Global Warming New Zealand style!

[marknorthfield]

I take it that's a no then, AIC? Shame.

Meanwhile, thanks for the links. Here are some for you:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/Murry-S ... Cycle.html

http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2010/11/1 ... e-science/

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/ar ... y-lessons/

And one more just for fun:

http://www.logicalscience.com/consensus/consensusD1.htm

The joy of a few minutes on Google, huh?

As I intimated previously, I'm just an interested amateur (apologies to Biff for generalising!) so what would I know?

Well, what I DO know is that there seem to be remarkably more people on one side of the scientific argument than the other within the relevant field. This point was brought up earlier in the thread and then airily dismissed by your good self. To the average punter like me, who does not have the time to do the study necessary to understand climate science in depth, it is of crucial importance in deciding what to believe.

Now, your probable dismissal of my relatively uninformed opinion will no doubt make you feel all the more secure in your niche view. C'est la vie. I'm nonetheless still interested to know what psychological kick you get out of taking the 'outsider' role in a debate such as this. Is it like that of a lawyer forced to defend the virtually indefensible in a courtroom: a sheer test of ingenuity? Or is it simply the horrific thought that at least one environmental problem is actually real, fuelling that burning desire not to let the bloody greenies win?

Just curious.

[emordnilap]

Nah, simpler than that. Money. Paid to post.

[ujoni08]

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/ar ... #more-8349

(quote) [...] The bottom line? Annual anthropogenic CO2 emissions exceed annual volcanic CO2 by two orders of magnitude, and probably exceed the CO2 output of one or more super-eruptions. Thus there is no scientific basis for using volcanic CO2 emissions as an excuse for failing to manage humanity’s carbon footprint (/quote).

Jon

[An Inspector Calls]

ukoni08
But you also have to consider CO2 sources such as release from warming sea water, vegetation decay, respiration of living organisms, melting of glacial ice, etc., et., . . . One of the first things Spencer demonstrates is a very good fit between the atmospheric CO2 concentration and ocean temperature as a function of time.

And in passing, you linked to an article about CRF (cosmic ray flux). Well, the first results are trickling out from the CLOUD experiment:
http://www.thegwpf.org/science-news/369 ... hange.html

Tucked away near the end of online supplementary material, and omitted from the printed CLOUD paper in Nature, it clearly shows how cosmic rays promote the formation of clusters of molecules (“particles”) that in the real atmosphere can grow and seed clouds. In an early-morning experimental run at CERN, starting at 03.45, ultraviolet light began making sulphuric acid molecules in the chamber, while a strong electric field cleansed the air of ions. It also tended to remove molecular clusters made in the neutral environment (n) but some of these accumulated at a low rate. As soon as the electric field was switched off at 04.33, natural cosmic rays (gcr) raining down through the roof of the experimental hall in Geneva helped to build clusters at a higher rate. How do we know they were contributing? Because when, at 04.58, CLOUD simulated stronger cosmic rays with a beam of charged pion particles (ch) from the accelerator, the rate of cluster production became faster still. The various colours are for clusters of different diameters (in nanometres) as recorded by various instruments. The largest (black) took longer to grow than the smallest (blue). This is Fig. S2c from supplementary online material for J. Kirkby et al., Nature, 476, 429-433, © Nature 2011

marknorthfield
Interesting set of links. Amusing to see the AGWers using their usual scientific acumen (i.e. ad hominem attacks) to destroy people like Judith Curry (chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology) because they don't agree with her views. Well, that's science these days. Or at least, it's climate science as we've come to love it.

So you want to use numbers of scientists to substantiate anthropogenic global warming? I belong to a science institution, and an engineering institution. They have about 250,000 members globally. Both institutions published a statement supporting the AGW myth. Unfortunately, neither organisation bothered to poll the members for their views before making a pronouncement. Straw polling the members I know, I've yet to find a member who supports the AGW view. And there have been objections to the AGW statements.

And what do I get out of this contrary position? I see you've formed your views of my position on this to suit your own prejudices - and why not, it'll work great down the pub? - but actually I just think the science behind the CAGW stance is rather poor. I have no problem with the concept that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and will cause some warming. But from thereon, to reach what are claimed to be serious levels of warming we are into the theory of positive feedbacks (any such still to be proven) and climate modelling.

