Understanding the Denialist Style of Argument
On The Hijacking of the American Meteorological Society (AMS)
Normally I don’t spend my time on denialist web sites, but I saw an article about how the American Meteorological Society was going liberal because they were paying attention to the scientific method and what the findings were in climate science.
One of the key components I noticed in the denialist style is argumentum ab auctoritate. When I asked one poster to back up what she was saying with peer reviewed science from a reputable source, she referred me to a blog post by a guy that said he was a scientist, but the claims he made were not based in the scientific method. All his links to substantiate what he was saying referred to other things he said on his own web site (self-references = argumentum ab auctoritate). At the bottom of his web page he had real citations from real science papers, but in the article above, he did not use that material in citation fashion, indicating that he just stuck a bunch of science links on the bottom of his page so that it looked like he was referencing them.
[Note: When I was responging in this thread I typed fast and did not check my spelling and grammar. I have done some corrections to improve readability. If you want to know how bad my fast typing is, feel free to review the original posts.]
I see lot’s of folks praising Bill Gray’s article here. I don’t want to spend too much time tearing apart his whole letter but let’s look at some context here and at least analyze one sentence in the first paragraph:
“We believe that humans are having little or no significant influence on the global climate and that the many Global Circulation Climate Model (GCMs) results and the four IPCC reports do not realistically give accurate future projections.”
1. Science is not based on belief, it’s based on math and physics and the CI.
2. The GCM’s are not accurate.
3. The GCM’s are not accurate because they are models and models can’t be accurate because they are just models, but they can be used to test observations to see if they represent reality in a meaningful manner.
4. Who cares if the models are not perfect? They are not even needed to see that AGW is occurring. All you really need is the basic physics of the greenhouse effect, the radiative forcing potential the negative albedo calcs., the amounts of GHG’s at various altitudes and to test the vertical pattern of warming along with changes in outgoing LWR to see if it fits with the physics and observations… Well fancy that, It does.
So Gray’s claim that the AMS leadership is capitulating to the lobby of the climate modelers is incorrect. Climate models are only one single line of evidence among many.
– The vertical pattern of warming fits
– The changes in the Hadley cell fits
– The increase in atmospheric moisture fits
– The decrease in soil moisture fits
– The increase in sea surface temp fits
– The increase in atmospheric temp fits
– the increase ice mass loss fits
– the heat trapping capacity of a specified amount of increased GHG’s fits with the increase of radiative forcing and the industrial aerosols negative albedo fits
– The isotopic signature fits
– The horizontal pattern of warming fits
– the land sea temperature profile fits
– The seasonal pattern changes fit
– the latitudinal pattern changes fit
– The changes in outgoing long wave radiation fit
I could of course go on and the list is very very long, especially when you add the physical basis for paleo comparison. But the point is, we simply don’t need models to see that this particular global warming event is human caused. So Gray’s argument is false because he apparently doesn’t know the whole story, while simultaneously claiming, or inferring that he does; which is very confusing because some choose to trust him because he is a professor even though he has no scientific basis in his argument on this subject. This is referred to as argument from eminence, but it is not a scientific argument.
Does he deserve a seat at a table arguing with scientists that actually do know how these mechanisms work and the relative confidence levels in the constituent aspects of related science? Not really. It’s like letting a whiny kid get what he wants just to shut him up. That’s not science, it’s bad parenting.
It ‘seems’ the non, or less, scientific crowd view will always complain that they are being shut out of the argument, no matter how many times they repeat points without relevant substance. But in science, if they want to be heard, they need to publish a paper. And if your physics don’t stand up to the stronger, higher confidence level of science, and you can’t get published, it’s not because you are being shut out because you think other scientists are wrong, it’s because your assertions are not supported by the science. This is apparently the category that Gray falls into.
The AMS has not been infiltrated by liberals. it is drawing conclusions based on the known physics and observations. Science truly doesn’t care about my, your, or anyone else’s opinion.
Roy Tucker says:
June 17, 2011 at 2:31 pm
“The Scientific Computer Modeling Method” . . . . .
Gee Roy . . . . where I come from the is the epitome of one of the “Huckster” strategies . . .
Is that the Mark I or Mark II Huckster Model?
Theo Goodwin and others here are asserting that as the oceans warm, and they cover 70% of the earth’s surface, this has no effect on the total water vapor in the atmosphere. Does this sound correct from the physics standpoint? Should not the atmospheric boundary layer maintain water saturation near the surface that would increase water vapor amount with temperature? To say water vapor does not increase as SST does flies in the face of known physics. Arrhenius, as a physicist would, realized a hundred years ago that the relative humidity is a better approximation to what is preserved, not the water vapor amount, hence the water vapor feedback.
John P. Reisman says:
“Who cares if the models are not perfect? They are not even needed to see that AGW is occurring.”
Thanx for expressing your true beliefs, but there is misrepresentation in the first sentence. The models are crap. They can’t predict their way out of a wet paper bag. The only way they come anywhere close to hindcasting is by endless tweaking after the fact, and they all fail at forecasting. Not a single GCM predicted the flat to cooling global temperatures over the past decade+.
Your second sentence is based on belief, not on measurable, testable evidence, because there is no such evidence. The rest of your post is just as easy to debunk. Your “fits” disregard the null hypothesis, which has never been falsified, and they are simply an Argumentum ad Ignorantium: “Since we can’t think of any other explanation, then AGW must be the cause.” That is simply an evidence-free conjecture.
The fact is that despite CO2 steadily rising, global temperatures are not following as has been endlessly predicted. When you have empirical evidence of global harm from CO2 per the scientific method, wake me. Until then, the only sensible conclusion is that CO2 is harmless.
As Dwight D. Eisenhower said in his 1961 “military industrial complex” speech: “Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashon, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers. The prospect of the domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present – and is gravely to be regarded. Yet, holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become captive of a scientific technological elite.”
Jim D,
The problem with your argument is that global relative humidity is declining.
Jim D says:
June 18, 2011 at 8:49 am
To say water vapor does not increase as SST does flies in the face of known physics.
=====================================================================
Then either the physics is wrong, temperature measurements are wrong, our understanding of climate/computer models is wrong, ……………something ain’t right
Because relative humidity has been going down in direct proportion to CO2 going up………..
Smokey, you are probably aware that the column water vapor is dominated by that near the surface, which is controlled by ocean temperatures, and the total is increasing, and that is what matters for the greenhouse effect. I was answering people who seemed to think the water vapor wasn’t increasing in total. At least your figures show it is because for a 1 degree increase RH would have to drop 7% in the whole column to compensate and keep water vapor constant.
Latitude, see my reply to Smokey.
Actually in a transient CO2 increase phase, RH might drop because the land warms faster than the oceans. This is not necessarily a good thing, because it can lead to more frequent droughts and heat waves.
Smokey says: June 18, 2011 at 8:59 am
To be quite honest, I care very little for anonymous voices on the internet, but since you think certain things are crap, can you point me to one single paper, or a plethora of papers, that have survived peer review and peer response to support your tentative hypotheses presented?
Kevin, I fail to see how you proved your unspoken point (and you would have improved your post by stating your point clearly). Let me correct your post as if you did the work or are reporting on a peer-reviewed article that did the work.
Assuming the signals for natural ENSO/atmospheric neutral temperature outputs, natural ENSO/atmospheric non-neutral temperature outputs, and anthropogenic-only temperature outputs are mathematically known or hypothesized,
1. Non-chaotic artificial inputs present at the time of a selected temperature series span (IE anthropogenic CO2 only -not all of CO2 just the anthropogenic part- along with its anthropogenically increased water vapor), were determined, mechanized and mathematically calculated. A resultant anthropogenic trend was hypothesized (what the anthropogenic-only temperature output signal should look like).
2. The observed chaotic ENSO-neutral noise was removed from the observed temperature series, leaving the non-chaotic inputs in place and the resultant observed trend. This served as the data series: A neutralized data series trend with nothing but non-chaotic non-neutral drivers in place with error bands.
3. From that series the non-chaotic natural trend was separated from the man-made non-chaotic trend.
4. Finally, the a priori hypothesized anthropogenic-only trend was compared with the control (natural non-chaotic trend), and the observed anthropogenic non-chaotic trend.
What did you find Kevin?
Jim D,
You argued in effect that relative humidity is rising because of global warming. I posted a chart showing that relative humidity has been delining for decades, at all altitudes. Tap dancing won’t change the fact that your premise has been falsified.
Jim D says:
June 18, 2011 at 10:00 am
Latitude, see my reply to Smokey.
Actually in a transient CO2 increase phase, RH might drop because the land warms faster than the oceans.
===========================================================================
Might? when the land is not warming faster than the oceans either?
…got any more rabbits in that hat?
Smokey says: June 18, 2011 at 8:59 am
Okay, here’s a more detailed response to your post:
1. I avoid expressing beliefs, I express representations based on validated studies.
2. Which models are crap and prove it.
3. a single decade is too short a time to have large scale predictability due to natural variation largely based on ocean heat content overturn
4. Funny thing about observations, they are observable so your unfounded ‘belief’ that we can’t actually see evidence is a bit weird.
5. Re. null hypothesis? What are you talking about? The amount of evidence has now reached epic proportions so the only reasonably null hypothesis is can you prove current global warming on trend is not human caused.
6. As to falsifiability. The models are absolutely falsifiable. The model based predictions in the 60′s by Hansen, Manabe, and Washington demonstrated that the vertical pattern of warming would include stratospheric cooling and troposphere warming, therefore the models were falsifiable… only problem is they turned out to be correct.
7. Your saying I’m arguing from ignorance. Well isn’t that just a pot meet kettle moment.
John P. Reisman,
First, provide testable, falsifiable, empirical evidence showing global harm due specifically to CO2. If you can, then I will provide your citations.
I didn’t say RH would rise, just column water vapor. There is a difference.
The equilibrium response would have RH staying constant, as Arrhenius suggested. However, because the ocean has a circulation, and deep cooler water comes to the surface, its response is expected to be slower than land where no such effect exists, and we see the faster land warming from the surface observations, which is why the transient response is different from the equilibrium one. There are too many factors to know the full transient effects from simple Arrhenius-type one-dimensional calculations, because it relies on how the different ocean and land changes affect the atmospheric circulation (monsoons, etc.), but our current climate state is a transient one for sure, the degree of which is a rarity in recent climatological history.
I think this is a very pretty picture indeed! Has lots a pretty colors and very lovely patterns and balance!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Vostok_420ky_4curves_insolation.jpg
Smokey says: June 18, 2011 at 11:04 am
As is typical for those that don’t understand all the teleconnections and evidentiarry support, the most solid proof regarding AGW does not lie in a single piece of evidence but rather all the evidence when considered together.
However, there are already indications that the CO2 increase is problematic.
https://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/plant-decline.html
The FACE experiments during the Bush W. administration were falsifiable and some researchers tested protien counts and the indications were that anything that does not fix nitrogen, such as legumes dropped proteins.
Other lines of evidence regarding CO2 is ocean acidification which is affecting phytoplanckon.
But you’ve probably already read the studies on that, right?
John P. Reisman ,
Teleconnections, Hm-m-m? They must be like treemometers. But I suppose they’re robust teleconnections, eh?☺
You are flat wrong about the effect of CO2 on C3 and C4 plant growth. More CO2 enhances both. In fact, there is plenty of empirical evidence showing that more CO2 is beneficial:
click1 [click on + sign to embiggen page; see ‘conclusions’]
click2
click3
click4
click5
But since you made a [sadly, failed] effort to show global damage due to CO2, at least you tried. I will be out for the afternoon, but when I get back home I’ll respond to your 11:02 am post.
Nice touch Smokey . . . Click5 is great . . .
