“We have no alternative to the enhanced greenhouse effect, we have no alternative theory of atmospheric radiation, we have no explanation of the warming based on physically credible models, and we have no basis to believe the greenhouse effect stopped functioning beyond 280ppm of CO2. The skeptics have had 100 years to put a credible alternative forwards – do they need another 100?”
This was a recent and passionate claim from one commentator at this weblog, click here for the thread.
David was referring to the work of Svante Arrhenius who won a nobel prize for chemistry in 1903 and first proposed that changes in the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could substantially alter the surface temperature through the greenhouse effect.
According to Wikipedia:
“Arrhenius’ high absorption values for CO2, however, met criticism by Knut Ångström in 1900, who published the first modern infrared spectrum of CO2 with two absorption bands. Arrhenius replied strongly in 1901 (Annalen der Physik), dismissing the critique altogether. He touched the subject briefly in a technical book titled Lehrbuch der kosmischen Physik (1903). He later wrote Världarnas utveckling (1906), German translation: Das Werden der Welten (1907), English translation: Worlds in the Making (1908) directed at a general audience, where the suggested that the human emission of CO2 would be strong enough to prevent the world from entering a new ice age, and that a warmer earth would be needed to feed the rapidly increasing population. From that, the hot-house theory gained more attention. Nevertheless, until about 1960, most scientists dismissed the hot-house / greenhouse effect as implausible for the cause of ice ages as Milutin Milankovitch had presented a mechanism using orbital changes of the earth.”
Arhenius estimated that a doubling of CO2 would cause a temperature rise of 5 degrees Celsius, recent values from IPCC place this value (the Climate sensitivity) at between 1.5 and 4.5 degrees.
NASA reports that, globally, temperatures have increase on average by 0.6 degrees in the past three decades and 0.8 degrees when measured over the last 100 years. What would Arrhenius have estimated the global temperature increase to have been given current levels of carbon dioxide?
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Are you saying the sun and Milankovitch cycles are irrelevant? That everything except carbon dioxide is ‘constant’ at this point in our history?
Assuming we don’t have an alternative, does this make the enhanced greenhouse effect more correct? … as suggested by David?
I’m just pondering this from a philosophical perspective. I would say no.
I have had this same argument with some Christians. They tell me that being an atheist is ‘not enough’ – that you should have something to believe in.
Why?
Why is it necessary to believe in something at all.?
One doesn’t have to accept any of the current belief systems be it Judaism, Christinaity or Islam to be a good person.
In fact my putative church The Church of Latter Day Pagans has a very good record, of goodness. We havn’t declared war on anyone, havn’t chopped anyones head off for not believing what we dont believe,we havn’t prevented anyone using whatever precaution they like whenever having sex,etc etc.
It has a lot going for it..believe me.
Cosmic Ray Flux is the alternative theory:
http://www.sciencebits.com/ClimateDebate
Re: cosmic ray flux. The Damon and Laut (2004) paper in EOS that David posted earlier today in another thread ( http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/PDF_Papers/DamonLaut2004.pdf ) points out serious flaws in Svensmarks work.
When the correct data is used the relationships between galactic cosmic rays and cloud cover and global temperatures do not appear consistent, and hence observational evidence no longer supports this theory.
Some further comments are at:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=42
Jennifer,
Missing from the arguments of Arrenhius and modern science is the fact that the increase in CO2 levels producing a so and so climate sensitivity is not from measurement, but from belief that this might occur.
This is essentially religion in which a bold statement is asserted to produce results in the future, with out any founding in empirical measurement.
No one has measured (apart from Idso) what might happen is CO2 is increased. Everything we read here is from computer modelling, not measured fact.
Just thought I would enter the fray while I have a moment or two to spare between boss caused whippings to find 1. iron ore mine, 2. uranium mine, 3 platinoid mine, 4 – er copper mine? at $3 US per lb?
Jennifer,
A belief if essentially a fixed pattern of thought which if repeated often enough becomes habitual, and thus an intellectual habit.
A belief might then be considered as a psychological equivalent of the physical addictions of heroin or alcohol.
After all, thinking is but a physio-chemical phenomenon of the human brain, powered by, wait for it, electricity.
Gosh, I managed to get a plug for plasma in this topic. 🙂
My Cosmic Ray Flux post referred to Shaviv and Veizer.
Responses and replies to their paper here:
http://www.sciencebits.com/ClimateDebate
From their paper, climate sensitivity to a doubling of CO2 is 1 to 1.5C, which is also what Physics tells us.
Er no,
Physics cannot, because we have no data.
However others here will, along with their rabbits and other majical things, produce that data.
So we are informed.
Major Bloodnock is then excused from the parade for reasons of excessive Gin consumption.
Argrrhhhhhhhhh ! Bluebottle, are you behind this caper!
Yes,
but I thought it was an anchovie, not a caper!
Heh, excuse me’
I think any position on Global Warming science that claims the Greenhouse Effect is a belief with no experimental evidence or physical basis can be dismissed as crackpot. The radiative properties of gases are completely established, rejection of that is simply a denial of science in general.
Having no plausible alternative after 100 years and mountains of observational and experimental data is not proof of correctness, but it is very suggestive of a theory being “good enough”.
Cody,
The earth has a so called greenhouse effect and it is due to water. CO2’s effect is purely theoretical and what has so far been predicted has not come about observationally, as climate sceptics insolently point out.
