After Michael Duffy interviewed Prof Bob Carter on climate change on his ABC radio program Counterpoint, there was comment on at least one web-blog site.
John Quiggin wrote:
“It would be more accurate to describe Carter as a prominent research geologist with a personal interest in the issue of climate change, and a strongly-held view that Kyoto is a bad idea.
As regards the major issues, I see little evidence to suggest that Carter is any better informed than I am.”
Some of my geologist mates have interpreted this as a slight on their profession and an inference that geologist know nothing more than economists about climate.
I received the following from a geologist:
“Astonishingly, some persons appear to believe that geologists have no part to play in the current public discussion on climate change.
Geologists, as scientists, operate in deep time. They study environmental phenomena on scales commensurate with the earth’s dynamic and changing nature, over periods of hundreds to thousands to millions of years and more.
Geologists are therefore the persons to whom one should turn for accurate advice on whether current meteorological trends, if projected as climate trends, are in any way unusual when compared with Earth’s past behaviour.
Using information from ice cores, deep sea cores, lake cores and other data, first year geology students the world over are taught:
1. That climate has always changed, and always will. Some of the climatic changes are due to slow trends, others due to sudden climate shifts whose origin is not yet understood.
2. That rates of ‘climate’change during the 20th century, as manifest from surface meteorological records of temperature, are in now way unusual in either their magnitude or rate of temperature change.
3. That the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere in past times has not infrequently attained values of 1000 ppm or more (i.e. much more than a doubling of current levels), without any known adverse affects apart from the prolific growth of plant life, for which carbon dioxide is a powerful aerial fertilizer.
4. That over the last half million years the earth has experienced several glaciations and interglaciations. For the majority (>90%) of that time, Earth’s average surface temperature has been substantially, and often much, colder than today.
5. That the current warm period, called the Holocene, has already lasted about 10,000 years, which is the average length of earlier warm periods, and that beyond question Earth’s biggest near future environmental changes are going to be those associated with the onset of the next ice age.
6. Geologists freely admit, however, that it is not possible to predict exactly WHEN the next ice age will start, and also th at despite the magnificent climatic records that they have assembled, there are still many things about climate that are not understood.
It is strange that anyone would assert that geologists have nothing to contribute to the understanding of climate change.”
There is a transcript of the interview with Prof Carter at the Counterpoint site.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Mr Quiggin seems curiously confused.
The reality is that factual data about our changing climate is provided PRIMARILY from geological study. Meteorology is more concerned with study of the mechanisms which control weather and its short term changes.
How come?
Climate is about weather changing through time. Climatologists and meteorologists, arbitrarily, have chosen 30 years as the period that marks off (longer) climate phenomena from (shorter) weather phenomena. Geologists, in contrast, study the real trends in climate which have occurred over periods of hundreds, thousands and millions of years.
We have about a 150 yr-long instrumental record of weather/climate data from ground-level meteorological stations in a variety of land-based locations. We have accurate satellite data on global weather patterns and data since 1970. That is 35 years, i.e. scarcely long enough to even begin to discern realistic climate trends.
Climatologists and meteorologists, who dominate the public discussion on “climate change”, are therefore not in a strong position to comment on the real patterns of climate change.
Perhaps that is why meteorologically-based interpretations of climate change rest so heavily upon complex statistical data; broken hockey-sticks; and untestable computer scenarios about future change which may, or may not, eventuate.
Good point Cathy!
I’m only a lay-production line when it comes to climate change, but it seems to me that the whole issue has been cooked up on fear and lies – possibly by the Greens, possibly by Satan, possibly by Freemasons, but probably by all of them – and it is our duty to burn as much damned coal and chop down as many damned trees as we can! We need to get those school kiddies littering! Leave our fridge doors open at night! Don’t turn your car’s engine off! And whatever you do, don’t recycle! Bah, then environment – there’s no such thing!
It’s obvious to every clear-minded person that endorsing Kyoto is un-Australian. So is being John Quiggin.
Correction.
Typo slip and associated error in para 5 of the previous post.
The satellite record dates from 1978-79, meaning of course that we only have a 25 year record of these accurate data.
The situation is not quite that dire, however, because the radiosonde (weather balloon) measurements (which closely track the satellite measures after 1979) do go back to the late 1950s.
But that’s still only ~50 years of data, which is still a very short period when you are looking for trends more than 30 years-long
Cathy,
Then why aren’t more geologists saying that publicly?
The clear impression created is that the majority/consensus opinion of experts (presumably including geologists)is that anthropogenic warming is a serious threat. I’m a lay person and whilst I can see how quickly dissenters are pounced upon (stooges of industry/creationists/scientific illiterates/fanatics etc), it would seem obvious that if the uncertainty was as clear as you have stated, then more scientists would be saying so – if the next few years show a further drop in average temerature, then reputations will be ruined surely?
BTW – welcome Jennifer , I’ve read quite a few of your papers!
Excellent point Cathy, and I note that Ken Parish, much to Quiggin’s perplexion. noted that global temperatures seem to have decreased in the last two years of measurements.
