Three fascinating papers were published in Science (Vol 310, 25th November 2005) last week on climate change and the relationship between carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide levels and temperature over the last 650,000 years.
They report on new findings from the European Project for Ice Coring in the Antartica.
A graph in the ‘perspectives section’ by Brook (pg 1286) summarizes the findings,
view image (70 kbs).
The data tells me that:
1. The greenhouse gases are at higher levels now than they have been over the last 650,000 years.
2. Carbon dioxide levels correlated with temperature and have peak during previous interglacial warm periods just below 300ppm, view image (120 kbs).
3. In the past, increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have tended to follow, rather than preceded, rises in temperature.
4. We are currently in an interglacial warm period and these periods tend to be followed by very cold periods.
I find the graphs fascinating.
While atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have clearly fluctuated with temperature in the past, they have tended to lag behind temperature. This doesn’t accord with the current perception – what is understood to be the current consensus which is that carbon dioxide drives temperature?
I find the prospect of another ice age really scary. The graphs suggest to me that one is imminent – like in the next few hundred or thousand years? However, greenhouses gases have never been so high.
It is perhaps interesting to ponder …. If we were able to influence climate in a predictable way, and if we could delay indefinitely the onset of the next ice age, should we?
…………….
Many, many thanks to the reader of this blog who sent me copies of the papers. There has been some discussion of the papers at the Real Climate blog, http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=221&lp_lang_view=en .
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
There is further discussion of CO2 lagging temperature at RealClimate here:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=13
This link seems to suggest that the consensus *is* that in the past interglacial events, the rise of CO2 trailed the onset of warming by about 800 years. ie, your suggestion of what is the consensus is incorrect.
Summary of the discussion I linked to:
* CO2 lags the start of warming by about 800 years in the interglacial periods as shown in ice core data.
* Warming continues for a further 4,200 years after CO2 begins rising.
* 5/6 of the warming occurs after CO2 begins to rise
* So CO2 cannot be responsible for the first 1/6 of warming, but may be responsible for the rest
* Theory is that something (solar activity, earth wobbling in orbit???) initiated a warming trend. CO2 is released due to warming, and *amplifies* the warming trend.
It’s weird: the data and theory described in RealClimate suggests that once there is some warming, CO2 is released and accelerates the warming.
And yet, despite this positive feedback, the warming trend eventually ends and the Earth plummets back into an cold period.
What is it that ends the interglacial warm periods despite the positive feedback? Maybe
/beware, talking out my rear end ahead:
once the world meets a certain threshhold of warmth, something weird happens. Maybe at a certain temperture,there is a significant change to climate. Like, say, a major change in a significant ocean current or something. This monumental change in conditions/climate, is enough to arrest the warming trend and plunge us back into an ice age.
/end talking out my posterior
Jens says “It is perhaps interesting to ponder …. If we were able to influence climate in a predictable way….”
That’s a big *IF* Jennifer, perhaps not very becoming for someone who is so interested in evidence-based science and facts to spend overlong pondering such big IFs.
Yep agree with Steve – an orbital mechanism kicks out of the cooling – biospheric feedback starts up the CO2 and then you get more and more as warming feeds back into the system and temperatures follow up (which might happen to us with all that permafrost and soil carbon too).
The fact we’re higher CO2 than last 650,000 years says we’re going into new territory as far as the world in its current configuration exists. And then there’s the issue of the rate of change.
A myth about ice ages – the “another one soon myth”
Was an imminent Ice Age predicted in the ’70’s? NO .. . .. http://www.wmconnolley.org.uk/sci/iceage/
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=94
and what the science actually says about likelihood of another ice age.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/milankovitch.html
What does The Milankovitch Theory say about future climate change?
Orbital changes occur over thousands of years, and the climate system may also take thousands of years to respond to orbital forcing. Theory suggests that the primary driver of ice ages is the total summer radiation received in northern latitude zones where major ice sheets have formed in the past, near 65 degrees north. Past ice ages correlate well to 65N summer insolation (Imbrie 1982). Astronomical calculations show that 65N summer insolation should increase gradually over the next 25,000 years, and that no 65N summer insolation declines sufficient to cause an ice age are expected in the next 50,000 – 100,000 years ( Hollan 2000, Berger 2002).
Last two refs worth studying in some detail.
