OT; Widespread Global warming

Jan 12, 2011 239 Replies

Now, what if smoothed HadCRUT3 for 2028 turns out no warmer than it was for 1958? Or if a linear trend from 1958 to 2028 turns out to have flat or downward slope? Not that I expect that to pan out, but what if that does happen? Would that not mean that the effect of increasing CO2 on global temperature is obviously a lot smaller than the scientists considered by IPCC made it out to be? And I mean so obvious that this would be understood correctly by the regulars in SED and even interested highschoolers?

What if smoothed HadCRUT3 in 2028 significantly exceeds that of 1958, but smoothed baseline-difference-adjusted RSS (add .15 degree to RSS TLT index as currently defined) in 2028 turns out no warmer than 1958's smoothed HadCRUT3? Would that not also mean that the effect of CO2 on global temperature is a lot less than proposed by those saying we have to do something about it? And in addition, that there is a discrepancy between HadCRUT3 and RSS to figure out?

What about something less extreme? What if at least 2 of the 5 indices of global temperature show downward linear trend from 1999 to 2029? What if all 5 of them do that? What if CO2 continues rising, to 430 PPMV in

2029 (approx. exponential extrapolation of 1999-2009 increase), and all 5 indices of global temperature have downward linear trend from 1999 to 2029? This is something that I consider fairly likely to happen, given how much of the 1973-2005 temperature rise looks like a continuation of something periodic (probably PDO and AMO) rather than CO2, and the sun looking like it's starting a near-repeat of the Dalton Minimum. If as much of post-1973 or post-1950 warming is from CO2 as advocated by those saying we have to do something about CO2, should not a CO2 increase from 367 PPMV (approx. 1999 5-year average) to 430 PPMV accomplish an upward linear trend in global temperature from 1999 to 2029 in spite of AMO, PDO and solar variation?
- Don Klipstein (don@misty.com)

Um, isn't that precisely what the warmingists are doing?

Thanks, Rich

No Rich. The simplications involved in the pro-anthropogenic global warming information that you can read and comprehend arise from the fact that the stuff that you can follow is all aimed at young children.

If you had retained a bit more of the education you presuambly got as a young adult you could dig out rather more complicated ideas with a closer connection to reality, mercifully free of cuddly polar bears.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

Well, actually, I have, which is how I know that Anthropogenic Global Warming (or "climate change" or whatever they're calling it these days) is a load of crap.

Hope This Helps! Rich

Dispute on anthropogenic increase of CO2 is not what I'm seeing lately. Let's see what Raveninghorde says about how much more CO2 we're likely to get, or how much anthropogenic CO2 increase we got already and how much more we're in for. I have the impression that Dr. Roy Spencer considers that we're in for doubling CO2 from pre-industrial levels by our own hands. IPCC's CO2 scenarios appear to me having median around 750-800 PPMV by the end of this century - around 1.42 to 1.5 log-scale doublings from pre-industrial levels.

What I'm seeing is disagreeing with most climate scientists considered by IPCC as to how much warming the human-added CO2 has.

The forcing in watts per square meter per log scale doubling of CO2 is a figure where Dr. Roy Spencer accepts 3.7 W/m^2 per CO2 doubling, and I have seen 3.7 to 3.8 in documents by IPCC. So, the direct effect of CO2 is something where there is a lot of agreement.

The main disagreement is in magnitudes of the various feedbacks and the sum of them, and resulting climate sensitivity. Fairly-agreed-on is that without any added feedbacks, Earth's climate sensitivity is inverse of the "feedback value format" 3.3 W/m^2-K. With this figure, a doubling of CO2 would raise global temperature by 1.12-1.15 degrees C/K.

So, where the disagreement appears to me to be mainly what the individual feedback parameters and total global temperature climate sensitivity are. IPCC has been noted to consider mostly "inverse climate sensitivity" (climate sensitivity in "feedback parameter" terms) of .8 to 1.8 W/m^2-K.

(This number is actually negative, and so is the 3.3 W/m^2-K "zero added feedback" figure. Positive "total feedback parameter" means instability, gain from change of CO2 being past infinite.)

Looking at how anthropogenic factors other than CO2 - both warming and cooling - largely cancel each other out, and comparing increase of HadCRUT3 after subtracting a 64 year period periodic component (that I was able to discern period and magnitude of with Fourier analysis over 2 cycles) to CO2 increase, I have come up at different times with anywhere from -1.95 to -2.5 W/m^2-K "total feedback parameter". Should solar variation count for more than absolutely zero, this would get even "less positive feedback".