Another fact not well known is theIPCC computed a 40 year moving average of mean temp till 2000. This is impossible as the it needs to incorporate readings for the 20 years past 2000. The moving average could only be computed to 1984.
Jim
There are 5 geologists in Australia batting for the climate sceptics – Ian PLimer, Bob Foster, Bob Carter, Warwick Hughes and myself. The rest seem awol.
Ironically many geologists seem to believe the IPCC line and a frequent view is that our opposition to global warming is not scientific but because we are anti-social democrats. Ie because we are right-wingers is the principal reason we oppose global warming. Hence this assertion seems to suggest that global warming is a social-democratic policy , ie political, than scientific.
Geology is also extremely tribal and anyone voicing defined heresies is quickly marginalised andbecomes usually unemployable. Toeing the party line is necssary for professional survival though in my case I don’t need to as I have basically reached the apex of my career so I can afford some philosophical eccentricities.
However even these last few days I have been pilloried by ignoramuses unfamiliar with the scientific literature, and often one takes stock and reconsiders the cost of naked emperor identifying.
Any student considering expanding earth theories, for example, is quickly told to stop thinking such heresy and return to plate tectonics or face failure. Years ago in my early professional career, I voice the opinion that E.S.T. O’Driscoll’s lineaments were a contradiction of plate tectonics. O’Driscoll warned me not to say this out aloud, as ones career would be affected. So this peer group pressure does tend to result in a uniformity of thought and may explain why so few geologists publicly criticise global warming dogma.
The delicious irony is that it took mining industry types (Steve McIntyre for example) to refute the Mann et al Hockey Stick graph – this must be particulary galling to them.
Ken Parish, on his blog noted that the average global temperature dropped in 2003 and again 2004, in complete contradiction to the modelling http://troppoarmadillo.ubersportingpundit.com/archives/008999.html
I will post some interesting stuff from the climate sceptics group in Heny Thornton in the near future because the recent paper by Hansen et al on radiative imbalance is already in trouble.
Jim,
Many geologists, and in Australia by far the majority, are involved with mineral deposit or petroleum exploration. Though some of these persons are well versed in the general geological evidence for climate change, many others aren’t.
But amongst those geologists who study sedimentary rocks and earth history, many of whom I deal with, I would estimate that something like 75:25 view the GW scare as just that: a scare for which there is no convincing empirical evidence.
Why don’t more geologists speak out?
Mostly because they are intelligent persons who can see – political correctness and social pressure being what it is – that there is only negative mileage in doing so. To speak out as a climate rationalist (which is what most of the so-called climate “sceptics” actually are) is to be pilloried.
Are temperatures going to continue going down?
Well, in an excellent demonstration of GIGO, once they are suitably stroked the computer GCMs unanimously show an increase in temperature through to 2100. In contrast, five other types of forward temperature projection are based on techniques as different as Lorenzian mathematical analysis of ice-core records, projection of the surface thermometer record of the last 150 years, projection of high resolution climate records of the last 2000 years, projection of solar cycles, and projection of Earth’s changing orbital (Milankovitch) parameters.
ALL these projections yield predictions which indicate falling temperature through the first part of the 21st century (though multi-decadal oscillations can in most cases be expected to be superposed on the falling trend).
And, as a matter of fact and as you and Louis both note, temperature has now been declining for six years since the super-El Nino spike in 1998.
Will reputations be ruined?
Those who take a rational approach to climate change don’t actually genuflect to many of the big-reputation global-warmers anyway; any scientific reputation such persons might have had formerly has already been long lost anyway. Perhaps more disturbing, therefore, is that once- excellent magazines such as Nature and Science have taken to publishing some truly dreadful “research” papers on climate change. At the same time, the scientific newspaper New Scientist now makes no pretence at scientific balance on this (or, for that matter, most other environmental issues), and has turned into the main cheer-leader for the doom-and-gloom brigade.
Has the reputation of these publications been damaged? You betcha; and probably beyond repair.
Cathy
Of course Prof Quiggin did not say that geologists had nothing to contribute but that Carter wasn’t better informed than Quiggin. And the evidence there is pretty strong as I explain http://cgi.cse.unsw.edu.au/~lambert/cgi-bin/blog/2005/04#bobcarter
Relative theories explored
~~~~~~~~~
Emphasis on extreme scenarios may have been appropriate at one time, when the public and decision-makers were relatively unaware of the global warming issue, and energy sources such as “synfuels”, shale oil and tar sands were receiving strong consideration. Now, however, the need is for demonstrably objective climate forcing scenarios consistent with what is realistic under current conditions.
Science and politics don’t mix. I believe that active researchers should offer objective assessment of the science problem and leave it to others to extract policy implications.
Hansen, J.E., 2003. The global warming time bomb? Natural Science, http://www.naturalscience.com/ns/articles/01-16/ns_jeh.html
~~~~~~~~~
In climate science, we really have only two tools: computer models and observations. And it is clear, when the two are combined, that future warming is going to be at the low end of the wild projections that have been made by the IPCC. What Hansen has done is really nothing more than this, lending more evidence to what we already pretty much know. The rate of future temperature rise will be modest, as will be the accompanying climate impacts. Some will be positive, some will be negative, but they will all be at the low end.