Hollan says
“The main result is, that the mid-summer insolation of relevant northern latitudes will be not as low as at the onset of the last glaciation (110 ka before) another 0.6 Ma. The first ever pronounced fall of summer insolation happens some 130 thousands years from now, but it is not at all so deep as those ones that started the last two Ice Ages. So, we can say there is no conceivable cause for another glaciation for at least those 130 ka. Quite probably, another glaciation cannot come sooner that 620 thousand years from now.
To be worried that ice sheets will spread soon is really a queer attitude. We should be more concerned with the possibility of a runoff greenhouse effect which could turn our Earth to another Venus before that half-a-million years! ”
end quote
Wouldn’t buy extra woolies yet Jen (or that Bison fur coat lined with whale skin) 🙂
Consensus? Then it isn’t science.
End of story.
The trouble is that this time we are imposing our CO2 warming on top of an interglacial warming. This has no precedent in the past record. The results of which are not known.
That is an interesting snippet over at RC, confronted with the evidence that “at least three careful ice core studies have shown that CO2 starts to rise about 800 years (600-1000 years) after Antarctic temperature during glacial terminations” we are still left with the AGW hypothesis.
This is how people were sentenced in the Gulag period of the USSR, “you are committed to 20 years because you are an enemy of the State.”
Evidence?
“A book written in English was found in your possession.”
Steve
I think it is healthy to ask big ‘what if’ questions. But it is not so useful when people confuse the pondering with the evidence.
Jen – on the “consensus” of what drives temperature – the “consensus” is that lots of things can drive temperature – insolation from orbital position, solar output, greenhouse gases, volcanic dust, aerosols and clouds, El Nino
This is the important point – too often interacting effects are overlooked.
Similarly people think El Nino always means dry – well it depends on which event (they’re all a bit different), and depends where you are geographically and at what time of the year.
http://www.gac.ca/JOURNALS/GACV32No1Veizer.pdf
This is interesting too. An alternative to IPCC hypotheses on global temperature drivers.
David Tribe,
now where on earth did you get that reference, heh heh heh 🙂 ohhh we professional engineers, geologists and geophysicists can be so ornery and to the point.
David – have you been trawling those norty anti-sites again .. tsk tsk tsk
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=153
(as always)
The problem with Realclimate is they censor any comments as the quite acrimonious thread at Climateaudit attests.
That Rasmus criticque of Veisier’s Cosmic ray data picks up such, to him, glaring inconsistencies that were not picked up by review makes it all the more interesting.
There is an extremely cynical view that global warming was invented by the uranium industry as a long term ploy to kill off the coal and oil industries – Royal Dutch Shell has been very quietly divesting itself of all its coal assets which only those of is in the mining industry were aware of.
It seems the political left have fallen for it hook, line and sinker. (that AGW is a fiction) merely to allow their nemesis to gain the upper hand.
>While atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have clearly fluctuated with temperature in the past, they have tended to lag behind temperature.
This has been known for some very considerable time. A nice discussion is provided by Caillon et al at http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/299/5613/1728?maxtoshow=&HITS=20&hits=20&RESULTFORMAT=&author1=caillon&andorexacttitle=or&andorexacttitleabs=or&andorexactfulltext=or&searchid=1133215317515_19084&stored_search=&FIRSTINDEX=0&sortspec=relevance&fdate=10/1/1995&tdate=11/30/2005.
. CO2 in the intitial stages of warming lags temperature, but subsequently biophysical processes kick in which raising CO2 levels, and subsequently further raising temperatures. There is an extensive literature on this.
>This doesn’t accord with the current perception – what is understood to be the current consensus which is that carbon dioxide drives temperature?
Really? This time we have an external driver – man – who is pumping CO2 out ahead of the temperature rise.
>I find the prospect of another ice age really scary. The graphs suggest to me that one is imminent – like in the next few hundred or thousand years? However, greenhouses gases have never been so high.
Suggest you have no need to worry. The decent into an ice age takes thousands of years. By contrast, the current warming is occuring at a rate about 50 times faster than occured at the end of the last ice age some ~20K years ago. Over the past several thousand years the earth should have cooled by approximately 2C, while, of course it is currently warming and is rapidly passing through the highs reached during the natural peak of the current interglacial.
>It is perhaps interesting to ponder …. If we were able to influence climate in a predictable way, and if we could delay indefinitely the onset of the next ice age, should we?
