This is just one of dozens of responses to common climate change denial arguments, which can all be found at How to Talk to a Climate Sceptic.
Objection:
The apparent rise of global average temperatures is actually an illusion due to the urbanization of land around weather stations, the Urban Heat Island effect.
Answer:
Urban Heat Island Effect has been examined quite thoroughly and simply found to have a negligible effect on temperature trends. Real Climate has a detailed discussion of this here. What's more, NASA GISS takes explicit steps in their analysis to remove any such spurious signal by normalizing urban station data trends to the surrounding rural stations. It is a real phenomenon, but it is one climate scientists are well aware of and have taken any required steps to remove its influence from the raw data.
But heavy duty data analysis and statistical processing aside, a little common sense and a couple of pertinent images should put this idea to bed. Here is an image, taken from Astronomy Picture of the Day (a wonderful site, by the way), of the surface of the earth. It is a composite of hundreds of satellite images all taken at night. (The large version is well worth the download time!)
Aside from being very beautiful, it is a perfect indicator of urbanization on earth. As you can see, the greatest urbanization is over the continental United States, Europe, India, Japan, Eastern China and generally coastal South America.
This next image was taken from NASA GISS. It is a global surface temperature anomaly map which shows warming (and infrequently, cooling) by region.
Look at North America, look at Europe, at Asia, Australia, Africa and the Poles and compare them to the urbanization in the image from APOD. There is quite simply no way to discern any correlation whatsoever between urbanization and warming. If the UHI effect were the cause of warming in the globally averaged record, we would see it in this map.
The claim that Global Warming is an artefact of Urban Heat Island Effect is simply an artefact of the Urban Myth Effect.
Addendum: Wikipedia has a very good article on this subject. Among all the interesting details it mentions a few papers that directly discuss efforts to identify and quantify UHI influences on the global temperature trend including this one which would be a good one to cite:
A 2003 paper ("Assessment of urban versus rural in situ surface temperatures in the contiguous United States: No difference found"; J climate; Peterson; 2003) indicates that the effects of the urban heat island may have been overstated, finding that "Contrary to generally accepted wisdom, no statistically significant impact of urbanization could be found in annual temperatures." This was done by using satellite-based night-light detection of urban areas, and more thorough homogenisation of the time series (with corrections, for example, for the tendency of surrounding rural stations to be slightly higher, and thus cooler, than urban areas). As the paper says, if its conclusion is accepted, then it is necessary to "unravel the mystery of how a global temperature time series created partly from urban in situ stations could show no contamination from urban warming." The main conclusion is that micro- and local-scale impacts dominate the meso-scale impact of the urban heat island: many sections of towns may be warmer than rural sites, but meteorological observations are likely to be made in park "cool islands."
If necessary, be sure to refer to all the other ways we know that the global warming trend is not an artefact of anything, it is real.
This is just one of dozens of responses to common climate change denial arguments, which can all be found at How to Talk to a Climate Sceptic.
"Warming Due to Urban Heat Island Effect" was first published here, where you can still find the original comment thread. This updated version is also posted on the Grist website, where additional comments can be found, though the author, Coby Beck, does not monitor or respond there.
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I feel embarrassed for the people who are still buying into this absurd "man-made" global warming propaganda. The evidence disproving it is abundant and far stronger than the "evidence" "proving" people are causing global warming. Do yourself a big favor before you continue to stick your foot in your mouth. Go to "Co2 science dot org".
Ed, I am familiar with CO2 science. How about sharing something specific that you find particularily convincing.
Ed, you can keep your embarrassment for yourself mate, you're gonna need it in truck loads as the coming years unfold and you re-read the pathetic, naive, uneducated posts, typified by the one above, that lie in your past. Do yourself a favour man and at least try to understand how science works. As Coby has requested (and you've notably failed to acknowldege), point out where the CO2 science is in error and only you, in your undoubted genius, have spotted it..... Didn't think so.
While you're at it, take a break from Real Climate. They've descended into attacking anyone who disagrees with a barrage of pithy comments rather than data sets and validated reconstructions, and more often their links (like the UHI links) don't go anywhere useful, like when they link to Nature, and the link tells you you can't read the article.
Whups -
[Whups comment was deleted because he insists on posting under different pseudonyms. I might have left it if I had seen Adam's response first!]
That paper is indeed valid. Unfortunately for you, it doesn't say what you think it says. I was going to respond to your comment, but it's been done before, and more thoroughly than I would have, so I'll just link instead. Using that exact paper:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Does-Urban-Heat-Island-effect-add-to-th…
or a reporter who contacted one of the authors:
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/36231/title/Dont_blame_the_c…
Your comment shows the dangers of taking a single sentence fragment from the abstract out of context and using that as the basis of your argument.
And before you reference the Watts Up With That post, he's committing two major errors.
1) The same as you, taking a single statement from the abstract out of context.
2) Comparing apples to oranges in his chart. He compares the temperature in two separate locations as if anyone cares what the difference in actual temperature is between those two locations. We're interested in the trend at each location, NOT the actual difference between the two (it's well established and accounted for that it's a bit warmer in the city center as opposed to the outskirts).
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/03/18/finally-an-honest-quantification-…
I can see it now;
"Climate change causing urban areas to warm faster than rural areas and even faster than models predicted"
I can see it now;
"Climate change causing urban areas to warm faster than rural areas and even faster than models predicted"
Here is the same story from WUWT;
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/03/18/finally-an-honest-quantification-…
Coby is suggest you go talk to your buddies at real climate because the british seem to think UHI effect is the real deal.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/5303682/British-cities-could…
By the way here is an article about the US stations, which clearly shows the telegraph to be right and the real climate boys to be wrong.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/05/10/a-report-on-the-surfacestations-p…
Now only a denier would dispute this data from WUWT do you agree?
Hi Crakar,
This is a straw man. No one says that there is no UHI effect. The mistake is assuming that the temperature analyses do not take that effect into account and that the global temperature trend is an artifact of this effect.
I should write a post on that...oh wait. Here we are.
Coby,
CRU does not account for UHI, they even say so. They do say that the confidence interval is increased instead. GISS attemps to adjust for UHI but that source is suspect due to lack of quality control and rewriting the historical data. RSS and UAH do not have UHI issues, but then they both show less of a warming trend than GISS or CRU.
The recent satellite based studes have shown that UHI is much larger that previous studies. The Northern China study shows that UHI does have a regional impact, despite what Jones and CRU say. So while not all warming is due to UHI, the surface based temperature records have been shown that some portion of the reported warming can be attributed to UHI.
Turns out that RC was wrong, who knew.
Coby, it is hard to have a discussion if your going to quit posting. Now I am sure it is not so, but it appears that when you start loosing the debate you quit responding. I figure that you just do not have the time being busy with work and a new baby, congrantulations on that by the way. (Really puts things in prespective when you hold them the first time. For me it was like a punch in the gut to realize I was responsible for another life.) Anyway, your the one that posted the talking points on how to talk to us poor skeptics. If you cannot defend them on your own site, then why not pull down the ones it can be shown are not correct?
Vernon,
Could you provide a citation for CRU and UHI please, I would like to read that for myself.
Would you mind addressing for me my point about the lack of any correlation to higher anomalies and urbanization as demonstrated by the two images that are (...oops are not! but will be again shortly) in the above post. I have never had any septic address that point and I think it is rather a telling one.
Coby,
Try reading Jones et. al. (1990), Assessment of urbanization effects in time series of surface air temperature over land
Which is the basis for not adjusting for UHI effect but rather CRU just increases the error range. However, Ren et. al. (2008) Urbanization Effects on Observed Surface Air Temperature Trends in North China
So now that I have shown where CRU does not adjust for UHI because Jones says there is none. I have also shown where regions (Northern China) were off by 0.4C from what CRU showed. Your strawman argument is a red herring. The UHI introduces a bias which does not show as huge anomalies but continuous warming as shown in the China study. There were not higher anomalies but the unadjusted UHI introduced 61% more warming that was real. (1.16 vs 0.72)
Ok, now that I have addressed your strawman and presented the studies that you should have been aware of, Jone (1990) at least. Are you going to retract your position and admit that current studies show that some of the surface temperature trend is an artifact of UHI?
Or how about some more studies? Zhang et. al. (2008,) The relationship between remotely-sensed surface parameters and urban heat islands in the USA
Or yet some more studies Gutierrez, et. al. (2008) Urban Heat Island effect from Satellite Remote Sensing and Land Surface Modeling
This is significant because in the past it was expected that the UHI would show more at night, which turns out to not be true.
Your point to be addressed was a nice misdirection but an anomaly is the difference between current temperature and the 1951-1980 (GISS) or 1961-1990 (CRU) mean for a station. What is really cool about this is both picked baselines that were during the mid 20th century cooling. The bias for UHI for older cities would have been in place well before instrumented measurements started. So Coby, it is the bias that UHI adds, not sudden high anomalies.
Just to strengthen Vernon's post
http://static.cbslocal.com/station/wbz/wbz/2009/may/SurfaceStations.pdf
This study shows just how bad the US station data is.
I am a data analyst in the health field, and I would call myself critical of the data thus far on CO2 causing global warming. I have not read anything on the AGW side which really convinces me that an increase in CO2 increases heat. They appear very strongly correlated, but the assertion of increased temperature causing CO2 seems stronger to me (at least pre-industrial). I have a real question! The satellite image of deviance from mean temperature appears to suggest strong heating in general globally. But satellite heat imagery is something fairly recent. What does a temperature mean look like for this data? Where did it come from? When I see that Africa is a lot hotter, but is that compared to the mean of that area? or the overall global mean temperature?
After reading the surfacestation project, it does seem that the data is not as strong as it should be. While satellite imagery appears convincing, it is merely a comparison to a relatively small time (if I am reading the imagery right, it's not my field - Sorry!).
Also, with the hockey stick data from tree rings getting called to question about interesting selective data, it calls into question all data. Data integrity is my main job, and it is a VERY big deal. Thanks for any help you can give me on the subject.
This is established physics for 150 years now. I rather doubt that the fact that a "data analyst in the health field" doesn't understand the basic physics behind CO2 warming matters for much.
The fact that water, when saturated with a gas, outgasses when warmed is also basic science, and is something every climate scientist on the planet understands, and is something we know has happened in the past.
However, the oceans aren't saturated with CO2. We're pouring CO2 from fossil fuels in the air and a large portion is currently being *absorbed* by the oceans. We know that not just from basic physical theory, but through measurements. Observations. Data.
This is something else every climate scientist on the planet knows.
Eventually the oceans will reach equilibrium with CO2 in the atmosphere (assuming that at some point we stop increasing its concentration) and at that point, further warming will cause more CO2 to be outgassed.
Not a good thing.
This is something else every climate scientist on the planet knows.
In a sense, we're banking close to 1/2 of the CO2 from burning fossil fuels in the ocean. At some point, the "bank" will start giving us our CO2 back, in the atmosphere, causing further warming.
This is something else every climate scientist on the planet knows.
Various teams have worked hard for over a decade to compensate for problems in the raw data. The surface stations hasn't really told us anything new. They've attempted to inventory every weather site in the US through photography but haven't made any attempt whatsoever to actually quantify problems.
On the other hand, the scientists - unlike the amateur photographers - have worked hard to quantify the problems and correct them working exclusively with the data itself (rather than go visit individual stations, which they know vary in quality).
There are all sorts of analytical and statistical methods available for correcting problems in datasets.
The guy running the surface stations project - anthony watts - is a clown. He has a high school education and his only "science" background comes from reading weather forecasts on radio and tv stations.
If you really think this guy has a better handle on the data than the professionals who spend their lives working with it, after having gotten the appropriate educational background in statistics and data analysis in a PhD program, you're nuts.
Have you stopped beating your wife yet? The fact that your treatment of your wife is in question calls into question your treatment of your kids and co-workers.
Dogaza,
Here is something that every climate scientist on the planet knows but obviously you dont.
http://www.tech-know.eu/NISubmission/pdf/NI_Climate_Submission.pdf
Pay particular attention to the second graph, now before you start frothing at the mouth have a close look at the source of the graph.