Dr. Patrick Michaels
Research professor of environmental sciences, University of Virginia
http://techcentralstation.com/042905G.html
Tim,
From first principles Carter is far better informed than Quiggin – he is a geoscientist versus an economist.
We do not know what drives climate apart from the fairly obvious association with the Sun but if you care to study plasma physics and cosmology literature, we are discovering the enormous amounts of energy associated with electricity in the cosmos – electrical forces are 10^39 larger in magnitude than gravitational forces and are not at all incorporated into any climate or geological models.
As for geology, a new discpline is slowly being developed, plasma geology, and the future holds some radically new explanations for what many now regard as mundane, proven facts. As wrong in Galilleo’s days as now.
The earth is now recognised to be an electrically charged sphere in a cosmic plasma cell, and these forces must be incorporated into any climate scenario.
So it seems that as science progresses, the alarmists of the global warming camp are going to find their tenuous theories even more flimsy.
Equally you seem to have forgotten thatthe Hadley Centre was initially set up for political purposes, to counter the UK Mining unions during Baroness Thatcher’s premiership – and from that political act, the “science” of global warming evolved.
This is why some of us older geologists, with an acute understanding of the historical process, are so committed to countering the fallacies of climate change and global warming.
Victory when it comes will be sweet indeed, eh Louis?
Zactly how old are you by the way?
Blush 57 according to the current calendar in use.
The victim in all this will be science as a result of the damage done by the Hansenites this last decade.
Original post deleted at request of Ender. Ender promises new replacement post. Jen.
BTW request was made this morning – but I have been travelling with someone else approving posts and he was not sure how to action the request.
Ender,
1. You seem to have not noticed one simple fact – the measured global average temperature, as noted by Ken Parish, has been dropping.
2. The average content of Atmospheric CO2 was not at 290 ppmv – that is simply the saturation limit of ice at STP since removing ice cores at depth to surface pressures results in stress relief and loss of co2 from the ice.
Other data show that at 9000 BC levels from plant material indicate 350 ppmv (see Jaworowski’s data).
3. As for the warming of the atmosphere, this has yet to be observed in the data.
4. Repeatable experiments do indeed show that increasing CO2 traps more heat – except that those experiments do not involve the existing proportions of Co2 and “air” which, from simple gas theory and other physics 101 computations show that the existing level of CO2 is unable to affect the temperature of the rest of the atmosphere.
5. Your final comment proves that it is therefore impossible to predict future climate states from these modelling parameters. Seems we in the geological sciences are a bit more accurate in prediction from our data sets.
Louis,
Do you still contend that temperature can’t be measured and that there is no such thing as an average temperature?
Measured global temperature has been dropping? If you look at the last three years only – I thought geologists would look at the longer term trend – the last four years have been the four of the five warmest on record.
Simple gas theory and other physics show existing levels of CO2 is unable to effect the temperature of the atmosphere? I’d like to see your calculations. 150 years of climate studies thrown out the window using simple gas theory and other physics.
I have never said that temperature cannot be measured, and no the earth cannot have an average temperature.
You might have an average temperature of the various met. stations, but that is not the temperature of the earth.
I thought Cathy (in her posts elsewhere here) stated that geologists take very long term view of rather climate explicly.
To put it in perspective, 0.04% CO2 by volume is equivalent to say, 400 parts per million, or 1 for 250,000 parts air. Imagine these to be table tennis balls, ie 250,000 them, one of which is CO2. This single molecule of CO2 has to now transfer its energy to the other 249,999 molecules.
Much like expecting a flea to jujitsu an elephant, but if you believe it, then it must be true.
Error in previous calculation – it should be 1 in 25,000 which makes the flea slightly, ever so slightly larger. Flea on steroids perhaps.
Given identical specific heats etc, what would 1 molecule of CO2 need to be raised to raise the temperature of the rest (25,000) 1 deg Celsius?
My last comments did not get in so here is another go.
1. Ken Parish noted temperatures at Darwin – one spot measurement does not make and average.
2. Several reputable sites give an baseline measurement of 290 ppmv
3. The peer reviewed data shows clearly a rise of 0.6 degrees.
4. You seem to not have a basic understanding of the physics of the greenhouse effect. The CO2 in the atmosphere alters the longwave radiation of the Earth from the solar insolation. It is not the CO2 heating the Earth but the sun. The radiation balance of the earth is being affected.
This is a very recent article from real climate that explains the radiation balance
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=148
and shows new research on the Earths Energy Imbalance.
5. No the Earths climate is very very difficult to predict.The models are getting better however all the variables and feedback loops are not known yet.
Ender, Thanks for keeping up the discussion. I am checking out the realclimate paper. And sometimes I wish I had a better understanding of physics.
Ender,
The CO2 traps some of the infrared enrgy, according to the theory, thereby raising the temperature of the rest of the atmosphere – and as you did not pick up on the extra error in my earlier post, it works out to1 CO2 unit to 2,500 air units.