Given the debate about CO2 in the climate sceptics discussion group, I would be careful branding the view as crackpot – because one would then be astounded by the sheer number of these crackpots.
The principal component of the greenhouse effect, water, in the form of clouds remains an intractable phenomenon – no one has yet been able to model clouds satisfactorily, for example, but this is probably the most crucial factor of all in climate modelling.
If that cannot be modelled, and it is THE major greenhouse effect, then what use are GCM’s as predictive tools?
>CO2’s effect is purely theoretical and what has so far been predicted has not come about observationally, as climate sceptics insolently point out.
Suggest you look at “Increase in greenhouse forcing
inferred from the outgoing
longwave radiation spectra of
the Earth in 1970 and 1997
John E. Harries, Helen E. Brindley, Pretty J. Sagoo & Richard J. Bantges
Nature 410, 355-357 (2001)”. You are 100% wrong in this statment. The CO2 induced greenhouse effect and its anthropogenic enhancement are 100% obervational facts.
David
“Greenhouse forcing “INFERRED” from the outgoing” etc.
Not observed by inferred and thus not 100% observational facts at all. So maybe I am not 100% wrong after all.
Louis,
read the paper. When done, suggest moving onto the papers below.
David
Radiative forcing – measured at Earth’s surface – corroborate the
increasing greenhouse effect
Rolf Philipona,1 Bruno Du¨rr,1 Christoph Marty,1 Atsumu Ohmura,2 and Martin Wild2
Received 3 October 2003; revised 3 December 2003; accepted 23 December 2003; published 6 February 2004.
Anthropogenic greenhouse forcing and strong water vapor feedback
increase temperature in Europe
Rolf Philipona,1 Bruno Du¨rr,2 Atsumu Ohmura,3 and Christian Ruckstuhl3
Received 25 May 2005; revised 8 July 2005; accepted 17 August 2005; published 8 October 2005.
Greenhouse forcing outweighs decreasing solar radiation driving rapid
temperature rise over land
Rolf Philipona and Bruno Du¨rr
Physikalisch-Meteorologisches Observatorium Davos, World Radiation Center, Davos Dorf, Switzerland
Received 6 July 2004; revised 1 September 2004; accepted 25 October 2004; published 25 November 2004.
I’m very curious as to what the difference is between the reality of radiative forcing for H2O as opposed to CO2. Yes, Louis, anyone who denies that CO2 has a greenhouse effect is a crackpot.
As for its predicted effects have a look here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Climate_Change_Attribution.png
The temperature trend hindcasted over the last century matches observed temperatures very well, and this requires CO2’s radiative forcing.
There is ample room for solar-related impacts. For instance, temperature increased in two roughly-equal tranches, one in each half of the 20th century; but human-caused emissions didn’t really take off until after WW2. IPCC invoked aerosol cooling to explain an obvious lack of warming – when big-time warming should have started immediately after the War. But this explanation only looks plausible at the global scale. Once you do it by hemispheres, you find that 90% of the cooling aerosols were emitted in the Northern Hemisphere, which is the one with warming. When global warming abruptly resumed in 1976/77 – particularly so in the Northern Hemisphere – the prominent global change at that time was the curtailment of cold-water upwelling in the Pacific. This 76/7 climatic regime-change correlates with solar-inertial change, but not with any sudden step in atmospheric CO2 concentration. More upwelling from the mid-40s, less from the mid-70s, and (according to calculated solar-orbital inertial forcing) more upwelling again within a year ot two, is the most recognisable feature of contemporary climate after the 300-year warming trend since the Quiet Sun of the Maunder Minimum. Neither depend on the CO2 concentration increase.
As one of the authors of Shaviv & Vezier, here is my say.
(Incidentally, I tried placing different html tags to create paragraphs, but to no avail… the blog seems to strip them off, at least so it appears in the preview).
* Lets begin with the comment by ABW. Whether one indicator or another has a perfect correlation between global temperature and temperature is rather meaningless. And this is because of two reasons.
First, if cosmic rays affect climate (and given the current evidence [which I extremely briefly summarize below] it does affect), then the temperature should be compared with that flux, not with other proxies of solar activity such as the solar cycle length.
Second, and more importantly, there are climatic effects other than cosmic rays, such as anthropogenic effects (greenhouse gases which warm and aerosols which cool). Many climate skeptic and global warming supporter see things in black and white. it is most likely neither just this nor just that. So correlating the temperature, for example, with one climate driver will never give a perfect correlation.
Over the last 20 years there is a fantastic correlation between low altitude cloud cover and the cosmic ray flux reaching the earth. Moreover, the cloud cover exhibit the same asymmetry between odd and even solar cycles as the cosmic rays do (but no other solar component does [the origin is the polarity of the dipole magnetic field which reverses between odd and even cycles]). You can see this graph as figure 3 in the summary on http://www.sciencebits.com/CosmicRaysClimate . Also, the latitudinal dependence of the relative change in the cloud cover follows the relative change in the change in the ion density (which depends on the geomagnetic latitude).
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-bib_query?bibcode=2004GeoRL..3116109U&db_key=AST&data_type=HTML&format=&high=441a891c5c32159
On longer time scales, there is of course the correlation between ice-age epochs and intrinsic variations in the cosmic rays, which arise from our passages through the milky way’s spiral arm.
