Climate change

[Al_U_Card]

Al,

 

From the following paper:

 

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921818112001658?v=s5

 

► The overall global temperature change sequence of events appears to be from 1) the ocean surface to 2) the land surface to 3) the lower troposphere. ► Changes in global atmospheric CO2 are lagging about 11–12 months behind changes in global sea surface temperature. ► Changes in global atmospheric CO2 are lagging 9.5-10 months behind changes in global air surface temperature. ► Changes in global atmospheric CO2 are lagging about 9 months behind changes in global lower troposphere temperature. ► Changes in ocean temperatures appear to explain a substantial part of the observed changes in atmospheric CO2 since January 1980. ► CO2 released from use of fossil fuels have little influence on the observed changes in the amount of atmospheric CO2, and changes in atmospheric CO2 are not tracking changes in human emissions.

 

The unsettled science marches on, despite the marching orders of the catastrophists. Lewandowsky's latest effort Vaguely reminiscent of most ad-hominem attacks including those here. is a doozie. Trying to tar the skeptical approach by using inappropriate methods and then starting with the premise and declaring the research to show it, despite no supporting data whatsoever. The worst part is that it is even part of the "dialogue" in this particular topic.

Happily, the truth is getting out there and more and more people are seeing CAGW for what it is, just another cash-grab by conflict-of-interested parties.

[dwar0123]

Playing Devil's Advocate to Win

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/global_warming.png

Alt Text "There are so many well-meaning conservatives around here who just assume global warming is only presented as a moral issue for political reasons."

 

Source: http://xkcd.com/164/

[Daniel1960]

dwar0123,

While there may be well-meaning conservatives using global warming for political reasons, there are probably also well-meaning liberals using it for the same reason. Hence, I like to stick with the scientific arguments in support and against. Maybe if most people did the same, we could move away from the polarizing effect of politics, and come to a greater understanding (not necessarily agreement). Declining to speak up to avoid embarrassment is cowardly. Few scientists would do so. In fact, most scientists prefer to present their work so that others can confirm or refute it. While people in other arenas may wait until they are much more sure of themselves, scientists will present their work much earlier, in the hopes than others can contribute to a greater understanding.

[dwar0123]

Declining to speak up to avoid embarrassment is cowardly.

Agreed, my main interest in linking that cartoon was the alt text and how it relates to my perception of AI_U_Card, it would have been more apt if it had stated financial reasons but oh well.

[Al_U_Card]

Agreed, my main interest in linking that cartoon was the alt text and how it relates to my perception of AI_U_Card, it would have been more apt if it had stated financial reasons but oh well.

Finding the right ad-hominem can be a real chore, at times, I suppose.

I heartily agree about the need to speak up, however.

Standing idly by while being drained of your finances, freedoms and future is definitely not the American way, but that appears to be changing...

 

 

http://api.ning.com/files/sG4eDz9dTovg22WZ4zkhyDIWKmSzPUGL15dOwpNsfSSUyCt3anaCbyrS8-qao64Ce-lXPQjsm9HoqL4R70OPmXgW*rXdYHKm/DetentionCentres.jpg?width=656&height=600

[dwar0123]

Finding the right ad-hominem can be a real chore, at times, I suppose.

I heartily agree about the need to speak up, however.

Standing idly by while being drained of your finances, freedoms and future is definitely not the American way, but that appears to be changing...

I don't think you know what ad-hominem means, you keep using it wrong.

[Al_U_Card]

I don't think you know what ad-hominem means, you keep using it wrong.

 

I am always willing to be edified.

If your post was not directed at my person, my viewpoint or my method of interaction but rather at the contents of the information that was presented, then please do explain.

[dwar0123]

I am always willing to be edified.

If your post was not directed at my person, my viewpoint or my method of interaction but rather at the contents of the information that was presented, then please do explain.

Only one of those three would be an ad-hominem attack, another is what you are doing to me now while somehow a third is all inclusive of the 'rather' part of your statement.

 

You are amazing at framing loaded questions, I always wonder in such situations; are you consciously aware of it or do you honestly believe you are rational and fair?

[hrothgar]

Only one of those three would be an ad-hominem attack, another is what you are doing to me now while somehow a third is all inclusive of the 'rather' part of your statement.

 

You are amazing at framing loaded questions, I always wonder in such situations; are you consciously aware of it or do you honestly believe you are rational and fair?

 

Prior to moving on to Climate Change, Al spent years posting about the "truth" behind the 9-11 attacks.

 

He's a troll, plain and simple.

(I don't think that he's made a bridge related posted in years)

[Al_U_Card]

Only one of those three would be an ad-hominem attack, another is what you are doing to me now while somehow a third is all inclusive of the 'rather' part of your statement.

 

You are amazing at framing loaded questions, I always wonder in such situations; are you consciously aware of it or do you honestly believe you are rational and fair?