Quote from article
"Secondly and of equal importance is the fact that human activities constitute about 3% of the yearly emissions
total. More than 98% of this total is absorbed within a year (thus contradicting the long residence claim).
Since 1.5% is left over, which is recorded as the
increase of atmospheric CO2, the human contribution is only 3% of this 1.5%. This means that, as a maximum, only some
14 ppmv (parts per million by volume) of the increased
levels of carbon dioxide can be ascribed to human activities, as indicated by figures
provided by the US DOE and IPCC:"
So lets take another look at what you posted shall we?
First we have this "However, the oceans aren't saturated with CO2. We're pouring CO2 from fossil fuels in the air and a large portion is currently being *absorbed* by the oceans. We know that not just from basic physical theory, but through measurements. Observations. Data."
Well as the graph shows through observations and data the oceans absorb 770,000 metric tonnes a year of CO2 which comes from natural sources and only 11,400 from fossil fuels etc. As there is no difference in both types of CO2 (as they all, in the end come from the same place) should we not be worried about the 770,000 metric tonnes also?
You then go on to say "Eventually the oceans will reach equilibrium with CO2 in the atmosphere (assuming that at some point we stop increasing its concentration) and at that point, further warming will cause more CO2 to be outgassed."
The graph shows 11,700 tonnes a year is not absorbed, so lets say we stopped emitting CO2 tomorrow and after a short period of time natural emissions are all there is (lets say 770,000 tonnes worth) and the oceans reach equilibrium.
As CO2 has a very short residence time in the atmosphere as shown by the IPCC graph the CO2 emitted from natural sources will be absorbed quite quickly and therefore in theory CO2 will not rise so where does this extra warming come from?
Crakar, honestly you really lack common sense. Humanity is pumping just the right amount of CO2 into the air to account for the additional rise but you say that rise is actually from a coincidental magical unknown source and our CO2 just disappears.
This non-human CO2 rise is a standard and can be found here:
http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2006/03/natural-emissions-dwarf-h…
Additional discussion of that inanity is here:
http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2009/06/revisiting_the_source_of_…
Can you tell us about the author of that PDF and why you rely on him? I have not looked but anyone who thoughtfully denies that humans are causing the CO2 to rise is a crackpot.
I stopped reading crakar's link at this pack of lies: "The UN's IPCC bases its dire forecasts on nothing more than computer models that regard the earth as a flat disk bathed in a constant 24 hour haze of sunlight, without north and south poles, without clouds and without any relationship to the real planet we live on."
The author is one Hans Schreuder, his website is I love my carbon dioxide dot com (no, really!)
A quick trawl of ISI WoS under the search terms "Analytical Chemistry" and "Chemistry" in the topic & the author "Schreuder H" gave me plenty of links to one Herman Schreuder but not Hans so I can't make any comment on his publishing history (if he has one). No Schreuder H has published anything with climate as a topic.
His website also neglects to mention his publication record, but does mention that he is a member of MENSA. This I find a little strange.
Coby:
How does it feel to be "loosing the debate"?
I hate loosing. The worst is when I loose and then my wife thinks I'm a looser and then I have to worry about the her and the mailman. Its enough to make me loose my mind.
Skip
#16 dhogaza >
This is established physics for 150 years now. I rather doubt that the fact that a "data analyst in the health field" doesn't understand the basic physics behind CO2 warming matters for much.
===============
No, it precisely is what matters! In a free land he may make a choice! You can not force him because you know you are right.
Paul,
I have a real question! The satellite image of deviance from mean temperature appears to suggest strong heating in general globally. But satellite heat imagery is something fairly recent. What does a temperature mean look like for this data? Where did it come from? When I see that Africa is a lot hotter, but is that compared to the mean of that area? or the overall global mean temperature?
The temperature anomaly map above compares the temperature in each location to the baseline average for that location. One way you can tell it is local is how red the Arctic region is -- obviously it's not hotter there, the temps have just risen more. For satellites I believe the baseline period is 1979-1999, so an anomaly of zero would be the average temp of that time period. You will sometimes also see monthly anomaly data -- in that case the September anomaly would be the differnce between the current September averagel and the average of all the Septembers in the baseline period. Make sense?
Note that the surface temperature data sets have different baselines than the satellite data sets, so you can't directly compare their numbers as Anthony Watts sometimes does. You can compare their trend slopes, though.
PaulInMI,
Calm down, no one is forcing anyone to do anything. You can believe fairies cause all climate change if you really want, you can even start to claim it or post comments on any blog that will allow it (Coby probably will) telling everyone what you believe, that doesn't mean no one should tell you you're wrong, people are free to tell other people they're wrong and have no idea what they're talking about in a free country.
I'm not speaking of his freedom to believe that, say, the earth his flat. By "not matters much", I mean that no one in NASA is going to pay any attention to him screaming "the earth is flat" as they prepare to launch their next satellite in orbit. His stupid opinion won't matter much because people will ignore it.
Nor will his ignorance of well-established physics regarding CO2's interaction with long-wave infrared radiation. The fact that a ""data analyst in the health field" is ignorant and publicizes that ignorance on a blog isn't going to change the way physicists think about or do physics.
EricL
"Calm down, no one is forcing anyone to do anything. You can believe fairies cause all climate change if you really want, you can even start to claim it or post comments on any blog that will allow it (Coby probably will) telling everyone what you believe, that doesn't mean no one should tell you you're wrong, people are free to tell other people they're wrong and have no idea what they're talking about in a free country."
Exactly, thanks for making the same point and see response to dhogaza.[Not sure where the climate fairies came from?]
dhogaza,
"I'm not speaking of his freedom to believe that, say, the earth his flat. By "not matters much",> . . . . The fact that a "data analyst in the health field" is ignorant and publicizes that ignorance on a blog isn't going to change the way physicists think about or do physics."
Also, exactly, but this is the type of person who can discuss the issue and influence his circle of acquaintances on the subject. He can be convinced because he is able to understand. Most, pathetically, don't have a clue. ie, their eyes glaze over when the subject is discussed.
Ran across this site on a search for UHI information.
Excuse me but your anomaly map shows warm anomalies for virtually all urban areas. As an anomaly is increase over a base period, we would also need to know history before the base period to fully evaluate the warming over the history of the particular area.
If the globe is actually cooling then the anomalies would represent a strong UHI!!!
Thank God the satellite record also shows warming, eh?
I think climate change is reality, CO2 is causing global warming, solution is an investment in aneutronic fusion as an alternative energy source.
Can somebody here tell me where I can get a full set of GISS station data? I went to the site, but all I see is retrieval by individual station.
@Murf:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/station_data/station_list.txt
shows all stations GISTEMP uses. I don't think it is possible to download all stations. NASA gets the data directly from GHCN and does not archive the raw data (since it is already archived elsewhere).
Can some AGW proponents debunk the recent Russian IEA claims published by Kommersant and referred to here http://en.rian.ru/papers/20091216/157260660.html. There's also this where the professor running one of the Lapland's measurement stations seems to think there's no significant warming and no significant changes in nature in the arctic region that the anomaly map above shows as the most affected. Can somebody comment?
"Can some AGW proponents debunk the recent Russian IEA claims published by Kommersant" - E. Atheist.
The IEA is just a Russian version of those US think tanks, and we know the amount of nonsense they spew forth. Summed up rather succinctly here:
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/russian_analysis_confirms_20th…
"There's also this where the professor running one of the Lapland's measurement stations seems to think there's no significant warming and no significant changes in nature in the arctic region that the anomaly map above shows as the most affected." - E. Athiest.
Yeah, the old denier routine, ten of thousands of scientists say one thing, "but look here!, I've found one guy who disagrees!". Regardless of what that "Professor" may think, there are many plants and animals in the Siberian region that disagree:
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/tandf/tres/2004/00000025/00000012…
There are numerous studies verifying changes in phenology due to warming in the high Arctic region. The "Professor" is yet another denier talking out of his butt.
Thanks for the clarification and link.
While I don't think lack of significant changes in nature in Lapland as observed by one professor means much in determining whether there is AGW, it is not fair to label people like that and it doesn't make your argument more convincing. I also suspect that there aren't tens of thousands of scientists saying there are significant changes in the nature of the Arctic region or more specifically Lapland (which was what the professor was talking about), so I suspect your claim was an exaggeration. It would've been more persuasive just to point at the study indicating there are changes.
After posting the above I found criticism of the said professor that refer to another study that shows changes in the movements of some migratory birds. I suppose it then boils down to what one considers significant. But this is of course a local issue and not global.
"While I don't think lack of significant changes in nature in Lapland as observed by one professor means much in determining whether there is AGW, it is not fair to label people like that and it doesn't make your argument more convincing." - E. Atheist.
It's not an argument, it's fact that phenological changes are occurring all over the globe, including the Arctic. If that professor is claiming otherwise he's talking out of his butt. Seriously why would anyone raise that issue unless their intent was to sow uncertainty and doubt?. Sounds similar to the world glacier ice mass balance, over 95% are in rapid retreat, citing a handful that aren't is meaningless and suggestive of someone being deceitful.
Got a link to what the professor actually claims, just in case he's been misquoted?.
" I also suspect that there aren't tens of thousands of scientists saying there are significant changes in the nature of the Arctic region or more specifically Lapland (which was what the professor was talking about), so I suspect your claim was an exaggeration" - E. Atheist
The comment was alluding to AGW, but do you think the climate science community would have problems with the many peer reviewed studies that demonstrate phenology changes in the high Arctic region?. I don't. Not to mention, the very obvious decline in Arctic summer sea ice extent, acceleration in Greenland ice mass loss, and other Arctic temperature data that do show warming.
"It would've been more persuasive just to point at the study indicating there are changes." - E. Atheist.
Perhaps. Each to their own.
If I might interrupt. I'm fairly new guy to the corner for the Global Warming and such, trying to piece out what is and what isn't and I have tried to keep an open mind on both sides.
While my point here doesn't in no way try to refute the evidence shown in here, I really can't help to ask, I like any other guy in the middle want to simply know in order to gain at least half the amount of knoledge people have shown around this site.
Wouldn't Siberia on that picture support the Urban Heat Island Effect in some extent as the exta amount of energy and heat in order to keep the local populace from freezing? Just a though.
"Wouldn't Siberia on that picture support the Urban Heat Island Effect in some extent as the exta amount of energy and heat in order to keep the local populace from freezing? Just a though." - Riku
Perhaps you can explain further?. I don't get what you are suggesting.
Riku, there are not enough people in Siberia to create an Urban Heat Island. While it is true that people who live in high cold latitudes sometimes use more direct heating than people in temperate zones, they mostly use better insulation. The UHI effect is more about large areas of dark pavement, dark roofs, lots of combustion engines, etc. So New York creates a UHI. Murmansk not so much.
Very well, thanks GFW! I can take your word for it, that sounds logical.
Remember also that UHI requires something to block the nighttime radiation back into space. So you get hot during the day, even if no one lived in the city, from all the dark surfaces. At night, the dark surfaces are radiating off heat but the night sky is blocked by the artificial structures. Heat instead of going out into space gets reabsorbed by an adjacent structure, reradiates, etc. It's like a hall of mirrors, never letting the light out (well, not never).
My question is how much of the UHI effect is driven by actual human activity, heating, burning, etc, and how much is obscuring the night sky.
Can anyone explain this?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/21/fudged-fevers-in-the-frozen-north/
crakar
Do you NEVER do ANY research??????
To answer your question: yes!
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/updates/200708.html
Mandas,
Do you actually think that your link can explain what was done in here?
Is this the best you can do? We have a rural station in the middle of nowhere which has been systematically adjusted down by almost a degree and then ratcheted back up at a great rate of knots by a degree. Does this look like GISS know what they are doing? Are these adjustments based on solid science? After all Mandas you are a man of science arent you?
