

 

This statement is utter garbage. In science, it is empirical studies that lead to discoveries such as feed-back loops. Modelling is just a tool, which raises questions that have to be tested empirically. I am not suggesting that models have no value. Like any scientific tool, they can be very valuable. However, we need to be aware of their limits.

 

For example : It is known that phytoplankton release dimethyl sulphide, much of which enters the atmosphere, and forms nucleation centres for cloud formation. Satellite studies show that there is extra cloud formation over parts of the ocean with a high chlorophyll count. ie. where there are a lot of phytoplankton. Warmer oceans lead to more phytoplankton growth, thus more clouds, thus more cooling. This is a simple negative feed-back. Would you care to tell me how a computer model could have discovered this?