( http://www.sciencebits.com/ice-ages )
Last, there is now direct experimental evidence pointing the to role of cosmic rays. It was shown using a cloud chamber which simulated a marine like environment that increasing the ionization rate increased the formation of stable nuclei. Unfortunately, the group hasn’t published yet their results, except in a conference (again, sorry for the long link):
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-bib_query?bibcode=2005AGUFM.A52B..06S&db_key=PHY&data_type=HTML&format=&high=441a891c5c14270
There is more evidence… but this post is too long as it is anyway.
* The second issue was climate Sensitivity.
If you read the IPCC’s scientific report (IPCC = the scientific body behind Kyoto), you will see that Earth climate sensitivity, i.e., the temperature rise which should follow a doubled CO2 is anywhere between 1.5 and 4.5°C. The reason for the large uncertainty is because climate modelers doing numerical simulations get this large range when running different programs. There is a nice nature or science paper by Cess et al. from the late 80’s or early 90’s (don’t remember) which shows that the main difference between the different models is the way the clouds are “prescribed” in the model (small scale physics cannot be really simulated in these models, and is therefore described using empirical recipes).
Next, if you look at the same scientific report, and add up the anthropogenic sources of radiative forcing change, and add the errors in quadrature (as you should if they are independent) then you find that we humans are responsible for an increase of 0.8 +/- 1.3 W/m^2 to the radiative budget. (for comparison, CO2 doubling is almost a 4 W/m^2 change). Note that according to the IPCC report we don’t even know the sign of the anthropogenic contribution!!! This is primarily because of the indirect effect that aerosols have on clouds (e.g., google ship tracks).
Given that we don’t know the sensitivity or even the sign of the anthropogenic effect, the only reason 20th century warming is attributed primarily to GHGs is circumstantial evidence… there is no other suspect to incriminate. But now there is, solar activity through cosmic rays, which is why pro-global warming climatologists are fighting it like hell. Of course, if you don’t know the sensitivity, it is also impossible to know how much the solar/cosmic ray contribution was either.
But there is a way to estimate the sensitivity, compare estimated radiative budget changes to actual temperature changes over different time scales. Once you do so on half a dozen time scales, you consistently find that Earth has a low sensitivity, of typically 1.3°C, which imply that 20th global warming is about 2/3s solar, 1/3 human. And until 2100, if we double the amount of CO2, we will increase the global temperature but about 1°C and Kyoto will be a 0.1-0.2 °C effect
( http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-bib_query?bibcode=2005JGRA..11008105S&db_key=AST&data_type=HTML&format=&high=441a891c5c15644 )
Incidentally, I’m very “green” oriented my self. I’m in favor of using less fossil fuels, but we should do so for the right reasons (pollution, depletion), not the wrong ones. Moreover, if CO2 was really that detrimental, there are other cheeper alternatives (e.g., invest some money in ocean fertilization, on paper, it should cost about 1/100 of Kyoto).
Ah, and besides investing more money in researching “green” alternatives such as wind and solar energy, we should invest money in fusion research. The future is there (clean, dirt cheep fuel and available all the time, unlike wind and solar energies). I grew up in a solar heated home which my mother built. (Even remember taking many temperature measurements as a kid). For that, it was rather effective. But when I tried to estimate how much it would cost me to place solar electricity panels on my roof, I realized that although I save energy, I will never repay the loan to buy them! But this is a different issue altogether.
Colorado state climatologist, Roger Pielke Sr, has calculated ‘What Fraction of Global Warming is Due to the Radiative Forcing of Increased Atmospheric Concentrations of CO2?’
The answer is 26.5%.
http://climatesci.atmos.colostate.edu/2006/04/27/what-fraction-of-global-warming-is-due-to-the-radiative-forcing-of-increased-atmospheric-concentrations-of-co2/
The paper by Rahmstorf et al (2004) in the journal EOS should be viewed in conjuction with the post from Shaviv.
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2004/2004_RahmstorfArcher.pdf
Its conclusion is that there are significant problems with the 66% solar contribution to 20th century warming suggested in the S&V (2003) paper, and hence they ” …conclude that Shaviv and Veizer [2003] provide no cause for revising current estimates of climate sensitivity to CO2.”
Ender, What you said was ‘The time to object to AGW was 20 or 30 years ago when SCIENTISTS fought THE ESTABLISHMENT for acceptance of AGW’ (EMPHASIS added) – in other words, ‘scientists’ believed in AGW, ‘the establishment’ resisted.
This is simply untrue. The communique issued following the Venice Summit meeting of the leaders of the G7 (US, Japan, UK, Germany France, Italy and Canada) on 22-23 June 1980 announced that:
‘Together we intend to double coal production and use by early 1990. We will encourage long-term commitments by coal producers and consumers. It will be necessary to improve infrastructures in both exporting and importing countries, as far as is economically justified, to ensure the required supply and use of coal.’
As I pointed out earlier, President Carter took to Vienna the Global 2000 Report, which said that ‘Present comprehension of long-range climatic phenomena is so limited that scientists have no generally accepted basis for predicting with assurance the magnitudes – or even the directions – of possible changes in the earth’s climate over the next several decades.’ This conclusion was backed up by the survey I’ve quoted.
And the world leaders also had available to them the results of the World Coal Study, an international project involving 80 participants which was coordinated and organised at MIT by Professor Carroll Wilson (who’d also coordinated the study that produced the first CO2 emissions projections 10 years earlier). Among the participants was Professor Wolf Hafele of the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), the research institute sponsored by the world’s leading scientific academies which was later to take the lead in the IPCC’s Special Report on Emissions Scenarios.