How much energy does CO2 need to capture then, to cause the rest of the atmosphere to warm up slightly?
Assume we double CO2, making it a ratio of 1:1250 – implying that CO2 needs to capture the equivalent of being itself raised to 1250 deg C.
Whilea somewhat unsophisticated calculation, it none the less is a first pass effort to see whether it is worth continuing along this line of reasoning.
Since the amount of energy that CO2has to capture is far to high to achieve its stated goals, because there is so little of it in the atmosphere, this so called Greenhouse effect is essentially baloney.
Louis – You really need to read a primer on the greenhouse effect. The current greenhouse gases keep the earth nearly 33deg warmer than what it would be without an atmosphere. The CO2 is a trigger gas for the atmosphere and has an effect way beyond its concentration.
The best way to think of it is like lifting your car. Unaided there is no way you could lift a car off the ground however if you place a jack under wheel and press on the lever the mechanical advantage of the hydraulic system amplifies the small effort you are making into a large enough effort to lift the car.
In almost exactly the same way the small rise in CO2 concentration alters the radiation balance of the atmosphere which amplifies the effect with positive feedback so the Earth heats up to compensate for the altered balance.
The heating effect is approx 4W per Metre squared.
“this so called Greenhouse effect is essentially baloney” wow, 150 years of study of the greenhouse effect blow out of the water by 5 sentences posted on a blog. Louis, why hasn’t anyone come up with this before? I just knew that that Fourier guy was a load of baloney.
But, now, I’m a bit puzzled – if the so-called greenhouse effect is a essentially baloney, why aren’t we a cold lump of rock? With our distance from the sun we’d have to colder than Mars? Wouldn’t we?
PS you’re calculations are logically flawed. You don’t the any time factors involved nor that the CO2 has a constant reheating source – the radiation from the earth surface. If the CO2 molecule is one degree warmer than the other molecules and transfers that one degree by contact, is reheated by the heat from the earth, contacts another, etc then eventually the CO2 molecule will heat all the molecules without ever being 1250C.
Heavens to Betsy, the green house effect is the result of a glass construction stopping heat from escaping – why it is called a Greenhouse. That process does not happen on the earth. Period.
Ender, our warm climate is the result of the water effect, not CO2.
SimonC – you forget that there is a large thermal gradient between the earth and space – so that at night…..until it is warmed again with the rising sun.
Of course I don’t have any time factors involved, the concept itself remains baloney.
SimonC
The baloney refers to Anthropogenic global warming spruiked by the CO2 obsessives.
Louis,
I’ve rarely seen someone enter into a subject with as little background knowledge and with such balant disregard for the basics of the physical sciences. You seem to be unable to take into account time in a dynamic system. You can’t even acknowledge that CO2 is an important greenhouse gas, you seem to be unable to grasp the basics of how the greenhouse works and you mention the large thermal gradient, as though this explains something, but don’t seem to take into account that temperature goes down as you go up until you reach the top of the troposphere (around -50C) where the temperature starts to increase again. At the top of the stratosphere the temperature increases to around 0C before decreasing again with altitude.
And how does simple gas theory and other physics show that the current level of CO2 is unable to effect the temperature of the atmosphere.
And yes you do need to take in account time when working out how one thing can heat another. Here’s a question – using your calculations what temperature does a 100 g heating element need to reach in order to boil 2 kg of water?
I think that we’ve almost answered J’s original question.
Simon, your wasting your time with Louis. He doesn’t believe in plate tectonics, Darwinian evolution. There isn’t much point in debating. He does, however, fit nicely into the global warming skeptics camp.
Last week’s publication of a new climate modelling study from the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) gives a slight warming of the oceans over the last ten years or so.
The study’s lead author, Dr. James Hansen’s gives the most recent findings, just published in Sciencexpress, as being the surface temperature ultimately changes 0.67ESC per Watt per square meter (W/m2).
In 1988 he said it was a full degree, and in 2001 he lowered it to 0.75.
Does Dr Hansen acknowledge this decrease in observable data? Should we just wait a while until it reaches bugger all?
Apparently not, its still business as usual, red alert.
http://techcentralstation.com/050305C.html
Rog, you’ve got your links mixed up it. What you want is: http://techcentralstation.com/042905G.html
However, trusting Pat Michaels is just asking to get burned. For example, if you believed his statements before Congress, you might actually believe that climate models have done at a bad job at predicting the 1988-1998 climate. Alas, this is simply a result of Michaels cherry picking the answer which he wants http://equake.geol.vt.edu/acourses/3114/00Climate/gwdebate.html
I do note that Michaels has forgotten to include error bars in his quotation of Hansen’s climate sensitivity estimates. Perhaps you should look them up?
