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corniss chopper
climber
not my real name
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Jan 13, 2011 - 02:32am PT
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Melting Glacier Reveals Ancient Tree Stumps
Glaciers melting in Western Canada are uncovering fresh-looking, intact tree stumps up to 7,000 years old
The researcher doesn't address the ancient climate change that caused the trees to be covered so quickly but does wag his finger at how fast they
were exposed ( implies AGW effect) Pictures do not show any new trees growing near their cellulostic ancestors.
http://www.livescience.com/environment/071030-tree-stumps.html
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corniss chopper
climber
not my real name
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Jan 13, 2011 - 02:11pm PT
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Yes. Good point about the tree line.
Those ancient trees were able to grow much higher than today's due to a warmer climate without any AGW effects. An important observation. And these trees were overrun by the glaciers quickly enough to prevent natural decay processes. Evidence of how fast glaciers can naturally advance and stay advanced for thousands of years.
Today's popular theory that glaciers are only receding so quickly due to AGW does not explain how this sudden ancient advance happened without humans around.
As an experiment maybe someone should plant some tree seedlings up there.
See if they can survive? Has the modern treeline recovered to its ancient altitude level?
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bookworm
Social climber
Falls Church, VA
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Jan 14, 2011 - 10:42am PT
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see, this guy makes a lot of sense to me, but i (like the reporter) am a humanities major...i'd like to hear what the scientists think of his claims
January 14, 2011 4:00 A.M.
Bastardi’s Wager
A former National Weather Service meteorologist has a challenge for climate scientists.
Joe Bastardi’s great love is atmospheric science. He says he’s been fascinated by it “since I was a baby. My dad’s a meteorologist, his great-grandfather was the town weatherman in Sicily, and my son wants to be a meteorologist.”
And he’s disturbed by how the science, which he values for its own sake, has been infected with politics. According to Bastardi, the intelligentsia see new weather developments as an “incessant stream of confirmations” of global warming: “I just took out the New York Times from ten years ago, saying the reason it’s not snowing is global warming. Now you’ve got guys in the Times saying the reason it’s snowing is global warming.”
But unlike most climate skeptics, Bastardi is in a position to change the conversation. He’s a meteorologist and forecaster with AccuWeather, and he proposes a wager of sorts. “The scientific approach is you see the other argument, you put forward predictions about where things are going to go, and you test them,” he says. “That is what I have done. I have said the earth will cool .1 to .2 Celsius in the next ten years, according to objective satellite data.” Bastardi’s challenge to his critics — who are legion — is to make their own predictions. And then wait. Climate science, he adds, “is just a big weather forecast.”
What’s his reasoning? Here are some specific topics on which Bastardi disagrees with mainstream climate scientists:
● First, Bastardi thinks climate scientists are too quick to extrapolate from recent trends. “The [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] says this is the warmest decade ever — well, that’s like you wake up every morning and weigh 175 pounds, and one morning you wake up and are 175.1.” In other words, even a decade-long trend could be a random fluctuation, rather than a reflection of long-term changes. He adds, “Here’s the global-warming argument: Given the best data we have, looking at all the solar sets, Milankovitch cycles, and everything else, the earth is about a half degree warmer than it should be. Why is that? Well, where can you stack the answer? Well, it must be man.” That, he thinks, is a conclusion drawn too hastily.
● Second, even when climate scientists do measure long-term trends, they use unreliable methods: “We started using objective satellite data in 1978. When they readjust temperatures, they do it [on numbers that were collected] before the satellite era. Now, how the hell can you make an adjustment on temperatures back in the Thirties when you’re not measuring it the same way now?” He claims tree rings aren’t decisive, either — because it is impossible to isolate the effect of temperature on tree growth. Bastardi prefers historical weather reports, which, in his view, paint a more complex climate history than tree-ring haruspices admit. “I dig into everything I can get my hands on; the historical foundation of climatology is huge,” he says. “There are times when Michelangelo was snowed in to his apartment in Rome, it was so cold over there. Look at the Roman army getting over the Alps. How the heck did they do that? Those mountain passes go up real, real high. If there wasn’t a time of warming in that area, that wouldn’t be possible.”
● Third, Bastardi sees modern climate scientists as inordinately fixated on carbon dioxide at the expense of other major factors (an example of their narrow, model-focused approaches, versus his tendency toward holistic empirical observation). “It’s almost the equivalent of saying, ‘Your big toe runs your body,’” he says. “Carbon dioxide is a trace gas, a tiny gas, part of this huge system. You’re trying to tell me that’s going to control the system and influence the energy of the system? When you have things like the sun, which is obviously the greatest contributor to the world’s energy? It almost defies common sense.”
Those thoughts don’t seem to be motivated by anti-environmental enthusiasm. Bastardi has some concerns about real pollutants: “It’s one thing with sulfur. Sulfur is the type of the thing where it forms a particulate in the air, and it can really screw things up.” But he notes that in recent years, “CO2 is still increasing, and the overall temperature has leveled off.”
