Topic: Climate Emergency is already here. How much worse it gets is still up to us (?)

[MHLC]

I'm saying that climate has always changed. Will always change. Additionally humans may be one of the additional inputs to the model with their heavy industry and use of technology to alter the climate. It's likely that in the future that human conflict will occur to alter the model more. But in the scale of the World it's all short term. What affect did World War I have on the climate? What effect did the biggest conflict ever - World War II have on the climate? Did the climate 'recover' or change? What effect did countless nuclear weapons test have upon the climate across the globe?

There are so many inputs. Many known and calculable. Many unknown and either ignored or guessed at or not even ignored - but not known.

Regardless of all the above it's silly to think that the 'progress' (If you would like to call it that) of the Human race will suddenly stop of its own accord. Ironically, the people making the most fuss about the problem are the Western states whose demand for more and more goods has led to countries like China adding again and again to their heavy industry. Is it likely that the demand in the West will suddenly stop? If it does what happens to the workers and people in other areas like China and the like.

Each and every way you would wish to paint it, as time progresses and the population increases then it looks (Barring a miracle) that it's going to be a bad ol' time for everyone.

Am tired and it's late so time for sleep. I agree with plenty of your reasoning above though. I know I've been an bit of an arse in highlighting your jumps from one argument to the next, but we have similar views on human population levels and distribution of resources.

Will reply tomorrow

[Bioluminescence]

I'm saying that climate has always changed. Will always change. Additionally humans may be one of the additional inputs to the model with their heavy industry and use of technology to alter the climate. It's likely that in the future that human conflict will occur to alter the model more. But in the scale of the World it's all short term. What affect did World War I have on the climate? What effect did the biggest conflict ever - World War II have on the climate? Did the climate 'recover' or change? What effect did countless nuclear weapons test have upon the climate across the globe?

You appear to be introducing a false equivalence between a theory that is supported by a large body of converging evidence and hypotheses for which there is little or no evidence. It's not a question of 'humans may be one of the additional inputs to the model' - they are an input and we have direct observational evidence of an enhanced greenhouse effect as a result of fossil fuel burning.

There is no evidence that the world wars had a long-lasting impact on the climate. The climate of the 20th century is well understood, and the long-term trend was dominated by the sun at the beginning of the century and greenhouse gases at the end. The effect of greenhouse gases will last for centuries - this much we know - whereas your idea that wars have a long-lasted impacts on the climate is not corroborated in any way.

There are so many inputs. Many known and calculable. Many unknown and either ignored or guessed at or not even ignored - but not known.

Modelling is not about including everything. It's about getting a good enough picture, using the primary drivers of climate change, to give us a good idea of what to expect. On top of that, predicted outcomes of rising greenhouse gas levels have been and are being observed, and empirical evidence is consistent with what models predict. You forget that climate science is not simply about models - it is primarily based on physical principles which allow scientists to make predictions.

Regardless of all the above it's silly to think that the 'progress' (If you would like to call it that) of the Human race will suddenly stop of its own accord. Ironically, the people making the most fuss about the problem are the Western states whose demand for more and more goods has led to countries like China adding again and again to their heavy industry. Is it likely that the demand in the West will suddenly stop? If it does what happens to the workers and people in other areas like China and the like.

Each and every way you would wish to paint it, as time progresses and the population increases then it looks (Barring a miracle) that it's going to be a bad ol' time for everyone.

In my opinion, the first sentence here is a strawman. People are not saying that progress will stop. But without mitigation and adaptation, we are causing ourselves problems which are preventable.

Yes, we can pretty much expect bad times for one reason or another. But it's also in our power to limit the extent of these bad times by taking appropriate action.

[Roady]

You're right - My point was a general one for the debate at large. I am tickled by this idea that; 'it's all a lefty, pinko-liberal conspiracy to force people to go live in yogurt knitting education camps', or something.


im not joining Yakult

[RojoLeón]

im not joining Yakult

Maybe yogurting there, whether you like it or not!

[The Gulleysucker]

Maybe yogurting there, whether you like it or not!

Yoplait that back nicely then...

[Devon Red]

It's interesting that Andy mentioned war economies. I've heard sustainable development advocates argue that this is exactly the attitude that Western governments should be taking, to view climate change/peak oil as an imminent threat on the scale of a war and drive innovation and investment accordingly. I personally think we would already be seeing steps in this direction if the economy hadn't tanked in 2008. I'm pretty sure that Obama would have done more to invest in renewables and green technologies if he wasn't held back by the economy and a Republican party opposed to any spending.

On Carlos' concerns that we're asking people not to buy cars or scooters; that's not in anyones interest and isn't the mainstream approach in sustainable development. It's more about driving investment in new tech which will make cars more fuel efficient, or searching for new fuels entirely. It's also about encouraging consumers to make greener choices, and persuading governments to put the incentives in place to make these choices more attractive. It's a three pronged approach; persuade businesses that it's in their interests to invest in the R&D, encourage consumers to make ethical choices, and lobby governments to put policies in place to incentivise the last two.