I was fascinated by Ender’s comment posted on May 4th at 10.57am (see above). I was also fascinated to know what Bill Kininmonth’s response might be, so I emailed him. Following is Kininmonth’s response:
Hi Jennifer,
It is true that an increase in CO2 concentration will change the radiation emissions from the atmosphere. The most critical change is the downward emission to the earth’s surface, thus affecting the surface energy balance. However, the impact on the surface temperature is strongly damped because radiation from the earth is at the fourth power of surface temperature and evaporation increases exponentially with surface temperature. You do not have to raise the temperature very much to offset the additional greenhouse gas effect. To make the point: Average temperatures at Tennent Creek (dry air) are warmer than Townsville (moist air) even though they are at the same latitude, receive the same sunlight and there is a higher concentration of greenhouse gases (water vapour) over Townsville. Surface temperatures, especially over tropical and subtropical latitudes, are dominated by evapotranspiration, which cools the surface.
The surface warming tendency from additional CO2 is quickly offset by radiation loss and evapotranspiration. Using the jack analogy it is like there is a massive leak in the hydraulics – you pump like crazy but get almost nowhere! There is no evidence that the CO2 effect is amplified.
Best regards,
Bill
(BTW Kininmonths is not much interested in blogs but when I pose a question as someone not much good at physics and with an elementary understanding of climate, but fascinated by the climate change debate, he usually offers an opinion which he is happy for me to publicly post.)
Ken,
Science is not about belief.
As I wrote above, it is water that is the dominating factor in climate, not miniscule amounts of CO2, Bill Kinninmonth concisely writes above.
And yes I am in the sceptics camp because we sceptics have a tendency to think for ourselves, rather than accept at face value, announcements from authority.
Do I understand climate – climate is the variation of weather over time – and watching nightly TV weather reports prompts me to the conclusion that we have not worked it out.
Perhaps there are other forces in the cosmos which affect weather, hence climate and geodynamics.
SimonC
You assume CO2 and the atmosphere gradually build up heat, that is has no where to go, like a greenhouse.
I suggest you spend a few nights in a desert environment, as I do regularly, and wonder why it gets so freezingly cold at night. Where did the 45 Deg Celsius heat during they disappear to? Only place it went was into space above, because the ground gets rather cold too.
But when the humidity increases, as it does before a period of rain, temperatures suddenly become less extreme, and nights warmer, as Bill Kinninmonth explains above.
I approach the argument from a different perspective to Bill’s, and no we are not conspiring here either, if that crossed your mind.
The error you and most AGW’s make is that this energy is “stored” in the CO2.
Sure, increasing CO2 quantities WILL absorb more of the irradiated energy leaving the earth’s surface, but, as CO2 is part of a gas, that energy is quickly trsansmitted throughout the rst of the gas, the air, and thence into space.
It is water that is the dominant climate factor, not CO2.
And geologically CO2 always lags after temperature rises.
One further comment about climate – because we are immersed in the effects of climate, the weather over time, we cannot really do physical experiments to mimic weather.
Hence the majority of theories are concerned with abstractions of what we think is happening, and when the abstract starts to dominate physical experiment and physical experience, religion develops.
As Cathy pointed above, climate science does rely alot on computer modelling etc, because they cannot easily duplicate the weather systems in a laboratory.
The science certainly is not settled, since science, being what it is, has drifted off into plasma and electricty – IEEE published papers would be a start, as well as the dawning realisation that the dust-devils on Mars might be the result of el;electrical forces (no atmosphere on Mars) which prompted comments by some NASA scientists to consider the electrical causation of Willy Willys on earth. It’s there in the literature and on the web.
All you need is an open, and of course, scientific, mind.
Remember, belief in a theory is not science.
Another thought – is it suggested that CO2 is acting like a capacitor in a circuit? Seems much so.
Then Ken Miles and our anonymous SimonC might comment on this, novel, interpretation of their comments.
Who knows, these two might start a scientific revolution.
Ken my link is the correct one,
http://techcentralstation.com/050305C.html
Now what are the personal failings of Dr. Roy W. Spencer? – check his bio on
http://techcentralstation.com/biospencerroy.html
As I mentioned in a footnote to the post cited, Carter has done some relevant work on paleoclimate issues. He and other geologists are right to draw attention to the fact that climate has varied over time. But no-one seriously engaged with the question for disputes this.
The questions that are in dispute are how much the climate has warmed recently and how much of this warming is caused by humans. On these issues, Carter appears poorly-informed, as indicated by the links in my post and Tim Lambert’s comment above.
Climate is the change of weather over time and is an abstraction.
Therefore weather is the crucial physical fact.
Do humans affect the weather?
Apparently we do, though from personal experience, rain dancing and praying have not the efficacy promised by the charlatans who insist we have the power to affect the weather.
I can debate the point backward and forward. Louis you really need to read this link and bone up on the basic science involved before debunking Global Warming as a myth. If you really have an open scientific mind as you claim you will read the case for Global Warming. Here is the best site I have found http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Climate/Climate_Science/CliSciFrameset.html
Mr Kinninmonth can really say what he likes as I do not have the scientific training to decide if what he says is true. I have seen enough evidence to decide that the radiative model that he describes is at odds with most other research which does not necessarily make it wrong. He should submit the paper to Nature and have it peer reviewed by people that can understand it.