John P. Reisman says:
June 18, 2011 at 11:55 am
Other lines of evidence regaridn CO2 is ocean acidificaiotn which is affecting phytoplanckon.
========================================================================
John, I have a question about ocean acidification, and can never get a straight answer…
…perhaps you know
Marine bryozoans lay down a calcium skeleton and show up in the fossil record in the early part of the Ordovician Period, about 470 million years ago, when atmospheric CO2 levels were ~4000-5000 ppm….
…how did they do that?
Jim D says:
June 18, 2011 at 11:06 am
Great hunches. Do you have one or more rigorously formulated physical hypotheses which can be used to explain these matters? Now, that would be interesting.
John P. Reisman says:
June 18, 2011 at 11:02 am
“6. As to falsifiability. The models are absolutely falsifiable. The model based perdition’s in the 60′s by Hansen, Manabe, and Washington demonstrated that the vertical pattern of warming would include stratospheric cooling and troposphere warming, therefore the models were falsifiable… only problem is they turned out to be correct.”
Physical hypotheses are falsifiable when they are rigorously formulated. If you have physical hypotheses then you can explain and predict the phenomena in question. Models do not contain physical hypotheses because if you have the physical hypotheses then you do not need a model. Models, not being physical hypotheses, can no more predict than your shoes can.
Simulations cannot be used as evidence. Simulations produce numbers. Someone has to interpret those numbers; that is, the numbers do not interpret themselves, nor does the computer code which generates them. Real science involves real data collected from the real world and, for that reason, it does not need interpretation.
Anthony,
you say: “REPLY: This is Chris Colose, inexperienced student, https://www.aos.wisc.edu/~colose/ whatever. ”
At the same time, you allow the following to remain unmoderated:
“john(UK) says:
June 16, 2011 at 2:48 pm
WHAT IS MORE OBVIOUS IS THAT MR COLOSE IS A SELF OPINIONATED YOUNG PRAT”
And then you speak in a somewhat outraged tone of Chris’s “predictable insults”.
Hmm. I think I’ll draw my own conclusions on that! So will most casual visitors.
See you around…… John
Smokey says: June 18, 2011 at 12:30 pm
How can ‘I’ be flat wrong about plant growth? ‘I” didn’t do any of the studies. So how can ‘I’ be wrong?
1. I never said CO2 does not increase plant mass. It does.
2. The problem is not plant growth, but plants burning up and releasing all their CO2 back into the atmosphere.
I have not sadly failed anything. Or, are you denying that CO2 is absorbing in the oceans and raising the PH levels?
But actually, your question is a red herring anyway. You are distracted by plant growth from plant burning due to increased soil moisture content loss and increased drought potentials on periodic scales as well as seemingly ignoring the productivity losses from increased warming due to excess CO2 in the atmosphere, which by the way will be one of the primary cost issues regarding damage due to CO2.
Smokey says: June 18, 2011 at 12:30 pm
Oh and bigger plants do not necessarily mean more proteins, which was the indication by one particular study during the FACE experiments. Sorry, I don’t have the ref on it though, but I do remember reading it somewhere. And besides if the crops burn due to the warming, that is also a cost that we need to be thinking about.
Your grammar (note bold above) isn’t helping; learn about contractions in the language.
(Apologies if you’re not a native English speaker. Apologies to all if this seems pedantic, but “your” vs “you’re” [literally: “you are”] misuse is my biggest pet peeve.)
.
John Reisman says:
“How can ‘I’ be flat wrong about plant growth? ‘I” didn’t do any of the studies.”
But you passed off inaccurate information to support your position, which was easy to falsify. I take it you’re backing away from your position now because of that. OK, score another one for scientific skeptics.
You talk about a “red herring”, but you also say: “…if the crops burn due to the warming, that is also a cost that we need to be thinking about.” Re-framing the argument to burning crops doesn’t pass peer review here at the internet’s Best Science site. I was specifically resopnding to your assertion that more CO2 doesn’t do much for plant growth.
[Note: I did not bring up plant growth, Smokey’ did. I brought up: The FACE experiments during the Bush W. administration were falsifiable and some researchers tested protien counts and the indications were that anything that does not fix nitrogen, such as legumes dropped proteins. AND bigger plants do not necessarily mean more proteins, which was the indication by one particular study during the FACE experiments]
John R,
Re: your claim that plant proteins are not enhanced by higher CO2, these conclusions from “click1″ above:
Much more info here.
[Note: Smokey is referencing plant growth again in the link he provided. My point is the plants drop protiens, which means they provide less nutrition, as demonstrated by the FACE experiements done by the Bush W. Administration.]
_Jim says: June 18, 2011 at 3:34 pm
Jim, this is a blog, not a peer reviewed science periodical. I’m not going to double and triple check my spelling here, now, or ever. I will try however to convey points with reasonable accuracy.
I suppose you are one of those folks who has never made an error, right?
John P. Reisman says:
June 18, 2011 at 3:02 pm
2. The problem is not plant growth, but plants burning up and releasing all their CO2 back into the atmosphere.
=======================================================================
This is getting into the surreal……………….
“John, I have a question about ocean acidification, and can never get a straight answer…
…perhaps you know
Marine bryozoans lay down a calcium skeleton and show up in the fossil record in the early part of the Ordovician Period, about 470 million years ago, when atmospheric CO2 levels were ~4000-5000 ppm….
…how did they do that?”
Smokey says: June 18, 2011 at 3:45 pm
re. OK, score another one for scientific skeptics.
What precisely did I say that was inaccurate?
re. “I was specifically responding to your assertion that more CO2 doesn’t do much for plant growth.”
I never said that. Are you a politician? The level of spin I am experiencing reminds me of the sort of ‘reframing’ one hears from politicians… yet another pot meet kettle moment.
re. “Re-framing the argument to burning crops doesn’t pass peer review here at the internet’s Best Science site”
I didn’t reframe the argument, you asked about costs due to CO2. CO2 causes warming, fire seasons are lengthening, burning crops has a cost.
This is not the internets ‘best science site. Just because a bunch of people read stuff on a web site, does not make it the best science site.
The best science site would be the one with the best peer review and response system. You don’t have that here.
Smokey says: June 18, 2011 at 3:52 pm
What peer reviewed study did that come from?
Besides, I can tell you confidently that increased CO2 does not reduce proteins in lead. Of course that’ s be cause lead has no proteins. Context is key, not all plants are the same and not all will react the same… but what does that matter if more and more plants are reaching thermal limits that reduces crop yields… or burn from more fires?
Latitude says: June 18, 2011 at 3:55 pm
I don’t know. Have you checked google scholar?
Remember, context is key.
Smokey says: June 18, 2011 at 3:45 pm
re. “I take it you’re backing away from your position now because of that.”
Until you prove something I said was wrong, now. Again is or is not the ocean acidifying due to the increased CO2 absorption?
Plants do grow bigger with increased CO2, that is not the point I was addressing. I was only addressing a particular study I recall reading about some 5 or 6 years ago regarding proteins in some of the plants studied. Since I don’t have the details on that study, you could not possibly have falsified what I said.
Or are you some sort of mind reader that can read my thoughts, even the ones I don’t remember?
John P. Reisman says:
June 18, 2011 at 11:55 am
As is typical for those that don’t understand all the teleconnections and evidentiarry support, the most solid proof regarding AGW does not lie in a single piece of evidence but rather all the evidence when considered together..
Other lines of evidence regaridn CO2 is ocean acidificaiotn which is affecting phytoplanckon.
===========================================================================
John, you made the statement that ocean acidification is affecting phytoplankton, and that it is another piece of evidence supporting AGW……
We use the fossilized remains, the calcium skeletons, of marine bryozoans from the early part of the Ordovician Period, about 450 million years ago, when atmospheric CO2 levels were ~4000-5000 ppm….
…for paleoclimate reconstructions
If ocean acidification is another piece of evidence for AGW…..
….how is this possible?
John P. Reisman says:
June 18, 2011 at 4:15 pm”
Until you prove something I said was wrong, now. Again is or is not the ocean acidifying due to the increased CO2 absorption?
=====================================================================================
John, you made the statement that ocean acidification is affecting phytoplankton, and that it is another piece of evidence supporting AGW……
We use the fossilized remains, the calcium skeletons, of marine bryozoans from the early part of the Ordovician Period, about 450 million years ago, when atmospheric CO2 levels were ~4000-5000 ppm….
…for paleoclimate reconstructions
If ocean acidification is another piece of evidence for AGW…..
….how is this possible?
Smokey says @ June 18, 2011 at 3:45 pm “But you passed off inaccurate information to support your position”
So posting bad information or not supporting one’s assertions with valid citations would be a bad thing, then, right Smokey?
Both moderate Republican and Smokey have earned a 12 hour time out – tired of this argument.
Both of you step away from commenting on WUWT until 7AM Sunday.
– Anthony
Pamela Gray says:
Latitude asks:
Rarely and with difficulty. There have been 5 great extinction events in the past 450 million years – each of them has impacted coral reefs as much or more than any other major ecosystem. Since most Bryozoa secrete an external calcium skeleton, they fared just as poorly.
Each of these extinction events has been tied to the carbon cycle. The difference between today and the past is speed. In the past these were cumulative events where the changes took place over thousands or hundreds of thousands of years; we are seeing rates of ocean acidification today never seen in the historical record.
So yes, we find corals and Bryozoa in the fossil record – we also see large extinction events (due to ocean acidification) where they are nearly absent; sometimes for millions of years.
Two interesting papers are:
Mass extinctions and ocean acidification: biological constraints on geological dilemmas
Devonian Bryozoan Diversity, Extinctions, and Originations
RE: Billy Liar says:
June 17, 2011 at 1:05 pm
CodeTech says:
June 17, 2011 at 7:56 am
“Meh, our boy has taken his ball and gone home…”
“There’s been quite a ramp up recently of rabid believers commenting on many of the skeptic blogs or responding to skeptics on alarmist blogs. Mainly resulting in distraction, as in this thread.
Has anyone else noticed?”
I have noticed, and confess I find it a royal pain.
What annoys me most is the repetition of talking-points which have already been discussed and largely discounted. Often a link is supplied to make it look like the talking-point has some sort of authority behind it. Then, when you check the link, you see some article written by an airhead which uses the phrase “scientists say” over and over, without saying which scientists, (or when, where, what or who.)
I may love science, but I have never much liked math. Therefore it caused me pain to dig down into the details of why Mann’s “hockey stick” graph is bogus. However I gritted my teeth and did it, because I feel we all have a responsibility to become educated voters. I did it not once, but several times, because that graph is bogus for several reasons.
Considering I did all that work, I find it hugely annoying to be supplied a link, and to check out the link and see that bogus graph staring me in the face, yet again.
I find it even more annoying when the link connects me to a tearful tale about the tragic fate of polar bears. We all know the polar-bear population is increasing in most areas, but that doesn’t seem to matter to the regurgitators of talking-points.
We also know that the authority on polar bears got treated badly when he spoke out and stated the polar bear population was increasing. Bill Gray was also treated badly. However one talking-point seems to be that those who point out the bad-treatment of Skeptics are paranoid, or wing-nuts, or have failed to do the research, or are not qualified to speak because the high priests haven’t sprinkled them with the holy kool-aid.
I don’t think these people are interested in the truth. For all I know some may even be paid to muddy the waters. I have seen cases where they post over and over, hour after hour, day after day, so I doubt they have to work as hard as I do. I treasure my free time, and would rather enjoy the sunshine than argue about Mann’s graph when the argument is over.
Therefore I thank those who are patient and take the time to carefully point out the truth. As for me, I have done the work, have become an educated voter, and know where I stand.