 

Fair enough. Once the subject-matter is avoided and the messenger is brought in, the fallacy rears its head. Other similar unrelated aspects are just collateral damage. My apologies if they offended.

 

I try to present information that demonstrates the problems with the "belief" that CO2 is the end of the world, climate-wise. That belief is what is irrational and unfair in its demonizing of contrary to the supposed consensus views and analyses.

We are not talking refuting known science, (GHG etc.) it is empirical, measured climate data versus model-generated projections and the poorly-designed models that produce them.

[Al_U_Card]

From Judith Curry's blog (She is a climate scientist.)

 

BS detection

 

 

If you don’t know who Bert Rutan is, see his Wikipedia bio. Some excerpts:

 

Even though I’ve been very busy throughout my entire career developing and flight-testing airplanes for the Air Force, I’ve always pursued other research hobbies in my time away from work. Since I’m very accustomed to analyzing a lot of data, about three or four years ago many alarmist claims by some climate scientists caught my attention. Since this is such an important topic, I began to look into it firsthand.

 

Although I have no climate science credentials, I do have considerable expertise in processing and presenting data. I have also had extensive opportunities to observe how other people present data and use it to make their points. There is a rampant tendency in any industry where someone is trying to sell something with a bunch of data, where they cherry pick a little bit…bias a little bit. This becomes quite easy when there is an enormous amount of data to cherry pick from.

 

The first thing that got my attention, a lot of people’s attention, was statements that the entire planet is heading towards a future climate catastrophe that is attributable to human carbon dioxide emissions. So I decided to take a look at that and just see if this conclusion was arrived at ethically. It’s obviously an extremely important issue which has gotten a huge amount of media attention. I was particularly concerned because the proposed solutions will have enormous impacts upon costs of energy, which of course, will increase costs of everything.

 

Many people seem to get much of their information from what they see in newspapers. I may be considerably different, in that I always like to look at both sides of things that I take special interest in. So when I decided to look closely at the anthropogenic [man-made] global warming crisis claims, I avoided focusing on media reports, and instead, went directly to available raw climate data. The intent was to see if that data might just as reasonably be interpreted differently.

 

Then, what really drew me into the subject, was when I found that I couldn’t obtain the raw data that I was looking for. I was shocked to find that there were actually climate scientists who wouldn’t share the raw data, but would only share their conclusions in summary graphs that were used to prove their various theories about planet warming. In fact I began to smell something really bad, and the worse that smell got, the deeper I looked.

 

I even read Al Gore’s book, which was very enlightening…but not in a good way. When you look for data to back up his claims, you immediately discover that they are totally unsubstantiated. This was frankly astonishing because analyzing data is something I’m very good at. All my professional life I have been analyzing complex flight test data, interpreting it and presenting it. Something that I always did in flight test is to make a chart that shows every bit of the data, and only then, decide later on the basis of real observed results which parts of the data were valid.

 

What I’m doing really, is just put out all of the data I can in order to enable anyone to look at everything before arriving at a conclusion. If someone forms a conclusion at the onset, they can always find and focus only on data that supports their theory.

 

Larry, I wasn’t really taken back so much by the hostile responses. I expected some of that. But later when I decided to answer some of the more than 150 comments posted at the Scholars and Rogues website, I was surprised that I was often attacked in a very personal way which denigrated my intelligence and accused me of bias. I have no reason to have any bias. Some said I was obviously being paid for by oil companies, which seemed like a joke. If you go through and read my responses you will find that I did so with hard data that alarmists will not publish. But they don’t hesitate to publish personal attacks.

 

Larry, I’ve done all I plan to do on this for now, and have moved on to other interests. This debate will all get sorted out, and I am confident it will be for the better. When I started, I strongly believed that the debate needed me because I didn’t see anyone out there really looking at the data the way an engineer looks at. Now I see that other people are doing this, including climate scientists and non-scientists the world over by the tens of thousands, people who are actually looking at the real data just like I have. I still follow the status of the debate, and occasionally comment on it.

[PassedOut]

Winter in the north is on its way: Arctic sea ice shrank to record low

 

The sea ice extent bottomed out Sept. 16 at 1.32 million square miles, about 293,000 square miles below the 2007 record. Arctic sea ice extent has been monitored by satellite since 1979.

 

This year’s record low extent follows a long-term decline. The six lowest extents on record have all occurred in the past six years.

 

“We are now in uncharted territory,” said Mark Serreze, NSIDC director. “While we’ve long known that as the planet warms up, changes would be seen first and be most pronounced in the Arctic, few of us were prepared for how rapidly the changes would actually occur.”

 

The National Oceanic and ­Atmospheric Administration reported that the ice loss during August occurred at the fastest clip on record for the month, the ice shrinking at the rate of 35,400 square miles per day.

