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bookworm
Social climber
Falls Church, VA
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dirt, your criticism would be valid if i was using lomborg as a scientific source...i didn't ask you to consider his OPINION; i asked about the specific SCIENTIFIC STUDIES he referenced in his article
ok, ed, what about the emails that clearly show a concerted effort by agw scientists to squash dissent including intimidating editors of scientific journals that actually publish dissenting studies and admittedly manipulating the peer-review process
that's just like the un climate chief scoffing at the emails and declaring he will rely on the "peer review process" that the emails clearly show has been manipulated to favor only "consensus" research
and what is the result of this "consensus"? the epa has just declared co2 to be a pollutant...that's right, the trillions of animals who have been exhaling since that first fish crawled out of the muck are all guilty of contributing to the imminent destruction of the earth...hey, wait, that explains why the dinosaurs are extinct...they all died because they breathed too much...of course, that doesn't explain why plants survived while breathing out so much o2
on the bright side, we've found a solution to our "crisis"...all the agw alarmists who are convinced that humans are destroying the environment should simply stop exhaling...i'll guess that's about 1/10 of the world's population...the rest of us will start drilling in, oh, about 10 minutes
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dirtbag
climber
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Bookworm, Lomborg is a well-known skeptic and not a scientist. I'll read it but he too has an axe to grind. It's just another opinion piece: but at least WSJ treats it as such. Do you really think you're getting the whole story here? If so, I've got a few bridges to sell you.
Again, this sort of kind of proves my point. You're not really interested in the science. You're presenting a non-scientist skeptic opinion piece on this as some kind of authority.
And btw, National Review is hardly objective, which is fine, but let's not pretend it is.
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dirtbag
climber
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not quite a pollutant... but a threat to the public health and welfare... an endangerment finding
http://www.epa.gov/
this is a part of the policy arena
I think this is really going to be a big deal as far as making some progress. Yes, whatever the EPA ends up proposing will likely face immediate lawsuits but it will also send a message to Congress to get serious about addressing the issue or else EPA will.
This is great news.
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Roger Breedlove
climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
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Hi Ed,
I am just reading a paper from a skeptic that states, with some support, that all of the climate change models use some measure of positive feed back and no negative feed back in the impact of CO2 on temperatures, with the effect that all models project a large impact of temperature rise from C02. More importantly, the author makes the point that most natural processes depend on negative feed back to remain stable and that it seems reasonable that the earth's temperature over long periods of time also relies on negative feedback.
Do you know anything about these issues and whether or not the IPCC has tried to address the inherent biases of assuming that increased CO2 only provides positive feedback?
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corniss chopper
Mountain climber
san jose, ca
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Roger
Politicians don't know positive from negative feedback but they're in charge of writing checks to these climate researchers. They must be made to look like fools for being hoaxed by these scam artists and that will
stop the money.
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dirtbag
climber
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Wow, more scientist-bashing from corniss. What a surprise.
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Dirtbag, I agree with your statement that
"this is really going to be a big deal as far as making some progress. Yes, whatever the EPA ends up proposing will likely face immediate lawsuits but it will also send a message to Congress to get serious about addressing the issue or else EPA will.
This is great news."
I probably disagree, however, with the meaning of "great," as I prefer to use the now rather archaic meaning of large, immense, etc. In particular, I think that when the public starts to realize the great cost of EPA regulation and enforcement by environmentalist lawsuit, you may not like the way Congress feels compelled to act.
John
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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TGT beat me to it but these antarctic core sample charts are pretty revealing, showing a wider picture of how the earth's climate has been.
http://www.foresight.org/nanodot/?p=3553
The hockey stick is there, until you expand the timeline and see the 'hockey stick' is probably a natural cycle. The sun maybe?
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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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John, I appreciate your consistent economic position. I think if you sat in on a few science sessions with people doing current paleoclimate, ice sheet, permafrost or marine work, however, you'd come away with a new understanding of the many ways in which physical response to greenhouse forcing (like other climate changes in the past) could be nonlinear, rapid and (on human timescales) irreversible. The probability distribution of consequences likely is not Gaussian, as it's comforting to imagine, but instead has a heavy right-hand tail.
The global models don't capture this stuff very well, though they're trying to improve. Discussion of future climate "surprises" is more likely to come from field workers looking at their data on abrupt change in the past, or huge resevoirs of potential trouble like permafrost carbon, marine clathrates, ocean acidification.
Can economists model the impacts of dustbowls, new storm and fire regimes, insects, population relocations and so forth? That sounds difficult enough so that waiting for their success becomes a prescription to do nothing -- meanwhile running our experiment with the planet.
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bookworm
Social climber
Falls Church, VA
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dirt, again, i didn't ask you to read lomborg's OPINION; i specifically quoted the paragraphs that refer to published scientific studies that present alternative theories for kilimanjaro's melting ice and specifically commented on the fact that such alternative theories/studies are not covered by even the science media and reminded all that such alternative theories/studies have been targeted for blacklisting or cited as valid reason to manipulate the peer-review process
still, you can't get past the fact that i found a reference to these studies in the wall street journal...
now, maybe your point is that it's only lomborg's opinion that these studies exist despite the fact that he provides authors and publication dates...perhaps you'll insist that lomborg is lying or just trying to distract us from the truth...perhaps you'll claim these particular journals are not valid or that these scientists are just corporate hacks
and who cares who makes the claims or where they are published? if it's about the science then debate the science instead of mocking the publication
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WBraun
climber
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The worm said: "...if it's about the science then debate the science instead of mocking the publication"
Oky doky I'll gives some wernerism science.
I put you in a the garage and feed the exhaust pipe from car into garage.