Dr. Roy Spencer likes to say how he has done bits of work working out this figure, generally coming up with -3 to -6 W/m^2-K, though had one figure of -2.2 W/m^2-K (IIRC) when the variable is solar variation (which the lapse rate negative feedback applies less to than to change in GHGs). He likes to see the cloud albedo feedback as negative, while I like to see it positive but only a fraction as positive as median of what IPCC considers. There's also the water vapor positive feedback - I think it has to be decreased from its "constant relative humidity unchanged lapse rate figure" due to GHG increase cooling upper troposphere and stratosphere, and also due to cloud albedo feedback being positive at all probably requiring reduced average atmospheric relative humidity.

The various figures for feedback parameters come from climate models, and it appears these get adjusted to "predict what already occurred". The debate in that area is whether or not these climate models are considering an excessive percentage of recent past warming to have come from increase of CO2 and insufficient percentage of recent past warming to be from temporary natural upswings, such as in AMO and PDO.

Let's see who chimes in with their determinations, estimates and guesses as to Earth's "total feedback parameter", and/or how much warming from when we get in one 64 (or 70?) year cycle of AMO and/or low frequency component of PDO.

- Don Klipstein (don@misty.com)

SNIP

So why are your knickers so twisted over AGW?

SNIP

You've got it.

CO2 is not the only input to thte climate system.

I still think external effects such as solar are under estimated though recent work is showing more influences than just TSI.

It is also clear that PDO, AMO etc have been under estimated.

This of course means the feedbacks are wrong and excessive.

I also believe a single global temperature figure is meaningless and misleading.

Regional indices are of more interest in understanding any impacts of climate variation, natural or man made.

If a fraction of the money spent on alarmism was spent on understanding regional issues people would be a lot better off. For example water control in Australia is much more important for drought and flood than CO2 sequestration. Drought and flood have always happened and will continues to happen.

SNIP

So non oscillation temperature rise is around 0.2C to 0.25C. That's probably close enough for jazz.

The change in solar activity from a grand maximum of the most active sun since before the Maunder minimum and little ice age to a very low cycle 24 and probably low cycle 25 in the future will give a chance to deduce the real impact of the sun on climate.

SNIP

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You may think you have, but you have posted enough idiotic misconceptions over the years for the rest of us to be well aware that you are deluding yourself.

Which is how he has deluded himself

Actually, the load of crap is located between your ears.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

Good question. The answer is even better. Your "hypothetical event" was something that you had imagined. You don't know that something like it is going to happen and you don't have a well-worked out explanation of why it might happen.

Anthropogenic Global Warming is a well-founded scientific hypothesis. You may doubt it it, but you doubts reflect your imperfect understanding of the science involved. Most of the world's climatologists have spent the last thirty years exploring the consequences of our continuing to burn fossil carbon, further increasing the already high levels of CO2 in our atmosphere, and they don't like what they see.

The last comparable excursion in carbon isotope ratios took place some

55.8 million years ago, during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum

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when global temperatures went up by 6 degrees Kelvin, and numerous mamalian species went extinct.

If we went through such an event, human society would probably not survive and there would certainly be a population crash. This is also a hypothetical event, but the hypothesis that it might happen is rather better founded than your wishful hope that anthropogenic global warming might suddenly go away and the pontential consequences of ingnoring the possibility are rather more dire.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

Primarily because you want to use it as a club to beat us over the head with to increase the power of government to tax and regulate us; you're addicted to the huge research grants, and your antics are _already_ raising the prices of virtually everything.

And anyway, why the assumption that a warmer climate is automatically a _bad_ thing? There are probably a lot of farmers who'd kill for a longer growing season, and the tree-huggers should be grateful for more CO2, which nourishes plants - in fact, they can't live without it!

The idea that humans have anything to do with Earth's natural warming and cooling cycles, and that "Oh, the sky is falling and it's ALL YOUR FAULT!" attitude is just some bizarre "morphodite" of arrogance and angst.

Thanks, Rich

Certainly true.

Wishful thinking.

They'd been seen as random noise on the climate trends. Their effect on global temperature is slight - basically they change some of the routes that heat follows as it makes its way from the equator to the poles, and when the transport is less effective the equator gets a bit warmer and the poles a bit colder. Granting that radiative dissipation rises as the fourth power of temperature this translates into slight global cooling. Local temperature changes tend to be more dramatic - whence the fuss about the medieval warm period and the little ice age, both of which seem to have centred on the North Atlantic.

The Argo buoys should eventually tell us exactly what is going on, which will eliminate them from your arguments as your all-purpose excuse.

Probably not.

Why? CO2 spreads iself around the globe remarkably fast, and pushes up the effective radiating altitude (for IR absorbed and radiated by CO2 molecules) right around the globe.

Certainly true, but the atmosphere is continuous around the globe and you can't consider any single area in isolation and expect to be able to predict anything.

There's lot of work going on predicting and understanding climate change - predicting and (where possible) anticipating regional problems is generally seen as an important part of climate science.