Now to the desert bit you claim all the heat goes up into space???? So the tmeperature drops to -33degC and everything freezes solid?? I think not. Most of the heat is trapped by the atmosphere and the temp drops to 0 degs or so. This is almost exactly why water vapour is not considered in Global Warming. It varies from time to time and place to place because it does not linger in the atmosphere for more than a day. The underlying warming that makes life on earth possible is done by CO2 and methane and both are long term greenhouse gases – CO2 will linger for 100 years or more, CH4 about 1 year. You have experienced this warming by staying in the desert at night and not freezing solid. The enhanced greenhouse effect from the extra CO2 will heat the atmosphere out of all proportion to its concentration.
I suggest that both you and Mr Kinninmonth go to this link http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=148
and read the bit on Global Energy imbalance.
Finally here is the abstract of a peer reviewed study. As I do not have a subscription to Nature I cannot get the full text however the abstract gives an idea of the real effort that goes into Global Warming research. It is not just a bunch of long haired lefties doing a bit of work in their spare time.
“Causes of twentieth-century temperature change near the Earth’s surface
SIMON F. B. TETT*, PETER A. STOTT*, MYLES R. ALLEN†, WILLIAM J. INGRAM* & JOHN F. B. MITCHELL*
* Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research, Meteorological Office, London Road, Bracknell, Berkshire RG12 2SY, UK
† Space Science Department, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Chilton, OX11 0QX, UK and Department of Physics, Univeristy of Oxford
Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to S.B.F.T. (e-mail: sfbtett@meto.gov.uk).
Observations of the Earth’s near-surface temperature show a global-mean temperature increase of approximately 0.6 K since 1900 (ref. 1), occurring from 1910 to 1940 and from 1970 to the present. The temperature change over the past 30–50 years is unlikely to be entirely due to internal climate variability and has been attributed to changes in the concentrations of greenhouse gases and sulphate aerosols due to human activity. Attribution of the warming early in the century has proved more elusive. Here we present a quantification of the possible contributions throughout the century from the four components most likely to be responsible for the large-scale temperature changes, of which two vary naturally (solar irradiance and stratospheric volcanic aerosols) and two have changed decisively due to anthropogenic influence (greenhouse gases and sulphate aerosols). The patterns of time/space changes in near-surface temperature due to the separate forcing components are simulated with a coupled atmosphere–ocean general circulation model, and a linear combination of these is fitted to observations. Thus our analysis is insensitive to errors in the simulated amplitude of these responses. We find that solar forcing may have contributed to the temperature changes early in the century, but anthropogenic causes combined with natural variability would also present a possible explanation. For the warming from 1946 to 1996 regardless of any possible amplification of solar or volcanic influence, we exclude purely natural forcing, and attribute it largely to the anthropogenic components.”
legally, by the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change . In Article 1 of this Convention the term “Climate Change” is defined as:
“A change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods”
This is a legally binding definition which I am accused of not believing in.
So be it.
I have been looking up Louis Hissink on google and found that he is a serial GW skeptic and has been lambasted including the dubious honour of the Worst Post ever on Deltoid.
Louis please look at the facts rather than these ramblings that you do.
Ender,
While you may be feeling frustrated, I would prefer we continue to argue the issues and the evidence here, rather than playing the man.
I have learnt from the information you and Louis have put forward – in the spirit of lively debate and discussion.
I must also say, that while whether-or-not a source of information has been peer review may be a consideration when wanting to cite something for publication in a serious journal, on this web-blog I would hope that information could be considered on its own merits.
Best, Jen.
My apologies to all.
I tend to stick to stuff I know is peer reviewed. Just saying anything tends to degrade the argument. You also cannot use as authority anywhere something that has not been checked by others that are experts in the field. I am getting frustrated because of people who cannot get their papers past a thorough check getting cited as authorities simply because their views correspond to the fossil fuel industry line.
If we are going to argue the evidence and issues we need to make sure that the evidence at least is correct to the best knowledge of the scientific community.
I am serially sceptical? but I am in good company: I lifted this from Benny Peiser’s Ccnet eletter
“In fact, the explicit and implicit rejection of the ‘consensus view’ is not restricted to
individual scientists. It also includes distinguished scientific organisations such as the American Association of Petroleum Geologists:
“The earth’s climate is constantly changing owing to natural variability in earth processes.
Natural climate variability over recent geological time is greater than reasonable estimates of potential human-induced greenhouse gas changes. Because no tool is available to test the supposition of human-induced climate change and the range of natural variability is so great, there is no discernible human influence on global climate at this time” (8)
8) L.C. Gerhard and B.M. Hanson (2000) AAPG Bulletin 84 (4): 466-471″.
Ender,
I sometimes wonder how to deal with the issue of peer review. It should be a critical process that ensures we can have confidence in what a scientist has written. However, in the environment area things seemed to have gone off the rails.
But in all areas some good work gets rejected by the peer review process.
For example, when I was doing my PhD in the area of insect ecology/behaviour I had a wonderful mentor in a retired x-CSIRO scientist Lindsay Barton-Browne.