You continually prattle on about doing research and the merits of peer review but when it is pointed out that the IPCC is riddled with non peer reviewed science you simply ignore it. "the science is settled, the science is settled"
When you are shown peer reviewed studies that run counternance to your views you blame flaws in the peer review process, of course this must cast a shadow of doubt over ALL peer reveiwed studies but this concept is beyond your grasp. You are not a man of science Mandas you are a man of faith.
So i will ask you a simple question to prove my point, we know for a FACT that CO2 levels are increasing, we know for a FACT that atmospheric temps are not rising, we know for a FACT that ocean temps have cooled slightly (ARGO data) and we know for a FACT that sea levels which have been rising since before the dawn of man are slowing down. So my question to you Mandas is WHERE IS ALL THE HEAT FROM AGW?
Now i can think of two possible answers here:
A, You could produce peer reviewed studies which show empirical evidence that can explain this (a man of science)
B, You could produce an IPCC computer model showing another busted and failed prediction followed by your usual variation of my username, rumours of my allegience to secret societies and the now common place statement "do your research" (a man of faith)
Now i believe this will leave you in a bit of a pickle Mandas so i will give you a third option so you can have an honourable way out:
C, here you simply say "buggar if i know" of course there is a price to pay with option C as by doing this you will have to admit to yourself that the theory of AGW is going pear shaped right before your very eyes. This may shatter your faith to its very core so i doubt you will do it.
My guess is you will go for option B.
crakar
Been sending emails again? Looks like your work:
http://www.countercurrents.org/hamilton220210.htm
But onto your "simple question:
"...we know for a FACT that CO2 levels are increasing..."
Yes - can't disagree with that.
"...we know for a FACT that atmospheric temps are not rising..."
Wrong. "...The lower figure is the ECMWF analysis which uses all available observations, including satellite and weather balloon records, synthesised in a physically- and meteorologically-consistent way, and the upper figure represents the same period from our HadCRUT record. The ECMWF analysis shows that in data-sparse regions such as Russia, Africa and Canada, warming over land is more extreme than in regions sampled by HadCRUT. If we take this into account, the last decade shows a global-mean trend of 0.1 °C to 0.2 °C per decade....(HADCRUT: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2009/pr20091218b.html)
"...we know for a FACT that ocean temps have cooled slightly (ARGO data)..."
Wrong. Veracity of the Argo data has been discussed extensively. Why do you continue to ignore facts?
"...we know for a FACT that sea levels which have been rising since before the dawn of man are slowing down..."
Wrong. Pretty confident that sea levels haven't been rising since before the dawn of man - so much so I won't even provide a link for that statement of the obvious. Are you given over to hyperbole as much as you are given over to bullshit?
So in your 'simple question', there are 3 out of 4 false assumptions, not 'facts' as you assert. If you were one of my (former) students, I would have given you an 'F'. You couldn't even get your assumption about what my answer would be correct.
Just as i suspected, you begin with some lame attack then roll straight into dismissing our only accurate sea temp data and continue straight on with "but it is warming even the highly professional CRU team say it is".
In the end you chose option B, you are a man of faith. In case you are not aware i am an athiest and dont waste my time conversing with religious nutters like your self.
Good luck to you and your goats.
crakar asked:
You can find your answer here if you read all the cited papers. It is mostly in the deep ocean.
http://climateprogress.org/2009/10/10/skeptical-science-global-warming-…
crakar
Enough is enough. You are a fucking grade A moron. You never listen. You never read. You make shit up and all you do is plagiarise (yeah I can spell it and I know what it means) your opinions from denialist websites.
It's not me that is dismissing the Argo data set - it is Argo themselves. Far from 'being our only accurate sea temp data', this is what Argo says about their own information (and I have provided this TWICE before, but you obviously didn't want to read it because it conflicted with your twisted delusional psychosis):
"...The global Argo dataset is not yet long enough to observe global change signals. Seasonal and interannual variability dominate the present 6-year globally-averaged time series. Sparse global sampling during 2004-2005 can lead to substantial differences in statistical analyses of ocean temperature and trend (or steric sea level and its trend, e.g. Leuliette and Miller, 2009). Analyses of decadal changes presently focus on comparison of Argo to sparse and sometimes inaccurate historical data. Argo's greatest contributions to observing the global oceans are still in the future, but its global span is clearly transforming the capability to observe climate-related changes.
(from: http://www.argo.ucsd.edu/Uses_of_Argo_Data.html )
Further, there is not one reputable climatologist in the world who would agree with your ludicrous claim that there has been no warming recently. I gave you the quote about temperature increases over the last decade, I gave you the source and a link to the source, but still you deny it. There is obviously nothing that will convince you that you are wrong, because when it is shown to you, you close your eyes and stick your fingers in your ears.
I used to think you were a useful devil's advocate who made us think about our views. Now I now you are nothing of the sort. All you do is post idiotic claim after idiotic claim. We shoot every single one of them down, but still you think you know better. You have no grip on reality. You know nothing about science, and quiet frankly, you contribute to global warming by breathing out CO2. Please stop.
Ian,
I assume you or somebody else knows exactly how much heat is generated in the deep ocean from volcanic activity so that you can subtract this figure from the total ocean heat content so then you can calculate exacly how much heat has been absorbed from AGW?
What am i saying we have absolutely no idea how many volcanos or how much heat is generated this way, therefore any predictions of ocean heat caused by AGW is nothing more than a guess. This is not science Ian this is quackery with a dash of religious zeal.
It also looks like we have gone to our fall back position of "if the data does not fit the models then adjust the data". Some people must live in a very sad world were their perception of reality is constantly challenged.
crakar if you knew how to do research for your self you would be able to answer your question.
Why do you always have difficulty finding the real science papers which support AGW but find hundreds of junk science papers which try to disprove it?
You are a pathetic troll.
So in other words Ian you have absolutely no idea how much ocean heat is generated by undersea volcanos do you?
I do. A bit less than 0.1 W/m2 average.
But here's the important point - that's pretty darn constant over millennial time scales. So that number was already part of the the heat balance equation. It's only a *change* to that number that can matter.
Meanwhile, the estimated radiative imbalance is currently 0.9 W/m2. It was zero a few decades ago. That's a significant change, mostly brought about by an increase in greenhouse insulation.
Enough is enough [Crakar]. You are a fucking grade A moron.
Mandas, you canât just snap like that. We need you to hold it together mate because you are one of the strongest contributors to this forum. As much as it might sting I also suggest an apology is in order. You probably won't get one from Crakar for some of his earlier abuse but apologies are not trades.
Can we all agree what is and is not appropriate to this forum? If I were to say, just *hypothetically* now,
"Hey, SBN! I'd tell you to stick it in a sheep's ass but your dick's in the way!",
that that is absolutely *never* appropriate--no matter how stupid, how block-headed, not matter how stubborn someone appears to be?
You never listen. You never read. You make shit up and all you do is plagiarise (yeah I can spell it and I know what it means) your opinions from denialist websites.
There is obviously nothing that will convince you that you are wrong, because when it is shown to you, you close your eyes and stick your fingers in your ears.
Of course! Thatâs the whole point! Its the denier narrative! This is what Iâve been driving at all these months. The denier strategy ultimately boils down to, âSomewhere there is an argument or a factoid that proves me right about my position.â So you get guys like Crakar who will cite anythingâwhether they read it or notâthat someone *told* them proves their position. When you respond that it does nothing of the sort, they canât see it. A Crakar regards refutation as unfairâsort of like kicking the stone in curling. To paraphrase one of the recurring templates:
Crakar: âBehold! Here is research/a scientistâs statement disproving global warming! [insert link here]â
Mandas/Marco/Dghogaza/DFW/Coby, etc: âUh, no. This is what your research/that scientist really says [insert truth here].â
Crakar: âOh! Now youâre saying you *donât* like research! Hypocrites!â
He canât see it. Heâll *never* see it.
You cannot be mad at Crakar any more than you can be mad at a cat for not being able to fix the toaster. Heâll *never* understand. Heâll *never get it. For me this long ago stopped being about refuting someone like Crakar. Its about consistently responding to him in a manner that lurkers will note. There are millions of Crakarâs out there, but this blog is blessed in that it has its own resident Crakar trolling the web for bullshit and then shamelessly laying it at our feet for vivisection. Heâs an assetâa treasure evenânot a nuisance.
I used to think you were a useful devil's advocate who made us think about our views. Now I now you are nothing of the sort. All you do is post idiotic claim after idiotic claim. We shoot every single one of them down, but still you think you know better.
But Mandas that is the other, main *point*. Crakar *is* a useful devilâs advocate. The types of arguments that mainstream deniers or fence-sitters will note are *always* going to be âidioticâ. Do you think the average jackoff wonders about the difference, if any, between a âforcingâ and a âsensitivityâ or the dispute between Richard Lindzen and mainstream climatologists regarding the exact behavior of atmospheric CO2?
But 20th century temperature fluctuations, Antarctic ice sheets, MWP, all that bullshitâall of itâthatâs the kind of thing people care about, because like me, a soft scientist, they can *understand it*. Thatâs where Crakar is in a way the most important contributor to this blog. If there is an âidiotic claimâ to be made, he willâproudly, impenitently, and repeatedlyâ*make* it.
I totally understand your frustration because I used to feel it (âWhat the f--- is up with this guy? Is he real?â); but when you see it in the right light you understand that Crakar is providing a an invaluable service.
You have no grip on reality. You know nothing about science . . .
Also of course! Thatâs the whole point. Heâll never get a âgripâ; heâll never âknowâ anything about scienceâat least as it relates to climate change.
I actually donât think Crakar is dumb. Iâm really convinced its something elseâsome sort of intractable blockage: (âI must be right about AGW . . . somehow. There is some argument that proves me right . . . somewhere . . . made by someone.â) Frankly its fascinating to watch it in action; one can track this process of narrative construction *in print*--an otherwise good and decent man laying before the world the inner mechanics of his tortured views of climate science. Its enough to make me want to read up on the psychological literature on âmemesâ.
If those of us on the AGW side of the debate ever do convince a politically effectual majority to act on climate change, Crakar and his ilk might be remembered as the unwitting heroes of the movement, but not a Grade A morons.
@crakar24: You are wrong on several counts. We do not know for a fact that atmospheric temps are not rising. At best, what you can say is that there's no statistically significant trend starting a number of years back. That's not the same thing. Tamino's analogy is a good one.
Sea levels have not been rising since before the dawn of man. They rise and fall with temperature. SLR since the last glacial maximum is 120 meters, but it had been stable for several thousand years prior to the 1800s.
There's no evidence that SLR is slowing down. Quite the contrary, it accelerates.
skip
I can see where you are coming from re my recent tirade, and you do have a point - but I will only accept it to a limited degree. Yes, maybe it was a little over the top for me to call crakar a 'fucking grade A moron', and it is probably inapropriate on this forum. And yes, maybe an apology is in order - so I unreservedly apologise to coby for using his forum in that manner.
Coby - I apologise for my use of inappropriate language. It was wrong, and I will attempt not to do so again.
However, if you are suggesting I should apologise to crakar, then that is another thing altogether. In recent days, in one memorable post, crakar called me a 'fucking dickhead' (along with a number of other abusive terms), and no apology or otherwise was offered. Despite this abuse, I have continued to respond to his posts by offering the science and logical refutations. But to be frank I have reached a tipping point with regard to his nonsense. There are only so many times you can calmly and rationally point the facts out, and have them either ignored or blatantly denied, before you have to say enough. I don't think crakar genuinely thinks about subtle differences in CO2 vs H2O forcing, or any other subtleties in climate science for that matter. If he did, he would read up on the science to discover what real researchers say and know about the subject. All crakar does is trawl around the deniersphere and cut and paste the latest gibberish from people who have no idea what they are talking about. Crakar's opinions on such issues are not his own.
You state that you believe crakar is not a moron, but continues to be a useful 'devil's advocate'. Sorry, while I used to agree with you, I have come to change my opinion. If crakar made even the slightest attempt to actually read our responses to his cut and pastes, and then discuss the issue and raise further questions, I would agree with you. But he doesn't. His most common response is to completely ignores our responses, and then he raises the same issue again days later. Or he just flat out rejects the science through personal attacks on the integrity of the author or organisation, or attempts to discredit the whole concept of science and / or peer review or something similar. He never reads the science or the source material re refer him to. so our efforts might make us smarter, but he just doesn't want to know. He has made a decision to remain ignorant - and that's pretty dumb (ie moronic) in my eyes.