A major conclusion of this study was that ‘The present knowledge of possible carbon dioxide effects on climate does not justify delaying the expansion of coal use’ (p. xvii). The body of the Report quoted from the ‘the most authoritative recent statement on the CO2 question, which had been issued by the World Climate Conference in 1979, and concluded:
‘It is generally agreed that the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere has recently been rising at about 0.4 percent per year and that a continuation of that rise could have a warming effect on the atmosphere. But there is still great uncertainty about most other aspects of the global carbon cycle, about other factors affecting climate, and about the effects a global warming might have on man’s activities in different areas of the globe.. We.. believe that the present state of knowledge about CO2 effects on climate does not justify action to limit or reduce the global use of fossil fuels or delay the expansion of coal use even if a mechanism for such concerted actions by all nations were available.’
Fortunately the world leaders did not set up mechanisms to bring about the huge expansion in coal production and use that they planned, and which the World Coal Study was urging upon them. But this was their intention and there would have been a huge acceleration in the rate of growth of CO2 emissions if they had proceeded with it. Yet there was no concerted warning from the scientific community that the major industrialised countries should not embark on such a course, even in 1980 (much less in 1896 when, according to the folklore of the environmentalist movement, Arrhenius is supposed to have ‘warned the world about the greenhouse effect’).
The obvious reason for this is that many scientists believed that the warming effect resulting from a more rapid growth in CO2 concentrations would be offset by an expected natural cooling.
This is not to question that most scientists (the so-called ‘consensus’) now take a different view. But this is a more recently established consensus than many suppose. In my view, this has implications for the way that way that the debate should be being conducted.
Sorry, I should have posted this on the ‘Cooling not warming by 2030: Bob Foster’ thread.
To answer ABW, the paper by Rahmstorf et al. was a simple blind attack on our work. They basically said that _everything_ we did is wrong. There is not even one serious argument in it. Everything is explained in detail in http://www.sciencebits.com/ClimateDebate . If you have any question on any particular point, I will be more than happy to elaborate.
This is contrary to the attack by Royer et al, which did contain an interesting point, which is that the amount of CO2 in the atmopsphere changes the ocean’s pH, and this offsets the oxygen isotope data which was used to reconstruct the temperature. But even once conisdered properly, it didn’t change the bottom line which was that CO2 was not the primary climate driver over the past 550 Million years. It did change our estimate for climate sensitivity. In the S&V paper, it was <1 deg, whereas after the correction it is about 1-1.5.
As to the 2/3s solar 1/3 anthropogenic over the 20th century, this is not from the Shaviv & Veizer paper. That paper did not discuss the 20th century. It is from a newer one in JGR (look the last link in my previous post).
Have a nice weekend.
Ian Castles – “Ender, What you said was ‘The time to object to AGW was 20 or 30 years ago when SCIENTISTS fought THE ESTABLISHMENT for acceptance of AGW’ (EMPHASIS added) – in other words, ‘scientists’ believed in AGW, ‘the establishment’ resisted.”
No – you have completely misunderstood me. Read the timeline again. A group of scientists convinced the scientific establishment through peer reviewed work that AGW was a serious problem and could be supported by observational and experimental evidence.
I’ve just deleted several comments at this thread on the basis that the information was off topic and personal. Please stick to the issue of climate change and avoid “playing the personality”.
>As to the 2/3s solar 1/3 anthropogenic over the 20th century, this is not from the Shaviv & Veizer paper.
Shaviv, the IPCC only links the post 1950 warming to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions because prior to this date the forcing was very small – this reflects not only the marked acceleration in emissions of CO2 but importantly CFC, CH4, and NOx increases which explode after WW2 which for a while were as important as CO2. How do you distribute the 2/3 solar forcing through the century?
I also note (with interest) that the new climate sensitivity you quote “1-1.5” is only just outside of the mainstream concensus, which implies considerable sensitivity to greenhouse gases.
David
PS
Bob your suggestion that global warming is linked to reduced up-welling does not stack up because the flux of energy in the ocean is down. That is the atmosphere is warming the ocean not the other way around.
I apologise for completely misunderstanding you Ender, but I still don’t agree with your argument as now explained.
You say that by ‘scientists’, you meant ‘a GROUP OF scientists’. And that when you said that this group ‘fought the establishment’, you meant that they ‘CONVINCED the SCIENTIFIC establishment that AGW was a serious problem.’
Well, who were these scientists? According to the survey I quoted, the modal group among those who favoured the ‘large global warming scenario’ (assessed probability of 10%) believed that temperatures in the Arctic and Antarctic regions would increase by 3° C in the last quarter of the century (the Antarctic cooled during this period). For the mid-latitudes, the modal group believing in the ‘large global warming scenario’ considered that temperatures would increase by 1.5° C between 1975 and 2000 (about three times as great as the observed increase in surface temperatures that subsequently occurred). But it’s not clear that these scientists believed that temperature increases at the rate of 0.6° – 1.2° per decade were a serious problem. This is from the description of the ‘large global warming scenario’ in the National Defense University study:
‘The increase in temperature was accompanied by a significant increase in the length of the growing season in the higher middle latitudes, as well as by a substantial decrease in the variability from year to year in the length of the growing season. Precipitation levels generally increased, especially in the subtropical and higher middle latitudes.. The warming period also ushered in more favourable climatic conditions in India and other parts of Asia. Monsoon failure was infrequent, especially in northwest India. The increased levels of precipitation also returned the Sahel region to wetter weather conditions’ (Global 2000, vol. 2, p. 64).