[Bioluminescence]

It's interesting that Andy mentioned war economies. I've heard sustainable development advocates argue that this is exactly the attitude that Western governments should be taking, to view climate change/peak oil as an imminent threat on the scale of a war and drive innovation and investment accordingly. I personally think we would already be seeing steps in this direction if the economy hadn't tanked in 2008. I'm pretty sure that Obama would have done more to invest in renewables and green technologies if he wasn't held back by the economy and a Republican party opposed to any spending.

On Carlos' concerns that we're asking people not to buy cars or scooters; that's not in anyones interest and isn't the mainstream approach in sustainable development. It's more about driving investment in new tech which will make cars more fuel efficient, or searching for new fuels entirely. It's also about encouraging consumers to make greener choices, and persuading governments to put the incentives in place to make these choices more attractive. It's a three pronged approach; persuade businesses that it's in their interests to invest in the R&D, encourage consumers to make ethical choices, and lobby governments to put policies in place to incentivise the last two.

To some extent the US army already is:

A 2010 Defense Department review identified climate change and energy security as "prominent military vulnerabilities," noting that climate change in particular is an "accelerant of instability and conflict." It was the first time the Pentagon addressed climate in a comprehensive planning document.

This video also looks at the link between climate change and national security

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/NfobHy0a9CU" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="bbc_link bbc_flash_disabled new_win">http://www.youtube.com/v/NfobHy0a9CU</a>

[lfcderek]

Been very busy of late and just spotted the thread has gone wild.
Rojo and Bio still talking bollocks – so no change there then. 

This is bad, even by your disingenuous standards Rojo.

Which 'Peer Reviewed' journal published this graph? Even Michael Mann would be embarrassed to put this forward.

The 'Little Ice Age' has gone.
The 'Medieval Warm Period' has gone.
Have I been wrong these last few years?

A number of people have been emphasizing that changes in climate are not new – indeed they are the norm.

Quite true. The temperature of the Earth has remained stable for 4 billion years. It's only the last 14 years that it's changed in any way.

The climate has changed up and down many times before we arrived. It will change up and down many times after we have been well gone.
So - humans are fragile. The climate has changed many times without any human intervention. For billions of years, in fact.

Is it too simplistic of me to butt in here and say i think its scaremongering on a mass scale.

The fact that 'Climate Change' is nothing 'new'. It's been going for billions of years. It's been cooler than it is now. It's been warmer than it is now. When we're gone we know that it'll be cooler than it is now. We know it'll be warmer than it is now.

Trying to pretend that 'Change' is happening has always been ludicrous because the temperate, current climate for the last 10,000 years isn't anything "Special" or "Normal". It's just that the climate has been "About what it is" "Now".

For "Change" to be unusual, it would have had to have been stable forever. It's never been stable. Not ever. It's always gone warmer. It's always gone cooler. Way, way, way before mankind appeared. Catastrophic events have changed the climate and it's always bottomed out. Should a catastrophic event occur today then history shows us that it'll bottom out.

Maybe human activity is changing the CURRENT climate RIGHT NOW. But maybe it isn't. If it is then the push might be to get it back to this artificial normal that just corresponds roughly to human experience of climate - but perhaps that's not possible. It's moved around so much in 4 billion years that 'normal' is just whatever it is right now.

And some, like Rojo, who claim that we have never seen rises like the 20th century - the satanic influence of CO2.

The current situation is different because we know, with a degree of certainty that is so close to absolute that it makes little difference, that the current levels of climate change are accelerated way beyond natural trends. What we then need to do is explain why. The most likely hypothesis, again by a magnitude so large to be close to certainty, is that the greenhouse effect caused by human actions is to blame.

Let's have a quick look in the light of the graph you put up Rojo.

The following was published at the Foresight Institute and I will shamelessly plagiarize it.
http://www.foresight.org/nanodot/?p=3553
J. Storrs Hall had some interesting graphs made from NOAA ice core data
(Alley, R.B. 2000. The Younger Dryas cold interval as viewed from central Greenland. Quaternary Science Reviews 19:213-226.)


We're going to look at the temperature record as read from this central Greenland ice core. It gives us about as close as we can come to a direct, experimental measurement of temperature at that one spot for the past 50,000 years.

So what does it tell us about, say, the past 500 years? (the latter half of Rojo's fantasy)



It's Hockey Stick(ish) !!!!  In fact, the “blade” continues up in the 20th century at least another half a degree.

Have I misjudged you RJ? The graph above does look a little like yours.
But how long is the handle? How unprecedented is the current warming trend?



Rojo, Rojo, Rojo - there was a Medieval Warm Period (in central Greenland at any rate).  But we knew that — that’s when the Vikings were naming Greenland err, well, Greenland. And the following Little Ice Age is what killed them off, and caused widespread crop failures.

But was the MWP itself unusual?