The regurgitators of talking-points will have to walk about with their mouths full of regurgitation, as far as I’m concerned, for I haven’t the time or inclination to wash away what they have eaten.
Moderate Republican says:
June 18, 2011 at 7:03 pm
———————————–
Kevin O’Neill says:
June 18, 2011 at 9:02 pm
================================================================
I hate to be the one to tell you, but you’re both repeating the mantra….
…and you’re both wrong
Stop, think, and just use common sense………….
BTW, you both brought up examples of extinctions……..when CO2 levels fell..
Kevin, be careful how you interpret articles. Their phrase “…suggest that there is an emerging anthropogenic signal… ” cannot justifiably translate to your words “…not only has the anthropogenic signal already been detected in…”.
Of even more importance is that the list of signs given in the article can only be caused in the presence of the appropriate oceanic and atmospheric weather patterns, none of which are out of the ordinary. So you must mechanistically and mathematically show that the addition of anthropogenic CO2 has forced these ordinary weather pattern variations to work in sync to produce the signs listed, and to continue to work in sync.
It takes a tremendous amount of driving energy to force a weather pattern variation (which is usually a combination of weather pattern oceanic and atmospheric parameters) into existence, and then to keep it there, driving potential that the incredibly small CO2 ppm does not have, let alone that of the even smaller anthropogenic CO2 ppm portion.
The article you have referred to is weak in that it only uses correlation to suggest causation. In other words, wriggle matching.
Latitude says: June 18, 2011 at 5:18 pm
Yes, I did make that statement. That’s because I’ve talked with some of the scientists at scripps and elsewhere about the issue and I have read some of the material. Ocean chemistry today is done with much higher confidence than it was done 450 million years ago 😉
re. “If ocean acidification is another piece of evidence for AGW…..
….how is this possible?”
Parse your issues. Just because someone gets slapped in the face this year, may not be the same reason that same person was slapped in the face ten years ago.
You seem to have some knowledge about this though so maybe you can educate me on the Ordovician Period.
Who did the studies you are referring to?
What are the error bar potentials and confidence interval on the observations.
What are they cross correlated with.
What are the mechanisms suggested.
And what does that really have to do with what we are doing right now?
Facts, or even studies can be easily taken out of context. So please do provide more context and let me know more.
Moderate Republican says: June 18, 2011 at 7:03 pm
… just saw Moderate Republicans response: Thank you for that.
and
Kevin O’Neill says: June 18, 2011 at 9:02 pm
Thanks, very helpful
PS Moderate Republican, You might want to check out:
https://uscentrist.org/
pardon the css issues this week as the site is going through some modifications
John P. Reisman says:
June 19, 2011 at 7:36 am
===============================================================
John, it’s a very simple question…
If elevated CO2 levels create ocean acidification, and ocean acidification inhibits calcification…..
…How is it possible that we use whole intact fossilized calcium skeletons for paleoclimate reconstructions when CO2 levels were ~4000-5000 ppm?
Hint – don’t assume that the oceans run out of buffer…………..and don’t assume that it’s all about calcium
Latitude says: June 19, 2011 at 9:02 am
I asked you to help me understand the issue and so far you are proving yourself worthless in the education department.
John P. Reisman says:
June 18, 2011 at 11:55 am
Other lines of evidence regaridn CO2 is ocean acidificaiotn which is affecting phytoplanckon.
=========================================================================
John, you stated ocean acidification is affecting phytoplankton….
If there is such a thing as ocean acidification, how is it possible that we have a calcium paleo reconstruction of it?
Isn’t that acid ocean supposed to inhibit calcification?
If calcification is not inhibited, does that mean that even at ~4000-5000 ppm atmospheric CO2, ocean acidification did not happen?
Is CO2 a plant fertilizer or not?
Are phytoplankton/zooxanthellae plants or not?
What happens when you culture something and then cut off the fertilizer?
Would you expect that culture to crash?
What is the “carbon” in calcium carbonate?
Latitude says: June 19, 2011 at 10:31 am
I’m sorry, I mistakenly thought you were not ignorant, and might actually have some relevant knowledge and understanding of the issues in context.
https://scholar.google.ch/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=1,5&q=ocean+acidification
It’s very simple to understand the real problem. We humans eat food. Many crops have thermal limits that are now being impinged upon. Therefore as we continue to warm, we will have less food. It does not matter how much bigger plants ‘can’ grow. We will simply have less food, thus more inflation, which is a serious economic consideration.
Your arguments have little to nothing to do with humankind’s current reality regarding global warming, CO2 and crops reaching thermal limits, and therefore losing yield capability.
By the way, what is your full legal name, or do you prefer to be an anonymous person on the internet therefore exhibiting that you are either afraid of something, or just don’t have enough integrity to stand by your words publicly?
John, may I ask what agriculture-related education and/or experience you are drawing on?
RE: Pamela Gray June 19, 2011 at 6:57 am
Yes, it would be nice to have a computational model that could account for every molecule of CO2, CH4, H2O, etc. in the atmosphere; tracing each molecule’s path, interactions, and thermal effects. You know probably better than I do that this is *never* going to happen. Or perhaps we’re talking at cross-purposes.
The earth is warming. Why?
I’ll repeat: I’m not a climate scientist, but I’ve read dozens – if not hundreds – of papers on the subject. Still, my knowledge is only a synthesis of that reading as imperfect as that may be. My knowledge leads me to understand that:
1. The sun-earth system has to follow the laws of thermodynamics
2. Either incoming solar radiation has increased or outgoing radiation has decreased
3. Measured OLR has decreased; specifically in the spectral bands of GHGs
4. A decrease in OLR within these bands means an increase in atmospheric GHG content
5. Atmospheric GHGs come from both natural and anthropogenic sources
6. The share attributed to natural sources alone does not explain the warming
7. The combined increases in GHG do explain the warming.
This outline was first hypothesized decades ago. Within this broad outline there are many fine details – forcings, feedbacks, strange attractors, limit cycles, datasets of varying integrity and completeness – and yet the overwhelming preponderance of new evidence has reinforced belief in the hypothesis. Given the state of the science I see only a limited number of responses:
One could deny the earth is warming, then the whole discussion becomes moot.
One could prove that incoming radiation has increased – making the rest of the discussion irrelevant.
One could prove that more significant decreases in OLR have occurred in spectral bands that don’t correspond to GHGs, making GHGs insignificant.
One could prove that anthropogenic contributions to the total GHG budget are insignificant.
One could accept the AGW hypothesis and not care about the consequences, or.
One accepts the AGW hypothesis and attempts to ameliorate its causes and/or effects.
I just don’t see a comprehensive competing hypothesis. I see a lot of haggling over details, but nothing substantive on the broad strokes. I’ll ask again, where is the alternative GCM that ignores CO2 and produces results of similar or better accuracy?
John P. Reisman says:
June 19, 2011 at 11:24 am
I’m sorry, I mistakenly thought you were not ignorant
=============================================
LOL I’m ignorant, and you are so threatened you want to know who I am…..
Do you think Hematite deposits could have anything to do with it?
Maybe even desertification and Saharan/African dust?
You have heard of fertilizing the oceans with iron to sequester CO2, right?
Pamela Gray says: June 19, 2011 at 12:00 pm
Well, for one example, that of Chris Fields
https://fsi.stanford.edu/people/christopherfield/
Pamela,
From the look of this:
https://ossfoundation.org/about/john-reisman
…none.
But perhaps you knew that already 🙂
See that little blue box up there….the one with Anthony’s name on it?
I think he’s getting tired of us…….LOL
and before he gets tired of me…I’m out
Latitude,
You keep repeating this point about CO2 at 4000 to 5000 ppm, yet no ocean acidification. What are you talking about? While there is a lag between atmospheric content and transport to oceans – it’s simple chemistry that the Air-Sea Flux of CO2 will seek isotopic equilibrium. To state otherwise is to deny basic chemistry. Is there a specific paper you’re referring to?
While most responses to Professor Gray’s characterization of the AMS and its handling of the Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) Theory and his criticism of the AGW theory itself has been well received, a few note that his comments are merely his own opinions and assertions, without definitive proof to back his claims. However, it should be noted that his article is presented as a blog, which is not the ideal forum to present technical material. Most readers of the forum are more than likely not scientists. Many who are scientists are not likely to be experts in atmospheric science. .So, one should not expect to see serious and complete details backing his assertions in such a forum. Those looking form more details might examine my book on the subject:
GLOBAL WARMING: Geophysical Counterpoints to the Enhanced Greenhouse Theory
This book, published in 2010, can be found on the Dorrance Publishing Co, Inc. WEB site:
https://www.dorrancebookstore.com/glwagecotoen.html
It can also be found on Amazon.com
The book explains, using real data, not opinions or assertions, why CO2 (and other greenhouse gases) can not possibly be the primary driver of Global Warming. Thus, as a corollary, anthropogenic CO2-generating activity can not be the cause of Global Warming.
This book notes that the AGW theory is too simplistic to explain Global Warming. Indeed Global Warming is a sufficiently complex phenomenon that really no one truly knows what has been causing the secular increase in Global Temperatures that suddenly began 1906. The 1906 change in this secular increase was dramatic, occurring over just one or two years. This observation, in and of itself, is enough to cause grave doubt regarding the validity of the AGW Theory. No anthropogenic activity could have changed global temperatures that fast. Add to this the fact that simultaneously, there was an equally sudden change in Earth’s polar axis orientation. CO2 has no pondermotive force associated with it that can affect such a change. The secular trends in both Global Temperature and Polar Axis Motion have remained steady ever since the 1906 event. The 1906 San Francisco earthquake may be related, but is not likely to be the cause of the changes in temperature and orientation.
It is the secular temperature increase that is the primary cause of concern. The 60-year cycle and other decadal cycles of the oceans, atmosphere, core fluid motions, etc., that have periods less than about 150-years, are irrelevant with respect to Earth’s long-term heating or cooling, since they are periodic or quasi-periodic. Longer period phenomenon (e.g., 1000 years) may be quite important since on a short-term time scale (e.g., 200 years or so), these would be incorporated as part of the secular change. However, we have precious little data to examine in this regard.
My short, but I think informative, book, promotes the Solar-Terrestrial Theory of Global Warming. This theory emphasizes the electromagnetic interactions between the Sun and the Earth’s interior, from Earth’s surface to the core, the Joule heating effects caused by such interactions, and the effects that these interactions may have on climate, earthquakes, volcanism, tropical storms and hurricanes, among other things.
Kevin O’Neill says:
June 19, 2011 at 1:18 pm
=============================================
Kevin, buffers are even simpler chemistry…….to state otherwise is to deny basic chemistry.
A little practical experience might help you and an even simpler analogy.
It’s not unusual for households to have 2000 ppm CO2, yet people keep alkaline high pH aquariums.
Latitude,
I think I mentioned these processes in the past have occurred over thousands or tens of thousands of years. Are you proposing there is a natural buffer that is or will kick in to compensate for a rapid increase in CO2?
If you don’t have a reference for what you’re talking about I can only assume you’ve pulled something out of context.
Kevin, what processes are you talking about?
Are you trying to say that it takes thousands and 10 of thousands of years for ocean acidification?
And that all the claims of current dropping pH are bogus?
All I’m saying is just trying to use common sense, and trying to give real world examples, to show you that you can’t lower pH with any acid until you run out of buffer.
If you think the oceans can run out of carbonates, bicarbonates, etc, then prove that they can………..
Latitude says: June 19, 2011 at 12:42 pm
re. “you are so threatened you want to know who I am…..”
I’m not the slightest bit afraid of you which is why I user my real name when I post. You on the other hand don’t, so the likelihood of of you being afraid to post your real name is the issue here. Plus, I don’t think you show much integrity when you are afraid or unwilling to use your real name.