[ujoni08]

(Yes, I noticed that they were talking only about volcanoes. The other emitters are also very large. I still think it doesn't give us a licence to party on, though

(quote) AIC wrote: 'I have no problem with the concept that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and will cause some warming. But from there on, to reach what are claimed to be serious levels of warming we are into the theory of positive feedbacks (any such still to be proven) and climate modelling'.

That's a fair point, and quite valid to make. I just worry that we can only see the whole picture later looking back at the present. If it does all go pear shaped, we can't react to sort it out then when it's too late. We can be proactive now, though, and even if CC doesn't happen as much as we think it may, what have we lost? We will have kept millions of tonnes of FFs in the ground, kept the air cleaner to breath, prevented massive impacts on ecosystems, and built in resilience to supply and price shocks relating to FFs. Seems a good plan to me.

Jon

[marknorthfield]

AIC, I think you'll find something is only an ad hominem if a personal attack is being used instead of an argument. If a person is being criticised because of the weakness of their argument, that is not AH, although one would hope that any sarcasm be kept to a minimum purely for the sake of politeness. If you could refer to some clear examples of AH in any of those articles, that would be useful.

Of course, social behaviour online tends to be more cut and thrust than it would be face to face, and you hardly need me to point out that something which potentially affects the future prospects of humankind on a grand scale is inevitably going to raise strong passions. Meanwhile, the hate mail and death threats received by some climate scientists hasn't exactly helped to calm the waters.

What are these scientific and engineering institutions you mention? Did you complain or threaten to resign your membership in response to their pro-AGW stance? How many others did so that you are aware of, and was it reported anywhere?

I haven't actually formed a firm opinion of you (impossible as we've never met), I just offered a couple of plausible scenarios. I'm curious, as I said, to know what drives someone who stands so vociferously in the minority camp on an important issue like this. From experiences I've had with people I've known who are strongly anti-AGW (not just the good friend mentioned previously) there appears to be both a political and psychological dimension which leads them to take that position. How would you describe yourself and your motivations in life?

I'm interested to see that you essentially agree with the basic element of pro-AGW theory (CO2 causing warming - presumably you accept that humans are primarily responsible for this?), whilst disagreeing with the positive feedback side of things. At the risk of repeating myself yet again, have you debated your points on mainstream pro-AGW sites such as Realclimate? If so, could you point us toward such an exchange.

Speaking of positive feedback, you might find the following interesting:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-sensitivity.htm

(though if I've misunderstood what you mean by 'positive feedback', then apologies; like I said, I'm just an amateur!)

[emordnilap]

I'm just an amateur

...but professional deniers get paid.

[An Inspector Calls]

AIC, I think you'll find something is only an ad hominem if a personal attack is being used instead of an argument. If a person is being criticised because of the weakness of their argument, that is not AH, although one would hope that any sarcasm be kept to a minimum purely for the sake of politeness. If you could refer to some clear examples of AH in any of those articles, that would be useful.

This took ten seconds to find, from your Real Climate link. This is RealClimate dishing the dirt on Roy Spencer (Roy W. Spencer is a climatologist and a Principal Research Scientist for the University of Alabama in Huntsville, as well as the U.S. Science Team Leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (AMSR-E) on NASA’s Aqua satellite. He has served as senior scientist for climate studies at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.). RealClimate is an excellent source of ad hominem.

These days, when global warming inactivists need to trot out somebody with some semblance of scientific credentials (from the dwindling supply who have made themselves available for such purposes), it seems that they increasingly turn to Roy Spencer, a Principal Research Scientist at the University of Alabama. Roy does have a handful of peer-reviewed publications, some of which have quite decent and interesting results in them. However, the thing you have to understand is that what he gets through peer-review is far less threatening to the mainstream picture of anthropogenic global warming than you’d think from the spin he puts on it in press releases, presentations and the blogosphere. His recent guest article on Pielke Sr’s site is a case in point, and provides the fodder for our discussion today.


Actually, Roy has been pretty busy dishing out the confusion recently. Future posts will take a look at his mass market book on climate change, entitled Climate Confusion, published last month, and his article in National Review. We’ll also dig into some of his peer reviewed work, notably the recent paper by Spencer and Braswell on climate sensitivity, and his paper on tropical clouds which is widely misquoted as supporting Lindzen’s IRIS conjecture regarding stabilizing cloud feedback. But on to today’s cooking lesson.

The article by Romm is bile from beginning to end. Its of no value whatsoever, a complete waste of time. It's only object is to attack Curry.

Institute of Physics, and IET if you must know. And no, I didn't threaten to resign.