Well, no — over the period of recorded history, the average temperature was about equal to the height of the MWP.  Rises not only as high, but as rapid, as the current hockey stick blade have been the rule, not the exception.



In fact for the entire Holocene — the period over which, by some odd coincidence, humanity developed agriculture and civilization — the temperature has been higher than now, and the trend over the past 4000 years is a marked decline.  From this perspective, it’s the LIA that was unusual, and the current warming trend simply represents a return to the mean.



From the perspective of the Holocene as a whole, our current hockey stick is beginning to look pretty dinky. By far the possibility I would worry about, if I were the worrying sort, would be the return to an ice age — since interglacials, over the past half million years or so, have tended to last only 10,000 years or so.  And Ice ages are not conducive to agriculture.



… and ice ages have a better claim on being the natural state of Earth’s climate than interglacials.  This next graph, for the longest period, we have to go to an Antarctic core (Vostok):



In other words, we’re pretty lucky to be here during this rare, warm period in climate history.  But the broader lesson is, climate doesn’t stand still.  It doesn’t even stay on the relatively constrained range of the last 10,000 years for more than about 10,000 years at a time.

Does this mean that CO2 isn’t a greenhouse gas? No.

Does it mean that CO2 isn’t producing a warming? No.

The Physics of CO2 is straightforward enough – a doubling will give a rise of ~ 1 deg C.

Not the 3.5 deg C that warming alarmists would try to scare us with.

And before Bio trys to muddy the waters with claims that the MWP and LIA  (so outrageously airbrushed out by Rojo) were NH only phenomena – there are a hundred or so papers showing the opposite – see http://www.co2science.org/data/mwp/mwpp.php

[RojoLeón]

Disingenuous, Deggsie?! 

Talking bollocks, Deggsie!!? 

They could be your bywords when discussing this matter - has the shame of being caught fiddling the math last time round, worn off enough to show your dishonest face again?

It is interesting and instructive that you never provide a single shred of evidence yourself. Not one that isn't either so cherry picked as to be deliberate misinformation; or sourced from know paid shills and professional deniers; or from some obscure blog whose writers are not climate scientists (mostly, who disagree with the findings of climate science because it offends their libertarian view point).

Not a climate scientist in sight, when you present your fallacious disinformation, Deggsie. Much bollocks and bullshit though!

Deggsie the disingenuous denier - out to show with his deeds, the true and dishonest face of the 'skeptic' side. 

[SP]

The Physics of CO2 is straightforward enough – a doubling will give a rise of ~ 1 deg C.

This is my favourite line. I thought the only thing everyone in this topic agreed on was the climate was a staggeringly complex system. But now it is simple and the CO2 stuff can be taken in isolation. I thought you would have to model the capacity of carbon sinks, the affect on plant growth and thus atmospheric water levels and cloud cover and their interconnectedness with a myriad of other factors. But that's clearly a waste of effort as it is so simple.

[RojoLeón]

btw: Deggsie

You asked;

Which 'Peer Reviewed' journal published this graph? Even Michael Mann would be embarrassed to put this forward.

Here is the source:

http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/vol4/english/fig9-1b.htm

http://www.ipcc.ch/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intergovernmental_Panel_on_Climate_Change

More leftist conspiracy loons, apparently.

re the graph

Variations of the Earth's surface temperature: years 1000 to 2100. Over the period 1000 to 1860, observations are shown of variations in average surface temperature of the Northern Hemisphere (corresponding data from the Southern Hemisphere not available) constructed from proxy data (tree rings, corals, ice cores, and historical records). The line shows the 50-year average, and the grey region the 95% confidence limit in the annual data. From the years 1860 to 2000, observations are shown of variations of global and annual averaged surface temperature from the instrumental record. The line shows the decadal average. Over the period 2000 to 2100, projections are shown of globally averaged surface temperature for the six illustrative SRES scenarios and IS92a as estimated by a model with average climate sensitivity. The grey region "several models all SRES envelope" shows the range of results from the full range of 35 SRES scenarios in addition to those from a range of models with different climate sensitivities.

Misinformation and LIES!! Deggise! They are coming for your leaf-blower!

[Bioluminescence]

This is my favourite line. I thought the only thing everyone in this topic agreed on was the climate was a staggeringly complex system. But now it is simple and the CO2 stuff can be taken in isolation. I thought you would have to model the capacity of carbon sinks, the affect on plant growth and thus atmospheric water levels and cloud cover and their interconnectedness with a myriad of other factors. But that's clearly a waste of effort as it is so simple.

Aye, and also ignore that your position effectively cannot explain past climate change - the shifts between glacials and interglacials, for example, could simply not have happened with such low climate sensitivity. Just make up an unknown mechanism and state that it can explain those shifts - problem solved!

Then make dodgy statements such as Greenland was green, when the ice sheet that covers about 80% of the island is at least 400,000 years old. On top of that, pretend that Medieval Warm Period is similar to what we are seeing today - which you can easily do if you ignore the fact that the MWP was a regional phenomenon. While some areas where as warm as or warmer than today, other areas were cooler, and the average was similar to that of early to mid-20th century.

