Global Warming New Zealand style!

[mindscience]

I kept thinking that global warming meant that the weather was going to get warmer everywhere, not colder, damn it! It's been bloody raining here for like a month and very little sunshine. I can't exist in such conditions!

[UndercoverElephant]

I kept thinking that global warming meant that the weather was going to get warmer everywhere, not colder, damn it! It's been bloody raining here for like a month and very little sunshine. I can't exist in such conditions!

They suit me just fine. I'm a mushroom enthusiast.

Yes, a lot of people misunderstood that global warming meant everywhere was going to get warmer. It was never likely to happen that way and we now know that the warming is occuring disproportionately at the poles, with very little effect at the equator (so far).

[ujoni08]

For a start, do you accept that there is a direct, statistically proven correlation in the historical record between atmospheric CO2 and atmospheric temperature? That could be a starting point for discussion.

If we start here and work forward, it may lead to a useful discussion.

Jon

[An Inspector Calls]

Global average temperatures are rising year-on-year. Everything else is noise, and deliberate attempts to muddy the water.

That sounds more like doctrine than reality

[ujoni08]

http://co2now.org/

Shows 392.39 ppm at the moment, whereas that graph shows ~ 362, so one of these data sources is wrong.

Could you give the source of your data?

Plus, could you please start the discussion by saying whether you think that the historical record (e.g. ice core samples) shows that atmospheric CO2 correlates directly with atmospheric temperature or not? If that correlation is in doubt, then the rest of the discussion is probably going to be fruitless. In other words, do you think that CO2 traps solar heat in the atmosphere or not? Only after this can we talk about the effect of human activities.

Yes or no?

Jon

[An Inspector Calls]

http://co2now.org/

Shows 392.39 ppm at the moment, whereas that graph shows ~ 362, so one of these data sources is wrong.

No, the graph I linked shows the CO2 in 2011 as ~394 ppmv.

[ujoni08]

OK, I thought you were looking at the other two (HadCrut).

So, the graph shows a steady rise in atmospheric CO2. Please continue...

(Edit to add that I'm not trying to trap you at all. I don't KNOW for sure that climate change is happening and if any part of it is caused by human activities. At the moment, based upon my reading of various sources, I THINK it is happening, and I THINK a part of it is being exacerbated by our emissions. I think it's a very complicated issue, with many variables, including natural factors).

So do you think the ice core data shows the correlation I refer to above or not? Once I know your answer, we can continue to look at this interesting debate.

Jon

[biffvernon]

I don't KNOW for sure that climate change is happening and if any part of it is caused by human activities.

I do. It is and it is.

[UndercoverElephant]

Global average temperatures are rising year-on-year. Everything else is noise, and deliberate attempts to muddy the water.

That sounds more like doctrine than reality

I don't know if that was a freudian slip, but it is spelled "Mauna Loa".

[kenneal - lagger]

I believe that Global Warming is happening but I also believe that we are entering a cyclic cooling period of 30 to 50 years caused by a reduction in the sun's output. I believe that the cooling will be reduced by the underlying warming trend and that the great danger is that this cooling will be used as an excuse by economists to reduce the very costly mitigation measures required to stop GW.

The answer to a cooling trend is to insulate our houses as we cannot, as a nation, afford to keep heating them and we definitely can't afford to increase the heating to mitigate the colder winters. If we insulate our houses it will also help with the reduction in fuel use, and hence greenhouse gases, required to mitigate GW.

With FF prices rising due to increased global demand we cannot, as a nation or individually, afford to increase our imports to compensate for the annual 6% depletion of the North Sea reserves. Under the current international financial regime, which we have signed up to, we cannot say that we will restrict the export of our coal so that will rise in price alongside the worldwide price rise. that will make that equally unaffordable. Nuclear can't be wheeled out at a fast enough rate to compensate for losses elsewhere, even if you think that it is a risk worth taking. Renewables aren't feasible on a scale to compensate for the loss of the other technologies so a huge reduction in power, and especially electricity, demand is required.

We have to loose the standby setting and reduce the amount of lecky we use not increase it. We have to increase, by an order of magnitude, the efficiency at which we generate our electricity from all fuels by ensuring that all generation plant works on a CHP basis. We have to, as I have said above, reduce the amount of fuel used to heat our houses and DHW. We have to reduce the amount of travelling we do for both leisure and work and we have to increase the efficiency of use of the resources used for travel by, for instance, spreading the remainder of the commute over a longer period.

This will have a huge effect on the economy and the way we live but it will be the only way that we can survive as a reasonably prosperous nation in the future. Until the world economy finally tanks, that is.