● Fourth, Bastardi firmly believes that the climate tends toward equilibrium, not disequilibrium — i.e., when the global temperature moves away from its natural mean, various processes are activated that push it back. This goes against some climatologists’ more dire warnings of a key temperature cutoff beyond which global warming itself accelerates its own process. “See, what they’re afraid of is a feedback tipping point. And I don’t believe in that. Sometimes in the stock market you get to a point where, ‘boom!’ you’re going to go up even further. That’s not how the atmosphere works — for every step it takes away from the norm, the more likely it is to turn back.” He also points to the norming mechanism intrinsic to carbon dioxide’s function: CO2 enables the bigger and faster growth of plants, which then consume CO2.
● Fifth, today’s weather exhibits no unique patterns that require a unique explanation. They’re nothing we haven’t seen before.
● Sixth, and finally, the climate is just really, really complicated. Bastardi takes me through a half-hour of data about warming and cooling trends in the Pacific Ocean, the peculiar weather patterns of the 1930s, solar cycles, volcanic cycles, and the flaws in measurements of global temperatures (a two-degree change in a hot area is much more significant than a two-degree change in a cold area) — all very complicated stuff. And that’s just Bastardi’s point. It’s disingenuous to say we have conclusive proof of the future of such a torturously complicated system.
Is Bastardi credible? As a former humanities major, I am unqualified to judge the arguments behind climate science, and the answer seems to be “no” if you ask the academics who work in the field. But it’s “yes” if you ask the market, and there are plenty of reasons to doubt the current mainstream.
Whereas a significant portion of today’s climate scientists are politically motivated, Bastardi has only one incentive in his job: accuracy. He won’t be denied tenure or publication if he ends up on the wrong side. He gets paid handsomely — he won’t tell me just how much — for long-term weather forecasts by traders who have an interest in commodities whose production is affected by the weather. And he still gets hired, despite his rising to fame and infamy as a global-warming skeptic. His credential, in other words, is that he’s passed the market test: “Because I know the physical drivers of the atmosphere#…#people see me on TV talking about things, but that’s the tip of the iceberg — I get calls from companies when money is on the line. They want the right answer, the best answer, the quickest answer. Do you realize how much money you save if you get the weather right?”
And appeals to academic authority seem misplaced. The politicization and groupthink exposed by the Climategate scandal, the self-selection problem (those already inclined to think of the climate as imperiled are most likely to choose climate science as a field), and the newness and inestimable complexity of the science (climatologists can’t experiment with the weather as, say, a chemist can experiment with chemicals) would all seem to cast doubt on the conclusiveness of today’s climate science.
Bastardi is bearing his cross — “My mom calls me up these days and cries, ‘Who is the Huffington Post and why are they so mean to you?’” he says — but he hates being politically pigeonholed. “People assume ‘this guy’s against alternative energy’ and all that stuff,” he says. “Let me tell you something. If I’m right, we’re going to need all the energy we can get. It’s a lot harder to heat a house than cool it, a lot easier to take clothes off than to put them on. So when it cools, we’ll need a lot more energy.”
Is Bastardi right? An amateur’s answer might depend on his or her skepticism toward environmentalism. But Bastardi has done the thing that could make or break his credibility — offer a way to test his theory. We’ll see if his critics, so certain of the authoritative consensus on global warming, do the same.
— Matthew Shaffer is the William F. Buckley Jr. Fellow at the National Review Institute.
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k-man
Gym climber
SCruz
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 15, 2011 - 09:05pm PT
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Joe Bastardi is ... a meteorologist and forecaster with AccuWeather, ...
— Matthew Shaffer is the William F. Buckley Jr. Fellow at the National Review Institute.
Since 1955, National Review magazine has defined the modern conservative movement and enjoys the broadest allegiance of American conservatives.
Wow, a weather forcaster, not a scientist. An opinion piece from a conservative institute.
Now, what was your point?
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Jingy
climber
Somewhere out there
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Jan 15, 2011 - 10:38pm PT
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bump for heat
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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Jan 15, 2011 - 10:51pm PT
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If you's step down from your Sophist pedestal, you'd recognize the point.
His clients and he go broke if he's wrong.
The "scientist" has tenure and gets an other grant if he's wrong.
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DrDeeg
Mountain climber
Mammoth Lakes, CA
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Jan 17, 2011 - 01:21am PT
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The idea that Earth was warmer 1000 years ago is not likely correct. See my previous post showing several sets of temperature reconstructions since about year 1000.
Also, the comments that temperature increases "have leveled off" contradicts the data. The warmest years since widespread instrumental records (i.e., about 1850) are 1998, 2005, and 2010.
In short, the question about what we ought to do about climate change is political. The questions about the pace of climate change and the driving mechanisms are scientific. David Keeling, who started the CO2 measurements on Mauna Lea and the South Pole, was a registered Republican.
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the Fet
climber
Tu-Tok-A-Nu-La
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Jan 17, 2011 - 01:37am PT
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Humans put 30 trillion tons of carbon dioxide per year into the atmosphere.
The globe gets warmer.
The weather gets more extreme.