Oh, and don't forget to try and discredit those who actually provide accurate scientific information.

[Carlos: Very Kickable]

This is my favourite line. I thought the only thing everyone in this topic agreed on was the climate was a staggeringly complex system. But now it is simple and the CO2 stuff can be taken in isolation. I thought you would have to model the capacity of carbon sinks, the affect on plant growth and thus atmospheric water levels and cloud cover and their interconnectedness with a myriad of other factors. But that's clearly a waste of effort as it is so simple.

You don't understand statistics. Within a chaotic complex system it is impossible to predict an exact outcome. It is not a deterministic system, but it is perfectly possible to model the system and ascertain that there will be a vastly increased probability of extreme weather temperature rising by a degree with every doubling of CO2.

[SP]

That quote is as fabricated as the rest of your posts.

[lfcderek]

"The Physics of CO2 is straightforward enough – a doubling will give a rise of ~ 1 deg C."

This is my favourite line. I thought the only thing everyone in this topic agreed on was the climate was a staggeringly complex system. But now it is simple and the CO2 stuff can be taken in isolation. I thought you would have to model the capacity of carbon sinks, the affect on plant growth and thus atmospheric water levels and cloud cover and their interconnectedness with a myriad of other factors. But that's clearly a waste of effort as it is so simple.

If you care to read the line - it says the PHYSICS of CO2.

i.e. - given an increase in the level of IR what will the response of CO2 molecules be; What will be their absorption rate of such an increase; What will be the subsequent re-radiation; What will that do to the temperature as a result.

Don't profess to be able to do those calcs myself but there seems to be general agreement that the figure that pops out is ~ 1 deg C for a doubling. (unless you know different?)

Climatology then takes over and requires a myriad of responses and feedbacks to calc a NET response.

The IPCC comes out with a NET figure of 3.5 deg C.

I believe that the Magnetic activity of the Sun is the major driver of earth temps (see posts earlier in this thread) and this has led to the over attribution of 20th century rises to CO2 - via the process of 'Missing Variable Bias'.

[Bioluminescence]

"The Physics of CO2 is straightforward enough – a doubling will give a rise of ~ 1 deg C."


If you care to read the line - it says the PHYSICS of CO2.

i.e. - given an increase in the level of IR what will the response of CO2 molecules be; What will be their absorption rate of such an increase; What will be the subsequent re-radiation; What will that do to the temperature as a result.

Don't profess to be able to do those calcs myself but there seems to be general agreement that the figure that pops out is ~ 1 deg C for a doubling. (unless you know different?)

Climatology then takes over and requires a myriad of responses and feedbacks to calc a NET response.

The IPCC comes out with a NET figure of 3.5 deg C.

I believe that the Magnetic activity of the Sun is the major driver of earth temps (see posts earlier in this thread) and this has led to the over attribution of 20th century rises to CO2 - via the process of 'Missing Variable Bias'.

But scientists also understand the physics of those feedbacks, and data show that these feedbacks accompany past climate change.

So we have ice melting in response to warming, decreasing the Earth's albedo and leading to more heat being absorbed. This is already occurring.

A warmer atmosphere can hold more water vapour, and water vapour levels have risen by approximately 4% when averaged globally.

The solubility of CO2 decreases when oceans warm, leading to CO2 being released into the atmosphere and amplifying the warming. Those rises are clearly visible in pales climatic data.

There's a similar effect with methane and permafrost. Again rises are visible in past climate change data.

Changes in vegetation cover, for which we also have evidence, also amplifies change by changing the planet's albedo.

You have to take all these into account when considering the impact of CO2 doubling, and I'm not sure why you think they can just be ignored when the physics is pretty clear. Your idea, on the other hand, is not based on any physics. You have no mechanism, no data and no analysis to support your assertion. You appear to ignore and dismiss large chunks of climate science in favour of an idea for which there is no scientific evidence whatsoever. Double standards, no?

[MHLC]

I believe that the Magnetic activity of the Sun is the major driver of earth temps (see posts earlier in this thread) and this has led to the over attribution of 20th century rises to CO2 - via the process of 'Missing Variable Bias'.

There is some evidence out there that solar irradiation has an affect on earth's climate. It's *briefly* mentioned in the 2007 IPCC report and other papers.

So, a few questions:

1) Why does it have to be one or the other? I.e. solar activity or greenhouse gas emissions? Has a mixture been discounted, or even researched? I don't know so hopefully someone does!
2) Why have so many scientific bodies all publicly stated they find evidence points to man being the primary driver? No conspiracy theories about agendas being driven by the desire for more funding or such, just a solid rational explanation.
3) Given current understanding of the impact of Solar activity relies heavily on climate modelling alongside empirical data, isn't it fair to say your belief would also be affected by the same underlying bias in models?