[ujoni08]

Biff and Ken, I'm totally on board, as I think you know.

I was just trying to be precise about what I think is meant by KNOW in the strong sense. I do strongly think that it's happening, which equates to what many would call knowing. I'm trying to sound less sure, to hedge my discourse, to be more like a woman. I want to be called Loretta. I want to have babies

But I just want to ask the poster to start us off with a review of the ice core data, perhaps starting with say the Vostok Petit 420 000-year dataset.

Jon

[An Inspector Calls]

OK, I thought you were looking at the other two (HadCrut).

So, the graph shows a steady rise in atmospheric CO2. Please continue...

(Edit to add that I'm not trying to trap you at all. I don't KNOW for sure that climate change is happening and if any part of it is caused by human activities. At the moment, based upon my reading of various sources, I THINK it is happening, and I THINK a part of it is being exacerbated by our emissions. I think it's a very complicated issue, with many variables, including natural factors).

So do you think the ice core data shows the correlation I refer to above or not? Once I know your answer, we can continue to look at this interesting debate.

Jon

You asked if the ice cores demonstrate a direct correlation between temperature and CO2. The strict answer is no, because atmospheric CO2 concentrations lag the temperature data by approximately 500 years.

CO2 is a greenhouse gas, but the IR window it impacts is very nearly saturated (i.e. opaque) and is also very narrow. The water vapour window is larger and has a far greater impact in the greenhouse effect. The greenhouse effect is proportional to the logarithm of CO2 concentration. The impact of these observations is that a doubling of CO2 from pre industrial levels will scarcely raise the temperature by 1 C. But even this figure is conjectural because the behaviour of the released heat trapped by CO2 is complex, varies with altitude and temperature, and difficult to study.

To predict extreme levels of global warming requires positive feedbacks such as increased temperature yields increased water vapour (another, unsaturated trap), or reduced ice shield albedo. No proof of the present operation of any of these positive feedbacks exists.

You quote a list of proxies. The most contentious of these is dendrochronology. The politics and science of this field is a disgrace to modern science, adequately described in Montford: The Hockey Stick Illusion. It's difficult to see why Mann et al wanted to replace the MWP and LIA with a near straight line temperature plot: it did enable Houghton to trumpet "the hottest global temperature since X" but then if you're postulating positive feedbacks, the last thing you want is an historically stable temperature record! In any event, Mann's work, and indeed the field, is now virtually discredited on legitimate scientific grounds.

Sea level, glacier retreat. Yes, glaciers are retreating, sea level is rising. Both have been since such observations began, before the anthropogenic CO2 surge. But there's no evidence of either process accelerating. In fact, sea level rise rate has slowed recently.

Ice cap retreat. Well, actually, it's only Arctic ice cap retreat. Yes, this proxy is the warmer's best (and only?) bet yet; we'll see.

Even the global surface temperature record is questioned. There is too stong a reliance on surface temperature records taken from airports or urban centres not designed to assess global warming.

Just how big do you think the present level of anthropogenic emissions of CO2 are compared to the natural sinks and sources? Do you think A CO2 dwarves both? And from satellite observations, where do you think most of the CO2 hot spots are on the planet's surface - eastern USA/Europe?

And so far I haven't even mentioned that all this warming is hypothesised only by modelling!

Nor have I mentioned anything about cloud formation and the impact upon surface temperature. Why should increased water vapour in the atmosphere act solely as a greenhouse absorbtion trap, but not act to form clouds which reduce surface warming? And why do the climate models not model clouds?

[ujoni08]

AIC, thanks for that interesting list.

I don't believe we are on here to convince each other to believe what we believe, and I am certainly not going to try. It's a discussion, and you raise some valid points about e.g. lags and proxies. So, regarding my discussion with you, it's Jon over and out.

For other lurkers or people who would like to read further for themselves, there is a wealth of information out there. I have a pile of print-based sources, which I will post details of if asked, but online sources such as those below, will serve as a starting point:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Vostok_Petit_data.svg

From Peter T. Doran and Maggie Kendall Zimmerman, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Illinois at Chicago:

1. When compared with pre-­ 800s levels, do you think that mean global temperatures have generally risen, fallen, or remained relatively constant?
2. Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?