And Louisiana will see more and more hurricanes...

[mike777]

I still like my post from ago....

 

The basic question of global climate change is real, in the sense of man made changes.

 

 

If global warming is a very urgent issue we are in deep trouble as all current solutions are harmful, extremely harmful.

 

 

If we have time, some real length of time, then I place my trust in innovation.

[Al_U_Card]

Despite antarctic sea-ice being at all time highs (with the models predicting loss, just like the arctic and that polar-amplification effect..) the most recent arctic coverage numbers, like 2007 were influenced by major local storms that flushed ice out of the high arctic and into areas where melting was more likely. (Arctic oscillation repercussions...)

 

Lukewarm is down in Louisiana IIRC, how about those hurricanes? Seems to me that the actual numbers put the lie to more and stronger...

 

Just look at the data and look past the rhetoric of the warmist agenda. Catastrophe is models, all the way down.

 

BTW, I wonder why NSIDC did not mention the antarctic sea-ice record? Well, I don't REALLY wonder.

[Daniel1960]

Mike,

 

Good point. We do not have the means to reduce CO2 output significantly, without caused massive disruptions of civilization. If global warming if very urgent, we will witness a massive disruption of civilization. Logic dictates that our best bet is to presume the situation is not urgent and work towards mitigating innovations. Those that attempt irrational solutions will suffer for their folly.

[dwar0123]

Mike,

 

Good point. We do not have the means to reduce CO2 output significantly, without caused massive disruptions of civilization. If global warming if very urgent, we will witness a massive disruption of civilization. Logic dictates that our best bet is to presume the situation is not urgent and work towards mitigating innovations. Those that attempt irrational solutions will suffer for their folly.

If my 2nd story apartment is on fire, I am going to have to jump out my window and probably break my leg, not to mention all my stuff is going to burn. I am going to be having a very bad day.

 

Logic dictates that my best bet is to presume the situation is not urgent. The fire alarm is false and everything is fine.

 

If global warming is an issue, the longer we take to address it, the more massive the resultant disruption of civilization will be. Take long enough and there may not be any civilization left to disrupt.

 

Your solution really strikes me as the stick head in sand and hope it all goes away solution.

 

We are not talking about shutting down all coal factories and outlawing gas cars, solutions that would actually be irrational.

[Al_U_Card]

Climate sensitivity (the temperature rise associated with the increase in [CO2]) is the issue. More and more information is pointing to a value approaching zero.

If the alarmists had any real data or confirmation (other than their confirmation bias) they would be singing it from the rooftops.

 

Please provide me with the exact cost and benefit analysis of each ppm of [CO2] reduced over time (separate from the reduction CAUSED by falling ocean temperatures, as the cooling oceans can absorb more CO2) and the exact relationship of temperature rise with disaster/loss/disruption.

 

... please?

[PassedOut]

Arctic ice reaches record low as it shrinks to just HALF the size it was in the 1980s

 

'The storm definitely seems to have played a role in this year's unusually large retreat of the ice", Parkinson said.

'But that exact same storm, had it occurred decades ago when the ice was thicker and more extensive, likely wouldn't have had as prominent an impact, because the ice wasn't as vulnerable then as it is now.'

Minneapolis and St. Paul could save a lot of money and effort by sending their sewage down the Mississippi. Cities downstream would surely be able rely upon innovations to clean the water when it arrives.

[Al_U_Card]

And had that storm occurred 30 years before that in the '50s (and there were likely ones then also, as part of the regular oceanic cycles) that would explain the presence of the USS Skate and other submarines surfacing at the North pole during that time...

 

Cleaning your sewage is sensible and right. It too is a necessary part of living but its deleterious effects are easily seen, calculated and mitigated. That is why we have effluent treatment facilities. CO2 is a necessary part of living and has no real deleterious effects based upon the history of the planet. It does improve plant growth, however, which is a pretty good thing considering the increase in population. Now, what was the implication of reducing [CO2]? Less temperature (hard to prove) or less food (easy-peasy)?

[Daniel1960]

dwar0123,

You are being illogical, and confusing a known event with a postulated one. Based on the fire alarm occurring, the fire has a high probability of reaching your apartment (unless you have a history of false alarms, leading you to believe otherwise). Also, the fire would likely reach your apartment in a relatively short period of time. Since the probability of global warming occurring is much lower and the time frame much longer, a different course of action can be undertaken. Since any course of action will require significant investment, we must be sure that the investment is worthwhile and does not cause undo hardship. Any course that results in decreased future revenue will result in less funds being available for further action. Some people are advocating shutting down coal plants (and natural gas), and demanding a huge reduction in gasoline-powered vehicles. The costs associated with these proposal are staggering, and would likely decrease the available funds significantly. The costs of wind, solar, and other renewables would drive up the price of most consumer products, and electric vehicles are much more costly. Who is the one sticking their head in the sand here?