We probably already have. Ruddiman et al. 2005 (Quaternary Science Reviews, 1-10), describe how human CO2 and CH4 emissions have prevented the onset of the now overdue glacial period. Of course, one can get to much of a good thing (CO2, that is)!
David
David and Phil
The graphs suggest there has been both rapid warming and cooling in the past.
‘Rapid warming’ at the moment is not evident to me in the graphs in any of the science papers – rapid rise in C02, yes.
The other key conclusion to be drawn from the graph is that temperature increases out of glacial periods are very rapid and significant. Our current “warming” is neither. Indeed, to call it marginal is a serious understatement. The consistent pattern is for rapid temperature increase followed by gradual trend down.
May I point out that it is the ice ages which are the problems, not the warm periods in between?
Apart from the last, the Pleistocene, every previous ice age has been associated with a mass extinction and the apperance of new species.
The normal state of the earth is warm to which we are returning to, but whether the return to warm is slow, by not burning “fossil fuels” or slightly quicker, is neither here nor there.
Warm means an abundance of life, as does CO2, everything else being equal.
We do not see mass extinctions in warming periods, only when the earth is subject to an ice age when everything gets frozen up.
Jennifer – there have been time where the warming and cooling has been rapid. Google the “Younger Dryas” and you will see that this event could have taken place over decades.
The main problem is that we are imposing an extra warming on top of natural cycles that in my opionion will lead to faster and more violent climate change that would have happened naturally. It is a bit like space craft in orbit. A natural elliptical orbit will continue indefinitely however if the spacecraft fires its engines at the correct point in the orbit (apogee) it can with a minimum of thrust kick into a higher orbit or a transfer orbit to another planet. That same kick in another part of the orbit (perigee) can lead to re-entry. If the thrust is delivered at any other part of the orbit there is not so much change.
We are in an interglacial period of warming. Our large kick at the top of this cycle could well put the Earth into a quite different climate cycle that what we are used to. Basically we are tickling the dragons tail without really knowing what the dragon will do. We hoping like hell it will do nothing.
Without getting bogged down in too much detail, but the Olmec civilisation in Mexico ceased catastrophically, and in the Amazon jungles South America new discoveries of another human civilisation have been found, which seems to have also had a sudden end.
Perhaps some thought directed getting the human historical record correct without getting all heated up over computer predictions that raising the CO2 content of the atmosphere by 0.04% might be a better use of time.
>David and Phil
The graphs suggest there has been both rapid warming and cooling in the past.
‘Rapid warming’ at the moment is not evident to me in the graphs in any of the science papers – rapid rise in C02, yes.
It is impossible to see the recent very rapid warming on the graphs because, it is happening too rapidly to be resolved in recent O18 data in low accumulation sites. Besides, we know that it took between 5000 and 20000 years to emerge out of the ice ages captured in the record, during which time global temperatures warmed by about 5C, and polar temperatures by about twice this amount. That makes for a maximum sustained warming rate of about 1C per 1000 years. The globe has warmed nearly 1C since 1905, and is currently warming at 0.2C per decade, with projections for the next decade from the UKMO projecting 0.35C warming between 2005 and 2015. The warming for this century is expected to be between 2 and 6C. These rates are 10, ~20, ~40 and 20-60 times more rapid than the extremely rapid warming at the termination of previous glacial maxima.
It is also invalid to compare rapid warming coming at the end of very cold epoch to warming during a very warm epoch. Add 5C to winter and you get spring… and 5C to summer and you get???
David
Jen – it’s interesting that many of us have closed our minds to these issues as “leftie greenie stuff”. Bad call for serious right-wingers.
The best advice is no ice age soon – consistent patterns are artifacts that depend on orbital alignments. We have more CO2 than for 650,000 years, the world has warmed accordingly which we have plenty of diverse evidence for. Other plausible mechanisms advanced for the warming – zilch. We have plenty of fossil fuels left to emit and lots of biosphere carbon to liberate as the temperature goes up.
We have considerable understanding how CO2 works as a greenhouse gas – any percentage arguments and bringing in water vapour being long dealt with in this blog with copious detailed references for those who wish to read them.
We now have 6 billion humans at risk anytime the climate goes sour on us. It ain’t the stone age anymore. Risks are high. We can vote to take action or go on safari to exotic locations.
I am singularly unimpressed by the contrarians inability to put up a congent alternative hypothesis to what we’re observing. One liners are common – significant alternative argument is not.