In our survey, the most specialized and knowledgeable respondents (with regard to climate change) are those who listed climate science as their area of expertise and who also have published more than 50% of their recent peer-­reviewed papers on the subject of climate change (79 individuals in total). Of these specialists, 96.2% (76 of 79) answered “risen” to question 1 and 97.4% (75 of 77) answered yes to question 2

It seems that the debate on the authenticity of global warming and the role played by human activity is largely nonexistent among those who understand the nuances and scientific basis of long-­term climate processes. The challenge, rather, appears to be how to effectively communicate this fact to policy makers and to a public that continues to mistakenly perceive debate among scientists.
Cook, C., F. Heath, and R. Thompson (2000), A meta-­analysis of response rates in Web-­or Internet-­based surveys, Educ. Psychol. Meas., 60, 821–836.
Kaplowitz, M., T. Hadlock, and R. Levine (2004), A comparison of Web and mail survey response rates, Public Opin. Q., 68, 94–101.
Keane, C. M., and C. M. Martinez (Eds.) (2007), Directory of Geoscience Departments 2007, 45th ed., Am. Geol. Inst., Alexandria, Va.
Kendall Zimmerman, M. (2008), The consensus on the consensus: An opinion survey of Earth scientists on global climate change, 250 pp., Univ.
of Ill. at Chicago.
Oreskes, N. (2004), Beyond the ivory tower: The scientific consensus on climate change, Science, 306, 1686–1686.
Peiser, B. J. (2005), The dangers of consensus science, Can. Natl. Post, 17 May.
Pielke, R. A. (2005), Consensus about climate change?, Science, 308, 952–953.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_%28climate%29

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v4 ... 10322.html

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v4 ... 10176.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/2 ... 86288.html

'WASHINGTON -- The world's climate is not only continuing to warm, it's adding heat-trapping greenhouse gases even faster than in the past, researchers said Tuesday. Indeed, the global temperature has been warmer than the 20th century average every month for more than 25 years, they said at a teleconference. "The indicators show unequivocally that the world continues to warm," Thomas R. Karl, director of the National Climatic Data Center, said in releasing the annual State of the Climate report for 2010. "There is a clear and unmistakable signal from the top of the atmosphere to the depths of the oceans," added Peter Thorne of the Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites, North Carolina State University. Carbon dioxide increased by 2.60 parts per million in the atmosphere in 2010, which is more than the average annual increase seen from 1980-2010, Karl added. Carbon dioxide is the major greenhouse gas accumulating in the air that atmospheric scientists blame for warming the climate'.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/2 ... 12334.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific ... ate_change

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

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Globa ... g.A%29.gif

http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2011/080311.html

http://news.stanford.edu/news/2011/june ... 60611.html

'LiveScience explains that a single heat wave or warm day is not a sign of global warming. But while an individual weather event cannot be attributed to a warming world, more long-term trends are accepted in the scientific community as evidence of man-made global warming'.

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/68761/title/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/2 ... 82654.html

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories201 ... in_720.jpg

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/1 ... ce_Gallery

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kassie-si ... 29422.html

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/national/

http://www.fsa.usda.gov/FSA/newsRelease ... _0061.html

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/special-report ... ull_report

http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... -sea-level

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/special-report ... ull_report

http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/prog ... index.html

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 151457.htm

http://www.logicalscience.com/consensus ... m#Journals

'Texas A&M - Department of Atmospheric Sciences Unanimous Endorsement of the IPCC

We, the tenured and tenure-track faculty of the Dept. of Atmospheric Sciences of Texas A&M, agree with the recent reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that:

1. It is virtually certain that the climate is warming, and that it has warmed by about 0.7 deg. C over the last 100 years.
2. It is very likely that humans are responsible for most of the recent warming.
3. If we do nothing to reduce our emissions of greenhouse gases, future warming will likely be at least two degrees Celsius over the next century.
4. Such a climate change brings with it a risk of serious adverse impacts on our environment and society.

Kenneth Bowman
Sarah D. Brooks
Larry Carey
Ping Chang
Don Collins
Andrew Dessler
Robert Duce
Craig Epifanio
Rob Korty
Mark Lemmon
Don Lucas
Shaima L. Nasiri
John Nielsen-Gammon
Gerald North
Richard Orville
Lee Panetta
R. Saravanan
Gunnar W. Schade
Courtney Schumacher
Thomas Wilheit
Ping Yang
Fuqing Zhang
Renyi Zhang'

Jon

[biffvernon]

For other lurkers or people who would like to read further for themselves, there is a wealth of information out there.

And when you've worked your way through Jon's excellent list a good place for all climate related science is http://www.realclimate.org/
It's where the real climate scientists hang out.

[An Inspector Calls]

For other lurkers or people who would like to read further for themselves, there is a wealth of information out there.

And when you've worked your way through Jon's excellent list a good place for all climate related science is http://www.realclimate.org/
It's where the real climate scientists hang out.

Not really, it's the last bastion of the Hockey Team.