Latitude says: June 19, 2011 at 4:57 pm
re. “If you think the oceans can run out of carbonates, bicarbonates, etc, then prove that they can………..”
It’s not about running out of carbonates and bicarbonates.
Warming and Acidifying Seas
The concentration of carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere now exceeds 380 ppm, which is more than 80 ppm above the maximum values of the past 740,000 years (5, 6), if not 20 million years (7). During the 20th century, increasing [CO ] has driven an increase in the global 2 atm oceans’ average temperature by 0.74°C and sea level by 17 cm, and has depleted seawater carbonate concentrations by ~30 mmol kg−1 seawater and acidity by 0.1 pH unit (8). Approximately 25% (2.2 Pg C year−1) of the CO2 emitted from all anthropogenic sources (9.1 Pg C year−1) cur- rently enters the ocean (9), where it reacts with water to produce carbonic acid. Carbonic acid dissociates to form bicarbonate ions and protons, which in turn react with carbonate ions to produce more bicarbonate ions, reducing the availability of carbonate to biological systems (Fig. 1A). De- creasing carbonate-ion concentrations reduce the rate of calcification of marine organisms such as reef-building corals, ultimately favoring erosion at ~200 mmol kg−1 seawater (7, 10).
https://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTCMM/Publications/21706633/HoeghGuldbergetal2007.pdf
Hmmm… I wonder why the World Bank is interested in science?
Anonymous Latitude
Do you ever look at real science papers? Or do you only get information from some persons blog that says limited scoped things about limited scoped perspectives?
Google Scholar is your friend:
https://scholar.google.ch/scholar?hl=en&q=ocean+acidification+carbonates+bicarbonates&btnG=Search&as_sdt=1%2C5&as_ylo=&as_vis=0
John M. Quinn says: June 19, 2011 at 2:09 pm
I criticize Professor Gray because he does not seem to consider all relevant factors and therefore misses critical and relevant pieces of the puzzle.
Your post displays a fundamental misunderstanding of the greenhouse effect. To put it in simple terms, if you put on more clothing, you will be able to trap more heat close to your body. If you remove more clothing, your body will radiate more heat outward.
The increase in 1906 was very likely a mix of mostly natural variation due to oceanic heat content overturn, mixed with possibly or very possibly some of the increased forcing effect. Natural variation continues today but increasingly mixed with increased anthropogenic forcing amounts.
The polar axis moves on relatively long times scales 26kyrs and 41kys respectively regarding the precession and obliquity angles and could not have played much of a role in the change in 1906.
The book promotes solar as cause agent? Solar luminance changes ‘might’ account for possibly 3 to 5% of signal, but solar flux decreased in the last 30 years. So these issues need to be parsed and forcing levels determined. The total assessment indicates that changes in solar activity simply can not explain current changes and inertias. Of course now we ‘may’ be entering a solar quiet phase, so some people are saying we may start cooling… unlikely.
The odds of going into a Maunder Minimum (MM) styled cooling event are extremely low I would say based on the basic math. Radiative forcing during the period surrounding the MM were relatively small, so when the sunspot activity dropped we lost likely around have the signal strength which is around 0.2 W/m2 in total variance (0.1 W/m2 in relative change). Since we are currently estimated around 1.66 W/m2 a quite sun will only reducing climate forcing by 0.1 W/m2 which equals 1.56 W/m2 positive forcing all in.
Unfortunately, we will continue to warm.
Billy Liar says: June 19, 2011 at 1:02 pm
re. “But perhaps you knew that already :-)”
Someone always has to take things down to the silliest level, and Billy has done just that.
So the implication by extrapolation is that I don’t have the right to say anything because I’m not an agriculture expert? Of course the post just above yours shows that I am actually relying on other people that are experts.
So you were saying…?
John, not one single person has measured a decrease in carbonate ions…that is all conjecture
….that can’t happen until the oceans run out of buffer
Explain how you can lower the pH of a base without running out of buffer.
You can’t.
If the planet had ever run out of buffer, ever, in the past, nitrification and denitrification would have stopped.
Nitrification and denitrification requires a much higher level of carbonates/buffer than calcification in order to work.
Nitrification and denitrification will stop long before calcification will stop.
That has never happened, even when CO2 levels were in the thousands.
John I find you well-versed in AGW theory, which is quite refreshing. You seem capable of going beyond the talking points. Bravo. But I must protest your reference to CO2 causing such an increase in SST. Mathematically and mechanistically, this is not possible. The sea surface warming you refer to can only have a tiny fraction related to LW radiation re-emitted by CO2. You must know that.
Aninymous Latitude says: June 20, 2011 at 5:04 am
Your argument still seems confused and without relevant context. Can you be more clear. Are you saying there have been ‘no’ measured changes in PH levels. Are you saying the extra CO2 absorption in the ocean changes nothing? Or are you just saying that those things don’t matter because buffers will handle everything and there will be no impacts, and if that is your premise which peer reviewed/responded studies support your idea?
Red herring arguments such as yours are generally worthless.You could argue that we really don’t know the affects of the whining children on global warming, therefore we can’t say for sure we have checked every possible connection and therefore we don’t know anything…
If you are going to make an argument show me it’s relevance. What does anything you are saying have to do with current changes in ocean acidification, global warming, or climate forcing. What is your premise? What are you talking about…
Or are you just talking because you have nothing better to do and don’t mind presenting nonsensical rants on the intertubes?
John, again
You can’t lower the pH of anything until you run out of buffer.
Denitrification requires a 10 to 1 ratio of carbonates.
Denitrification will stop before calcification stops.
If denitrification stops, it will be extremely obvious.
Is there any evidence of denitrification stopping?
The anonymous Latitude says: June 20, 2011 at 5:04 am
“not one single person has measured a decrease in carbonate ions…that is all conjecture”
One well-known effect is the lowering of calcium carbonate saturation states, which impacts shell-forming marine organisms from plankton to benthic molluscs, echinoderms, and corals.
Analogous to the dramatic changes in the carbonate speciation, i.e., the measurable decrease in the concentration of carbonate ion and the increase in bicarbonate and aqueous CO2, many other so-called weak acid species that undergo acid-base reactions in seawater will undergo significant speciation shifts with decreasing pH.
https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.marine.010908.163834
OCEAN CARBONATE SYSTEM
Seawater carbonate chemistry is governed by a series of chemical reactions:
CO →←CO +H O→←H CO →←H+ +HCO− →←2H+ +CO2−. (1) 2(atmos) 2(aq) 2 2 3 3 3
Air-sea gas exchange equilibrates surface water CO2 to atmospheric levels with a timescale of approximately one year. Once dissolved in seawater, CO2 gas reacts with water to form carbonic acid (H2CO3), which can then dissociate by losing hydrogen ions to form bicarbonate (HCO3−) and carbonate (CO32−) ions. The seawater reactions are reversible and near equilibrium (Millero et al. 2002); for surface seawater with pH of ∼8.1, approximately 90% of the inorganic carbon is bicarbonate ion, 9% is carbonate ion, and only 1% is dissolved CO2. Adding CO2 to seawater in- creases aqueous CO2 , bicarbonate, and hydrogen ion concentrations; the latter lowers pH because pH = –log10[H+]. Carbonate ion concentration declines, however, because of the increasing H+ concentrations. The projected 0.3–0.4 pH drop for the 21st century is equivalent to approximately a 150% increase in H+ and 50% decrease in CO32− concentrations (Orr et al. 2005).
Over century and longer timescales, the ocean’s ability to absorb atmospheric CO2 depends on the extent of CaCO3 dissolution in the water column or sediments:
CaCO →←CO2− +Ca2+.
John Reisman,
You really need to get up to speed on the subject of ocean pH, which has been thoroughly discussed here over the past year. It is evident that you’re winging it. Cutting and pasting simple chemical reactions doesn’t fool anyone. To help you get real understanding, here are three relevant articles. Please read them and the comments:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/06/19/the-electric-oceanic-acid-test
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/01/10/ocean-acidification-chicken-of-the-sea-little-strikes-again
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/05/25/oh-noes-the-abalone-must-be-saved-so-we-can-eat-it
There are similar articles, including a follow-up by Willis to his article above. Search the archives for them. All your pH questions are answered in detail in the links above. The short version is: don’t worry, ‘acidification’ is just another false alarm. But don’t take my word for it. Educate yourself, then you will understand that ‘acidification’ is just the latest scare du jour.
John P. Reisman says:
June 19, 2011 at 10:21 pm
You will need to explain your figures in your last paragraph to me I’m afraid, and especially the sources for radiative forcing levels during the MM.
As far as I am aware, solar radiation TSI is supposed to vary by no more than 0.1% or up to 2W/m2 during an 11 year cycle.
(see https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/Glory/solar_irradiance/total_solar_irradiance.html)
Now, I remember reading somewhere that human radiative forcing is supposed to be around 0.8 W/m2 (don’t have time to look for it again, IPCC?) so I am unsure what your ‘currently 1.66 W/m2′ refers to?? and where does solar variation come down to 0.1 W/m2???
Sorry, but actually, reading your last paragraph again – I can’t make any sense out of it.
Even Nasa says that TSI equates to up to 2 W/m2!!
Please explain in greater detail your ‘math’ and reasoning!
Pamela Gray says: June 20, 2011 at 7:35 am
re. “Bravo. But I must protest your reference to CO2 causing such an increase in SST.”
I would say I am semi well versed. I know too many people that know a lot more than I do.
Without actually digging into the issue, I propose the following allegory to explain.
The ocean has not changed color, so it’s dark water absorption properties have not changed. It’s froth albedo has likely not changed either. So how can the ocean warm due to CO2?
Imagine you are walking outside on a warm day. You are wearing a tee shirt. The sun is out. Now, imagine putting on a sweater. What happens rather quickly is that the heat you were radiating out through your tee shirt is now being radiated back toward your skin because of the sweater, through your tee shirt.
You begin to feel warmer. Now, if 1/3rd of your tee shirt had holes in it. Those holes could represent the higher radiative properties of land, loosely speaking of course.
But the areas where you have layered tee shirt _ sweater, your body warms a bit more. The oceans, like your body begin to absorb that extra heat energy and your whole body begins to rise in temperature. If it is ‘too warm’ out, you may eventually experience some degree of heat stroke because you are unable to radiate enough heat away from your body.
John Reisman says:
“I would say I am semi well versed.”
Not really. If the oceans were warming due to CO2 or anything else, themal expansion would show the sea level rise. accelerating. Just the opposite is happening, indicating global cooling:
https://stevengoddard.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/paintimage2111.jpg?w=640&h=422
The anonymous Latitude says: June 20, 2011 at 7:53 am
Prove it. Show me the cites of the peer reviewed papers that show there is nothing changing in the oceans. Where are the papers? Or are you planning to continue to babble without substantiation?
The anonymous Smokey says: June 20, 2011 at 8:04 am
Unfortunately, from what I’ve seen from watts articles, and guest articles, they are typically deeply flawed due to narrowly scoped examinations. I’m not just saying this, I’ve read a few. Certainly not all as I prefer to spend my time examining peer reviewed work and relevant contexts from more scientific perspectives. This web site is pretty much on the opposite end of the spectrum from science. And no, getting a web award from non scientists that either vote or traffic a site giving it a high rating does not mean it is a scientifically sound web site and by no means validates it’s articles scientifically.
Often facts are presented out of context to favor a particular spin or possibly even agenda? I don’t know why Anthony choose not to look at evidence in context. Maybe he is just not ‘scientific’ in his perspectives and thought processes, considerations, perspectives and certainly not in what I have read of his articles.
If you want me to look at something send me to peer reviewed articles not pages on this web site that take facts out of context on a regular basis.