I am like you I guess. I am a 'soft scientist', working with wildlife and most of my work is administrative and managerial, and I don't get out into the field to do the 'hard science' as much as I would like. And here's an admission - I don't even have a Phd, just two Masters (so feel free to ignore what I say in future if you think I am no longer credible). But I can get mad and frustrated by people like crakar, because I think your analogy about the cat and the toaster is flawed. A cat will never be able to fix a toaster, but a human being should be capable of understanding basic science, and he/she should be able to accept the obvious and change his/her views when they are clearly shown to be wrong.
I didn't always accept climate change. I have re-read some of my work from a previous life/career (I will tell you about it if you really want to know), and in a 1998 presentation I suggested that the case for climate change was far from convincing. Then in a 2001 presentation, I had accepted climate change but had doubts as to the cause. It wasn't until 2003 that I accepted that it was anthropogenic. My conversion came because I read extensively on the issue, and had people show me the facts - just like we are doing for crakar. It's about time he started to accept the truth too.
"Yes, maybe it was a little over the top for me to call crakar a 'fucking grade A moron'" - Mandas.
Over the top?, perhaps, but very accurate nonetheless.
Re post 51, put your hand up if you can fix a toaster.....well guess what i can fix a toaster, of course my skills are not limited to this but none the less i can fix one. I will assume that no one else here can so i see myself as the authority when it comes to fixing toasters.
There are two reasons why a cat could never fix a toaster a, cats are stupid and b, they dont have thumbs so how could they pick up the screw driver?
Mandas,
Would you like me to apologies for calling you a dickhead? I dont mind as i dont really think you are one. I suffer from a character flaw called "thick skinned" which means people can call me crackpot, crackhead or cranker (my favourite thanks Joseph)and i dont care, people can question which planet i come from (planet crackar etc) and i dont care, you can even claim i have an affiliation with a secret society that still believes the earth is flat and i dont care. I dont care because none of this changes the facts and to honest some of the things you guys say is quite funny and i do admit to having a little chuckle every now and then.
This is however a character flaw because i must be vigilant that i do not assume that other people can accept such language as i do. Sometimes in the case of Mandas and earlier with Skip i used langauge that would not bother me but could in fact bother them so as i said i need to be vigilant.
So Mandas for what it is worth i am sorry for calling you a dickhead, dont worry about saying sorry for calling me a moron i know you just replied in kind and like i said it does not worry me.
Skip,
A devils advocate? I never really saw myself as being one but maybe you are right. I just dont accept the theory as you and others do and i suppose could not understand how people could view the same things and come up with a different answer.
So the point of posting here was to question/discover why our views are/where different. The answers i have recieved have not convinced me to change my mind hence i am a denier :-)) but if that makes me a devils advocate then so be it.
On the other hand in some respects Mandas does have a point if i was a devils advocate it would have ended some time ago as i have grown tired of taking on all of you at once and in the end not one thing has changed. In fact i would say that not much here is actually debated for example i used to post links on "its the sun" thread and a vast majority of those were ignored, the ones that were not did not amount to much debate because the IPCC said TSi does little and nothing else counts or words to that effect.
I get the impression that everything that is said is percieved as an attempt to discredit the theory but most of the time (at least early on) that was not the case. It seems easier for you guys to shut down the debate with "but the IPCC said so" rather than have an open mind for just a moment.
So in the end you dont bother trying you just post stuff to highlight the latest crap (panchuri and his funding for TERI, hide the decline etc etc) so as i said in this respect Mandas may have a point.
It is not my intent to hone my sarcasm skills on blogs like this but in the end sometimes that is what you end up doing which is why i had a little rest there for a while only to be ridiculed for that of course and then ridiculed upon my return as well. What else would you expect.
Skip,
Nope you got me wrong again, i will send you an email which will detail my views on a range of sujects related to GW which should help clear up my narrative for you. You can then post it here for all to see.
The answers i have recieved have not convinced me to change my mind hence i am a denier :-)).
I repeat my question from earlier, and explored in Narratives in greater detail in my last post there (you never responded:
What *would* convince you?
This is *not* a request for you to âprove AGW.â
This is *not* a request for you to âprove a negative.â
This is *not* a request for a list of what you perceive to be arguments *against* AGW.
This *is* a request for an answer to the question that we all know you *cannot* answerâwhat *would* it take to convince you? What would have to be true, that you think is not true now, for you to believe AGW is true?
Crakar, I asked this question several times since I first joined the forum. You have dodged me from the beginning. Since Coby revisited the question a couple of weeks ago, and I followed it up, you have dodged it again.
Thus:
I am, in front of everyone, publicly predicting that you will *again* dodge this question.
Repeat, Crakar: I am, in front of everyone, publicly predicting that you will *again* dodge this question.
Now here is a golden chance to light me up, buddy. I am making a bold (no pun) prediction that you can refute just be engaging in a behavior. You donât have to fact check or research or decipher a logical inference. All you have to do is *answer*.
But you wonât. Why? Because again, *nothing* could convince you, and somewhere, you know that. Your âdenialâ is dogma, religion, faith. It is not because you
have grown tired of taking on all of you at once and in the end not one thing has changed.
Because for you, Crakar, it *canât*.
In fact i would say that not much here is actually debated for example i used to post links on "its the sun" thread and a vast majority of those were ignored, the ones that were not did not amount to much debate because the IPCC said TSi does little and nothing else counts or words to that effect.
Pure delusion.
I would ask you to revisit your exchanges on that thread but you will not. Your misunderstanding of Svensmark and Lu was obvious. You cited things you had not read, you did not even have the simplest understanding of scientific skepticism. Your statement is yet another attempt at narrative construction. Somehow you think that by writing what you just did you somehow make it true. Its pure narratives, Crakar (even if you donât understand what Iâm saying.)
. . . It seems easier for you guys to shut down the debate with "but the IPCC said so" rather than have an open mind for just a moment.
Pure fantasy. I defy you to locate a single instance where someone said that or words to that effect. People here have *defended* the IPCC, but its not that same as mindless acceptance or reference. Again, youâre attempting to weave a narrative for yourself in which you are the open-minded free thinker and your adversaries here are just IPCC dupes. Its complete fantasy.
It is not my intent to hone my sarcasm skills on blogs like this but in the end sometimes that is what you end up doing which is why i had a little rest there for a while only to be ridiculed for that of course and then ridiculed upon my return as well.
This is another recurring themeâthe Crakar-as-victim narrative. I have on more than one occasion seen you respond to refutation with accusations of insult. I donât know that you know the difference between the two.
Nope you got me wrong again, i will send you an email which will detail my views on a range of sujects related to GW which should help clear up my narrative for you.
You are welcome to send these materials via email or otherwise but, again, your *views* are *not* the same as a narrative *about* differing views. I have explained this again and again, and the fact that you cannot/will not see the distinction is all-revealing.
You can then post it here for all to see.
Why use me as a middle man? But as you wish.
Which is, of course, a rhetorical question.
Come on, crakar24, at least say something like I'll believe in AGW as soon as the Earth catches on fire.
Skip, you have already asked me "what will it take for me to believe" and i have answered it, why ask me again.
I also thought that my narrative would be based on my views, therefore if you had knowledge of my views you could write a more accurate narrative. I did not think you could write an accurate narrative based on mere assumptions?
Something more related to the topic. Is it true that the weather station data used by GISS NOAA etc has reduced from 6000 in 1970 to a mere 1500 today. If true would this decline in data used increase or decrease the accuracy of the global temps produced by these organisations.
crakar, your question is answered here. I won't spoil the surprise you will get when you check out the link. Please report back and tell us what you found.
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2010/02/25/false-claims-proven-false/
Repeat, Crakar: I am, in front of everyone, publicly predicting that you will *again* dodge this question.
Now here is a golden chance to light me up, buddy . . . All you have to do is *answer*. -- Skip
you have already asked me "what will it take for me to believe" and i have answered it, why ask me again. -- Crakar
Because of course you have *never* answered and you know it.
Ok folks, so was my prediction vindicated?
Its pretty remarkable in a debate when you tell the disputant that you are predicting his next course of action, and all he as to do to refute you is not do it. Our dear Crakar nonetheless acted as predicted. Amazing.
. . .your *views* are *not* the same as a narrative *about* differing views. I have explained this again and again, and the fact that you cannot/will not see the distinction is all-revealing. --Skip
I also thought that my narrative would be based on my views --Crakar
I'll give you this mate, at least you're consistent.
But to employ a Dhogazism:
I am speechless.
Even better, post over there, and tell tamino he is wrong.
And don't forget to show your work.
(popcorn. butter. enjoyment)
A couple of church notices first.
There are a couple of very happy Canadians here at work this morning, something to do with ice hockey, i really dont know what all the fuss is about. One of them has a sister that writes for the Vancouver Sun, anyone from Vancouver that knows a Darah Hansen?
Second and this one is for Skip, the Australian cricket team (now thats a sport worth talking about) recently arrived in New Zealand. Upon their arrival the Oz coach was interviewed by a female reporter. The coach said and i quote "we have not had much SEX over the last couple of tours", he quickly corrected himself by saying "not much SUCCESS" but it was too late the female reporter responded by saying "we have planty of sheep here for you".
Thats a tragic but true story.
Ian,
thanks for the link to Tamino, i had a look and whilst he forgot to show his calculations i will assume he is correct and will not cry "but its not peer reviewed" like others. One thing he does not do is divulge how many stations there were in 1992 compared to the present. I would be interested to see his calculations from 1970 and compare them to present.
The reason why i asked the question is because is anyone here familiar with Niquist theorem:
http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Nyquist%20theorem
Basically the way it works is that if you want to accurately reproduce a signal or data then you need to sample that data at least twice the rate as the example shows. Therefore the higher the sample rate the higher the data accuracy, the lower the sample rate the lower the accuracy.
Now i have not plucked this out of my arse i do this stuff for a living, so if we call the global temp as our data and weather stations as our samples then surely the more stations we have the more accurate the data.
As for Tamino i have no doubts he is very clever and his statistical calculations are very good but surely the more samples of the temp we take must lead to a more accurate global temp than simply calculated it were no samples exist?
This is a special post to my dear friend Skip,
I take it that when you asked me this very same question not too long ago you did not like my response? You do remember asking me dont you?
I listed 4 reasons why i do not believe the same as you, therefore if these 4 reasons are proven correct strengthening AGW theory through empirical evidence then i will join the club but until then i will remain skeptical.
You could dig up my 4 reasons and show me the empirical evidence that proves me wrong in an attempt to make a believer out of me if you like or you can continue to bathe in your own percieved vindication, its up to you.
"your *views* are *not* the same as a narrative *about* differing views" I am a little confused here.
I thought if someone has a certain view on things then that would shape their narrative. Maybe you can clarify this some more for me.
'If the UHI effect were the cause of warming in the globally averaged record, we would see it in this map.'
Wait, I thought that NASA/GISS analysis took care of the UHI. If their analysis accounts for some spurious warming in cities (ie subtracting by some factor based on location) how would we see the effect UHI in that map? It should be gone because that map is not raw data, right?
I am a little confused here
Yeah I know. Its ok. We'll be doing this forever so I guess its best if we both learn patience.
I thought if someone has a certain view on things then that would shape their narrative.
Only indirectly and incompletely. You first have to understand what a narrative is.
It is *not* the sum of one's views.
It is the internal--often subconscious--story that someone tells himself when interpreting himself in relation to the world around him. You have to get your mind around that idea first.
You could dig up my 4 reasons and show me the empirical evidence that proves me wrong in an attempt to make a believer out of me if you like . . .
Either through deliberate self-deception or honest error your mind is impervious to this simple mundane, distinction.
The "reasons" you harp on we can talk about later, but they are *not* an answer to the question.