I'm not trying to dismiss your idea as too much of the science flies right over my head! It's basic common sense though that the Sun and solar cycles impact earth. There seems to be significantly less consensus that it's the major driver for temperatures on earth though. This paper gives some explanation about the uncertainties of the raw data collected by satellites, as well as the modelling used.

[lfcderek]

There is some evidence out there that solar irradiation has an affect on earth's climate. It's *briefly* mentioned in the 2007 IPCC report and other papers.

So, a few questions:

1) Why does it have to be one or the other? I.e. solar activity or greenhouse gas emissions? Has a mixture been discounted, or even researched? I don't know so hopefully someone does!
2) Why have so many scientific bodies all publicly stated they find evidence points to man being the primary driver? No conspiracy theories about agendas being driven by the desire for more funding or such, just a solid rational explanation.
3) Given current understanding of the impact of Solar activity relies heavily on climate modelling alongside empirical data, isn't it fair to say your belief would also be affected by the same underlying bias in models?

I'm not trying to dismiss your idea as too much of the science flies right over my head! It's basic common sense though that the Sun and solar cycles impact earth. There seems to be significantly less consensus that it's the major driver for temperatures on earth though. This paper gives some explanation about the uncertainties of the raw data collected by satellites, as well as the modelling used.

I need to be brief as I'm up to my eyes at the moment (lame excuse for quoting my own previous posts )

1)  It doesn't have to be one or the other! It is both. It's my belief that the Sun exerts twice the effect of CO2 in the 20th century.

2)  I don't know! It seems to me that any reasonable person who looks at the many, many studies of the Sun v Earth Temps which show a tight correlation would, inevitably, come to the conclusion that there is a strong causal relationship in operation.

3)  Here's where I plead time and quote a couple of posts from earlier in the thread.

A later video by Kirkby reporting the results of the first 2 years of his research is very much worth the effort.

Google KIRKBY  CERN 2011

Thank you Bio. You've made a great post if favour of my main point!




The current models can't account for the current (14 years and counting) flat-lining of global temperatures without recourse to another natural forcing – namely the sun.





In the forcings, that all of the climate models use, shown above, total solar irradiance is a small driver. Around 0.12 w/M²) compared to 1.66 w/M² for CO₂.

Natural variation of total solar irradiance is very small – 1-2 % at most.

I am suggesting that the Magnetic activity of the sun is a prime climate forcing.

High sunspot number → less Galactic Cosmic Rays → fewer clouds → higher temps

and vice versa of course

Prof Kirkby at CERN makes the case for an 'exquisite'  correlation better than I


<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/WNph-bX5iWo&amp;feature=player_detailpage" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="bbc_link bbc_flash_disabled new_win">http://www.youtube.com/v/WNph-bX5iWo&amp;feature=player_detailpage</a>




Annual Sunspot Number



Falling sunspot numbers in the 90's (with the suspected multi year lag) would lead flat/falling temps in the 00's.

Do you not read other people's posts? Sceptics agree (what's there to disagree with) that anthropogenic CO₂ increases the earth's temperature - by about 1 ºC for a doubling.

What I, and other sceptics, disagree with is that the temperature rise will be 3-4 ºC for a doubling since this figure comes from large positive feedbacks in the computer models.

 


That's flat. To say that 14 years isn't long enough is a valid position to argue from, but are you really denying that it's flat.

We're making progress. Slow progress, but progress.

Kirkby pointed out that there have been many warm and cold periods throughout the Holocene which are quantitatively similar (indeed larger) than the Current Warm Period. Specifically mentioning the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age.

These 'other' periods could not have been caused by human's CO₂ emissions since they only started post the second world war.

So

Forcings (set A)  ----->  Current Warm Period

Forcings (set B) ------>  Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age etc.


If MWP and LIA are of commensurate size with the CWP

then

Forcings (set A)  must be commensurate with Forcings (set B)

Since (set B) does not contain CO₂ forcing it must have a natural forcing (GCR or something else) which is missing from the computer models tracked by the IPCC.

Hence the computer models are incomplete and will overstate the effect of CO₂.
   

[Bioluminescence]

There is some evidence out there that solar irradiation has an affect on earth's climate. It's *briefly* mentioned in the 2007 IPCC report and other papers.

So, a few questions:

1) Why does it have to be one or the other? I.e. solar activity or greenhouse gas emissions? Has a mixture been discounted, or even researched? I don't know so hopefully someone does!

Scientists have looked at many factors, and have clearly stated that early 20th century warming was primarily caused by the sun. However, solar output for the past few decades has flatlined or even possibly declined, which means it can at best only explain a fraction of recent warming.

2) Why have so many scientific bodies all publicly stated they find evidence points to man being the primary driver? No conspiracy theories about agendas being driven by the desire for more funding or such, just a solid rational explanation.

This is simply based on the fact that all the evidence points towards man-made climate change. Solar variability, volcanic activity and natural internal variability simply can't explain the warming of recent decades. We have direct observational evidence of an enhanced greenhouse effect, with less infrared radiation escaping to space and more longwave radiation returning to the Earth's surface. On top of that, warming from different sources leave different fingerprints, and all the fingerprints point towards an enhanced greenhouse effect.