In fact my advise to you is don’t study this web site for science, spend your time in peer reviewed articles in sources with good peer review reputation. You will find much better information.
You really need to get up to speed on the subject of ocean pH, which has been thoroughly discussed here over the past year. It is evident that you’re winging it. Cutting and pasting simple chemical reactions doesn’t fool anyone.
================================================================================
You can deconstruct ocean acidification using high school science, if you think about where to start.
It’s impossible for CO2, at any level, to put as much acid in the ocean as the process of ammonification, nitrification, and denitrification does.
Kev-in-Uk says: June 20, 2011 at 8:10 am
re. “As far as I am aware, solar radiation TSI is supposed to vary by no more than 0.1% or up to 2W/m2 during an 11 year cycle.”
Excellent catch Kev-in-Uk!!!
Bravo.
You caught a mistake that both I and NASA made.
I was describing total estimated changes due to Schwabe cycle variation of radiative forcing on the surface of the planet; while NASA was describing total estimated changes in radiative forcing in space, which roughly translates (2W/mw in space, processed through our atmosphere, roughly represents around 0.2 W/m2 on the surface.
Congratulations are deserved on that one.
Reisman says:
“Unfortunately, from what I’ve seen from watts articles, and guest articles, they are typically deeply flawed due to narrowly scoped examinations. I’m not just saying this, I’ve read a few.”
Coming from the alarmist echo chamber blogs, some folks are disoriented by the uncensored back and forth, open debate here at WUWT. For example, every aspect of the ocean pH argument was discussed by people on both sides of the debate. In the end, only verifiable facts were left standing and the conclusion was obvious to everyone: ocean pH is not a problem. That’s why every time the pH issue is raised, it quickly dies down again.
The open debate here easily debunks pseudo-scientific nonsense such as:
“Prove it. Show me the cites of the peer reviewed papers that show there is nothing changing in the oceans.”
Once again a card carying member of the alarmist crowd demands that scientific skeptics must prove a negative. But the scientific method doesn’t work that way. Skeptics have nothing to prove. The fact is that most peer reviewed papers are wrong. Not sometimes; most times. And it’s not easy to argue with a paper. Here, the truth is discovered much more readily. To be honest, the appeal to authority of peer reviewed papers is playing a weak hand. Make your arguments, and we’ll see if they stand on their own. So far, they haven’t.
For example, the GCMs predicted warming, and they were wrong. Ocean acidification was claimed to be a problem, and that was shown to be wrong. pH was claimed to be rising fast, and that was shown to be wrong. The sea level was claimed to be rising fast, and that was shown to be wrong. The sea level anomaly is actually declining. The ARGO buoy network shows that ocean heat content is delcining, as is the sea level.
All these facts point to one conclusion: the planet is cooling. The central argument of the climate alarmists is that CO2 is causing accelerating global warming. Now that the planet itself is falsifying their conjecture, will they accept that empirical evidence? Some will. But many will respond to the falsification of CAGW like Harold Camping. Their cognitive dissonance will not allow them to change their minds now that the facts have changed. For them, it only means that doomsday has been postponed.
The problem with ocean acidification is that the natural range of ocean pH is somewhere between 7.5-8.5.
even 7.5 is very unstable and requires that some very strict conditions are met to get there
If salt water has a hard time maintaining 7.5, in a closed lagoon, at low tide, in bright sun light, on the hottest day of summer, with a mud bed performing denitrification, and a dying rotting grass bed feeding it….
That’s the worst conditions anyone can think of, much worse than any amount of CO2 in the air……….
Yet as soon as the sun goes down, the pH rises again……………………..
John P. Reisman
It’s very simple to understand the real problem. We humans eat food. Many crops have thermal limits that are now being impinged upon. Therefore as we continue to warm, we will have less food. It does not matter how much bigger plants ‘can’ grow. We will simply have less food, thus more inflation, which is a serious economic consideration.
I’d love to know which crops you’re talking about. Based on my experience in my garden, more warmth = longer growing season = more crops. However, if it gets cooler than it is now, we will definitely experience a loss in crops. That experience matches that of farmers I’ve known.
There are many crops that still can’t be grown in certain regions of Europe where they once were grown, because the climate is too cold (grapes, for one). It would take a good amount of warming before those would even become viable in those regions. From what I can see, getting my hands dirty in the soil working with real plants in the real world (as opposed to computer models), it looks like cooling is much more to be feared. And it also seems we’re still a good bit below an ideal warmth for the best possible harvest.
[Note: TonyG, like others, misses the point of what I said, again. It’s not about longer growing seasons. The FACE experiments demonstrated that significantly higher CO2 levels reduce the nutritive value in some crops.]
the anonymous Smokey says: June 20, 2011 at 9:13 am
Sorry Smokey, unless your links come from science sites…
the anonymous Latitude says: June 20, 2011 at 9:25 am
Links to science articles, anyone, anyone, not miscellaneous blogs… anyone, anyone, bueller…, bueller…
TonyG says: June 20, 2011 at 9:38 am
https://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=07bc4243-a48e-4481-8a5f-daf01b1f5eba
Actually, I was visiting a friend up in Norway and he told me that there are more and more wineries popping up, further and further north. It’s not a mad rush yet, but they are rather happy about the trend.
If you have ever partied in Norway or Iceland, as I have, then you would know the significance of this.
Kevin O’Neill says:
June 18, 2011 at 8:28 pm
If there is an alternative theory to AGW (merely criticizing AGW is not in itself a climate theory) then why hasn’t it produced a GCM that can produce comprehensive results with similar or better accuracy?
Bowen says Kevin: Because it is “trade” secret . . . . How can you assert that one “controls” the weather without an accurate model . . . . Long ago emperors claimed they were responsible for the Sun being darkened . . . until the prediction was wrong and the emperors killed their “Astrologist”! See Chinese History . . . .and the current “An Inconvenient Truth”!
It was a gimmick then, and a gimmick now! The “Huckster Effect”! And it will stay a secret for as long as it can be . . . . The “Fiat Effect”!!!!!
John P. Reisman says:
June 20, 2011 at 9:05 am
Ah ok – you are presumably trying to use the average solar insolation (say around 250 w/m2) and then using 0.1% of that? which would actually give you 0.25 w/m2 of possible ‘at surface’ variation? (assuming transmittance remains the same, etc).
However, isn’t that missing any and all actual atmospheric warming/cooling as a result from solar variation effects?
And I still can’t see where this ’1.66 w/m2 currently estimating’ comes from?
I believe the IPCC use a human induced (i.e. co2) radiative forcing of 0.8 w/m2? (I don’t necessarily agree with that figure, but I’m sure it’s one they put out!)
@John
I had intended to also add that based on the conservation of energy law – it is unreasonable to pick insolation as a metric, especially you are not comparing it to an equivalent metric. i.e. is your 1.66 w/m2 supposed to be the downward radiative forcing from AGHG?
it’s simple physics – if say 1360 w/m2 of radiation energy is hitting the earth and it varies by a given amount – the basic energy budget must vary by the same amount. Unless there is some weird non-linear relationship that means more reflection at lower TSI levels or vice versa, etc, etc – the overall energy budget must vary accordingly.
As for the MM variations, I don’t have copy of this to hand, but I remember reading it last year.
https://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract;jsessionid=6C7884CB275C2EB7FA84424193A5F669.tomcat1?fromPage=online&aid=7277700
the abstract says enough..?
I get concerned when solar variations and their effects on the climate are casually dismissed. It’s simply not common sense! The warmist argument that current solar variation is insufficient to explain recent warming (but on the other hand it can explain current ‘non-warming’! LOL) and then being unable to explain past warming/cooling (i.e. before the industrial revolution !) seems ridiculous. The sun is a major player, and that cannot really be swept under the carpet.
Bowen vs, O’Neill;
The alternative GCM to the AGW ones is very simple, no computers required. It’s the default naive one: tomorrow will be like today.
And it outperforms the AGW GCMs on every measure.
John Reisman says:
“…unless your links come from science sites…”
The anonymous Smokey answers the incredible Reisman: yes, they do.
John either didn’t click on them, or he is displaying incurable cognitive dissonance by ignoring verifiable facts. Reisman continues: “Links to science articles, anyone, anyone, not miscellaneous blogs…”
Check out the links in my post above, John. There are links to peer reviewed papers that flatly contradict your position.
As Albert Einstein pointed out, it would only take one fact to falsify his Theory of Relativity. Here is solid evidence that debunks your catastrophic AGW conjecture. Data from several different satellites confirms the fact that sea level rise is sharply decelerating – a sure sign of global cooling, despite the fact that harmless, beneficial CO2 continues to rise.
Finally, your claim that a slightly warmer planet is bad for agriculture is nonsense A. 0.7°C rise over a century and a half is going to lower crop production?? You know as much about farming as you do about the climate.
John, ocean (and just plain water in a bucket) surface tension precludes the very weak ability of long wave radiation to penetrate beyond a few millimeters, and most of what warming occurs because of it is evaporated almost instantaneously. Your analogy of a body warmed by long wave radiation is way off the known physical parameters of both the ocean’s surface and long wave radiation’s ability to penetrate it. Try again.
Regarding agriculture, I am not even going to start that conversation. You are lacking knowledge in so many aspects of genetic engineering and the spread of these re-engineered cash crops to marginal growing areas it would take too long of a post to speak to each one.
Regarding vineyards, this will be the year, once again, for ice wine. The spread north of these vineyards has not been the be-all, end-all of what to grow up here, even though effort was made to engineer a wine grape able to grow in colder more variable climates. Cyclically we just don’t have the consistent number of bright sun days needed for wine grapes.
Kev-in-Uk says: June 20, 2011 at 10:36 am
Thanks for the link to the Cambridge piece. I see they are suggesting a causal link to GCR’s.
I don’t know any climate scientists ignoring solar factors though. I’ve heard that raised as a meme though and must disagree. If you do find one though, I’d be happy to go talk some sense into him/her.
I was at a conference in Zürich last year and attended a talk where someone suggested a variance in solar energy may be contributing to the climate signal and I added up his numbers into the physics for our sphere and it came to, I think around 4 to 7 % of the total signal.
As will all such suggestions, I like to wait for the peer response, which, maybe I will get to hear at the Berlin conference this year?
As to the suggested GCR link, I want to see peer response to that also. The Laschamp anomaly indicated a large scale GCR jump with no correlated temperature change, so while I do not discount possible system influences, my understanding thus far is still based on the Laschamp anomaly analysis.
As to the numbers here is what I know as of now:
The base calcs for total forcing without albedo is 3.6 W/m2
With albedo, I think AR4 had it at either 1.6 or 1.66?
But I was just at the National Academy of Science last month and someone quoted 1.66 W/m2.
I recall analyzing multiple assessments on TSI about 7 or 8 years ago and the number was 1366.4 W/m2
The below link indicates that is approximately correct
https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2009/01apr_deepsolarminimum/
Variance ranges are: 0.925 0.894 0.996
Total average variance = 0.938
divide by 4 for physics on a sphere, etc. = 0.235 W/m2
So, I’m at least partially comfortable with a 0.2W/m2 guess
Pamela Gray says: June 20, 2011 at 11:18 am
re. dark water absorption of heat
publish a paper on it and I promise I will read it.
re. agriculture
I’m aware the companies are working on genetic engineering of foods,
re. vineyards
I never said it would be good wine 😉
@John
”I was at a conference in Zürich last year and attended a talk where someone suggested a variance in solar energy may be contributing to the climate signal and I added up his numbers into the physics for our sphere and it came to, I think around 4 to 7 % of the total signal. ”
query – the total signal of what? – I am guessing you mean that solar possibly accounts for 4 to 7% of the climate warming ‘signal’? (and logically of course, if we are gonna cool – only 4-7% of any cooling?)