Meanwhile celebrating the death of Kyoto the civilised world is trying again.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4476998.stm
Climate summit opens in Montreal
The first United Nations climate conference since the Kyoto agreement came into force in February has opened with the US still resisting targets.
Am I hopeful that we will do anything though .. .. nope !
Ender, your orbital analogy is out of kilter. The records consistently show that CO2 lags temperature rise so you cannot argue that additional CO2 will act as a thrusting agent. Or if you do then the burden is on you to explain exactly how this switch over takes place. At the moment you are relying on assorted “invisible hands” and they just won’t do.
And forget the ocean current inversion stuff, it just doesn’t stack up.
Ian – not really as in the past CO2 does lag temperature. The temperature rise from insolation changes due to orbital periods produces conditions that release CO2 hence the lag. Here we are in a condition of warming (approaching apogee) giving a kick just at the right time with more warming due to AGW. It is not a good combination. Also in the past have been events like meteorite strikes and supervolcanoes that have replicated some of what we are doing.
What invisible hands are you talking about?
So Ian what makes the temperatures move then?
You’ve got a stack of literature to slay if you want to argue CO2 has no role.
It very simple – an orbital change moves the temperature, the biosphere liberates some CO2 and you get a positive feedback (like is happening now with permafrost in Siberia).
Nature has lots of feedback loops.
If you have no orbital theory and no CO2 theory – doesn’t leave you with much does it? So I think the onus goes back on yourself given we have accepted peer reviewed publications in the area. See David above.
Humans are natural components of the biosphere – what we do is natural – and burning hydrocarbons is no different to other life forms burning hydrocarbons – we do it to extract energy.
Being natural, our activities are also natural and hence nothing to be feared.
Loius – yeah right
ANOTHER KYOTO NIGHTMARE: BRITAIN CONSIDERS REVIVAL OF COAL INDUSTY AS ENERGY CRISIS DEEPENS
The Sunday Telegraph, 27 November 2005
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/11/27/ncoal27.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/11/27/ixhome.html
Jasper Copping
Britain’s coal industry could enjoy a resurgence with new mines created and existing pits
re-opened in an effort to tackle the country’s deepening energy crisis.
A return to coal mining on a large scale has been put forward as a way of responding to
Britain’s growing demand for power and the soaring price of natural gas.
The country’s precarious energy provisions have been thrown into sharp relief this winter
with fears that gas supply will not meet demand.
http://iccfglobal.org/
More bad news about Kyoto
So is it confirmed that each interglacial warming has been kicked off by an orbital change? Or is this still only theory? I have no problem with feedback loops but am also cautious on the potential for natural systems like sinks to respond in kind to surplus inputs. I find the most interesting aspects of the graphs to be the relatively consistent steady declines of both CO2 and temperature to pre-interglacial lows. This would be consistent with a gradual increase in the sequestration of CO2 being laid down in peat bogs etc as precurser to the hydrocarbon formation that has become the source material for the current emissions.
The main issue is with the assumption that nature will only respond to the surplus CO2 through increased temperature, and the related accounting for same. Bill Burrows work on thickenning is solid evidence of natural response but in the modelling it is excluded, like most other responses. And the extrapolations being made are from such a short period that it is well within the documented response lags.
Yes Ian I went back in my Tardis and checked. OK seriously .. .. The orbital theory is the basis of why there have been ice ages – any alternatives? Just “because” doesn’t sound very scientific.. ..
There is a lot of paleo work to suggest that orbital mechanisms (3 of them) are involved in changing global radiation input and ice ages. For a one page primer try:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/milankovitch.html
But that doesn’t have to be the only climate forcing.
We are liberating millenia of stored carbon in fossil fuels in one brief 200 year stint – a nothing in geological time. Hard to see the point horizontally on the graph.
In terms of thickening – my information says its primarily overgrazing and lack of fire allowing juvenile trees to get away – not CO2(although there might be a very small effect.
And if nature is responding by sucking it into plants – why is the CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere increasing? Biosphere sinks have their limits. And if extra temperature occurs you will liberate the CO2 in those sinks (maybe a whole 300ppm more globally) and it will all be VERY interesting.
Thank you for enlightening me on the role of orbital changes, Phil. The actual spurt in CO2 is really much shorter than 200 years and this is much shorter than natures response times. Thickenning is not triggered by CO2 but the volume of sequestration could well be a function of the surplus of CO2. And once we start predicting temperature out beyond 50 odd years we should not be assuming that the response of vegetation in dealing with the surplus CO2 will be the same as that demonstrated by vegetation today. One thing we can be certain of is that nature will adapt to exploit a new surplus.