A recent copy of the American Proceedings of the National Acamdemy of Science - December 14, 2010, volume 107, number 50 incoproates a special feature on "Climate Change and Water in Southwestern North America". The current drought there is severe, but less severe than the one around 800 years ago that caused the collapse of the Anasazi culture.

But they may happen differently if the world is somewhat warmer.

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-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

Wait a minute. Which of you is saying what here? I thought Bill was the warmingist and horde was the skeptic? Maybe in my last screed I should have said, "they," rather than "you."

Thanks, Rich

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Solar radiation is measured to vary by about 0.1% during the suspot cycle, which is negilible.

Hand waving theories about the solar wind affecting cloud formation abound, but lack observational support.

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The real impact of the sun on climate is already known, and it's sod- all.

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We can wait and see how many of your daft theories bite the dust, but in the menatime we need to do something about reducing the amount of fossil CO2 being injected into the atmosphere.

We don't know everything about what is going on, but we do know enough to suggest that allowing Exxon-Mobil and its colleagues to continue to make money out of extracting fossil carbon is a pretty risky choice.

We know we can live with higher energy prices. It seems unlikely that our society could cope with the consequences of a Younger Dryas event

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which happened 12,800 years ago when the world was warming up rapidly at the end of the last ice age. It seems unlikely that we could turn off the Gulf Stream, but there may be other ways in which we could shoot ourslelves in the foot. Futzing around with global temperature isn't a prudnet way to behave.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

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Nonsense. Just because you are against government doesn't mean that the people who are arguing with you are for it. Increased government intervention is one of those necessary evils that comes with sorting out the "tragedy of the commons"

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The last serious burst of warm weather, some 55.8 million years ago, killed off a number of mammalian species, and lead to a burst of speciation. The ecological niches changed enough that the animals that were exploiting them weren't well adapted to the new environment and most of them died, leaving a few survivors who were slightly less maladapted to evolve into species that were better placed to exploit the new environment. when the climate cooled off again, the process repeated itself.

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That excursion - if repeated today - would be big enough to wreck human society and cause a population crash, even if individual farmers and trees might do better.

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Actually, it is the result of the application of the scientific method, which your brain no longer seems to be equipped to comprehend.

You may have adopted the idea that humans lack the power to mess up the real world, but the revelation that persuaded you of this proposition came from some kind of mendacious diety - probably operating via a denialist web-site.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

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But government, under socialism, is exactly a tragedy of the commons-- it creates a competition of beggars, each petitioning the gov't to live off the other.

"Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else." --Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850)

-- Cheers, James Arthur

SNIP

Kopp and Lean

/quote

The most probable value of total solar irradiance representative of solar minimum is 1360.8 ± 0.5 W m-2, lower than the canonical value of

1365.4 ± 1.3 W m-2 recommended a decade ago. This new value, measured by SORCE/TIM, is validated by irradiance comparisons to a NIST-calibrated cryogenic radiometer in the new TSI Radiometer Facility.

/end quote

Much more than 0.1% change.

And

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Again more than 0.1% change.

While TSI remains braodly stable the spectral mix changes with UV changing dramatically.

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Prior to SORCE, most TSI instruments had only 0.1 percent accuracy,

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Here is the changes in the cycle 24 sun spot prediction

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with the latest prediction at 59 at cycle maximum, Dalton minimum levels, compared to the last 3 cycles over 150 and all cycles of the

20th century over 100.

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And look up Livingston and Penn. Sun spots due to disappear completely at 1500 gauss around 2015 which is Maunder minimum levels

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Out of date alarmist information

SNIP

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You do wear a particularly restrictive set of right-wing blinkers. Modern European socialism doesn't work like that and sustains a number of healthy economies, at least one of which - Germany's - puts yours in the shade.

The government is the biggest protection racket in town, but it can deliver genuinely useful services that can't be provided any other way. Right-wingers are too blinkered to see the possibilities, and regularly throw out the baby with the bath-water.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

To Bill, I have a question for you.

I am what you would call an AWG skeptic. The data, analysis, discussions and personal observations I have seen have not convinced me that AWG is a problem of sufficent magnitude to warrant the (US) governemnt trying to change our life styles and levy taxes that would have an economic impact.

My question to you is: What would you have to see to change your mind?

And to be fair I will ask myself the same question, what would I need to see to change my mind?

Answer,

1) if I saw the level of the ocean rise a noticeable amount, i.e. a foot or two over a few years.

2) If data such as this:

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showed a change in ice extent that was a significant portion of the seasonal change. Right now the changes they see are a small percentage of the seasonal change.

If I saw EITHER of these happen, I would reconsider my position on AWG.

What data / observations would make you reconsider?

Note, I don't particularly care if you believe in AWG or not, so I am not going to actually try to change your mind, I am curious about what your criteria are.

Regards Mark

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Better watch what you say Rich, or somebody'll take you to court to shut you up:

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Mark L. Fergerson

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