No one wants the end of the industrial revolution. But plenty of people have been hoaxed into thinking it's a hoax. That's kind of funny actually.
The global warming hoax hoax. I bet a bunch of oil company guys were laughing their asses up when they thought that one up. One guys was probably saying "No, it won't work, come one, no ones stupid enough to buy that.". And another guy said "sure they will, people will believe whatever they WANT to believe". It doesn't matter what the evidence indicates.
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DrDeeg
Mountain climber
Mammoth Lakes, CA
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Jan 26, 2011 - 11:41pm PT
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Let me try to frame the climate change argument in simple physical terms, without discussion of surface temperature records or global climate models.
For Earth’s temperatures to NOT change, the Earth system (land, atmosphere, ocean) has to emit the same amount back to space as it absorbs from the Sun (i.e., solar radiation x [1-albedo]). The paleoclimate record (ice cores, tree rings, sediments, borehole temperatures) shows that temperatures were stable in the past 1000 years, compared to the last 100 years. Therefore the Earth must have been in approximate radiative balance, as an imbalance of just 1 W/m2 lasting for 1000 years would warm the ocean by 3C.
If you do an atmospheric radiative transfer calculation, at any latitude for any atmospheric profile, and with a specified amount of CO2 (for example the pre-industrial 270 ppm) you calculate the infrared radiation emitted. If you then change atmospheric CO2 to a greater value (for example the present 375 ppm) your calculation shows emission to be 1-3 W/m2 less, depending on location, season, clouds etc. Because CO2 absorbs infrared radiation, the calculation makes sense in terms of conceptual physics. That extra energy has to go somewhere, and the temperature has to increase in order to bring the calculation back into radiative balance. So unless something compensates, like a greater albedo, warming must occur. Just follow the energy.
So, what’s happening? The CERES (Cloud-Earth Radiant Energy System) instrument flies on three satellites – Terra, Aqua, and TRMM. Terra and Aqua are in polar orbit, with Equator crossing times of 10:30 am and 1:30 pm, so CERES can measure the absorbed and emitted radiation 4x daily everywhere on Earth. TRMM is in a tropical, non-sun-synchronous orbit, so over a month it samples every tropical location throughout the whole diurnal cycle. These data, carefully analyzed, show that Earth is absorbing about 2 W/m2 more than it is emitting.
Earth must be warming because it is absorbing more energy than it is emitting. If atmospheric CO2 were stabilized at current concentrations, Earth would still have to warm a bit to get back to radiative balance.
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blahblah
Gym climber
Boulder
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Jan 27, 2011 - 11:35am PT
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Looks like the scaremongers predictions re: glacier melting got it bass ackwards, as usual:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12285230
"Some Greenland glaciers run slower in warm summers than cooler ones, meaning the icecap may be more resistant to warming than previously thought."
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dirtbag
climber
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Jan 27, 2011 - 11:45am PT
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Blah blah, you f*#k. From that same article:
The scientists emphasise the icecap is not "safe from climate change", as it is still losing ice to the sea.
Satellite observations show an overall loss of ice across Greenland.
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blahblah
Gym climber
Boulder
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Jan 27, 2011 - 01:12pm PT
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So you think that the many climbers on this board who report massive meltbacks of glaciers from their youth to now are lying about it?
DMT
I'm not quick to accuse anyone of lying, but there could be an element of "when i was kid we walked to school uphill both ways through 10' of snow . . ." going on.
Most people have had the experience of when they see the old school, whatever, it doesn't look quite as big as they remember.
DB--you nicely display the scaremongers general mental deficiencies (misplaced, irrational rage etc.) Try to chill out a bit,
I was just pointing out that things aren't that bad.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Jan 27, 2011 - 01:21pm PT
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I went to Mt Rainier about 4 years ago after a 25 year hiatus and I hardly
recognized the place. The glaciers' recession was shocking.
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corniss chopper
climber
not my real name
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Jan 28, 2011 - 01:38pm PT
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Jeddah Saudi Arabia
Flash floods in Saudi Arabia's 2nd largest city have inundated thousands of homes with sticky mud making them unlivable. No one ever planned for this amount of rain. Reportedly a dam burst above the city.
Oil millionaires forced to abandon their limos and struggle
through miles of flooded streets with their drivers carrying packages like beasts of burden.
http://arabnews.com/saudiarabia/article243190.ece
http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2011/01/28/135437.html
Its a good thing that weather cannot be attributed to climate change
as so many have correctly pointed out on this thread.
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the Fet
climber
Tu-Tok-A-Nu-La
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Jan 28, 2011 - 03:07pm PT
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Perhaps the deniers would understand whats at stake if it was called weather extremification instead of global warming or global climate change cp
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k-man
Gym climber
SCruz
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 28, 2011 - 03:10pm PT
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Its a good thing that weather cannot be attributed to climate change
as so many have correctly pointed out on this thread.
 corniss chopper
Hmm, I have read in this thread just the opposite.
Can you please reference a post that validates your conjecture?
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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Jan 29, 2011 - 12:58pm PT
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