[dwar0123]

dwar0123,

You are being illogical, and confusing a known event with a postulated one. Based on the fire alarm occurring, the fire has a high probability of reaching your apartment (unless you have a history of false alarms, leading you to believe otherwise). Also, the fire would likely reach your apartment in a relatively short period of time. Since the probability of global warming occurring is much lower and the time frame much longer, a different course of action can be undertaken. Since any course of action will require significant investment, we must be sure that the investment is worthwhile and does not cause undo hardship. Any course that results in decreased future revenue will result in less funds being available for further action. Some people are advocating shutting down coal plants (and natural gas), and demanding a huge reduction in gasoline-powered vehicles. The costs associated with these proposal are staggering, and would likely decrease the available funds significantly. The costs of wind, solar, and other renewables would drive up the price of most consumer products, and electric vehicles are much more costly. Who is the one sticking their head in the sand here?

A fire alarm is a known event, a fire existing is a postulated one. How is this any different then tens of thousands of temperatures readings and other measurements being a known event and climate change being a postulated event?

[billw55]

Of course warming is happening. This is a trivial measured fact.

 

However, that does not automatically mean that massive and economically damaging investment in prevention is the only correct response. This is a fallacy spread by those who believe in such responses, and by those who want to use the responses as a ruse to gather revenue for government. They have been quite successful in doing so, to the point that many of those opposed to such responses have adopted the absurd position of denying that anything is even happening. They have been fooled into thinking this is the only possible way to oppose the responses.

 

I for one, do believe that warming is happening, and do not believe that such responses are necessary or appropriate. There are far too many unknowns to invest so much. We don't know how much warming there will be, or what the consequences will be, or what the magnitude of those consequences will be. Furthermore, we don't know if the measures proposed will work, or how much effect they will have if any, particularly while major CO2 emitting nations (China, India) do not participate, which they have shown no sign of doing.

 

No business would invest so much to attack a problem of unknown size and consequence, with solutions that may not work anyway, even if our guesses about the problems are correct. Those that do go out of business. True, governments are not businesses but the principle is the same: resources wasted on responses of dubious need and effect are not available for responses of genuine need and effect. We should not be guessing with billions (trillions?) of dollars. We should conserve those resources to respond to real problems that really happen, meaning adaptation. Human beings and civilizations have shown tremendous ability to adapt, particularly with modern technology. I am sure we can continue to do so.

 

I am reminded of the year 2000 computer bug panic. In western nations, hundreds of millions of dollars were spent on "fixes" by crafty consultants, to "prevent" major problems. The panic culture would have us think that power grids would fail, banking networks would collapse, perhaps the sky would fall too. A friend of mine who studied computer science at Cal Tech told me, they are wasting their money on snake oil. They should wait to see what actually happens, then spend a fraction of that fixing it. He went on to say that there were some entities taking exactly this approach. 2000 came and went, and practically nothing happened anywhere. Of course, the "consultants" praised themselves and said they prevented disaster. But those that hired no consultants also did just fine, at pennies on the dollar.

 

The disaster warmists are selling us snake oil. I'm not buying.

[PassedOut]

Antarctic Sea Ice And The Art Of Climate Distraction

 

In order to distract from the announcement this week that Arctic sea ice is at a record low, right-wing media are pointing to Antarctic sea ice as proof that climate change isn't occurring. But Antarctic sea ice gains have been slight, whereas Arctic ice decline -- a key indicator of climate change -- has been extreme. Furthermore, scientists have long expected the Arctic to experience the first impacts of climate change, and still project that in the long run, sea ice in both regions will decline as greenhouse gas concentrations increase.

And (I suppose most posters here know this, but anyway) the tiny Antarctic ice increases are of sea ice, while the Antarctic land ice is shrinking.

Edited September 21, 2012 by PassedOut

[dwar0123]

 

And (I suppose most posters here know this, but anyway) the tiny Antarctic ice increases are of land ice, while the Antarctic sea ice is shrinking.

 

You sure you don't have that backwards? I read something a few days ago that stated Antarctic sea ice was increasing due to changing ocean salinity(due to the more rapid melting of the land ice) and increased precipitation. And that the land ice was decreasing. Also, as the sea ice always melts in the Antarctic during their summer, its impact on global warming due to albedo was non existent. The ice melts when the sun shines and thus doesn't reflect energy.

[PassedOut]

You sure you don't have that backwards? I read something a few days ago that stated Antarctic sea ice was increasing due to changing ocean salinity(due to the more rapid melting of the land ice) and increased precipitation. And that the land ice was decreasing. Also, as the sea ice always melts in the Antarctic during their summer, its impact on global warming due to albedo was non existent. The ice melts when the sun shines and thus doesn't reflect energy.

Yes, I wrote that backwards. Thanks!