Now, I am perhaps getting confused. If the GHG effect is accepted to increase atmospheric temps and surface temps by X degrees Centigrade and the temperature varies by Y degrees C naturally – are you saying that this Y value is only affected by 4-7% due to solar? So what causes the remainder? Presumably, the other 93-96% is due to anthropogenic or other natural effects? and these are? and the ACTUAL human element is what percent?
Logically, it doesn’t make sense to come up with such figures – when we know for a fact that natural, geologically timescale speaking, climate variability is say +/- 10C. So what the heck caused all that variability – because it surely wasn’t anthropogenic – and taking that a stage further, even if we allow for orbital variations, the actual, real McCoy energy variation is only due to incoming solar flux! (yeah, yeah, I know there are volcanoes and such like, but the PRIMARY energy budget driving variable HAS to be the sun!)
Kev-in-Uk says: June 20, 2011 at 1:42 pm
Right 4 to 7% of the total surface climate forcing
I can’t speak to the validity of the study. As I said, I usually wait to see if it holds up against other data.
The main issue with your proposed considerations are time scale and circumstance.
If you look at paleo climate since the early Cambrian, yes, close to 10C
But * C hotter is not a hospitable place to live. Of course there were no humans then.
But your main point revolves around variability and cause. Different cause agents are interplaying at different times. That’s what paleo climate is all about of course.
For example the atmospheric composition was different in different periods. Some periods were dealing with things like long scale flood basalt eruptions dumping massive amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. There was a different albedo at different times. different ocean currents due to continental plate positioning, so heat transfer was very different at different times.
Heck the climate system only really began to get into our current pattern span in the past 1 million years and our current 100kyr cycles in the past 400 kyrs.
So actually there are a lot of real mccoy climate agents in play. It’s too easy to over simplify the system and say it’s all the sun.
Under 30 to 40 year times scales it’s harder to place percentages on the temperature percentages natural to human, but the forcing is a bit easier to deal with. The majority of the forcing increase above Holocene thermal equilibrium is likely 90% human. I don’t know how high the confidence interval is on that at this time though. But i’d place odds on it.
Comparing the last 150 years and radiative forcing changes to 500 million years ago though is inappropriate. These are entirely different circumstances. Context is key. We should be near thermal equilibrium and we are not. SO something changes it. But the solar measurements we have do not account for the total energy increase and the attribution studies show that the most likely candidate is human induced positive forcing…
Unless of course you have another theory that can explain the change, with mechanism? If you do, get it published, you will be famous, and we can all start working on other important things.
@ John
you just left yourself a bit exposed when you said this…
” We should be near thermal equilibrium and we are not”
who the feck said that? and why? and how can they prove it? What the flip is equilibrium and who decided where it was??
Nobody knows – and anybody who says otherwise is a complete charlatan – or at least doesn’t understand the scale of the system. The easiest and simplest rebuttal to such a claim is the fact that we KNOW from palaeoclimates that these were not in any such equilibrium and NEVER have been because they HAVE CHANGED – NATURALLY!
Please post up a link, by any scientist, who says what/where the climate ‘equilibrium’ actually IS (or is supposed to be)!
I respectfully suggest you are moving away from the point – and into esoteric fantasy. There is no such equilibrium, if there was, the earth wouldn’t have changed over last 4.6 billion years! The earth and it’s ecosystem are a mass chaotic or at least semi chaotic system. A positive effect here, leads to a negative effect there, and vice versa, etc, etc – it IS a naturally changing system. Of that there can be absolutely no doubt.
On the presumption that you can accept that point – the next query is how you feel that human induced climate change can be significant and moreover can be detected within such a naturally changing world?
As a great fan of Newtons 3rd Law – I fail to see how, in such a large scale system, we can have such a profound effect as a result of our CO2 (note – I did not say we are not having any effect!) because the natural system will react negatively to any positive input.
Oh good heavens John! Multiple papers and lectures have been written on aborption of light energy and heat through the sea surface tension and below! You don’t know this stuff??? There are many many internet sources to explain the most basic properties of water and light/heat energy.
In one of your posts above you included this statement: “During the 20th century, increasing [CO ] has driven an increase in the global 2 atm oceans’ average temperature by 0.74°C “.
There is absolutely no way that reabsorbed, re-immitted lw IR radiation from the anthropogenic CO2 increase can possibly have the energy to heat the oceans as your statement seems to suggest. The maths and mechanics do not compute. Please retract your error or at least your belief in that statement, from wherever you found it.
“Humankind needs fossil-fuel energy to maintain its industrial lifestyle and to expand this lifestyle in order to be able to better handle these many other non-CO2 environmental problems.
By greatly reducing CO2 emissions and paying a great deal more for our then needed renewable energy we will lower our nation’s standard of living and not be able to help relieve as many of our and the globe’s many environmental, political, and social problems. ”
Um, while I cannot make a statement about the science behind any theoretical or actual climate change due to the impact of industrialized humans (or lack of climate change), these quoted statements are a bit beyond the scope of climate science. By including this extraneous bit of opinion, it makes me wonder if there is some sort of outside bias behind this article.
There is currently no evidence that industry needs *ONLY* fossil fuels to continue. By your statements, you are assuming that industrial science cannot improve and will not find some other form of energy to harness. Yes, there would definitely be a certain amount of time before every bit of industrial machine could use the new form of power, and some may never be able to. But, to throw out any other non-fossil fuel energy source to power industry is insane. Technology is changing. There are tons of possibilities, some known, some yet to be discovered. What is known is not receiving support to make those sources more affordable. The unknown discoveries, well, lets just say I hope I stumble upon one of them and gain a relaxing lifestyle because of it.
Those quoted statements make it sound like the end-all, be-all of powering life as we know it is fossil fuel. If industry remains stuck on fossil fuel, then our industries will fail, as there is no innovation within the power/fuel sector. You also claim renewable energy will cost more. Sure, the infrastructure changes will cost a pretty penny at first, and figuring out how to store excess energy and then building however we store said items will also cost a bit. However, in the long run, having this infrastructure in place will help reduce long-term costs of energy if fossil fuel reserves start to deplete more drastically. Where is the analysis between the amount of fossil fuel being consumed each year against how much fossil fuel is created per year? Having renewable energy as an insurance policy would be comforting, as I would not want to live in a world like Mad Max presents.
Kev-in-Uk says: June 20, 2011 at 3:32 pm
You can be pretty arrogant in your assumptions I notice.
re. “who the [snip] said that? and why? and how can they prove it? What the flip is equilibrium and who decided where it was??”
https://data.giss.nasa.gov/modelforce/
re. “Nobody knows – and anybody who says otherwise is a complete charlatan – or at least doesn’t understand the scale of the system. The easiest and simplest rebuttal to such a claim is the fact that we KNOW from palaeoclimates that these were not in any such equilibrium and NEVER have been because they HAVE CHANGED – NATURALLY!”
First you need a reference point to measure against. For our purposes, since we did most of our development during the Holocene warm period, using the relative thermal equilibrium is a good idea.
The relative zero in most calcs is the 10-8 kyr average estimated forcing.
You need to study more.
re. “I fail to see”
You are correct in this statements of yours.
re. “the natural system will react negatively to any positive input.”
great put some parameters on that, quantify it, publish it. I look forward to reading it.
The problem with your overall statements are that you are inferring that negatives will balance out positives. On what time scale you were saying we were 7-8C hotter above, right? that happened over millions of years. Why didn’t the world immediately react with negative effects and cools us down? Now your saying
re. “I did not say we are not having any effect!) because the natural system will react negatively to any positive input.”
So you are inferring/saying we can have a positive effect but the negatives will balance it out. What’s your mechanism for that.
Science sites or science cites would help.
Further material on the estimated forcing (not including all feedbacks) can be seen in a graph included in the Target Atmospheric CO2 paper
James Hansen,1,2* Makiko Sato,1,2 Pushker Kharecha,1,2 David Beerling,3 Valerie Masson-Delmotte,4 Mark Pagani,5 Maureen Raymo,6 Dana L. Royer,7 James C. Zachos8
You can see the graph they used in that paper here:
https://ossfoundation.org/the-leading-edge/projects/environment/global-warming/radiative-climate-forcing
It’s the lead image.
Pamela Gray says: June 20, 2011 at 5:41 pm
re. “Oh good heavens John! Multiple papers and lectures have been written”
Science sites and science cites would help, but as yet you have provided nothing of value.
You see, I don’t believe you are a god, so I’m not actually going to just take your word for it.
Pamela Gray says: June 20, 2011 at 6:09 pm
re. In one of your posts above you included this statement: “During the 20th century, increasing [CO ] has driven an increase in the global 2 atm oceans’ average temperature by 0.74°C “.
No, I did not say that and you obviously did not read the science paper I linked. SO you are further proving that you are not interested in learning but rather more interested in preaching from your belief pulpit.
As I said, provide science sites or science cites.
The paper that included the statement you are referring to is:
Coral Reefs Under Rapid Climate Change and Ocean Acidification 1. O. Hoegh-Guldberg1,*, 2. P. J. Mumby2, 3. A. J. Hooten3, 4. R. S. Steneck4, 5. P. Greenfield5, 6. E. Gomez6, 7. C. D. Harvell7, 8. P. F. Sale8, 9. A. J. Edwards9, 10. K. Caldeira10, 11. N. Knowlton11, 12. C. M. Eakin12, 13. R. Iglesias-Prieto13, 14. N. Muthiga14, 15. R. H. Bradbury15, 16. A. Dubi16 and 17. M. E. Hatziolos17
https://www.sciencemag.org/content/318/5857/1737.short
You also apparently love to state that I don’t know much. Let me tell you what I absolutely know. Absolutely nothing.
Maybe your proclamations are based on some sort of insecurity? Maybe you just don’t understand the scientific method?
There is absolutely nothing other than pure math that can be ‘known’ absolutely. The best we can do is use the available science, understanding and evidence and refine the parameters to find relative conclusions.
re. “There is absolutely no way that reabsorbed, re-immitted lw IR radiation from the anthropogenic CO2 increase can possibly have the energy to heat the oceans as your statement seems to suggest. The maths and mechanics do not compute. Please retract your error or at least your belief in that statement, from wherever you found it.”
Prove it. Science sites and science cites.
Now let me see if I’ve got this right, your saying/inferring that warmer air around the oceans won’t heat the oceans? At all?
I read with great interest the essay of Chris Colose directed to mathematicians
https://www.mathaware.org/mam/09/essays/Radiative_balance.pdf
Thanks for the opportunity.
This is the first text I see which unveils a little bit the math behind the models they build. I am not qualified to judge about the climate assumptions they do, but the math analysis of the resulting model is very naive.
We know now that the dynamical systems are much more complicated than what was thought earlier (and what is used). The typical behavior is chaotic, as Prof. Gray rightfully asserts (“They do not realize that the strongly chaotic nature of the atmosphere-ocean climate system does not allow for skillful initial value numerical climate prediction.”) The equilibrium points are not the only attractors, and in fact are rarely main attractors of any sufficiently complex dynamical system, not only the weather-related. The “positive feedback” mentioned in the paper means that the relatively periodic motion we have cannot be explained in terms of equilibrium points. And this makes the high-accuracy modeling utterly pointless: if the system is chaotic, numerical experiments are pointless, as they are highly sensible to coefficients (how you know that e.g. albedo is 0.3 and not 0.301? and this will completely change the numbers).
In short, the second step of (reality)\to (modeling equations)\to (description of solutions of the modeling equations) is not convincing, to say the least. The deciding phenomena are simply omitted. It is understandable, as you do what you can (the simple search for equilibrium points), but to claim that they do not have any impact simply because you cannot analyze them is a wishful thinking. Take this as a peer review from mathematician.