Feedback: I fully understand the concept of positive feedback, as does Lindzen judging by the article I linked much earlier:
http://www-eaps.mit.edu/faculty/lindzen ... i-2011.pdf
(see figure 1). I'm not sure if your skeptical science blog, and the links therein (some of which don't work) aren't confusing positive feedback and sensitivity.

[biffvernon]

AIC wrote: 'I have no problem with the concept that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and will cause some warming. But from there on, to reach what are claimed to be serious levels of warming we are into the theory of positive feedbacks (any such still to be proven) and climate modelling'.

That's a fair point, and quite valid to make.

No, Jon, it is neither fair nor valid, but dangerously wrong. We don't need theories of feedbacks or climate modelling to know that serious levels of warming will result from our greenhouse gas emissions. We know this from the basic physics and, independently, we know this from the evidence of the geological record. Theories of feedbacks and climate modelling are supportive to what we know but are not required.

It's important to realise that AIC is not using science but is trying to promote a wrong headed and, if folk were to believe him, disastrously dangerous line. PowerSwitch is diminished by his constant intervention, since his posts interrupt any rational discussion of climate science.

As for Roy Spencer, he doesn't even accept Darwinian evolution, preferring 'intelligent design'. Call it an ad hom but I wouldn't believe a single word that man says. He is a serious danger to humanity. There are very few of these denialist 'scientists' but they are much beloved of the Christian Right in the USA.

[An Inspector Calls]

AIC wrote: 'I have no problem with the concept that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and will cause some warming. But from there on, to reach what are claimed to be serious levels of warming we are into the theory of positive feedbacks (any such still to be proven) and climate modelling'.

That's a fair point, and quite valid to make.

No, Jon, it is neither fair nor valid, but dangerously wrong. We don't need theories of feedbacks or climate modelling to know that serious levels of warming will result from our greenhouse gas emissions. We know this from the basic physics and, independently, we know this from the evidence of the geological record. Theories of feedbacks and climate modelling are supportive to what we know but are not required.

It's important to realise that AIC is not using science but is trying to promote a wrong headed and, if folk were to believe him, disastrously dangerous line. PowerSwitch is diminished by his constant intervention, since his posts interrupt any rational discussion of climate science.

ujoni08
(as we're conducting a conversation through you for some reason)
Biffvernon is claiming serious levels of warming will result from our greenhouse gas emissions; theories of feedbacks and climate modelling are not required. I doubt anyone in the CAGW camp would support that. So here comes the basic science.

He doesn't say what he means by serious warming, nor does he project future levels of CO2 concentration, so his claim is a little vague.

With no feedbacks or models, temperature rise is proportional to the logarithm of CO2 concentration. Can't be anything else. The present level of CO2 is 390 ppmv, the pre industrial level of CO2 is assumed to be 280 ppmv. Assume that all the present warming since the LIA (0.7 C) has been caused by CO2, then, for a doubling to 580 ppmv the temperature rise would be:
0.7*ln(2)/ln(390/280)
which is 1.4 C. (Neatly, double whatever the temperature rise to date is assumed to be). Of that we've already observed the 0.7 C to date, so at most a further 0.7 C would result. I'll buy that as a worst case prognosis.

Want to be a real Jeremiah and assume we'll get to 780 ppmv? Well, then the multiplier on the rise to date is 3, so that would be 1.4 C from where we are now.

Doesn't seem serious to me.

Biff is the threat to society, if we divert funds to deal with a non-existent threat

[Bandidoz]

What about the acidification of the oceans caused by their absorption of the additional CO2?

[ujoni08]

Thanks, Biff, and don't worry: I'm on board with AGW, given my readings thus far, but want to try to be inclusive and open to discussing things in a friendly way. I want to avoid the rather strong language used on both sides sometimes.

AIC, I think the main argument from the sceptics is the money, i.e. let's not spend so much if we don't know for sure that we're causing a problem. I understand this completely, and it is the same one used against renewables, which are not as powerful nor as consistent as FF and nukes (though of course the story is complicated). I can see the financial case, but I'm of the opinion that we are spending so much on other stuff, like weapons and wars and any number of things one could list, but don't want to spend on something that may (some would say definitely) turn out to help avert climate chaos, provide resilience against price and supply shocks of FFs, prevent air pollution (for breathing), prevent ecosystem degradation from mining (including mountain-top removal), drilling for oil, and the absolute disgrace that is going on with tar sands.