I have a problem with some of the responses given here to the time lag issue, and the “extra bit on top of solar effect” danger comments.
Where was all this solar effect discussion when weeks back the CO2 driven temperature increase was being promoted as the fully satisfactory explanation. Why wasn’t there open acknowledgement of the solar variation hypothesis at that time.
Then, I was calling for caveats up front. Afterwards its called “special pleading” or ad hoc-ery.
As I’ve said several times, untill recently I’ve not had an opinion about AGW. I’ve posted solar variation driver links to see what the responses would be. Ive known about the lag-temp first CO2 after for ages. Now we find its pretty solid. I’ll be satisfied if someone (Phil seems the “expert”) points out where IPCC explicitly discuss this lag problem in a decisive way.
As far as making fun of geologists on this, my experience with science is if you are having trouble resolving tricky issues, it time to call on another line of evidence, and the geo-record is exactly that.
Now I’ve got to say, I’m getting suspicious about the standard AGW interpretation. Effects usually follw causes, not the other way round.
Detribe – the science says the current warming is not to do with solar activity. Go check RC on the issue.
This is never to say that solar is “never” an issue.
As I said before – temperature is a complex mixture of orbital, solar, greenhouse, aersol (add volcanic) forcings. El Ninos will bump up some years. You need to see all the bits in context. Not all forcings are dominant at every stage in the Earth’s history.
Effects do follow causes and then cause other effects if result cumulate (called feedback !). Sometimes effects also cause chaos but that’s another thread.
David – get a check list of what “could” be causing the climate effects that we’re seeing globally and mark off the science. RC will have most of the issues discussed and even categorised. But there’s plenty of contrarian sites to sus out too.
Of course the other approach to be taken first is to argue that we aren’t actually seeing anything (Warwick Hughes), it’s cooling (John McLean) or that CO2 isn’t a greenhouse gas, or if it is a GHG after all, that heat transfer to other gases and convection doesn’t happen. Or we can argue that something worse may have happened before when the world was Pangea and forced by who knows what orbital positions.
You actually might be able with your more civil approach to lead us through a structured discussion whereby we see what “we” actually agree on in terms of AGW. Myself – I had concluded that “we ALL” actually agree on very very little.
David – solar activity alone is not a sufficient forcing to drive the amount of warming that we are experiencing now. There are 1.4 My and 600 Ky oscillations in the Earths orbit that seem to correspond with the previous changes in warming to some extent. That is where the Earths orbit comes in. What I am saying is that we are imposing extra warming from our greenhouse gases at the top of the warming cycle – possibly the worst time to do it. I did not know of the Earth’s orbit variations until recently.
Ender and Phil Done,
Might we ask both of you to produce physical evidence of global warming?
Which reduced to its essence is a measured record of the earth’s mean temperature?
Of course the other approach to be taken first is to argue that we aren’t actually seeing anything (Warwick Hughes), it’s cooling (John McLean) or that CO2 isn’t a greenhouse gas, or if it is a GHG after all, that heat transfer to other gases and convection doesn’t happen. Or we can argue that something worse may have happened before when the world was Pangea and forced by who knows what orbital positions.
Ender do you think we have discussed the evidence enough. We’re just getting towed around by one-liners and quips. I think we have done enough work by now. I think the contrarians should (but they’re obviously not up to it) critique a list of the evidence presented in many many posts and show why ALL of it is wrong. And with more than quips and one liners.. ..
I suppose we could give them a free kick to start the mental processes. hmmm – let’s see
a) terrestrial temp record
b) satellite monitoring of troposphere and atmosphere
c) ocean temperatures
d) sea level rise
e) is it solar
f) is it orbital
g) is it anything else besides GHGs
h) no h as it’s hot
i) GCM model validation
j) CO2 physics and role of CO2 as a GHG
k) glacier record
l) peak hurricane intensity
m) species flowering and mating earlier
o) changes in circumpolar vortex
p) changes in El Nino frequency
q) Swiss physical measurements of the greenhouse flux
r) r is for rabid
s) s is for silly
t) acceleration of Greenland glacial melt
u) disappearance of Artic ice pack
v) breakup of Larsen ice shelf
w) w is for wussing out
x) x for unknown – any other explanations – come on guys
y) changes in Australian rainfall
z) z is for neutrino flux
Which we might politely aver is, as Inspector Barnaby might. an instant of too much protestation?