His advice to me (along with my supervisors) was that I must get my chapter 2 published before I submitted by thesis or it would cause me grief with examinors. Bascially that it was too controversial. Anyway I sent it off to an American Journal – the right journal for the paper. I don’t think it was even sent to reviewers, I just got a rude letter back from the editor.
Rather distraught I showed the letter to Lindsay. He said, don’t change a thing, we will just send it to this British Journal that he suggested had a good editor.
And it was accepted almost without a change through that journal’s review process.
Then a few years later I was asked by some American scientists to address their Societies AGM which was held in Hawaii. They basically wanted me to speak to the issues I raised in that paper. Over dinner on evening in Hawaii I was asked why I hadn’t sent the paper to what was essentially their journal. I replied that I had, but the editor had rejected it.
Louis – an opinion from American Association of Petroleum Geologist? I would not be surprised to see a anti GW message coming from them. Try to find neutral references. And yes I did see your posts on climate audit.
Jennifer – There is some debate about flawed peer review and I acknowledge this however how do I know that something is true without the backup of checking. Is is not a perfect system, as it is done by human beings however, what else do we have to ensure that at least most of the science done gets a once over by the scientific community?
The following is from a recent paper published in Geoscience Canada http://www.esd.mun.ca/~gac/JOURNALS/TOC/GACgcV32No1Web.pdf
Put simply, it validates the climate sceptic position, and as it was published by a Canadian Government Agency, a nation at the forefront of pushing the GW agenda, makes it all the more interesting.
Abstract
The standard explanation for vagaries of our climate, championed by the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change), is that greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide, are its principal driver. Recently, an alternative model that the sun is the principal driver was revived by a host of empirical observations.
and
On land, sunlight, temperature, and concomitant availability of water are the dominant controls of biological activity and thus of the rate of photosynthesis and respiration. In the oceans, the rise in temperature results in release of CO2 into air. These two processes together increase the flux of CO2 into the atmosphere.
If only short time scales are considered, such a sequence of events
would be essentially opposite to that of the IPCC scenario, which drives the models from the bottom up, by assuming that CO2 is the principal climate driver and that variations in celestial input are of subordinate or negligible impact. This is not to dismiss CO2 as a greenhouse gas with no warming effect at all, but only to point out that CO2 plays mostly a supporting role in the orchestra of nature that has a celestial conductor and the water cycle as its first
fiddle. Consider an example that is familiar to every geologist, the weathering of rocks. This process is believed to have been the controlling sink for atmospheric CO2 on geological time scales (Berner, 2003), and indeed it was.
Yet, in reality, it is the water that is the agent of physical and chemical weathering. Weathering would proceed without CO2, albeit with some chemical reactions modified, but not without water, whatever the CO2 levels. For almost any process, and time scale, the water and carbon cycles are coupled, but water is orders of magnitude more abundant. The global water cycle is therefore not
“just there” to react on impulses from the carbon cycle, but is actively shaping it. The tiny carbon cycle is piggybacking on the huge water cycle (clouds included), not driving it. In such a perspective, CO2 can amplify or modulate natural climatic trends, but it is not likely to be their principal “driver”. […]
Historical CO2 levels from ice-cores.
This is very simple physics – if previous atmospheric levels of CO2 were 400ppmv and that air was trapped in ice, which was then buried as inferred at the south pole, (Vostok ice core) then the burial pressure will keep that CO2 in the ice.
When that ice is cored and retruned to surface pressures and temperature, the ice physically re-equilibrates to the reduced pressure, and must release excess volatiles from the crystal lattice. It does this by the well known phenomenon of “cracking”.
Cracked ice is not assayed for volatiles because it is known to have lost its volatiles.
Hence uncracked ice is analysed. The reason it has not cracked is because it’s volatile content is low enough not to cause lattice distortion of the ice crystal structure.
This is probably why the CO2 levels of ice cores are so uniform in CO2 content.
Other surface data contradict the ice core data.
Ender in a previous post maintained that Ken Parish referred to the temperature of Darwin as evidence for cooling.
Ken wrote this
“But it turns out my assessment was premature. In fact the global mean temperature actually dropped by 0.02°C in calendar year 2003, and by a further 0.04°C in 2004. Can anyone recall reading anywhere that the world has actually cooled slightly in each of the last 2 years? I certainly can’t. I wonder why?”
Ken stated explicitly “global mean temperature” and knowing Ken’s reputation for accuracy, if it was Darwin he was quoting, he would have specifically written that.
(I also note that Ender requested one of his posts be removed and edited for anticipated posting.
I don’t recall what he wrote, but he should realise that I am extremely thick skinned and do not need to resort to the legal system for satisfaction.
I prefer to let the facts, as they are doing now, to vindicate my scientifically detemined position of AGW.)
Ender,
would Geoscience Canada be neutral ?
Dear Jennifer,
On the subject of peer review, can I bring to your readers attention an example of a dubious statement that sailed through peer review in a paper at the very core of global temperature compilations by the P.D. Jones et al team from Norwich. The IPCC now widely promotes the global temperature trends from Jones et al and they are broadly accepted as fact by the great and the good proponents of the entire Greenhouse opera.