Pamela Gray says: June 20, 2011 at 6:09 pm
re. “There is absolutely no way that reabsorbed, re-immitted lw IR radiation from the anthropogenic CO2 increase can possibly have the energy to heat the oceans as your statement seems to suggest. The maths and mechanics do not compute. Please retract your error or at least your belief in that statement, from wherever you found it.”
Please keep in mind that when I quote someone else’s paper, I’m not saying it, the paper is.
“A large (~1023 J) multi-decadal globally averaged warming signal in the upper 300 m of the world’s oceans was reported roughly a decade ago1 and is attributed to warming associated with anthropogenic greenhouse gases2, 3. The majority of the Earth’s total energy uptake during recent decades has occurred in the upper ocean3, but the underlying uncertainties in ocean warming are unclear, limiting our ability to assess closure of sea-level budgets4, 5, 6, 7, the global radiation imbalance8 and climate models5. For example, several teams have recently produced different multi-year estimates of the annually averaged global integral of upper-ocean heat content anomalies (hereafter OHCA curves) or, equivalently, the thermosteric sea-level rise5, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16. Patterns of interannual variability, in particular, differ among methods. Here we examine several sources of uncertainty that contribute to differences among OHCA curves from 1993 to 2008, focusing on the difficulties of correcting biases in expendable bathythermograph (XBT) data. XBT data constitute the majority of the in situ measurements of upper-ocean heat content from 1967 to 2002, and we find that the uncertainty due to choice of XBT bias correction dominates among-method variability in OHCA curves during our 1993–2008 study period. Accounting for multiple sources of uncertainty, a composite of several OHCA curves using different XBT bias corrections still yields a statistically significant linear warming trend for 1993–2008 of 0.64 W m-2 (calculated for the Earth’s entire surface area), with a 90-per-cent confidence interval of 0.53–0.75 W m-2.”
https://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v465/n7296/full/nature09043.html?lang=en
It would be rather nice if Richard Black, as the BBC’s Environmental Correspondent,did a more professional job of un-biased reporting and discussed contentious environmental issues with experts from both sides of the argument without always quoting, parrot fashion, questionable scare mongering press releases created by groups of political lobbying AGW ‘scientists’ that support his own pre concieved AGW position. Why are you afraid to open up the argument in your reporting Mr Black, the BBC should allow all points of view to be heard?
George Lawson says: June 21, 2011 at 5:12 am
re. “It would be rather nice if Richard Black, as the BBC’s Environmental Correspondent,did a more professional job of un-biased reporting and discussed contentious environmental issues with experts from both sides of the argument ”
That would actually be inappropriate. There are no sides in science, only confidence levels.
John,
You keep going on about “Science sites” but you gave me a government report.
I really wish I had the time to delve into it – that 7% reduction in crop yield from just one day over 104 seems a bit farfetched. How could they possibly control for ALL the other variables? Are they suggesting that the temperature and rainfall were exactly the same during the entire rest of the growing period? Exactly the same nutrient content in the soil? Exactly the same amount of sunlight every day? Same viability rate for the seed?
Too much going on for only one factor – the individual temperature of a single day – to realistically have that significant of an effect. Something not all that hard to see (i.e. firsthand observation) if you actually grow crops.
BTW – I actually did take a couple minutes to look through the report that the government page cited, and I found this:
For example, the blue line frame A (the flexible model for corn), substituting a full day (24 h) at 29° C temperature with a full day at 40° C temperature results in a predicted yield decline of ≈7%, holding all else the same.
That tells me that the 7% figure is the result of the prediction of a model, not the result of actual observations, as the quote you posted appears to imply.
The following article is written in a style that most here will be able to understand. It includes references. The author is well-versed in ocean heating. There are mathematical articles that calculate sea water penetrative potential of far infrared (that part of the infrared spectrum that is re-emmitted by CO2 towards the ocean surface) and its ability to heat the ocean to a degree that it is not immediately lost to evaporation. I have not included them here but if requested, will do so.
https://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/articles/ocean.html
John, maybe you mistake my disagreement with your position. I do not disagree that oceans can and do warm. My disagreement with you centers on the recent increase in CO2, usually ascribed to anthropogenic sources, and its ability to be the source of that warming in the oceans. It cannot be the source. Not enough heating potential.
TonyG says: June 21, 2011 at 6:55 am
No Tony, I gave you a link to the testimony from a scientist with some of the latest findings. In his testimony he pointed out that these are not models, but actual observations.
Pamela Gray says: June 21, 2011 at 7:02 am
Pamela, when I say science sites or cites I mean those that are participating in the peer review and peer response process and I am also meaning that the reputation of peer review is rather strong, with a record of strength.
Pamela Gray says: June 21, 2011 at 7:07 am
re. “Not enough heating potential.”
Really?
So what do you think is enough?
I mean at 1.66W/m2 we are loading with 845 tera watts. Let us not forget that watts are measured in seconds.
That isn’t enough?
Global warming is a Leftist lie. It is not enough to debunk and marginalize the perpetrators of this fraud. There needs to be serious consequences including steep fines and lengthy jail time so that none of them ever again try to pull such a fraudulent scam.
John P. Reisman says:
No Tony, I gave you a link to the testimony from a scientist with some of the latest findings. In his testimony he pointed out that these are not models, but actual observations.
John,
The quote you provided is someone’s testimony that references a specific paper (Schlenker and Roberts 2009) that made the determination of a 7% diminution in crop yield. The quote I provided was taken from that paper. It clearly indicates that the 7% diminution was a modeling prediction. While it may be “based on observations”, it is not an actual observation.
In fact, what you are claiming was “observed” is something that would be physically impossible to observe – unless you’re telling me that they somehow were able to control for all the other variables so that the only difference was the single day at 104 vs 84. If that is, indeed, the case, I would be quite interested in learning of the mechanism for doing so.
John, sea water is nearly opaque to the far infrared spectrum, which penetrates depths measured in mm and is also the depth at which evaporation is the rule. There is no way this tiny amount of heating, most of which does not even stick around, can be responsible for the rise in OHC. It amazes me that you continue to argue that point.
Pamela Gray – the link you posted is nonsense AGWScienceFiction production, which discounts the thermal infrared we actually feel as heat from the Sun in its ‘energy budget’. Claiming, as in your link, that it is ‘Solar’, i.e. Visible and the two shortwave either side, which heat the Earth, and that the real heat energy we feel from the Sun has no part in this.
Visible, Light, is transmitted through water which is a transparent medium for it, it is not absorbed and doesn’t create heat. Thermal infrared actually downwelling from the Sun, is what actually heats the oceans and land of our planet. Thermal infrared converts to heat in water readily, just as it does in our bodies, it is then distributed through the water by convection.
If you find the wiki page on water absorption spectrum, you’ll see the Visible is practically non-existent, all the absorption is in the infrared.
‘Transmitted’ is the term used for the particular way the shorter, tiny, shortwave Light gets through water, it is not absorbed but rejected by the molecules of water from joining in and so pass through. In the atmosphere the molecules of oxygen and nitrogen scatter these tiny waves, giving us our blue sky.
Anyway, what is nonsense is the claim that thermal infrared, Heat cf Light, does not get to the surface of the Earth.
And nonsense that it’s the Visible that heats the Earth.
While the furious debate continues here about what an increase of ~1W/m^2 in backradiation supposedly due to risisng CO2 concentrations may or may not do, the variations in local insolation well in excess of 100W/m^2 due to ever-changing cloud cover are strangely neglected. Considered on a global basis, a variation of just a few percent in the effective albedo is far more significant to surface temperatures than variations in GHG concentrations.
It may come as a surprise to those accustomed thinking in terms of simplistic “radiative balances” that OLR and surface temperature are NEGATIVELY correlated in the tropics at decadal time scales. This is a consequence of cloud cover being not only the gatekeeper for insolation, but also a powerful inhibitor of night-time radiative loss.
That some of the ardent partisans of AGW doctrine pontificating here are unaware of the complexities of the climate system is perhaps understandable. But such ignorance on the part of AMS officers is inexcusable.
LibsAreCommies says: June 21, 2011 at 10:44 am
re. “Global warming is a Leftist lie. It is not enough to debunk and marginalize the perpetrators of this fraud. There needs to be serious consequences including steep fines and lengthy jail time so that none of them ever again try to pull such a fraudulent scam.”
This is a great example of someone that does not have enough integrity to post his full legal name and yet make outrageous accusations that are not substantiated.
The person that wrote this is a liberal.
‘given or provided in a generous and openhanded way’
or
‘given, used, or occurring in generous amounts’
He has, without substantiation generously made a claim without substantiation. And then he thinks that those that actually do science, which happens to be the most conservative organized endeavor in human history, should be put in jail.
This sort of liberalism that he/she displays should be shunned.
TonyG says: June 21, 2011 at 10:53 am
Actually it references 16 papers. Most people form the denials side tend to cherry pick points out of papers rather than look at the whole of the evidence.
I’m not saying you are doing this. But, there are many sources of observations for example Meeburg et al 2009 picks on soybeans in Brazil and claims loss potential may be overstated. He may be right. Depends on the model you are looking at and of course he was using observations from the field including water and temperature stress. But Brazil is not the whole globe.
You said “based on observations”, it is not an actual observation.”
Well, actually it is, that’s the way science works. I understand that most people don’t understand science and think it is some sort of weird magic done in laboratories, but it’s not. It’s much more in depth than magic. It uses observations, models, physics, applied mathematics and various forms of logical deduction, induction and reasoning process.
re. your statement “what you are claiming was “observed” is something that would be physically impossible to observe”
of course crop yields are not impossible to observe, they are observed intensely by the commodities exchange market and the farmers that grow food. The numbers and yields are fully quantified in the sale of those yields. So we can with great accuracy ‘observe’ crop yields. To say other wise is strange.
If you really want to start understanding what is going on you have to consider the confluence effects. Radiative forcing loading, oceanic heat content and lag time for heat absorption, decreasing soil moisture content, increased drought and flood events that damage crops, and of course increased fire potential.
I can say with a high degree of certainty now, that based on the above mentioned factors, we will see larger yield loss in the future but that some of that will be offset by farm management, and related innovations.
Either way, it all has a cost and will be reflected in the cost of our food.
We see divergence in the natural verses AGW signal models. The signal to noise was well constrained in the NCAR work. We will see similar divergence in crop yields in the future.
What many denialists seem to be arguing is that we should wait until we can no longer produce food as easily or cheaply and are already experiencing those economic stressors before we do anything.
There is a serious flaw in that logic due to economic stress and economic potential to reverse something of such magnitude with tremendous inertia.
Pamela Gray says: June 21, 2011 at 11:18 am
Pamela, I’m not an expert in this area. Can you give me one single cite from a reputable science source on your claim. Then I can check it out, see if it has merit, examine counter arguments, see if it survived peer response and get back to you and say based on ??? whether you are more or less likely to be correct on the issue.
I’m beginning to get the feeling that you just don’t believe in using the scientific method and prefer your opinion.
sky says: June 21, 2011 at 7:52 pm
re. “furious debate”
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a furious debate at a scientific conference? What are you referring to? The debate in the public and media?
re. “cloud cover are strangely neglected”
Can you actually name one single working climate scientist that ignores cloud cover?
Ingoing and outgoing radiation is studied intensely and clouds are a big part of the big picture in consideration of radiation balance.
So, what makes you think science or scientists are not studying clouds?
https://missionscience.nasa.gov/ems/13_radiationbudget.html
LibsAreCommies says: June 21, 2011 at 10:44 am
re. “Global warming is a Leftist lie.”