I see that Derek has ignored all the problems with GCRs when replying to you. There is no trend in GCRs that could explain recent temperature trends. And the link between cloud cover and cosmic rays is yet to be confirmed. Kirkby himself said:

At the moment, it actually says nothing about a possible cosmic-ray effect on clouds and climate, but it's a very important first step

Kirkby's research is good but it currently has very little to add to the debate on climate change - CERN have only been looking at one of the several steps required to show the link between cosmic rays and current climate change. On top of that, the first two steps required for this process, namely that the solar magnetic field must be getting stronger and the number of cosmic rays reaching the Earth must be dropping, are missing - data show that both have been flat over the past 50 years or so. All of this means it is unlikely that GCRs are playing a major role in recent climate change.

It's again a problem of false equivalence - one on hand, we have a theory supported by a large body of converging evidence, on the other there are a few hypotheses with very little evidence supporting them. Not only have people failed to show climate scientists have got it all wrong, they have also failed to provide a competing theory. This is what makes the theory of man-made theory so strong.

[Bioluminescence]

NOAA's latest report on the Arctic has been published.

[Haemoglobin]

I have to say, this is a very absorbing & educational thread debate... but ultimately just so damn circular. Hopefully enough onlookers are quietly learning stuff from it in order to make informed decisions and take their own (futile in isolation perhaps, but obviously still important) individual action, so as not to make it all utterly pointless.

Having read through 9 pages of it though, if I may I'd like to nominate Bioluminescence for RAWK's Patience Of A Fucking Saint 2012 award.
Please keep it up. 

[Bioluminescence]

I have to say, this is a very absorbing & educational thread debate... but ultimately just so damn circular. Hopefully enough onlookers are quietly learning stuff from it in order to make informed decisions and take their own (futile in isolation perhaps, but obviously still important) individual action, so as not to make it all utterly pointless.

Having read through 9 pages of it though, if I may I'd like to nominate Bioluminescence for RAWK's Patience Of A Fucking Saint 2012 award.
Please keep it up. 

A nomination at last Thought I would get one for Most Broken Record or Most Obsessed Poster so this is a pleasant surprise

Glad people are finding it useful

[SP]

A nomination at last Thought I would get one for Most Broken Record or Most Obsessed Poster so this is a pleasant surprise

Glad people are finding it useful

Try reading any Carra or Gerrard topic. You are nowhere near the most obsessed. Unfortunately.

[Carlos: Very Kickable]

I have to say, this is a very absorbing & educational thread debate... but ultimately just so damn circular.

Let's break the circle!

It's really simple - Bioluminescence is convinced that the modelling data predicts doom for us all unless we make various sacrifices.

The skeptical view is that may be correct but in order to make substantial sacrifices we obviously need some proof that systems of this kind can be modelled. Q: How do we know if it can be modelled? A: We should be able to produce accurate long term predictions from the model.

So the question still stands - what system, that is similar to the climate, have we already demonstrated that we can accurately model?

The last time I asked this there was a lengthy silence - how long till I get the "patience of a saint" nomination?

[The Gulleysucker]

.....how long till I get the "patience of a saint" nomination?

Perhaps a Doubting Thomas award is more probable...

[Bioluminescence]

Try reading any Carra or Gerrard topic. You are nowhere near the most obsessed. Unfortunately.

True, maybe the mods should get the award.

Let's break the circle!

It's really simple - Bioluminescence is convinced that the modelling data predicts doom for us all unless we make various sacrifices.

The skeptical view is that may be correct but in order to make substantial sacrifices we obviously need some proof that systems of this kind can be modelled. Q: How do we know if it can be modelled? A: We should be able to produce accurate long term predictions from the model.

So the question still stands - what system, that is similar to the climate, have we already demonstrated that we can accurately model?

The last time I asked this there was a lengthy silence - how long till I get the "patience of a saint" nomination?

Why do you need other models? Hindcasting has shown that models can replicate temperature changes since about 1870, which strongly suggests scientists have got a good understanding of the subject. See this from the IPCC, showing that models including all forcings do a good job of tracking temperatures.

[kennedy81]

True, maybe the mods should get the award.

Why do you need other models? Hindcasting has shown that models can replicate temperature changes since about 1870, which strongly suggests scientists have got a good understanding of the subject. See this from the IPCC, showing that models including all forcings do a good job of tracking temperatures.

a 150 year window?
that's hardly conclusive of anything.
the last ice age was 10,000 years ago.

[RojoLeón]

A nomination at last Thought I would get one for Most Broken Record or Most Obsessed Poster so this is a pleasant surprise

Glad people are finding it useful

Great stuff, Biolu. And always with a sane, rational and polite demeanor. Marvelous to see such detailed and consistently high levels of output from a poster on here.
 