Hard, is it not, to argue against the bleeding obvious.
And to prempt my critics,
I, am, in command of my subject,
You, only its rhetoric.
Ender as I suspected. Nothing there – you were right.
And wanders away, thinking,…..
And sits, waits for the Ender_Done Temp Graph to appear.
Jen – I have just realised how little some of us actually do not know about the greenhouse effect. The analogy of a greenhouse to a glasshouse has been made often. Some teasers and explanations. Perhaps the GREENHOUSE EFFECT is a really bad name and should never have been used.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect
Greenhouse effect: the effect of the atmosphere in re-readiating longwave radiation back to the surface of the Earth. It has nothing to do with glasshouses, which trap warm air at the surface).
Real greenhouses
The term ‘greenhouse effect’ originally came from the greenhouses used for gardening, but it is a misnomer since greenhouses operate differently [6] [7]. A greenhouse is built of glass; it heats up primarily because the Sun warms the ground inside it, which warms the air near the ground, and this air is prevented from rising and flowing away. The warming inside a greenhouse thus occurs by suppressing convection and turbulent mixing. This can be demonstrated by opening a small window near the roof of a greenhouse: the temperature will drop considerably. It has also been demonstrated experimentally (Wood, 1909): a “greenhouse” built of rock salt (which is transparent to IR) heats up just as one built of glass does. Greenhouses thus work primarily by preventing convection; the greenhouse effect however reduces radiation loss, not convection. It is quite common, however, to find sources (e.g. [8] [9] [10]) that make the “greenhouse” analogy. Although the primary mechanism for warming greenhouses is the prevention of mixing with the free atmosphere, the radiative properties of the glazing can still be important to commercial growers. With the modern development of new plastic surfaces and glazings for greenhouses, this has permitted construction of greenhouses which selectively control radiation transmittance in order to better control the growing environment.[11].
For a major shoot-out
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Solar_greenhouse_(technical)/Archive_1
Loius – just not biting – you have had ample examples of AGW evidence rammed at you with no effect. You do not learn.
Ender – Of course that depends whether one wants to learn or are just arguing stubbornly from a dogmatic political viewpoint. Which really makes you wonder why the press devote over 50% coverage to cynics and contrarians when the published literature is so utterly sparse on substantial alternative viewpoints. It’s simply been voted a left wing greenie thing that might be bad for business so it must be “wrong” on first principles. So any serious intellectual discussion is highly unlikely. And the press are fascinated with controversy and will manafacture some if ratings are down.
And interesting in terms of current debate with Galileo comparisons and persecuting religious bodies – who is playing Galileo and who are the dogmatic believers hanging onto past beliefs.
Over 50% press coverage to cynics and contrarians Phil?
Any data on that?
Maybe Greenies are the masters of their own demise.
I was told that at the recent Greenhouse 2005 conference a presenter made that claim on a survey of press clippings over time. I have no reference but no reason to doubt something of that magnitude from personal observation of papers.
Opinions become facts?
Wont hold up under scrutiny.
Unfortunately it seems global warming or climate science is no longer science as the theory cannot be falsified.
The crucial fact is that the raw uncensored station temperature data remain inaccessible. Not the edited stuff Jones, Hansen etc put up for download but the warts and all station temperature records forming the basis of the GISS and other derivations.
The extreme reluctance to make this data available tells me we are dealing scientific crooks, no different to the crooks in the mining business who also refuse to hand over their raw data.
Climate change could well be called a “Crook Theory” in more ways than one.
Noun: obfuscation
1. Confusion resulting from failure to understand
2. The activity of obscuring people’s understanding, leaving them baffled or bewildered
3. Darkening or obscuring the sight of something
Ender – name the movie.
What we’ve got here is failure to communicate. Some men you just can’t reach, so you get what we had here last week which is the way he wants it. Well, he gets it. And I don’t like it any more than you men.
QED.
ENDER,
You cannot even spell,
Phil Done,
You posted a reference to Greenhouses above, in which convection is proposed as the primary greenhouse mechanism.
You just shot your own foot.
I suspect you do not read your posts which you cut and paste here.
Oh for heavens sake read it !!
Jen – the assertion that all climate data are unavailable is simply incorrect.