You can turn up the heat or turn it down and no matter what the weather in there will eventually kill you.
Huh ?????????
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Roger Breedlove
climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
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The paper I am reading starts with a 100 ppm increase in CO2 since 1880, equal to about a 33% increase. During this time, the author states the temperature has increased about 0.7 degrees C. He states the relationship is logarithmic and from this data estimates the climate sensitivity parameter to be about 1.0C.
He then goes on to state that the IPCC models use sensitivity parameters about double due to positive feedback, specifically stating that the sensitivity parameters used in 2007 are double those used in 2001.
His particular gripe with the IPCC4 report is that they say that they do not know the sign of water vapor’s impact in climate change models, but claims are made for the ‘certainty’ of the forecasts.
The author also makes a statement that the models used by the IPCC don’t use plausible alternatives of drivers of warming—the ones he discusses are changes in solar irradiance, cosmic ray influence on cloud formation, and variations in the Earth’s orbit—in addition to increased CO2, and thereby let the math and statistics determine the correlations. He goes so far to say that the IPCC only tests the sensitivity of the forecast to variations in CO2 levels, not sensitivity of the Earth’s temperature to CO2 or other plausible drivers.
The author also includes a graph of the IPCC’s 2007 90% confidence range of temperatures through 2100. The IPCC shows a range from about 1.5 degrees to 6 degrees, with a Best Estimate reaching 3 degrees. Estimates made investigators outside the IPCC’s sphere of influence (his words) show Best Estimates that range between about 0.8 degrees and 1.6 degrees (Farster & Gregory 2006, Schwartz 2007, Douglass et al 2006, Spencer & Braswell 2008).
As I have read the different issues being debated, it seems to me that the crux issue comes down to the feedback loop and what the impact of water vapor on it will be.
BTW the date on this paper is February 2009.
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cleo
Social climber
Berkeley, CA
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The author also makes a statement that the models used by the IPCC don’t use plausible alternatives of drivers of warming—the ones he discusses are changes in solar irradiance, cosmic ray influence on cloud formation, and variations in the Earth’s orbit—in addition to increased CO2, and thereby let the math and statistics determine the correlations. He goes so far to say that the IPCC only tests the sensitivity of the forecast to variations in CO2 levels, not sensitivity of the Earth’s temperature to CO2 or other plausible drivers.
Yes, they do. All of those things are considered, and they certainly have an effect, but they do a poor job of explaining the increasing temperatures on their own.
Edit: meaning the rate of change is too fast for those other factors. On a geologic time scale things like orbit variation and the position of the continents (!) are thought to be major drivers, as well as CO2 in the atmosphere (which has varied greatly in earth's geologic history).
I haven't read that paper, Roger, but it sounds very interesting, and sounds like falls under the "mode and tempo" research (e.g. not disputing that climate change is real and driven in part by anthropogenic activities just that exactly how things fit together is still a subject of current research).
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Roger Breedlove
climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
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Cleo, thanks for the response.
I ran a regression on a chart the author shows on sun spots and temperature from the 1890s (I think)--R2~.91. Now, what do sunspots have to do with temperature? Is the sunspot data any good? Is the mean temperature change any good? I have a hard time accepting data in a paper that goes to great lengths to show how the opposing view’s data has been cooked (the temperature of the middle ages and the hockey stick). If you want a copy send me an e-mail; it is a word document.
If the models are back casting regression models, I would like to see the data sets and the statistics--Al Gore and I will go over them. Then I would like to see the statistics of the inputs for the forecasts. I am a little stunned at the stories of investigators not publishing their data (or destroying it--might as well let our CIA do the analysis).
My friend sent me the paper probably because he knows I am skeptical of all claims of simplicity and certainty, without regard to the side. I had stated that global warming skeptics all seem to be right wing nut cases (I had had one too many—obviously) and he took offense. He is a right wing nut case himself, but he is very smart and doesn't have any evil intent. So he sent me the paper.
You are right that the author is not claiming that CO2 levels do not affect climate, he is questioning the rate of temperature change per CO2 ppm (the feedback question) and the ability to get to sensible answers given the politics. I share that concern since I put up with similar (albeit easier) issues in diesel engine NOx emissions and technology to reduce them. Full disclosure: I make a ton of money on our technology if the world adopts rules to limit fuel consumption to reduce GHGs.
All that said, the paper gives me a good idea of the best shots the skeptics have of the 'consensus' view. To counterbalance it, I found a long paper on NASA's web site that purports to be the current state of the science for Copenhagen. I only just glanced at it and it is contrary to the skeptic’s paper.
I will post up the differences in the science and see if folks with more knowledge can sort it out.
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corniss chopper
Mountain climber
san jose, ca
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Al Gore: [quoting Mark Twain] "What gets us into trouble is not what we don't know. It's what we know for sure that just ain't so."
Meanwhile..
The real weather is ignoring the Hockey Stick model again:
Dec 8, 2009
"It's just a sheet of ice from Amarillo to here," Dodson said. "It's a disaster."
Misty Willis, the assistant manager at the plaza, said I-40 had become a "skating rink."
"I drove 20 miles an hour to get here," she said. "I literally slid into my parking space."
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cleo
Social climber
Berkeley, CA
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Funny, I have a good friend who studies the sun and "space weather". Here's a webpage on what he does:
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/spaceweather/lenticular/
So, I'll have to ask him.
My limited knowledge is that that sunspots seem to cause lower solar activity, and lower solar activity can be measured by the amount of certain isotopes (in trees? ice? soil?). Sunspots are thought to be one of the causes of the "Little Ice Age" in the middle ages.
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