The group favouring the ‘moderate global warming scenario’ (25% probability) were the nearest to being correct so far as AVERAGE temperatures were concerned (a predicted increase of 0.4° C in the last quarter of the century), but they too were wildly astray in their assessments of regional change: for example, they expected a faster warming in the Antarctic than in other parts of the Southern hemisphere. And in general this group also expected more favourable climatic conditions by the end of the century, except that ‘Drought conditions again plagued the midlatitude areas of the United States, corroborating the 20- to 22-year drought cycle hypothesis.’
Incidentally, one of the participants in the World Coal Study group that concluded that ‘present knowledge of possible carbon dioxide effects on climate does not justify delaying the expansion of coal use’ was Russell Train, one of the founding directors (and later Chairman and President) of the World Wildlife Fund, a former president of the US Conservation Foundation, the first Chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality and the second administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency. And the principal of the World Coal Study, Carroll Wilson, received a prestigious award at the UN Environmental Programme meeting in Nairobi in 1982. Perhaps there were scientists who objected to the relaxed attitude to the global warming threat of experts such as Russell Train and Carroll Wilson, but I have not found evidence of this.
Statements about what climate scientists believed 20 or 30 years ago should be based on contemporary evidence, not on claims made a quarter of a century later.
The work of Shaviv and Veizer has already been debated online at:
The work of Shaviv and Veizer has already been debated online at:
http://www.pik-potsdam.de/pik_web/news/news/html/discussion.html
Ian – “Well, who were these scientists? ”
Please read this timeline. I have posted it a number of time without much success however maybe this time someone will read it.
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm
The scientists were:
“Around 1938 an English engineer, Guy Stewart Callendar, took up the old idea. An expert on steam technology, Callendar apparently took up meteorology as a hobby to fill his spare time”
“These measurements inspired the theoretical physicist Lewis D. Kaplan to grind through some extensive numerical computations. In 1952, he showed that in the upper atmosphere the saturation of CO2 lines should be weak.”
“In 1955, the chemist Hans Suess reported that he had detected this fossil carbon in the atmosphere.”
“Suess took up the problem in collaboration with Roger Revelle at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. (Some other carbon-14 experts attacked the topic independently, all reaching much the same conclusions.)”
and so on – read the timeline and you will get an idea if the collaboration needed.
Thanks Ender. This discussion began with you saying that ‘The time to object to AGW was 20 or 30 years ago when scientists fought the establishment for acceptance of AGW’.
In response to my questions, you’ve already qualified or amended your use of the words ‘scientists’, ‘fought’ and ‘establishment’. I then asked you “Well, who were these scientists?”
and you’ve told me yet again to read the timeline.
How many times do you want me to read the timeline, and what am I supposed to deduce from it? The advances by Callendar, Kaplan and Suess were made, respectively, 68, 54 and 51 years ago. This doesn’t help to answer my question, which I’ll repeat: who were these scientists who, 20 or 30 years ago, were trying to convince the ‘scientific establishment’ that AGW was a serious problem?
Ender, All of the scenarios in the NDU survey published in 1978 recognised that the carbon content of the atmosphere had been rising and would continue to rise – and that, as a result of the enhanced greenhouse effect, these increasing concentrations would have a warming influence during the remainder of the 20th century.
Even the description of the ‘large global cooling’ scenario was explicit that ‘Although most climatologists had expected a continued increase in carbon dioxide to be reflected in global warming, this warming influence was overwhelmed by the natural cooling of the period.’ This warming influence was welcomed because it would mitigate somehwat the adverse consequences of the predicted natural cooling. Let me quote again from the ‘large global cooling scenario:
‘The large global cooling trend was also reflected in a significant decrease in the length of the growing season in the higher middle latitudes and a substantial increase in the variability in the length of the growing season from year to year.
‘By the year 2000 it was also raining less in the higher middle and subtropical latitudes, although precipitation amounts in the lower middle latitudes changed little or possibly increased slightly.
‘Precipitation also became more variable. The westerlies showed a pronounced shift from the higher middle to lower middle latitudes. This shift brought severe, ‘hit-and-run’ droughts, as well as severe cold spells (including early and late killing frosts) in the lower middle latitudes.
‘The higher middle latitudes, particularly Canada, from which the westerlies and their associated storm tracks were displaced, suffered an increased incidence of long-term drought and winter cold.. The center and intensity of the Asiatic monsoon changed dramatically between the late 1970s and the turn of the century. The frequency of monsoon failure in northwest India increased to such an extent that the last decade of the 20th century bore a resemblance to the period from 1920 to 1925. Droughts were also more frequent in the Sahel region of Africa.’
In 1980, large global cooling was clearly seen as a serious problem – and, as I showed in my last post, large global warming was seen as beneficial on balance. I know of no reason for believing that the ‘scientific establishment’, however defined, were more than proportionately represented in the former camp.
Just having a bit of a check up on some of these references; one of the items raised by Ian Castles was published in the New York Times viz,
++++++
The editorials “Coal as King; Americans as Saudis” and “Looking for a catch in Coal” both propose a return to coal as a primary fuel source by Americans, instead of a continuing dependence on oil. The editorials cite a World Coal Study that shows the low price of coal, $35 for a ton, compared to crude oil, $165 for an equivalent amount. The study found that even after the $25 cost per ton to make coal burning meet 1980 air and water pollution standards, the coal would be considerably cheaper.