I'm one who likes to be informed, plan ahead. and mitigate negative effects. At a personal level, I have spent money on this, and I would vote to spend money at a national level too, even if we can't be sure of AGW. The other benefits are just too convincing.

Jon

[biffvernon]

The trouble is that we can be sure of AGW. We can be sure sure that BAU will send global warming to the point where civilization, maybe even life, becomes impossible. If we abandon the tar sands and oil shales and other unconventionals and we give up on coal, then the future might just be survivable. Peak oil, if it causes the collapse of the industrial economies, is probably humanity's best hope of survival, since accepting the science and changing behaviour accordingly seems to be beyond our collective grasp. That sad situation is the responsibility of the AGW deniers.

[ujoni08]

Thanks, Biff.

Don't worry, it's just about semantics for me. My actions are in line with what you've said. Even though I don't believe that I can KNOW (in the strongest possible sense) that this is right, I strongly think that it is right. So I believe we should act as if we do know it for sure (some of us do know it for sure), and work to mitigate our impact on the environment with all possible speed and effort. Therefore the semantics don't matter to me.

Jon

[marknorthfield]

This took ten seconds to find, from your Real Climate link. This is RealClimate dishing the dirt on Roy Spencer (Roy W. Spencer is a climatologist and a Principal Research Scientist for the University of Alabama in Huntsville, as well as the U.S. Science Team Leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (AMSR-E) on NASA’s Aqua satellite. He has served as senior scientist for climate studies at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.). RealClimate is an excellent source of ad hominem.

AIC, I think you possibly misunderstand what ad hominem means. I did try to summarise it in my previous post, but I'll have another go. It's an attack on the person instead of the argument: a logical fallacy. If the argument is addressed satisfactorily, then related sarcasm/ridicule is not AH. It may not be polite, of course (depending on the context), but politeness is a separate issue. How polite should one be when the future of humanity is at stake?

The RealClimate article introduction you quote sets out the case that Roy Spencer has done some valid peer-reviewed work, but then has a tendency to 'spin' the data to overstate its importance in challenging the consensus position of AGW. The article goes on to discuss a particular case in detail, and the introduction promises other articles to follow concerning his Climate Confusion book and some of his peer-review papers. No AH there. You could argue that the statement about 'spinning' should not be made until these multiple arguments have actually been presented, but I'd be very surprised if this were to have been the first article on RealClimate about his work.

To bring us more up to date on Spencer, here's another article from RealClimate earlier this year, reviewing his recent book:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/ar ... g-blunder/

I appreciate you don't hold RealClimate in high scientific regard, but I'm a little puzzled as to why you don't post comments there to engage them the way you do here. (I'm currently presuming you haven't done so on the basis of your silence when asked about it.) I realise there are only so many hours in the day, but still, it seems a little odd when you write with such confidence. Have you really not considered addressing them directly?

The article by Romm is bile from beginning to end. Its of no value whatsoever, a complete waste of time. It's only object is to attack Curry.

Joe Romm certainly comes across as being quite annoyed in his article (I think this may have something to do with Judith Curry libelling him, as he explains) but his annoyance is connected to things she has publicly said or written, and he provides links to numerous articles containing detailed criticism of her scientific misunderstandings in order to show this. Again, note the definition of AH.

You could take the view that no one should ever write a critical blog piece about someone's credibility in climate science unless they are personally explaining the full details of the arguments concerned, but I think that's a principle few would support. An accessible overview with relevant links is entirely appropriate, and it's not as if the article in question only provides one or two examples of Curry's scientific foot-in-mouth.

Perhaps you could explain more clearly and logically why you think Romm's blog piece is of 'no value whatsoever'?

Feedback: I fully understand the concept of positive feedback, as does Lindzen judging by the article I linked much earlier:
http://www-eaps.mit.edu/faculty/lindzen ... i-2011.pdf
(see figure 1). I'm not sure if your skeptical science blog, and the links therein (some of which don't work) aren't confusing positive feedback and sensitivity.

Lindzen and Choi are not the only people producing papers on climate sensitivity and do not represent the consensus position. The paper you link to - a reworking of a previous paper widely discussed and dismissed from what I can tell - was rejected for publication by PNAS earlier this year (go to comment 449 on the link below and click on the 'reviewers comments from NAS' to download their assessment):

http://www.skepticalscience.com/argumen ... =212#53985

and not without a little bit of controversy along the way (an interesting comment thread on this one):

http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2011/06/l ... eritus.php


Anyway, that's quite enough for now. I have my simple life to be getting on with!