Technically, without global warming the average temperature of Earth would be just below zero degrees fahrenheit and you would be a frozen block of flesh.
Can you prove that you are frozen solid?
Your risible comment is highlighted by the idiocy uttered by Tyndall. Without the “aqueous vapour” in the air, what, pray tell, would make the “frost”? Congealed CO2?
Pathetic.
Technically, almost entirely due to H2O. Can you prove that your brains are not frozen solid? The only thing of significance that would happen from eliminating CO2 from the air is the near sterilization of the planet, as plant life ended, along with the parasitic fauna, leaving only a few exotic extremophile bacteria.
It is literally vital that we maintain and increase the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere, forever.
Brian Hall says: June 22, 2011 at 3:48 am
re. “Technically, almost entirely due to H2O.”
Really? Can you show me one single article from a reputable science source that proves your point?
See, the problem is, that if you remove the CO2, it’s cold enough for more H20 to freeze, which also reduces the positive feedback mechanisms, which leads to an icebound state.
https://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/co2-temperature.html
Brian Hall says: June 22, 2011 at 3:48 am
re. “It is literally vital that we maintain and increase the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere, forever.”
Really? So, your okay with a atmosphere like that of the Permian/Triassic boundary
https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2002/28jan_extinction/
Hmm… flood basalt eruptions injecting 1.5 million cubic kilometers of volcanic ejecta, massive CO2 increase, and the icing on the cake of a 6 to 12 km asteroid to flash burn the CO2 sink just for an extra boost causing a climate change temperature increase to about 7 to 8 degrees C hotter than today.
That actually sounds like your kinda climate?
Where are you going to grow your crops, in your cave?
Of course the Sun heats both land and water. I am not referring to that source of ocean heating. It is the re-emitted far infrared LW radiation (the stuff that both water vapor and CO2 re-emits) that does not penetrate but a few mm, just barely getting past the surface tension of sea water, to be dissipated back into the atmosphere through evaporation. However, the AGW tome says that it is this incredibly weak heat source that is causing the oceans to heat beyond the natural Solar source. But there is no mechanism and no maths that has shown this to be the probable cause.
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
Pamela Gray says: June 22, 2011 at 10:26 am
Pamela, Either you don’t have and reputable science source or citation for your assertion, or you have one and don’t want to share it. Which is it?
John Reisman,
Maybe Pamela Gray is just ignoring your constant pestering. You want citations? Here are some from the paper she linked to upthread, and which you evidently did not read:
Pam has been around here for a long time, and from where I sit she is more knowledgeable than you.
John P. Reisman says:
June 21, 2011 at 11:37 pm
“So, what makes you think science or scientists are not studying clouds?”
I never said that. What I observe is that in public debates the HIGHLY DOMINANT effect of clouds, about which climate scientists know very little beyond the cartoonish schematics that you reference, is not acknowledged by them. And you certainly show no sign of comprehending that the effects of varying CO2 concentrations are orders of magnitude less important in setting the surface temperatures than those due to cloud-induced variations in insolation.
I have no interest in pursuing any discussion with someone whose basic M.O. is dismissal of anything that he hasn’t read about in the pal-reviewed literature. That’s not how true scientists become acquainted with physical reality. Sayonara!
Reisman, the plants grew just fine with that elevated CO2 and temperature. So would crops, though we might end up with different (probably more productive) cultivars.
And, as usual, your attribution of the temperature levels to CO2 is textbook “begging the question”.
Smokey says: June 22, 2011 at 3:18 pm
re. “Maybe Pamela Gray is just ignoring your constant pestering. You want citations? Here are some from the paper she linked to upthread, and which you evidently did not read:”
and
“Pam has been around here for a long time, and from where I sit she is more knowledgeable than you.”
You’re right I did not read them all. And I’d bet neither have you. But by your sarcasm you infer you have. So, I will assume you have read them all, and that Pamela has read them all.
And since you are both more knowledgable than I and have read all those papers, please tell me which of them answers my question and backs up what pamela is saying namely her assertion:
Then, if said assertion exists in the peer reviewed literature we need to figure out if it survived peer response, and in what context does the assertion apply with regard to OHC?
I anxiously await your informed reply with the proper citation, as opposed to a laundry list of cites from which it is likely that neither you nor she has actually read all.
Can either you or Pamela name the paper that supports Pamela’s claim, from a reputable science source? That does not mean throw a cite list into a thread. I can do that too, but as you will note above, I don’t do that. I am courteous enough to send you to a single source to support each scientific point.
You see, it doesn’t matter how long Pam has been around in this blog. And it doesn’t matter if you think she is more knowledgable than I. Science does not care about my opinion. Science does not care about Pam’s opinion. And science does not care about your opinion.
the anonymous sky says: June 22, 2011 at 4:05 pm
re. “I never said that.”
regarding what I said “So, what makes you think science or scientists are not studying clouds?”
about what she said “the variations in local insolation well in excess of 100W/m^2 due to ever-changing cloud cover are strangely neglected.”
re. “What I observe is that in public debates the HIGHLY DOMINANT effect of clouds, about which climate scientists know very little beyond the cartoonish schematics that you reference, is not acknowledged by them.”
and
“And you certainly show no sign of comprehending that the effects of varying CO2 concentrations are orders of magnitude less important in setting the surface temperatures than those due to cloud-induced variations in insolation.”
Actually I fully recognize the importance of clouds and the ‘enormous effect they have on our climate. Reflected solar radiation is on the order of 700 W/m2, which is orders of magnitude larger than GHG imbalance changes. What you still fail to realize is that even something that seems small in your mind, can have a large impact on the Earth climate.
Again, science does not care what you think. It only cares about evidence. Tipping the average forcing 0.1 W/m2 in the Maunder Minimum caused agricultural failures in Europe. Now we have tipped it positive 1.66 W/m2 on the mean. And you think that is a little effect. Based on the evidence of the Maunder Minimum, you are wrong. A little change can have a large impact.
re. “That’s not how true scientists become acquainted with physical reality.”
I’ve work with true scientists a lot throughout my career. And lately I’ve had the great pleasure of working with many climate scientists. Your assertion regarding the “pal-reviewed literature” indicates strongly that you really don’t know how the scientific method works. So your pretty much talking out of your hat.
Pamela Gray says:
June 22, 2011 at 10:26 am
Of course the Sun heats both land and water. I am not referring to that source of ocean heating. It is the re-emitted far infrared LW radiation (the stuff that both water vapor and CO2 re-emits) that does not penetrate but a few mm, just barely getting past the surface tension of sea water, to be dissipated back into the atmosphere through evaporation. However, the AGW tome says that it is this incredibly weak heat source that is causing the oceans to heat beyond the natural Solar source. But there is no mechanism and no maths that has shown this to be the probable cause.
My point was this this is irrelevant. You posted a link to what you said was an article “that most here will be able to understand. The author is well-versed in ocean heating”
I’m calling it junk AGWScience, the author knows zilch about how the oceans are heated since he follows AGWScience by saying Solar heats the Earth and Thermal Infrared is what is radiated back up from the heated Earth.
Whatever you think “Solar” means, in AGWScienceFiction is doesn’t include downwelling Thermal Infrared.
“Solar” in the AGWScience energy budget is only the shortwave Visible and UV&Near Ir either side. None of these is capable of converting to heat land and oceans, as claimed in the KT97 for example.
Brian Hall says: June 22, 2011 at 9:29 pm
re. “plants grew just fine with that elevated CO2 and temperature”
and
re. “So would crops, though we might end up with different (probably more productive) cultivars”
An issue here that is rather important is the speed of change. Other than asteroid impacts, most events had prolonged ramp times of various time scales. Slower changes in relation to structure of biologic systems regulates life capacity ans survivability potentials. Slower change speed allow life to adjust, rapid changes do not. Thus more extinctions occur when change is relatively faster.
We exist in a world much different that the Permian peak where the CO2 levels were much higher of course. But at that time most life on earth ended, and for various reasons, likely all combined with various degrees of influence and impact in various time scales.
The Permian boundary is marked by a distinct phenomenon followed by millions of years of recovery. As described by Dr. Roger Smith, speaking about the End-P event in a BBC interview:
“This is the dead zone. this zone represents what it was like here after the mass extinction. We have never found anything that represents life in this zone. This is what we would call barren. There is no evidence of plant life, there are no evidence of soils, and especially there is no evidence of animals. This is completely dead.”
The Eocene optimum also had higher CO2 levels, and is also associated with an extinction event.
So basically, your notion of
“It is literally vital that we maintain and increase the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere, forever.”
probably, or is very likely, unsound. For example. Venus has very high levels of CO2 (96.5% of the atmosphere is CO2) and the surface temperature is 464ºC (867.2º F)
https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/venusfact.html
So how can you logically, reasonably or sensibly conclude that ‘increasing the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere, forever’ is a good idea?
Context is key.
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
John P. Reisman says:
June 21, 2011 at 11:25 pm
[Snip. d-word not tolerated here. ~dbs, mod.]
What is the d-word?
And even if I did use the d-word, why did you snip the whole post? I don’t even remember what I wrote there and therefore have no idea what a d-word is?
Dr. G you are a jewell in the midst of scientific heresy, but sadly in these times of spin and slur; honest, smart voices are drowned by politically correst, selfish, and really dumb folks with the ink, the airwaves, and the microphones. Keep in good health and great spirits.
Jack Flobeck
John P. Reisman says:
June 21, 2011 at 11:25 pm
[Snip. d-word not tolerated here. ~dbs, mod.]
What is the d-word?
And even if I did use the d-word, why did you snip the whole post? I don’t even remember what I wrote there and therefore have no idea what a d-word is?
[Reply: Read the site Policy. ~dbs, mod.]
JPR;
So, you’re denying you used “the Holocaust slur-word”? I guess that makes you a denier of abuse of a term implying denial that evil is being committed by doubting the duplicitous drivel spouted by CAGW Believers?
Not surprised.
Brian Hall says: June 23, 2011 at 8:29 am
Okay I googled CAGW, and realized that it seems to refer to citizens against government waste. Is that what you are referring to?
And, what does that have to do with the “the Holocaust slur-word”, whatever that is?
Gawd.
“Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming”.
You can’t possibly be as gormless as you’re pretending to be.
And the “forever” was humourous hyperbole. Utterly lost on you, evidently. Burning all the known hydrocarbon reserves we know of would possibly lead to a 50% atmospheric increase, and much of it would get et by the planet’s flora PDQ.
And about your Googling, try adding the word “climate” to the search, and you’ll get more. But I assume Google is filtering in line with its preferences and policies. Which is why most of us here use other engines.
Brian H says: June 23, 2011 at 8:06 pm
re. “Burning all the known hydrocarbon reserves we know of would possibly lead to a 50% atmospheric increase”
I just checked a ppt file I had from Ralph Keeling and the data representation shows that the fossil fuel resource bases contains 4300 billion tons of C, while the atmosphere sink currently holds approximately 800 billion tons of C.
So in C, you are apparently off by 537% times in total and 219% from your estimate. Since the atmospheric lifetime of large portions of that can be in the 100′s of years, and the ‘very old’ science from the late 50′s showed that the oceans could not take up as much CO2 as originally thought, and since the warming will cause more fires keeping more of the planets flora form holding C, I think it is safe to assume you are generally incorrect.
But of course you did not provide times scales, Were you calculating this over Period, millennia, or decades?
Now, please tell me which paper out of the list of papers you provided above explains how Pamela Gray is correct in her assumption about sea water opacity in relation to global warming?
[Note: No one provided any citations to high level peer review science papers. It is imporant to remember that making a claim, and supporting that claim with substantive research, are two different things. Relying on references to opinions is not anywhere close to good science and should not be relied upon to substantively increase better understanding.]