[Bioluminescence]

a 150 year window?
that's hardly conclusive of anything.
the last ice age was 10,000 years ago.

As opposed to the 0-year window shown by contrarians?

It seems to me that climate scientists can never win with some. We have a period with good data, and scientists have replicated temperatures with good accuracy, showing they very likely have a very good understanding of how solar variability, volcanic activity, changes in atmospheric composition and other factors have affected the climate recently. Whereas contrarians have failed to get anywhere near this. Something to ponder perhaps?

[lfcderek]

True, maybe the mods should get the award.

Why do you need other models? Hindcasting has shown that models can replicate temperature changes since about 1870, which strongly suggests scientists have got a good understanding of the subject. See this from the IPCC, showing that models including all forcings do a good job of tracking temperatures.

At Hindcasting Bio.  (Tweak Fiddle - Fiddle Tweak)

When it comes to forecasting ? ? ?



Not so good.





This wasn't in the forecasts either - or did I miss them?

This was from the Mail - a MSM outlet (shite but big circulation!) - Public Opinion will crucify Global Warming in 2015/6 when cycle 24 is approaching the bottom and Global Temps start to Fall.

Doomed, I say, Doomed you are.

Oh Ay, the PDO is on the way down, the NAO is on the way down as well.

Doomed, I say, Doomed you are.

[kennedy81]

As opposed to the 0-year window shown by contrarians?

It seems to me that climate scientists can never win with some. We have a period with good data, and scientists have replicated temperatures with good accuracy, showing they very likely have a very good understanding of how solar variability, volcanic activity, changes in atmospheric composition and other factors have affected the climate recently. Whereas contrarians have failed to get anywhere near this. Something to ponder perhaps?

regarding solar variability, surely scientific records are quite recent?
we've only begun to record solar activity in the past 50 years or so, and solar activity must be one of the biggest factors in all this.

do we really know what the sun was doing 1000 years ago? 100,000 years ago?
I can't help feeling any scientist can really only guess or speculate when it comes to a lot of this stuff, yet many seem quite adamant they know what's going on.
only 3000 years ago, we thought the earth was flat.

also, the fact that there seems to be something of a political divide with regards climate change, would suggest to me that there are more than a few people on either side with a political agenda to push here.

[Bioluminescence]

At Hindcasting Bio.  (Tweak Fiddle - Fiddle Tweak)

When it comes to forecasting ? ? ?

Not so good.


This wasn't in the forecasts either - or did I miss them?

This was from the Mail - a MSM outlet (shite but big circulation!) - Public Opinion will crucify Global Warming in 2015/6 when cycle 24 is approaching the bottom and Global Temps start to Fall.

Doomed, I say, Doomed you are.

Oh Ay, the PDO is on the way down, the NAO is on the way down as well.

Doomed, I say, Doomed you are.

No, Derek, hindcasting in 'we don't have to make assumptions about factors since we have actual measurements and therefore can determine whether our calculations to represent these assumptions are correct'.

I can't believe you've put up the Spencer graph again. You know it is flawed - it uses a short baseline (5 years), lower tropospheric rather than surface temperatures and some unknown calculation to convert the tropospheric temperatures into surface temperatures. In other words, you can't replicate the graph for yourself, and changing the baseline and datasets yields very different results. Tut tut.

As for your general attack on models, again you don't seem to understand what model projections are. Models have to make assumptions because it is impossible to predict the ENSO and solar cycles, for example, or changes in atmospheric composition via greenhouse gas emissions or volcanic eruptions among other factors. We don't even what ENSO has in store for us for next year. You can only evaluate models over the long term, as short-term variability just adds noise and tells us nothing about long-term trends. This is what you get if you remove the short-term variability:



And as for temperatures flatlining, well no, that's incorrect - taking two end points is, I don't know how to put it really - really, really poor. And in any case, heat is still accumulating in the oceans, where over 90% of heat goes and consistent with the observed energy imbalance.

We have a decade dominated by a deep solar minimum, one of the strongest La Niñas on record and aerosols, and still the temperatures are rising. The long-term trend is still up, which is clear if you remove short-term variability from the temperature values.

You got any calculations to support your claims?

[Bioluminescence]

regarding solar variability, surely scientific records are quite recent?
we've only begun to record solar activity in the past 50 years or so, and solar activity must be one of the biggest factors in all this.

do we really know what the sun was doing 1000 years ago? 100,000 years ago?
I can't help feeling any scientist can really only guess or speculate when it comes to a lot of this stuff, yet many seem quite adamant they know what's going on.
only 3000 years ago, we thought the earth was flat.

also, the fact that there seems to be something of a political divide with regards climate change, would suggest to me that there are more than a few people on either side with a political agenda to push here.

Solar records extend further back as scientists use proxies for those periods where we don't have direct observations. As a result, scientists have been able to state with a good degree of certainty that the sun was responsible for early-20th century warming.

Do we need to go so far back to understand what's been going on in the past few decades? There is some uncertainty the further back you go in time, but for recent warming we have direct measurements, and these clearly show that the sun is unlikely to be the main factor driving warming.