For a small fee anyone can acquire the Bureau’s Australian raw data. Given complaints about the Bureau’s analysed data sets (Warwick Hughes) I would assume anyone would want the raw data and not processed data.
You could start there, on quite a large data sets, and test if the Australian warming arguments stack up.
I see any refusal to at least start there as rhetorical bluster and not fair dinkum, particularly if one is asserting people are “crooks”. Strong words.
Perhaps after demonstrating some “credentials” with local data Jones, Hansen et al might be more forthcoming with raw data from other countries. One can imagine they may be harried by many interesting and colourful internet travellers for such data. Given the size of the data is mnay tens of gigabytes I can imagine it’s not the sort of thing you would download over dinner.
Of course an introductory statistics course might also be useful, particularly if you need to understand complexities such as the difference between running means and simple single arithmetic means.
Louis states that the theory of warming cannot be falsified, Really! should, we not say that the probably that warming is true and that it is human induced climate change is such that it is very unlikely that alternative explanations can account for the very large body of observations as well as the current theory.
Quantum mechanics is a case of an elegant and very well tested theory where science is still trying to prove it wrong with little success in the last 25 years! Climate change science is the same if you put up a good body of evidence it will be accepted as small part of the knowledge structure, but you need a lot of strong evidence to overturn strong theory and I do not see nearly enough contrary evidence in the scientific literature to overwhelm the current theory, however there is plenty of healthy debate.
Science is not religeon but an exercise in reducing uncertainty. It is the deep greens, the religeous and those with large economic intrests who seem to hold the most dogmatic views of all.
hmmm – the problem is Richard that the press reporting of the issue is over half from sceptics – but very little published in the literature against. So how much debate is “healthy” really. How much of this paralyses our ability for any rational thought or action on the issue.
Plus it has become allied with “green politics”. If you argue for AGW you must also be anti-capitalism, anti-business, anti-GM and eat lentils. Why so? Whatever happened to clear independent thinking.
Further accessing the literature is somewhat difficult (hence realclimate exists to counter a bit).
Understanding the literature is also difficult.
i.e. it’s complex stuff.
Most of us don’t even properly understand the CO2 physics, role with respect to water vapour and why greenhouse is even a bad name. So not even at the basics of understanding. Not being arrogant – it’s not that simple in the end. See Louis blog as a classic case of missing the entire point and the danger of assuming that you’ve discovered something fundamental that nobody else has ever thought of. Frequency probably depends on level of ego. New insight happens – but not often.
Similarly it’s amazing to think that people would not assume the BoM would not have a high quality station network and these data are the ones they use for climate change studies – not cities with possible UHIs.
And in cities maybe the UHI effect may be overstated as the met stations are often in leafy green park settings. Might even balance out the UHI effect somewhat. Not saying this always happens.
Richard,
I think Professor Stott has summarised it brilliantly on his environspin site which I also duplicated on my blog.
When the theory of global warming purports to explain every observed climatic change, then surely we have left science an entered into the realm of religion. Global warmers are now insisting that if the weather gets colder, its due to global warming.
As for the assertion of more severe climate change, no one has been able to quantify climate change, so how one can scientifically discern such proposals will remain problematical for a long time.
What utter utter arrant nonsense.
“every change” – says who?
Climate change has been well quantified except some aren’t up to understanding the basics as the folly of their blog rhetoric displays. Wouldn’t pass year one physics or class one, year one stats for that matter.
and who are “global warmers”, and “who” is saying what?
The impact of the thermohaline circulation on European climate is well known. How much do we have to have to play with salinity content to destablise it, is an interesting question. If you did interfere with it yes would would have some regional cooling. If one wanted to get some resolution on new scientific developments check the latest realclimate and Nature paper and think before spruiking. All may not be as it seems.
Louis – Again you are confusing the Enhanced Greenhouse effect causing warming of the atmosphere which is scientifically correct and provable with the results of that warming which at the moment is speculation. Alluding to religion seems to be a standard tactic of global warming skeptics however is more akin to your steadfast faith in the skeptic arguments that fly in the face of even the most basic high school physics.
If global warming produces an influx of fresh water into the Northern Atlantic that shuts down the Atlantic current then the result of warming could well be cooling of Northern Europe that is warmed by warm air transported from the tropics. The Younger Dryas was perhaps caused by this very thing.
Nobody has any idea other than informed guesses what the results of AGW might be. A blind faith that the results will be benign is yet another reason to call your side of the argument a religion.