Giving me the reasons you do *not* believe in AGW is *not* the same as explaining what it would take to make you believe. It is *not* the same.
To answer the question, you have to start a sentence with words to the following effect,
"I, Crakar, would believe AGW was true if the following things could be demonstrated . . . (1), (2), (3), etc." You will not respond though, I know. We both know why. Because once you commit you're pinned.
Crakar, you will again, not answer the question. We both know it; everybody knows it.
or you can continue to bathe in your own percieved vindication, its up to you.
The water is tepid; the bath not refreshing. I would be more cleansed with a straightforward answer.
A guy goes away for a few days and comes back and nothing has changed!!!
crakar - I must apologise. re your conversation with skip, I can't recall (it must be alzheimers) the 4 reasons you DON'T accept AGW. So, perhaps just to humour me, could you post them again?
I assume that each of those reasons can be demonstrated to be true - otherwise it would be pointless using them as grounds for a belief system. I also assume that they can be demonstratably linked to the subject of climate change - otherwise they would be irrelevant. So please, just to keep us in the loop, could you refresh our memories?
crakar
I read your post on the Nyquist theorem, but am completely at a loss as to why it is relevant. I can understand why it is necessary when sampling analogue waveforms, but cannot for the life of me understand why it is necessary when sampling datasests with discrete points. Could you elaborate please?
Nothing worse than a luke warm bath is there.
To be honest Skip i am still struggling with the understanding of what answers you require i can assure you at this point in time it is a "honest error".
If i started a sentence with "I, Crakar.... i would repeat the same 4 reasons as i have done previously, but that is obviously not answering your question sufficiently is it.
Maybe you could make a statement along the lines of "I, Skip, would reject AGW as true if the following things could be demonstrated.....etc."
This would give me more of an idea of how to address your question.
Crakar24
and those four reasons are.......??????????
Hello Mandas how are you,
The 4 points i mentioned are,
CO2 lags not leads,
the missing hot spot,
lack of evidence that supports +ve feed back of namely WV (aside from models of course) in light of the fact that the lack of warming is based on weather etc
and CO2 saturation, ie at which point does CO2 become non effective (i have not seen much evidence on this either way to be honest).
I think that was it. So fire away Mandas.
In regards to your second question re niquist theorem, if we want to measure the GATA accurately then how many or what number of weather stations would be the minimum required to measure this down to 3 decimal places?
If you have 6000 stations spread around the world and then reduced this number to about 1500 then would this increase or dcrease the accuracy of the GATA.
If we have two stations 1200 k's apart with a station in between we can measure the temp at these 3 stations now if we remove the middle station from the data set we now do not know what the temp was in the middle but we can extrapolate it. So we can come up with a figure via extrapolation but we do not know what the temp was.
In effect what we have done is we have reduced the number of samples havent we. In reality there are stations many K's apart so there is a lot of extrapolation. Fot example i do not believe there is a station in Bolivia but yet we can claim there is one by extrapolation. The nearest stations to Bolivia are the Amazon and the Peruvian coast.
I don't want to steal skip's thunder, but I thought I would give crakar the benefit of my position on climate change - it might even give some guidance in answering skip's VERY simple request that crakar is making concerted, evasive attempts NOT to answer.
So here goes:
I, mandas (pseudonym only), would reject AGW if ANY ONE of the following could be demonstrated to be false:
1 - That CO2 allows light to pass through unabsorbed (ie is transparent), but absorbs long wave radiation (ie heat).
2 - That increasing the percentage concentration of CO2 in a gaseous mixture (ie the Earth's atmosphere) results in an increase in the absorbtion of long wave radiation.
3 - That there has been an increase in the amount of CO2 in the Earth's atmosphere over the past 100 years.
4 - That the increase in CO2 in the atmosphere is primarily anthropogenic.
See how simple that is crakar. Your turn.
Seeing as i am the resident devils advocate i will quickly address Mandas 4 points.
1, This is an indisputable point, CO2 absorbs LWR, it is also an indisputable point that CO2 alone will not increase the temps to rise at an alarming rate as the effects of CO2 are logrythmic. You need to expand on this point by saying i wholly and souly believe in the untestable, unverifiable computer model predictions of alarmism.
2, As per response 1
3, Yes i agree it would appear as this is the case
4, Again i think we all agree that some portion of atmospheric CO2 is from man.
Its funny how not one point,not one offered by Mandas could be considered as empirical evidence in any way shape or form. In other words he cannot provide any evidence so he simply believes. This is the fundemental difference between us.
@crakar: Nonsense. Logarithmic doesn't automatically mean it's "not alarming." It depends on what the rise is like for a doubling of CO2.
What would you consider empirical evidence? For example, if I were to show that CO2 fluctuations are associated with temperature fluctuations in a significant way, with temperature clearly lagging CO2, would that be sufficient or not?
Crakar:
Your question is quite fair, and as I indicated a while ago, I do have my answer. It is an armchair generalization of Mandas's.:
"I, Skip would disbelieve that AGW is real and/or menacing if
(1) A scientific consensus among the *trained* emerged which overthrows the current understanding of the effects of atmospheric C02 (i.e. that it absorbs solar radiation and heats the atmosphere).
(2) A scientific consensus among the *trained* emerged which discovers previously unforseen negative feed backs in future climate models that nix CO2's understood impacts even if hypothetical (1) above does not occur. (For example, increased snow on ground cover causes more light reflected back to space or WHATEVER . . .that might be a dumb example but it was just for illustrative purposes.
(3) A scientific consensus among the *trained* emerged which stipulates the presence of a previously-not-understood mechanism which provides a more robust explanation for observed long-term global warming than the current, broadly accepted one (anthropogenic CO2).
(4) God appears in a burning bush and sets me straight.
With the exception of (4), all of these provide the bases by which my position could be *falsified*. There are a million potential cans of worms here but I want to stay focused. Now, Crakar, it is quite easy to follow this model in articulating what would suffice for *you* to be convinced AGW is true. You could take your four arguments against you listed above and just reword but in the process I reckon you're going to realize something very discomfiting.
Its funny how not one point,not one offered by Mandas could be considered as empirical evidence in any way shape or form. In other words he cannot provide any evidence so he simply believes. This is the fundemental difference between us.
This statement reveals how stunningly confused you are, Crakar. And yes it must be sincere confusion because you would not have made this error deliberately because its just plain embarrassing.
The distinction we're trying to get you to grasp is between these two, very different things:
(1) What would you include among *hypothetical* evidence that makes your position theoretically falsifiable--i.e., not just a religious assertion? That is what Mandas is talking about in his post above; it was not the place to discuss whether such evidence exists yet. This is crucially different from:
(2) The evidence itself, what it is, whether it exists. Thats a different debate. And Mandas has done nothing but carpet bomb you with such evidence over the last several months. Crakar it is absolutely amazing--*amazing*--that you can cite Mandas's lack of proof of the assertions above and think you've nailed him. He was only telling you what it *would* take to prove him wrong. He's gone to the mat before on all of those issues and crushed you, Crakar. But this was not the place for it. Can't you see why?
You just don't see the difference between 1 and 2, do you?
The reason I brought it up months ago (and should have pursued then), why Coby brought it up with Peter a couple of weeks ago (and why I am pursuing it now) is that ultimately its a clarification that needs to be made at the *beginning* of the debate, not halfway through. Both sides need to clarify what it would take to convince them that they are wrong. If either side says, "Nothing will convince me," or equivalent words, then what is the point of the debate?
Skip, if I may interject. The four points that Mandas brought up earlier dealing with the physical parameters of CO2 and its emission by man are quite true. What is puzzling to me, however, is that one can assume from those truths that the climate system will not be as effective in transferring excess heat from CO2 absorption back to outer space as it already is with heat from the current greenhouse effect.
The argument that because CO2 is a greenhouse gas and there is more CO2, therefore the earth will warm dramatically has a few holes in it. Most importantly that the current greenhouse effect is only a third as powerful as it should be due to the transfer of latent energy to the atmosphere and then to outer space via longwave radiation. How CO2 forced warming will affect these types of energy transfer is still up for scientific debate as there is little to no observational data to check against computer simulations.
I don't know if that's the point Crakar is trying to make, but I felt it necessary to point it out. I have no objections to what Mandas has stated as fact. I just have a harder time than he does making the conclusion that CO2 forced warming will be a problem based on those particular facts.
And this gets us back to an earlier issue that I fully confess I can't answer. I don't know that we can assume one way or the other--yet--whether
that the climate system will not be as effective in transferring excess heat from CO2 absorption
even given the four physical principles that you stipulate.
I don't know and I don't know if climate scientists even claim to know. My guess is that, as with any number of other unknowns in climate, more research will reveal more insight--and again, perhaps even a refutation of AGW for whatever reason. Again, AGW is falsifiable.
But this was not key to Crakar's point at all.
Mandas had simply listed four basic physical principles whose falsification would satisfy him that AGW is untrue.
Crakar, completely missing the point, noted that Mandas did not provide "evidence" for the statements, regarding this as some sort of triumph. It might be--and this is saying something to be sure--Crakar's weakest reparte *ever*.
But his confusion is sincere, I think.
Say what? Where are you getting your incorrect information from, Maxwell?
Satellite observations are consistent with the theoretical reduction in LW IR radiation in the bands absorbed by CO2.
dhogaza, the real question is not only if emission from the earth is dimming at CO2 absorption bands, but if it is increasing at other emission frequencies. Most notably, the overtones of rotational emissions due to diatomic nitrogen and oxygen and the longer wavelength region of the CO2 emission spectrum.
The energy absorbed by CO2 molecules has two ways to dissipate, as it will always do. First is through non-radiative processes, mostly collisions. Since diatomic nitrogen and oxygen are the most abundant molecules in the atmosphere, I'll conjecture that most of such collisions take place with these two molecules. That's why NASA's microwave sounder sees an increase in these spectral regions they correspond to higher temperatures. It's due to more population in the excited rotational states of these molecules and the subsequent radiative relaxation back to the lowest thermally populated state.
CO2 can also relax by emitting light. But because CO2 has a sizable number of internal degrees of freedom, some of the initial excitation energy can be used to excited internal motions (vibrations and coupled vibrations) before such an emission occurs. That means that the excess energy is emitted at a lower frequency than that at which the excitation occurred. How has the emission measured at 20 microns changed? Oh wait, no one measures that so it's hard to tell, again.
It seems to me that you are more than capable of critical thought when someone challenges your values. But when someone puts forth a thought that you are ready to accept, there isn't a critical thought in sight. You seem like a pretty smart guy and I have respect for how hard you push me to explain things. I just wish you used your mind both ways.
skip, I wasn't sure if what I wrote had anything to do with Crakar. It seems like you guys have your issues with him. I just wanted to throw my two cents in. Cheers.
...so can someone explain to me why I shouldn't be concerned about Coby's argument that uses a map where the UHI effect has been 'accounted for' to prove that the UHI effect does not exist? It seems logically invalid to me.
Hi maxwell,
I don't understand how your objection would do what you say...? If the map uses data where urban centers have been adjusted down (which I agree that it does), how does that make the anomolies in rural areas higher?
The whole "UHI contaminates the temperature trend" argument is centered on the claim that urban anomalies are very high and this pulls up the entire record. If this were true then an anomaly map would reveal it.
I guess I could boil it down to asking how does UHI effect cause 3oC+ warming in northern Siberia?
Re post 77,
Yes Max what you said was what i tried to say, thanks for the follow up post.
Joseph post 74,
We both understand CO2 is logarithmic therefore the more there is the less effect it has so it will get to a point were no matter how much is released it will have no effect. The question is where are we on that curve? Are we approaching that point? on that point?, already past it?, or a long way from it? eg the first 20ppm will cause more warming than all the rest, agreed?
Now so far all we have talked about is non feed back warming, how do the IPCC get an increase of 6 C by 2100 with a doubling of CO2? The only way this can happen is if there is a very strong +ve feed back, in this case the IPCC pin the blame on WV. This feedback is generated by the additional heat caused by an increase in CO2.
So you can clearly see where we are on the log curve is important to how much +ve feed back there is, by the way this is all speculation as the IPCC has not one shred of evidence to support its theory.