When it comes to climate science, do you think we should be looking at politics or the science? There is a political divide, there's no doubt about that, but that divide simply doesn't exist in the scientific community. A couple of papers show that about 97% of climate scientists agree with the statement that the Earth is warming and humans are the main driver. The overwhelming majority (not sure if it's all) of scientific bodies agree with the findings of climate science. This is because there's only one theory that can explain recent warming, we have direct observational evidence with less heat escaping to space and more longwave radiation returning to the Earth's surface, and the fingerprints, such as a cooling effect on the stratosphere (if it was the sun causing the warming, it would would also have a warming effect on the stratosphere), are all consistent with an enhanced greenhouse effect. No other mechanism can explain all these observations. It's not impossible that something else is causing all this, but it's very unlikely and there's no evidence to support this claim. It's a bit more than guesswork from climate scientists - it is all based on physical principles which are well understood.

[SP]

The Mail has zero credibility for any science story. The Mail is responsible for deaths and disabilities with its MMR stories. I cannot understate my contempt for that paper.

[RojoLeón]

The Mail has zero credibility for any science story. The Mail is responsible for deaths and disabilities with its MMR stories. I cannot understate my contempt for that paper.

Is pretty consistent for him to use them for a source. The only people that agree with him, are conspiracy theorists, paid shills for the fossil fuel industries, and right wing hate rags like the Mail.

That he has never uses peer reviewed scientific studies, and only quotes from propagandists and demagogues speaks volume about his position and his own intent.

[MHLC]

The Daily Mail? Has the level of scientific debate dropped so low that a clipped image of a Daily Mail headline is being used? Blimey.

My leaning is towards human driven climate change, but I have an open mind to well sourced alternative evidence. I watched the Prof Kirkby video you recommended and thanks for providing it. CERN is rightly a respected institute. The main point he made right off the bat though was that his experiments are, scientifically, very controversial, offer only questions rather than answers and cannot currently be explained. Nothing wrong with that but even the presenter seemed reticent to make any firm claims.
 

Doomed, I say, Doomed you are.

Oh Ay, the PDO is on the way down, the NAO is on the way down as well.

Doomed, I say, Doomed you are.

I found the above post a big put-off in terms of being open to listening to your future arguments. For someone who has tried to put a scientific case forward you've come across as a bit of a fool.

[lfcderek]

The Mail has zero credibility for any science story. The Mail is responsible for deaths and disabilities with its MMR stories. I cannot understate my contempt for that paper.

The Daily Mail? Has the level of scientific debate dropped so low that a clipped image of a Daily Mail headline is being used? Blimey.
 
I found the above post a big put-off in terms of being open to listening to your future arguments. For someone who has tried to put a scientific case forward you've come across as a bit of a fool.

Christ some of you a sniffy lot. The quote from the Daily Mail (rightly known as the Daily Fail) is the fact that it is the Daily Mail. A MSM outlet with a large circulation. Whatever one's view the rag, it will effect public opinion. Politicians only care about public opinion.

The likely-hood of gaining votes will see the demise of the Global Warming Hysteria.

Me going on to the Wood for Trees site and running this graph from a few pages back



Excellent for getting a scientific point across - but not for emphasizing the political realities.

Edit
Now when the Grauniad puts up a graph like that - it is reality after all - the Global Warming Hiatus really will be over.

2015/16 is my best estimate.

[RojoLeón]

also, the fact that there seems to be something of a political divide with regards climate change, would suggest to me that there are more than a few people on either side with a political agenda to push here.

It appears like there is a political divide because of the way things are reported, and by large circulation rags like the Mail/Telegraph/FoxNews stating that there is a debate.

There isn't an actual debate. The science is clear.



All that is left is disruption tactics - akin to how big tobacco fought the science linking cancer and smoking. And they will lose, like them, one way or another. But as with the tobacco-cancer science PR battle, many people will die due to them sowing distrust and disrupting the natural course of things.

Because, the steps necessary for combating climate change are not bad for the economy: They are only bad for polluting industries and the powerful, rich and influential fossil fuel industries.

If there really was a free market, then it would herald a change in the order of things. Instead, they are clinging on for dear life, and doubling down on the polluting practices and CO2 producing consumption.

I refer you to this article - it goes into much more detail than I have time for. Beautifully written, by the excellent Ms. Kein

http://www.thenation.com/article/164497/capitalism-vs-climate

It provides an insight to who the 'skeptic' side really are - they are shills and industry PR. And crackpot conspiracy theorists.



Even as a lay person, with no scientific training: Parse out the logic from the bullshit


 

[RojoLeón]

Christ some of you a sniffy lot.

We are sniffy due to the reduced air quality brought on by the practices of your pals in the fossil fuel industries 

[Carlos: Very Kickable]

Why do you need other models?

Thanks - the answer's a no then. Again any (unbiased) reader can see the truth for themselves.