“The claim that coal can be used safely gains credence from the support of Russell Train, former head of the Environmental Protection Agency, who participated in the World Coal Study. The idea is also endorsed by current E.P.A. officials
“No one thinks of coal as anything more than a transitional fuel, en route to renewable energy sources. A solar advocate, in fact, might argue that all effort should be concentrated on developing that source more quickly. The World Coal Study estimated that solar energy might meet about 10 percent of the nation’s needs by the year 2000” (The New York Times, May 18, 1980).
The editorialist relies on the evidence found in the World Coal Study to make his or her point, not rhetoric that is negative towards oil-producing nations.
http://www.unc.edu/~wiltshir/coldWar.htm
++++++
The politics is interesting, by both using alternatives to oil and by convincing the Saudis to increase production the market for oil was swamped, prices plummetted with the result that the Soviet Union’s income dried up whilst military expenses escalated and they went belly up.
There are those who have found from experience that long range energy forecasting is a perilous occupation and relying on assumptions that renewable (nirvana techniques) or “soft energy” options are sustainable prove to be false;
http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~vsmil/pdf_pubs/science2000.pdf
The issue of the cost of solar panels is pertinent, recently it was estimated that a setup feeding back into the grid (no batteries) after subsidies would cost $A18K and this setup would supply half to one third of the homes energy requirements.
Peak loads invariably occur early morning (breakfast) and late evening (dinner), times when sunshine is weak. In winter loads are very high and there is no sun to speak of. In summer solar cell generation decreases in high temperatures.
So you still need to have a full non solar source of power. This duplication seems to be an inefficient use of resources.
Ian Castles – “In response to my questions, you’ve already qualified or amended your use of the words ‘scientists’, ‘fought’ and ‘establishment’. I then asked you “Well, who were these scientists?”
and you’ve told me yet again to read the timeline.”
No I said that there was not a consensus at this time one way or the other. As your argument is that scientists at this time were of a consensus that the world was cooling it is incumbant on you to provide the evidence of this consensus. So far you have only provided media reports.
rog – “Peak loads invariably occur early morning (breakfast) and late evening (dinner), times when sunshine is weak. In winter loads are very high and there is no sun to speak of. In summer solar cell generation decreases in high temperatures.”
Do you actually know what you are talking about? Why don’t you look at these graphs. http://www.nemmco.com.au/data/market_data.htm. Early morning demand is non-existant. You are also talking now about a grid where there has been no real energy efficiency implemented. A lot of the demand is at night for hot water where a solar hot water heater would eliminate this demand.
Solar power closly follows the peak. If you have an airconditioner the hottest times are when the sun is shining and the panel are working the best. Also 18K is a bit high – I estimated about 12K for a 1.5kW grid-tie system. Also in the future if you have a plug in hybrid or electric car there is no reason to have battery less system.
Ender, You say that my argument is that ‘scientists at this time [1980] were of a consensus that the world was cooling’; that ‘it is incumbent on [me] to provide the evidence of this consensus; and that ‘so far [I] have only provided media reports.’
As I haven’t said or implied that there was a consensus that the world was cooling around 1980 or would cool by the end of the century, it is not incumbent on me to provide evidence to that effect. I’ve provided abundant evidence from the report of the US National Defence University and the Global 2000 Report to the President of the US that there was no such consensus.
To the best of my knowledge, I haven’t provided ANY media reports on this subject. Please reread my posts.
Thanks for the link Ender, I took a few samples and peak loads summer and winter lie between 1800/2000 hrs (OK, I was a bit wide on breakfast, a shot in the dark)
The 18K was the figure quoted for a 12-panel solar array in Bronte, maybe they are getting ripped off?
http://www.smh.com.au/news/property/power-to-the-people/2006/04/19/1145344121470.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap2
Do you actually know…
Plenty of data on power loss through excessive heat eg;
“All solar panels lose power at higher cell temperatures. This is why most panels are designed for 16.5 to 17.5 volts output at room temperature – when the panel cell temperatures get up to 150 degrees F or so, voltage output can drop as much as 20%”
http://www.windsun.com/tech_tips.htm
1.5KW system = $21,400 ($17,400 with rebate)
http://solaronlineaust.yahoostore.com.au/page/solar_system_pricing.html
“All solar panels lose power at higher cell temperatures. This is why most panels are designed for 16.5 to 17.5 volts output at room temperature – when the panel cell temperatures get up to 150 degrees F or so, voltage output can drop as much as 20%”
That sounded awful optimistic to me. The tempco would have to be ~ -27mV/K to keep it below 20%. The article recommends “Unisolar and the Siemens ST series” panels. I went to the Uni-Solar web site and looked at the data sheets. The panel with the lowest temperature coefficeint was the ECO ES-62T and indicates a tempco of -47mV/K.
http://www.uni-solar.com/uploadedFiles/AA4-3694-01%20ECO%20ES-62T%20Tech%20Data%20Sheet%20English.pdf
This panels output hits about 80% at 95C. At 150C it drops below 65%.
Ender, You claimed that my argument is that scientists in 1980 ‘were of a consensus that the world was cooling.’ As I don’t recall making such an argument or suggesting that there was such a consensus, I asked you to reread my posts. Have you done so, and did you find any support for your claims?