Yes by all means show me CO2 leading temp, while you are at it have a look back through history to a time when CO2 levels were 6 to 7000 ppm and note the temp. Then get a model and pump 7000ppm into it and see what it spits out. If 600 to 800 ppm will give us 6 C warming by 2100 i would hate to see what temps it was "supposed" to be back when it actually was 7000ppm.
Re post 76, Skip, Mandas gave me 4 points as to why he is convinced AGW is real. I responded by saying that 2 out of the 4 points raised do not prove anything the other two are misleading as they do not include the effects of +ve feed back of WV which causes catastrophic climate change therefore Mandas must also accept this without evidence but it was not stated.
Interestingly of the 4 points i raised two of them are on the same issue as Mandas but in opposition, and yet you claim my 4 points dont count.
So yes CO2 is rising and some of it is by our activities, yes CO2 can cause a warming but by itself this warming is very smal by nature regardless of Josephs cry of bull shit but that is where it ends due to a lack of evidence. This is what i need to be convinced Skip. I dont consider a consensus as evidence, there are plenty of studies out there not accepted by the IPCC that show otherwise so who is right?
re Crakar24 @ #83
No, he did not. He gave you four potential findings that would make him question the validity of AGW. In the same way, I do not accept the theory of evolution because there are no Pre-Cambrian rabbits, but the finding of a genuine one would make me seriously question the validity of the theory.
I see you are still avoiding the embarassing issue of telling us which potential finding would persuade you that AGW is taking place.
crakar:
We both understand CO2 is logarithmic therefore the more there is the less effect it has so it will get to a point were no matter how much is released it will have no effect. The question is where are we on that curve? Are we approaching that point? on that point?, already past it?, or a long way from it?
This is a far cry from, and much more reasonable then, your initial statement: it is also an indisputable point that CO2 alone will not increase the temps to rise at an alarming rate as the effects of CO2 are logrythmic.
Which is not logical.
eg the first 20ppm will cause more warming than all the rest, agreed?
No, the first 20ppm will cause more warming than the next 20, but less than the next 41ppm.
Coby, as per your Siberia question, if I were you, I would determine how many surface stations are taking temperatures in Siberia. On top of that, where are those stations located? Are they near mines, logging operations or other industrial centers where there are more humans to look over something like a weather station? The UHI effect does not just have to do with 'urban' areas alone just like ocean acidification doesn't exactly have to do with the ocean becoming an acidic solution. It has to do with urbanization, right?
So if there are three weather stations in Siberia that are good enough to be used by GISS, and there has been substantial urbanization (ie increased use of engines and other industrial products) around them over the last couple decades...ding, ding, ding. You might have a winner. You don't need to be in Moscow to get a spurious warming from urbanization, which is a point you seem to miss with your analysis.
There is also the possibility that there is a way that urban areas get averaged with rural areas in some algorithms if there are not enough stations to sample all the geographic area. I don't know all the rules for how these anomalies are calculated so I can only speculate on this idea, but I know that some of the warming over the Arctic in the land-based GISS maps do not match other sea and land-based treatments, so it's a definite possibility.
Richard,
Do you wish me to list them for a third time?
Good grief, the AGW deniers have clutched at so many straws they could pool them and start their own biomass to energy system.
Coby,
What i meant is what you have said, the first 20 has more effect than the next 20 and so on.
The point i raised in regards to
"it is also an indisputable point that CO2 alone will not increase the temps to rise at an alarming rate as the effects of CO2 are logrythmic."
The IPCC predict up to 6 c of warming in 100 years so even if CO2 doubled we would not see anything near this temp rise unless you consider +ve feed backs. Co2 cannot cause the temp to rise anywhere near this level if it doubles.
I started out as a Limbaugh-type âdenierâ, and due at least in part to the excellent contributions and many links offered on this site, have reached a Skeptic-lite position, similar perhaps to Lindzen or Christy, i.e. that the globe is warming and that humans are directly responsible for some or most of this warming through our burning of fossil fuels, but that any such warming will not be catastrophic â mankind can and will make necessary adaptation to preserve (and improve) the lot of all under the normal principles of democratic capitalism.
So, my position can be âchangedâ with new/ongoing peer-reviewed evidence that the model forecasts for +ve feedback are correct, and/or with new/ongoing substantiation of the impossibility of adaptation, i.e. that we donât have time to sit back and wait for new technologies to emerge, the time for drastic emissions reductions is already here, etc, etc.
As always, I am happy to concede that the evidence of which I speak may already be available, and it is only that I havenât been able to access it as yet.
Regards,
@crakar: It's a bit more complicated than this. For one, are you familiar with how we know the effect is logarithmic? In essence, it's because it appears logarithmic. Arrhenius was the first to notice this. Logarithmic can't explain what's going on in Venus, for example.
Now, we know that it probably doesn't saturate at a comfortable temperature. Look up the Eocene-Paleocene Thermal Maximum.
Note also that relatively minor warming due to CO2 can result in feedbacks that are very slow; specifically, ice takes a long time to melt, which decreases albedo, etc.
The mean estimate is about 3C for a doubling. Why do you think it has to be wrong?
Request granted. BTW, a reader reproduced the result.
Hey SBN:
I'd tell you to stick it in a sheep's . . .
Oh, that's right; we don't talk that way. Sorry.
. . . Mandas gave me 4 points as to why he is convinced AGW is real.
Youâre still missing the key distinction, Crakar.
Interestingly of the 4 points i raised two of them are on the same issue as Mandas but in opposition, and yet you claim my 4 points dont count.
Just plain wrong.
Your take on those points might count plentyâ*if* we were arguing about their virtues as critiques of AGW. And anyone hereâas has already happened again and again--*will* contest with you on your points. But this, again, is a diversion.
The question, for the moment, is *not*, âCrakar, what âpointsâ do you have that you believe disprove AGW as a an environmental threat?â
The question is, âCrakar, what *would* persuade you that AGW is true [which you seem to be conceding now, only that its very smal by nature] and threatening?â
These are related but *very different* questions, Crakar.
The ability to answer the second question with a straightforward reply would at least suggest that you came to your conclusion that AGW is not threatening by something resembling an honest inquiry, and not just by trolling contrarian blogs dictated by your conservative political preferences.
So yes CO2 is rising and some of it is by our activities, yes CO2 can cause a warming but by itself this warming is regardless of Josephs cry of bull shit but that is where it ends due to a lack of evidence. This is what i need to be convinced Skip.
In the above paragraph, to what does âThisâ refer? Youâve captured the essence of your confusion, yet again, in writing. This again is what makes you so important to this blog. You publicize your narrative constructions.
I dont consider a consensus as evidence,
I know. Its one of your charms, and weâll get to that, but first things first.
there are plenty of studies out there not accepted by the IPCC that show otherwise so who is right?
All rich material for future discussion but first things first, mate.
The question, yet again, is:
Crakar, what would you need to see to be convinced that AGW is true and threatening--*not* what you think are current arguments against those propositions?
When you actually are forced to articulate the answer to this question, you are going to make some extremely interesting discoveries about your position.
Max:
If I understand your contribution to the exchange with Crakar correctly youâre defending his stance on the ground that Mandasâ four basic stipulations do not necessitate (whatâs the correct adjective . . . .) âhighly problematicâ AGW. Is this fair?
SBN:
I started out as a Limbaugh-type âdenierâ
Baby steps, I guess. So did Crakar. But see the above last few dozen posts.
I think the rest of what you wrote is better for the âcostsâ thread. Your position (which in my perception is best typified by Bjorn Lomborg, whom Iâve read) is the closest thing to âreasonableâ AGW skepticism Iâve encountered. It does not involve IPCC conspiracy theories, conflation of any âalarmistâ prediction with global warming science, and at least a fundamental recognition of global warming as problem with the only dispute being over its magnitude.
Joseph,
we know that increasing the amount of CO2 creates a logarithmic response because of the Beer-Lambert law for absorption of light due to a dilute absorber. The log of the absorbance depends linearly on the concentration of CO2. If the temperature of the atmosphere goes as the absorbance (ie Kirchoff's radiation law) then the log of the temperature will also depend on the concentration of CO2 in a linear fashion. This is the standard treatment to first approximation so I think there is a little more to the argument than simply 'because it appears logarithmic'.
The situation on Venus, however, does little to explain the current situation on earth. The concentration of CO2 is orders of magnitude larger increasing the cross-section for multi-photon and other nonlinear optical effects. Not to mention the fact that the Venus has a day that is almost as long as a year which affects motions due to the Coriolis force. They subsequently are significantly smaller. Since these effect accounts for a great deal of what we see in climate on earth, there's really no way to compare the two situations.
Skip @ 92
I must refute the implied allegation. No sheep are harmed in the creation of the vast majority of my posts. . .
@ 93
I agree that my post is probably more appropriate for that thread, but the point of it was to show Crakar that I agree with you, and others, that all of us must set out our position so it can be debated and, if necessary, amended to fit with the known facts. I think Crakar is a more hardline skeptic (compared to myself), and I think he has possibly some good arguments and is better and more committed at outlining them than I would be, but ultimately, if he does not set out his position as you have requested, I fear he may (unreasonably?) be dismissed as only a Devil's Advocate, arguing for the sake of arguing, but not holding an actual defensible position.
Crakar, your recent posts look like an avoidance tactic to me. I suggest you lay your position clearly on the line, as requested by Skip and others, so we can see whether we on the skeptical side actually have anything to offer the debate. I think in some instances we do!
Regards,
@maxwell: That's not the reason, actually. Irradiance at certain wavelengths decreases exponentially with the thickness of the CO2 layer. So transmittance is what tells you how much less irradiance goes out. Absorbance is not the right construct for that. That's a mathematical quantity.
The thing is that since not all black-body wavelengths get absorbed, the ones that do saturate and the effects of the greenhouse gas diminish.
In fact, I can come up with a model that fits Arrhenius' calculations considerably better than a logarithmic one, with a general form as follows:
T4 = k1 / (1 + k2 EXP(- k3 C))
At some point I'd like to come up with a similar one based on modern data, such as the HITRAN database.
. . .the Beer-Lambert law for absorption . . .
mmmmm. Beer.
uhhhhhhhhh.
Joseph, you're right about transmission versus absorbance. My mistake.
I think that saturation is something that gets thrown around a little too easily however. When talking about transmission and absorbance, optical density is the important quantity. But even an optical density of 100 still is not 'saturated'. There are photons that would not be absorbed. To get saturation is the real sense would necessitate reaching the 'saturation intensity' which for molecules is many orders of magnitude higher they we currently see on earth. It's a point I see overstated by many people who claim it as reason why CO2 emissions is not a big deal. There is a diminishing return for higher CO2 concentrations, but the effect is never 'saturated'.
I took yesterday off work (flexi-time, being a public servant has it's advantages) to prepare for the ACDC concert last night (yes, prepare means spending all afternoon in the pub!), and it looks as though I opened a can of worms with my post about what it would take to convince me that AGW was not occuring. I was going to respond, but it looks as though skip and others have stood up for me in my absence - thanks guys!
However, one correspondent (maxwell - post #80) does raise an important point about the energy budget of the Earth system, but unfortunately he raises it as a question only, without any real attempt to answer it; although he raises a couple of hypotheses. Fortunately, some of these points have been addressed in a number of threads.
Most people accept the very simple proposition - easily demonstrated - that CO2 absorbs long wave radiation (ie heat), and that the increases in CO2 in the atmosphere will result in an increase in heat absorbtion. Therefore, in the absence of other factors, the additional energy being retained in the system will naturally result in an increase in the heat of the system. I can't see anyone rationally arguing with that (note I said 'rationally).
So more energy retained in the system - it gets hotter, unless the system loses that energy somehow. We should be able to observe this - and we have. I have provided links to papers which show that there has been a reduction in energy (ie radiation) escaping into space over the past 35 years, and this radiation reduction is exactly in the spectrum of CO2 absorbtion. So the case for a heating of the system can be fairly conclusively demonstrated; unless one of three things can be shown.