The statement is on p 1216 of the Jones, Raper and Wigley paper from 1986, “Southern Hemisphere Surface Air Temperature Variations 1851-1984”, J.Clim.App.Met.25, p. 1213-1230, that; “…very few stations in our final data set come from large cities.”
See my 2001 web page at;
http://www.warwickhughes.com/climate/pop.htm
A more accurate statement might say “..very few large cities HAVE NOT been used in our final data set “.
If any readers can find a “large city” not included in the Jones et al ” final data set ” please let me know.
Note here that the lists of stations were not even in the above paper but were in a separate pretty thick book, now available from CDIAC for those interested.
I can hear the sound of eyes glazing over already.
The point of this is the effect that statement would have had in deflecting possible wider scrutiny of the Norwich work.
Our own Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) for example had an internal paper circulating after the publication of the above paper.
Scroll down to bold headline (BoM Paper, Coughlan et al, 1990, “Trends in Australian Temperature Records”) at http://www.warwickhughes.com/climate/bom.htm
where BoM people define the magnitude of Urban Heat Island (UHI) contamination in our cities. This BoM paper shows the BoM knew of UHI influence in Jones et al global trends yet choose the path of not publishing or commenting.
In a nutshell, global warming at its very birth was assisted by weak peer review and an unwillingness by our own BoM to comment.
Best wishes,
Warwick Hughes
No Loius I asked it to be removed becuause I hit the enter key by mistake before I had finished it and then lost the edits so I had to start over.
The Geoscience Canada study is interesting and is a perfect example of the healthy debate about global warming that is going on in the scientific community. It is not as you portray the evil IPCC imposing its political view on the scientists.
There is doubt about GW however that doubt will only be resolved with more research and there is a place for both sides to publish scientific papers for consideration by the wider scientific community.
The urban heat island has been dealt with already to my satisfaction – here is the abstract of recent paper in Nature
http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/nature/journal/v432/n7015/abs/432290a_fs.html
“Climate: Large-scale warming is not urban
DAVID E. PARKER
Hadley Centre, Meteorological Office, Exeter EX1 3PB, UK
david.parker@metoffice.com
Controversy has persisted over the influence of urban warming on reported large-scale surface-air temperature trends. Urban heat islands occur mainly at night and are reduced in windy conditions. Here we show that, globally, temperatures over land have risen as much on windy nights as on calm nights, indicating that the observed overall warming is not a consequence of urban development.”
Again because I do not have access to Nature I do not have the whole paper.
“A paper by Peterson (2003) is of interest because it has been out for a while and is more comprehensive. It agrees with Parker. The paper, “Assessment of urban versus rural in situ surface temperatures in the contiguous United States: No difference found” published in the Journal of Climate finds that the effects of the urban heat island may have been overstated and that “Contrary to generally accepted wisdom, no statistically significant impact of urbanization could be found in annual temperatures.”
We have enough information already to act on reducing CO2 emissions.
Sorry Rog, I assumed that since it is better scholarship to reference the original source (when it is easily available) of a claim rather than a secondary source, you would want to do so. I’ll try not to make such assumptions about you in the future.
However, since neither the original source, nor the Spencer piece, make note of the uncertainties, I’m far from impressed with either. Instead of giving a fair and balanced overview, both are simply trying to score rhetorical points.
And since you asked, I was impressed with Spencer’s work on troposphere temperature trends, but after reading his “rebuttal” to Fu’s paper, I lost all respect for him. His co-worker, Christy, isn’t too bad though.
Thanks all for the discussion – it made me really delve into the research.
Louis – you should do some more work on the ice core thing. If it is as you describe then it needs to be brought to the attention of the scientific community. Perhaps you could freeze some air with different concentrations of CO2 at different temperatures and pressures and then measure the concentration when it thaws.
Ender,
Ice core cracking is known to the scientific community – seems you have a lot more research to do.
Jaworowski presented a paper the the US Senate on this very problem with ice cores last year.
I’ll leave it you to draw your own conclusions why these facts are ignored.
It is because anthropogenic global warming is fundamentally a political play. Always was, hence my serial scepticism of it.
Louis – there is absolutely nothing in the Global Warming debate that is a political play. Only the Global Warming Skeptics can claim that one with their pathetic attempts to scuttle sound science in the name of Corporate profits.
You were soundly defeated on the ice bit as the scientists doing the real research know all about the effects you try to mention and have duly compensated for all these effects. Do you really think that these professional working scientists would make such an elementary mistake?
For all others mislead by this person’s mistaken claims please read this conversation he had with people far better qualified than me and how his arguments were shown to be completely false
http://cgi.cse.unsw.edu.au/~lambert/cgi-bin/blog/science/hissink3.html
Take the time to read all the comments as they are very illuminating.
Also as you have re-opened it have a look at these posts on William Kinninmonth’ book launch (one is mine)
http://cgi.cse.unsw.edu.au/~lambert/cgi-bin/blog/science/astroturf2.html
http://stevegloor.typepad.com/sgloor/2005/05/climate_change_.html
Ender
I play the facts, not the man.