You also said that it was incumbent on me to provide evidence of the alleged consensus, and said that so far I had only provided media reports. I don’t recall providing any media reports on this subject. Did you find any instance of my providing any media report, in the course of re-reading my posts?
If you have made claims about what I have said that aren’t true, I believe that it is incumbent on you to withdraw them.
Ian Castles – “Ender, You claimed that my argument is that scientists in 1980 ‘were of a consensus that the world was cooling.’ ”
I am not really sure what you are saying anymore. Perhaps you should summerise your argument. I was sure that it was the in 1970 or thereabouts scientists said that the world was cooling. Is that correct?
rog – As I recall the last time we talked about solar panels you didn’t want to get into the techicalities. If this is still true I suggest you shutup about the derating of solar panels with temperature. If not then I would be happy to debate this point with you again – this time you might get it.
As for the cost I source my panels from the US where even with GST, money conversion and transport it is still about 40% cheaper. Solar Online are not the cheapest place around.
According to the ‘passionate claim’ introducing this thread, ‘we have no alternative to the enhanced greenhouse effect, we have no alternative theory of atmospheric radiation, we have no explanation of the warming based on physically credible models, and we have no basis to believe the greenhouse effect stopped functioning beyond 280ppm of CO2.’ The ‘sceptics’ are accordingly challenged to produce an alternative theory that explains the observed warming over the past century.
The argument is a powerful one if the prevailing consensus explanation does in fact offer a satisfactory explanation of what has happened. Several contributors have claimed that it does. They point to the conclusion in Meehl et al (2004) that ‘the late-twentieth-century warming can only be reproduced in the model if anthropogenic forcing (dominated by GHGs) is included.’
ABW notes that this has ‘not been disputed in any peer reviewed journal’, and describes the paper as ‘very nice work.’ Coby provides a link to a Wikipedia entry with a graph and a table derived from Meehl et al at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Climate_Change_Attribution.png . These show, prima facie, that ‘The temperature trend hindcasted over the last century matches observed temperatures very well, and this requires CO2’s radiative forcing.’
There is however a problem. According to the models, anthropogenic forcing is the net outcome of a positive forcing resulting from increasing atmospheric concentrations of GHGs and a negative forcing from emissions of sulphate aerosols.
The well-mixed GHGs presumably have a similar warming impact in both hemispheres, whereas the cooling effect of sulphate emissions should be concentrated in the northern hemisphere where 90% of such emissions are generated. This is explained, with illustrative maps, on the climateprediction.net website at http://www.climateprediction.net/science/s-cycle.php . The text states:
‘The regions of high anthropogenic source emissions of sulphur dioxide leads to high concentrations of sulphate aerosol over the northern hemisphere continents. Unlike greenhouse gases, the distribution and concentration of sulphates varies a lot with location, as can be seen by comparing the sulphate concentration over the North Pole with that over North America.’
So if the prevailing explanation of warming is correct, the greater increase in temperature should be in the southern hemisphere. Yet between 1976 and 2000, according to the IPCC, the average decadal rise in the northern hemisphere was 0.24°C per decade, compared with 0.11°C per decade in the southern hemisphere: see Table II.2 at http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/053.htm .
And according to the latest satellite records, as reported at http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/t2lt/tltglhmam_5.2 , the difference between the two hemispheres is even greater. The average decadal rise from 1978 to the present was 0.200°C in the northern hemisphere, but in the southern hemisphere (where the increase should have been GREATER because of the much lower average levels of concentration of sulphate aerosols) the trend rise was 0.059°C per decade.
In the past fortnight, the mystery has deepened. In the wake of the discovery of a major error in one of the files being used in the BBC Climate Change Experiment, it was announced that models had been inputting greatly reduced levels of man-made sulphate emissions throughout their runtime. The consequence was ‘that aerosols responsible for “global dimming” (cooling) are not present in sufficient amounts and models have tended to warm up too quickly.’
The Principal Investigator of climateprediction.net, Myles Allen, said in a message to the participants in the experiment that ‘In essence, what your models have done is show how much the world would have warmed up over the 20th century if it weren’t for the masking effect of global dimming.. ‘ This was illustrated in a chart produced by one of the Oxford University researchers which showed that, for the average of 66 models that had ‘made it to at least 2005’, the global average temperature anomaly in that year was 1.9°C in the simulations, compared with a global average anomaly of only 0.5°C according to the real-world observations estimated by the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia. (The anomalies represent the temperature difference compared with 1941-50).
Thus the simulations suggest that the world would have warmed by no less than 1.9°C in the half-century or so to 2005, had it not been for the masking effect of sulphate aerosols. With these effects taken into account, the observed increase in mean temperature should have been only slightly less than this in the southern hemisphere, but much less in the northern hemisphere where almost all of the sulphate emissions are generated.
Yet in the real world, the opposite has occurred. All of the observations show that the average increase in temperatures was SMALLER in the southern hemisphere.
I don’t conclude that the greenhouse effect stopped functioning at 280 ppm, or that rising atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases don’t contribute to global warming, or that there is no need to be concerned about climate change.
I do conclude that the causes of climate change are not yet adequately understood (and may never be). It is not to the point that ‘sceptics’ haven’t produced an adequate explanation either, or that the Meehl et al paper hasn’t been disputed in any peer reviewed journal.