1 - There is less energy going into the system in the first place which balances the loss in escaping energy. However, all observations suggest this is NOT the case.
2 - Energy is escaping from the system by some mysterious means that we do not know about. While admittedly possible, this is highly unlikely, because observed temperature increases are consistant with increased energy retention in the system. But, you can add this one to my list of those things which would falsify the theory and cause me to rethink my position.
3 - The energy being retained in the system is transfered to something other than heat (eg increasing the rotation rate). Once again, possible, but nothing plausible has been suggested)
These are all pretty basic scientific 'truths', and I am sure that some people will suggest I am oversimplifying. But that isn't the case. The climate is a complex system, but it is still subject to the basic, simple laws of science. An increase in the amount of retained energy WILL almost certainly lead to an increase in the temperature of the system. However, the exact way this transfers into increases in global climate will be complex, and will be modified by a miriad of factors. That's really the only scientific debate here.
Two points to Jo and Max.
Max in 98 are you saying that the log of CO2 can never reach 100% therefore never reach saturation?
To both i have not seen either of you mention the atmospheric pressure of Venus, pressure does have an effect does it not?
To Skip, i am with you on post 97 but i misread it as "beer-lamb"......i meant drinking beer whilst it is slowly roasted on a spit and nothing to do with its soft, silky smooth wool and pretty little face OK, honest.
I will have another crak (get it) at responding to your request.
I will start hesitantly by saying i would accept (notice i dont use the word believe) AGW
A, If the temps were to continue to rise in concert with CO2 etc etc.
Therefore empirical evidence which shows AGW to be real and threating.
B, If AGW is as bad as they say then why do governments around the world procrastinate and not act in unison to dramatically reduce CO2 levels. I would like to expand on this point if i may, one of the problems with Flop15 was that the small island nations of Tuvula (spelling) and the Maldives wanted extraordinary amounts of money from the richer nations, this request was denied. They based their extortion on computer model predictions of sea level rise whereas in fact tidal gauges by Mornier shows no sea level rise in 50 years. Maybe thats why the richer nations rejected it (we can talk more on this).
Therefore IF governments treated AGW as seriously as they say it is i may take it more seriously also.
C, I do not accept a consensus this allows me to have a flexible and open mind, like John Maynard Keynes once said "If the facts change i change my mind, what do you do sir".
When the IPCC approaches AGW with an unbiased view rather than their current charter of "proving AGW did it" then i will place more relevance on their opinions.
D, I do have trouble accepting someones word when they have a blatant and obvious conflict of interest, Al Gore and the romance novelist are two that have profited from this especially Al Gore, so when he has 3 failed attempts at predicting ice free Arctic i do look at this with suspicion, maybe i should not but the fact is i do. The leading alarmist here, Tim Flannery runs around the place telling us CO2 is bad and then tells us how great hot rock technology is, the reason why is because he is a major shareholder.
All in all it would appear that any attempt to thwart AGW hinges on one question "whats in it for me". When you consider Krudd recently stated "GW is the greatest moral issue of our time", Gordon Brown said "we have 50 days to save the planet" etc etc i expected more Skip, but guess what its all about how much money can someone make.
Therefore when peoples actions are seen souly for the purpose of reducing emissions rather than fattening their wallets i will listen to their stories of catastrophe more intently.
E, Hypocrisy, we are told by the "consensus" that we must reduce our emissions or the planet is doomed whilst they fly from all corners of the globe to attend 3 week "meetings" at the worlds most exotic locales, spewing out CO2 on the flight over, spewing out CO2 whilst getting pissed at the bar and then spewing out CO2 on the trip home.
Do as i say not as i do, are these people serious about AGW or is it all just one giant party to them?
Similar to D i know, did you know there were over 140 delegates from Australia that went to COP15, take away the lure of junkets and get them to start using video conferencing and i wonder how many would bother to turn up.
Well that should keep you all entertained for at least 5 minutes, i will sit here impatiently awaiting Skips response only to be told i got it wrong again i am sure. with any luck though i have at least got a bit closer (fingers crossed).
crakar
You seem to be confusing science with politics. If you want to debate the science, that's fine, but the fact that governments procrastinate or attend junkets has nothing to do with the issue at all. Government's are well known for telling lies (WMD), pork-barrelling, spending taxpayers money on themselves etc etc. But that does not and cannot change the science.
I accept AGW as an undenialable fact. Does that mean I believe Al Gore? No, of course not. I know he exaggerates and tells half-truths; he is a politician after all. Does that mean I believe an ETS is the ony way or even the best way to deal with the issue. Of course not, but then again, it is not my field of expertise - I am not an economist. Do I accept the claims regarding current sea level rises in places like Kiribati? No, definitively not. I have been there and I know what the true situation is.
Finally, you ask why governments around the world procrastinate. The answer is really simple. Its because of people like you. You vote, and governments answer to their constituents. It doesn't matter if those constituents are morons, or only vote with their hip-pockets, or vote because they like the way someone looks; governments have to do what these people want or they get kicked out and replaced by someone else. And as long as there are people out there who complain about the cost of addressing climate change and how it will raise the price of electricity or petrol etc, there will be idiot politicians like Tony Abbott who pander to these views. Unfortunately, it affects all of us, and we will all have to suffer the consequences of inaction.
Mandas,
People like me are making the government procrastinate? How is this possible? Does Krudd read Coby's blog?
Krudd has the IPCC, the consensus and hollywood stars in his corner and yet i and poeple of my ilk have stopped him from acting. Surely you jest.
I do believe Krudd went to the last election promising action on climate change and he got voted in, where i come from that is called a mandate and yet here we are slowly absorbing the calamity of the insulation scheme and still waiting for Krudd to explain his ETS.
Why does he need to explain it? He has a mandate - or so you say. Accordingly, those pesky MPs in the opposition and minor parties should just get out of the way and let the government do what they were elected and have a mandate to do. And since the Coalition also had an ETS as their policy at the last election, and since they made a deal with the government to pass the legislation only a few weeks ago, why does the creationist in charge of the Liberal Party prevent it from happening? It isn't the government who is stopping the ETS from passing, remember?
You are being extremely disengenous as usual crakar. I don't think that even you are foolish enough to think that governments and oppositions are not swayed by public opinion. How about you state your real opinion on the subject, rather than just being the abominal no man on everything.
If everyone in the country supported an ETS, it would be passed in an instant. The reason it hasn't been is because we have a fundy for an opposition leader, and idiot MPs spend their days talking to morons who whinge that the price of electricity will go up if we put a price on carbon, and who know nothing about science but think they know better than people who study the climate for a living. You know that. I know that. Everyone knows that.
Am I the only person who thinks the insulation scheme was a terrific thing? The whingers have crippled a scheme that really benefitted the environment. According to the ABS there are about 10,000 house fires per year in Australia, and electrocution is dwarfed next to heart disease, stroke, and even car accidents, as a cause of death. If people see fit to jump up and down and demand resignations on that basis, no transport or health minister would last a month in office. Fix it and move on is the appropriate response.
mandas #99, I think my comment concerning the energy budget should be fairly clear.
There is increased absorption of IR in the 10 micron window, as it's called, but since we don't look in longer wavelength regions with satellites (15+ micron), it's hard to say whether or not the energy emitted at those longer wavelengths is making up for it or not. Because 10 micron light that is absorbed by CO2 gets redistributed to the internal degrees of freedom of the molecule before it's re-emitted back out to space, we should not expect to see energy absorbed at 10 microns to be re-emitted at the same wavelength. It will be emitted at a longer wavelength, or lower energy. Some of that energy is also re-emitted back at the surface of the earth for the whole process to begin again.
As I said before, some of the energy also gets transferred to other molecules, mostly diatomic nitrogen and oxygen molecules, and those also emit light that travels to space. Because nitrogen and oxygen lack permanent molecular dipoles, however, this energy is transferred via rotational relaxation pathways versus vibrational relaxation pathways in CO2 and water. The rotational spectra of these molecules is in the Gigahertz or microwave region of the EM spectrum and I think most of it is picked up by NASA's microwave sounder unit, though I don't know if anyone has tried to model how much of that spectra is due to energy transferred from excited CO2 collisions.
So one has to look at all of these different pathways to get a view of how efficiently energy reaches back to space after a CO2 absorption event. It's not good enough to simply point out that the light in the 10 micron window has lower intensity than in the past. It's like taking a questionable bucket, plugging one hole and claiming that the bucket must now be filling up. You need to check for other holes before such a claim can be made.
Crakar #100,
pressure makes a difference. The higher the density of the atmosphere, the more inertia it will have and the longer it will take to respond to changes. This may be why it is easier to reproduce observational data with general circulation models. The atmosphere may always be closer to a steady-state then the one here on earth. That and the fact that there are no oceans.
But I really think the fact that the Coriolis force on Venus is so small plays a more important factor since it drives a great deal of the atmospheric dynamics we see on earth. The largest components of both the vorticity and divergence equations predicting how winds behave as vectors include the Coriolis parameter, proving it's importance in earth's climate system for atmospheric dynamics.
As far as logarithms go, yes even if one has a situation where the optical density of a sample is 1000 (the transmission through the sample is 10^-1000, or 1 in 10^1000 photons is NOT absorbed), the sample is still not 'saturated'. Saturation does not refer explicitly to optical density, although I have even seen climate texts use such language. Saturation in it's explicit definition refers to creating a situation where a group of absorbers cannot absorb light of a specific wavelength any longer. The only way to create such a situation is to optically pump the absorbers very hard (with lots of energy) so that the vast majority of them lie in quantum states that are no longer resonant with the incoming light. In quantum optics, such situations are called electromagnetically induced transparency. I think Uncertain Principles has a couple posts on it if anyone is interested in it.
So there will be diminishing returns on CO2 ability to provide heat to the lower parts of the atmosphere via IR absorption, but because I can't seem to find a good number for the molar extinction coefficient of CO2 at relevant wavelengths, it's hard for me to say whether we find ourselves in such a situation currently.
maxwell
"...You need to check for other holes before such a claim can be made...."
Actually, no I don't. AGW is a theory which is well supported by the basic tenets of science (ie greenhouse theory and the absorbtion of long wave radiation by CO2), and it is supported by observations (ie temperature increases and by an observed reduction in the energy loss from the system). In other words, it has both plausibility, scientific principles, and observation on its side. So it passes all the tests to be considered a valid theory.
However, like all theories, it must have 'falsibility criteria' which state that - if such is shown to be true or such and such can be shown to be not true or not occurring, then the theory would have considered to have failed or require modification. I have listed some of those 'falsibility criteria' in previous posts; however, as most of them fall under the category of basic science tenets, it is unlikely that any of them could be shown to be false.
The only real tests which could disprove the AGW theory (in my mind) are that the observed reduction in energy loss from the system is balanced by a reduction in incoming energy, or that the extra energy is either being used for purposes other than warming or is lost by some mysterious means.
The first point - reduction in incoming energy - is not supported by observation. Indeed, one of the 'catchcries' of the denialist movement is "it's the sun stupid!!". In other words, some denialists claim that temperature increases are the result of increased solar activity. If there has been an increase in solar activity then we are in real trouble, because not only would that mean there was less energy escaping, it would also mean there was more energy going into the system. And that would be a recipe for disaster.
The second and third point are somewhat related. However, the most important point to make about both of them is that there are absolutely no observations to support them. You are fond of suggesting a number of potential hypotheses, but if you want to falsify the theory, you are going to have to do more than that - you will need to produce the evidence. Unfortunately, since all observations support a warming of the climate, your hypotheses are inconsistent with both the theory and the observations. IF the excess energy etc was being lost into space or was being converted into other forms, then what is causing the observed warming?