If the close correspondence between modelled results and observations that holds at the global level falls down at the broadest level of disaggregation (the two hemispheres), the explanatory power of the model must be seriously questioned. I would welcome comments on this heresy.
* David, regarding your questions:
> How do you distribute the 2/3 solar forcing through the century?
The increase in solar activity does a better job in explaining the temperature increase in the first half of the century and a worse job in explaining the temperature increase over the last 25 years, when compared with greenhouse gases. In the future, it is likely that CO2 will play a more important role of course.
> I also note (with interest) that the new climate sensitivity you quote “1-1.5” is only just outside of the mainstream concensus, which implies considerable sensitivity to greenhouse gases.
Yep, the IPCC often quoted range is 1.5-4.5, so at the boundary of concensus… (note that the models used by the IPCC for different scenario predictions have a sensitivity of 2-5, though they don’t say so specifically).
The catch however is different, the doomsday scenarios are based on the upper end of this range, not the lower range.
* Solar Panels / A simple calculation:
According to the references above, a system can be had for 17k aus$ ~ 12k$US. It would give a peak of 1.5kW, or typically 6kWh per day (given typical sunshine availability). I pay here in Israel about 10c (US) per kWh. That is, I would save 219$/year. That is, I need a loan that is less than 1.8% just to repay the system. And even if I did found a 0% loan, it would take 55 years to repay the investment…
Clearly, research to cut down the costs is imperative if this technology is to be of any useful use. (Once it does become realistic, I’ll be the first to install it!)
Nir
Ender, the last time we “talked” about solar panels I made the remark that people just want to turn on a switch and not have to do a university course just to access alternative electric power.
You may or may not be able to buy more cheaply but for the average person a retail outlet that supplies service and a warranty is their only credible option.
Nir Shaviv – “According to the references above, a system can be had for 17k aus$ ~ 12k$US. It would give a peak of 1.5kW, or typically 6kWh per day (given typical sunshine availability). I pay here in Israel about 10c (US) per kWh”
Which means that our electricity is too cheap. We do not pay the full cost of our electricty nor is there any incentive to save as you pay the same for the first 5kW as the last 45kW if you use that much. It would make a great difference if you got say the first 20kWh at 10c per kWh then the second 20kWh at say 15c and the third at 20c. This way the solar plant would be much more economic and would encorage people to save energy.
BTW Perth has a similar climate to Israel and we get 10.5 sun hours in the summer and about 4.5 in the winter. You need to work out the two seperately to get a proper estimation of costs.
rog – you do not need a university course for a grid tie system. It is not more than a solar hot water system as there are no moving parts and the Australian made inverters are extremely reliable. The Australian grid tie inverters by contrast are competively priced and designed for Australia. They are set and forget. If you want batteries and and are prepared to pay abit more sealed AGM are also maintenance free.
All licenses installers include warranty and after sales service as required by their registration.
Ender –
Regarding progressive prices: You are totally correct that smart pricing could encourage saving and using cleaner alternatives. In fact, we have just that when we pay for water. (Water is more scarcer here than energy…) I pay about 1 $US / cu meter, and above a certain amount (which depends on the number of people living in the house) I pay something like 50% more. (Interestingly, this is also the extra cost for desalinating [a current desalination plant sell the water company at 53centsUS/cu meter]).
Sunshine hours – well the 6.5 kWh/day is the average I think for Sydney, which I found somewhere in the references above. Here in Jerusalem, we get an average of 9.5 hrs/day of sun when averaged over the year, so it would be even more than Perth (actually, for the amount of precipitation [700mm/year on my side of Jerusalem] we get awfully a lot of sunshine!). The problem is that the 1.5kW peak is assuming the panels are facing the sun. Since they cannot face it all the time, you lose on that. (In principle, _if_ we had directionally adjusting panels [like a sunflower 😉 ], we could get on average 9.5*1.5 = 14 kWh / day, and then a 4.7 percent loan will already start to save money… assuming the pivoting mechanism doesnt cost money).
Jennifer,
Thank you for quoting my Arrhenius contribution on wiki, I had some strong arguments with William Connolley before it was in this shape.
What you need to know is:
1) that there was no CO2 in the spectra that Arrhenius used
http://home.casema.nl/errenwijlens/co2/langleyrevdraft2.htm
2) the first principles that Arrhenius uses (if correctly applied with modern day spectra) doesn’t bring climate sensitivity any further than 1 K/2xCO2
http://home.casema.nl/errenwijlens/co2/howmuch.htm
3) There are a lot if’s and but’s in the climate models, which have a range of 1-3 K/2xCO2.
http://home.casema.nl/errenwijlens/co2/tcscrichton.htm
The following is the real problem between Arhhenius and the models:
http://www.sciencecartoonsplus.com/miracle.gif
Nir Shiviv – “The problem is that the 1.5kW peak is assuming the panels are facing the sun. Since they cannot face it all the time, you lose on that. (In principle, _if_ we had directionally adjusting panels [like a sunflower 😉 ], we could get on average 9.5*1.5 = 14 kWh / day, and then a 4.7 percent loan will already start to save money… assuming the pivoting mechanism doesnt cost money).”
You can get solar trackers for a reasonable price:
http://www.solenergy.com.au/SolarTrackers.htm
The middle one is about AUD$695 so it is quite cost effective. However the biggest benefit is in summer when you do not really need it. I will be using one when I install my system.
Any way you can email me if you would like any more details – this is getting pretty far off-topic.