Me - I'm going to fall back onto the age old principle of Ockham's Razor. I have a theory that is plausible, underpinned by basic principles, and supported by observation. I have listed falsibility criteria, none of which have been demonstrated. You need to provide some form of evidence or otherwise to demonstrate why you think I am wrong - not just a bunch of hypotheses with no evidence to support them.
mandas,
Taylor and Bitterman did an extensive study of the many relaxation pathways that CO2 takes after excitation to the state accessible in the 10 micron window (Review of Modern Physics Vol. 41 Num. 1). There are 4 different relaxation pathways, 1 radiative and 3 radiative-collisional, that lead to the emission of a photon that has less energy than the initially absorbed 10 micron photon. Two of them are in the region of the IR that are currently not measured by satellites. They are very important in understanding the dynamics of the CO2 laser.
So there is the experimental evidence. How does a position that denies the existence of this and a mountain of other evidence on the subject of vibrational relaxation equate applying Occam's Razor? It seems rather ridiculous to claim that because no one has attempted to measure these wavelengths in the context of climate science means that they play no important role. It's like a creationist claiming because there are no 'missing links' that evolution must be wrong. Well done.
Crakar: read your response. Too much material there to attack at once.
Coby:
Any chance to make this subtopic a thread:
"What would it take to convince me/you?"
Mandas re 103,
I think the main reason why KRudd has gone quiet on "the greatest moral issue of our time" is because Copenhagen failed.
Secondly he was first to blink and lost all credibility, as he threatened a double dissolution if his ETS/CPRS was shot down a second time. Well it got shot down and then he said we will try again after Xmas meanwhile COP15 was a flop and now the ETS has been pushed back to May i believe. Now apart from Abott you need to recognise the greens role in all this and how they have finally shown the oz people their true colors, they are a protest party not an environmental one, its about time they came clean.
But never fear KRudd has promised a double dissolution om his private health insurance bill.
Now with this talk about CO2 you do realise that this is only part of the AGW theory dont you? This part is fairly well understood and what you and Maxwell are doing is discussing the finer points. We all accept an increase in any GHG will increase the temp somewhat (in theory anyway) but in the real world the increase in temp can induce feed backs so your next step is to explain the +ve feed back from WV and maybe methane.
Of course only empirical evidence will be accepted.
Maxwell
Firstly, thank you for the information about the Taylor and Bitterman paper from 1969 re the âSurvey of Vibrational Relaxation Data for Processes Important in the CO2-N2 Laser Systemâ. Unfortunately, I couldnât access the full paper so am unable to comment. However, I did read Taylorâs 1973 paper on âEnergy Transfer Process in the Stratosphereâ, which is probably a lot more relevant anyway. If you couple the reading of this with Joly and Robin (1998) on âVibrational relaxation of CO2 in a CO2-N2 mixture. Part 1: Survey of available dataâ you can get a pretty clear picture of the whole process, including information post the original paper in 1969. And I have to ask you, what makes you think that no-one has either thought about this or has included it in their calculations? Perhaps you should read Kuo_Nan Liouâs book on the subject: â An Introduction to Atmospheric Radiationâ. Itâs quite definitive.
Now, on to your post, in particular, this statement:
ââ¦.It seems rather ridiculous to claim that because no one has attempted to measure these wavelengths in the context of climate science means that they play no important role. It's like a creationist claiming because there are no 'missing links' that evolution must be wrong. Well doneâ¦.â
I have to hand it to you there. I think you have beaten out crakar to the most disingenuous statement ever posted here. I have made no such claim about the importance or otherwise of CO2 relaxation in the atmosphere. You are the one making the claim that the relaxation of CO2 emitting radiation at wavelengths greater than 15 microns can explain why the theory of AGW climate change is flawed, but you canât prove it because no-one has conducted the necessary measurements. And you call me a creationist?
crakar
At least we can agree about the Government and the ETS- in general anyway. I don't necessarily think that the PM is not pushing the issue because of Copenhagen, rather it has just dropped of the political radar and isn't a major issue with a lot of people. He is a politician, and will chase things that he considers to be vote winners. Of course, one of the reasons the ETS and climate change are not considered as important by voters as they used to be is that the drought has broken in a big way. Most people can't differentiate weather from climate, so while there is a drought people are concerned about climate change, but as soon as it rains people think it isn't anything to worry about anymore.
Ad to the question on feedback etc, I won't hog the thread and will leave that for later.
You know Mandas there might be a reason why people think the way you say they do, remember i mentioned Tim Flannery before?
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comme…
Here is alarmist Tim at his best, in 2007 he ran around in ever decreasing circles babbling incoherently, something to do with Brisbane needing a desal plant now the dams are 90% full.
It all comes back to credibility same as KRudd if COP15 had of been a success we would have our ETS by now Abott would of had no choice but to vote for. Of course the greens would of voted against in protest.
By the way where do you work? Near the RAAF base in Elizabeth?
No - I work in the city. I used to work at the RAAF Base - but that was when I was in the RAAF in my former life.
I also used to live in Toowoomba a few years ago, so I am well aware of what was being said about the need to do something about the water supply in SEQ. The current situation is just a temporary reprieve though. There are too many people there - and getting more all the time - for the limited water supply available.
Mandas,
"but that was when I was in the RAAF in my former life" you see we have something in common. :-))
To all,
I read a story in the paper yesterday which said it was the coldest winter in 30 years in the UK and the coldest since 1962 in Scotland and Ireland
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1254675/Weather.html
Ironically below that story we had another about Phil Jones, who was asked by some English polly about why he never gave out his data (FOI etc) Jones gave his reasons and then went on to say that he never gave the data to the peer reviewers either. He was then asked why, Jones replied "because they never asked".
So much for the peer review process.
mandas,
'You are the one making the claim that the relaxation of CO2 emitting radiation at wavelengths greater than 15 microns can explain why the theory of AGW climate change is flawed...'
No, I'm not. I'm explaining how YOUR thinking about this aspect of climate change is flawed.
You were going through ways of presenting the problem that you thought proved your thinking about this problem. It basically boiled down to conservation of energy concerns. I merely pointed out you weren't conserving all the energy. You challenged such a claim and I proved you wrong.
That's what happened.
I'm sure other people have thought about these problems. I was just pointing out to YOU that you need to think about them to get a coherent picture of what is happening.
Furthermore, there is no need to 'prove' to you that these processes are happening in the atmosphere. They happen naturally in any gaseous mixture of CO2, O2, N2 and water vapor. That's the point of the 1969 paper and since then the CO2 laser has become a standard in industrial lasers based on such 40 year old treatments, I have no reason to doubt the paper's validity.
In the paper you cite from 1998, in fact, the authors go out of their way to mention that one of the reviews of data contains information from this 1969 paper from Taylor and Bitterman. I guess its importance stood the test of time.
If anything, this 1998 paper proves that even given all of the coherent spectroscopic techniques that we have developed over the course of the last forty years (since 1969), we still have not been able to paint as complete a picture of CO2 relaxation dynamics as would be necessary to understand how ALL the energy in the atmosphere escapes back to space. In the conclusion section, the authors (Joly and Robin) state,
'Even though a considerable work has been undertaken in the field of the vibrational relaxation of the CO2 over the last thirty years, the authors of the different compilations do not agree with each others and there exists a lack of some important data (for the Fermi resonance for example).'
Since your argument depends on our having a coherent picture of energy gets back to space (how else can one invoke conservation of energy?), this statement seems to fly in the face of your conclusions. If there are important processes that result in unknown relaxation pathways, then it's very hard to assess whether current or past measurements of a particular range of wavelengths are 'good enough' to claim radiative balance has been broken significantly or changed in some significant way.
'Perhaps you should read Kuo_Nan Liouâs book on the subject: â An Introduction to Atmospheric Radiationâ. Itâs quite definitive."
Why don't you sum it up for me in the context of these relaxation pathways and our current knowledge of them? Because if it doesn't discuss them, then it's far from definitive on this particular issue.
As I pointed out before, why is it more reasonable to assume that physical processes that normally happen in everyday circumstances in mixtures of relevant gases should not happen in the atmosphere? It's most definitely not an application of Occum's Razor.
To be honest i cant remember if this guy is on Dhogaza's list of nut jobs or not, so i will post it anyway and suffer the consequences later.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2010/03/direct-evidence-that-most-u-s-warmi…
I assure you he is.
But thank you for braving the consequences. Will get back . . .
Roy Spencer is grasping at straws with that post. Maybe Tamino will post a statistical beat-down on it. Spencer's history - he's (lead, I think) on the UAH satellite temps. For a while, UAH showed no warming, which made Spencer the darling of the deniers. Spencer ignored a lot of pointed questions about how his processing worked (satellite temps have to be corrected for orbital drift and a lot of other effects) until finally somebody else did a definitive analysis showing his mistakes (including a sign error on an important correction term). Now the UAH data shows a clear 0.13C/decade trend. RSS (the other satellite record) shows 0.15 and the two surface records (GISS and Hadcrut) show about 0.17. (That's all from memory, so if I'm off by 0.01, it's not an agenda.) Anyway, he's still trying anything to play down the trend, suggest it's natural instead of anthropogenic, etc. If I understand his new UHI theory, it's turned around - that small population increases in sparsely populated areas cause more temp gain than actual urban areas experience from a proportionate population increase. So instead of urban heat islands, he's talking about exurb/rural heat donuts. But the point of UHI is that the areas are small and should be discounted. But this new definition of the places showing "spurious" warming must be half the country. That's not spurious! It's just silly.
I think Christy is the lead guy on the UAH sat reconstructions. I know it was Christy who personally responded to the first exposures of errors a decade or so ago, it was he who was at the big round-up with the RSS and other people put together to help settle things early in the Bush administration.
Also, after the last round of corrections to the UAH stuff (last month) Spencer published Christy's explanation as to what was done, and why. If Spencer were the lead guy I'd expect him to publish his own explanation.
We have all heard about the Berkely Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) study, which is being conducted by Dr Richard Muller and is (was?) being supported by Anthony Watts to hopefully support his hypothesis about climate change all being the result of poor station siting and the UHI.
And we all know that Watts tried to disown the report that Muller provided to Congress with his initial findings that there were no significant errors in the instrumental record - certainly not in the way that Watts had hoped.
Well, the results are now in, and guess what? Watts and his denialism have been blown out of the water by the evidence. Newspaper article here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/oct/20/global-warming-study-…
BEST information here:
http://berkeleyearth.org/study.php
I wonder what Anthony's response will be? I'm betting he won't accept the evidence, but will continue with his ideological spin and denialism - because that's all he has. He certainly has no integrity.
Thanks for the post.
Here's you're answer, Mandas:
The Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project puts PR before peer reviewa
Posted on October 20, 2011 by Anthony Watts
Readers may recall this post last week where I complained about being put in a uncomfortable quandary by an author of a new paper. Despite that, I chose to honor the confidentiality request of the author Dr. Richard Muller, even though I knew that behind the scenes, they were planning a media blitz to MSM outlets. In the past few days I have been contacted by James Astill of the Economist, Ian Sample of the Guardian, and Leslie Kaufman of the New York Times. They have all contacted me regarding the release of papers from BEST today.
Thereâs only one problem: Not one of the BEST papers have completed peer review.
And so on. I suppose we are to surmise from this that AW insists on the "gold standard" of peer review in whether we should accept scientific claims about climate change.
skip
Yes, the guy's hypocrisy is absolutely breathtaking. This is the same person who has spent much of the last few years complaining about how the peer review process is broke, and publishing - on his website - article after article on climate change, none of which were subject to peer review. Now he is complaining that the BEST papers are not peer reviewed (yet!). The mind boggles with just how much of an arrogant arsehole he is.
And of course there was Watts statement that he would accept the results of the project, even if they went against him. Yet he has spent the past few months since Muller testified before Congress attempting to distance himself from the study and trying to overturn the results that clearly show - with unequivocal evidence - that he is wrong. Even worse, two of the study authors are Muller and Judith Curry, people who Watts thought were on his side.
There is no doubt that Watts can't even spell integrity - let alone demonstrate that he is capable of displaying any.
He is now claiming that no-one ever doubted that global warming is taking place, merely questioning the 'A' part and the magnitude of the warming. Meanwhile, in the comments (as far as it is possible to tease out meaning from them) his supporters seem about equally divided between those who agree with him and those who insist that warming is not taking place. Neither group seems to be aware of the existence of the other.