'Naysayers Guide to Global Warming.

[HighPressure]

-- From Wikipedia

They don't seem to match up to me. Well, not until the last few decades at least. I don't think any AGW believer denies that the Earth's climate can change and indeed has changed naturally, just not the rapid warming we are seeing today.

Imagine that we are aliens, observing Earth from far above. There are no humans on this Earth. The aliens start to notice that CO2 levels on Earth have about doubled in 200 years, faster than any previous increase they can find in the records for at least 400,000 years. They also notice that the temperature is warming significantly throughout the planet. Now, these aliens are puzzled. They look all over the Earth, do all sorts of tests to try to find the source of this CO2 increase. Nothing seems to be a very clear explanation.

Then they find a massive volcano, a volcano that's pouring out 24 BILLION tons of CO2 ever year. Now, I imagine if those aliens found that, that would be a pretty good explanation for them I would think. They'd find that also would explain the temperature rises, as it's a fact that CO2 warms up planets. It would be case solved. Of course, humanity is that huge volcano in the real Earth.

That may have made no sense, I am tired and tipsy.

One really has to look at this whole thing objectively, seems very hard for people to do this though (both AGW believers and deniers). I do believe though that the only logical conclusion when you look at this whole thing with cold, hard, sceptical objective eyes, is that humans are mainly behind the changes we are seeing.

I would like to accept that but I see the trend of Volcanic activity over the same period looking to have some link to me. I hear the solar flux argument and think there maybe a link between this and volcanic particles in the atmosphere maybe reacting to a greater extent of naturual Warming then the IPCC report suggests, or simply nothing said by the yehsayers has bannished this possible route as a major contributing factor. I don't pretend to fully understand this but I don't think the IPCC do either, obviously man is having an impact on GW yes but I cannot see enough evidence to suggest what that is in percentage terms and the leap to mainly responsible is a difficult step for me to take. I think that many peoples attention is being drawn to GW/AGW by the sudden increase in region tempertures, but this does not fit well with the IPCC finding, clearly something else is happening. I am really looking to see an full explanation of the other possible factors involved in GW and what we would have seen had man not been pumping CO2 into atmosphere for the last few hundred years, and I am not sure that the current knowledge on the subject can give me that which is why I don't think it can say that man is mainly responsible for GW with any degree of certainty.

If the IPCC had been around 500yrs old its report would have concluded that the Sun goes around the earth and that the earth was flat, laughable now but its what the top experts of the day thought given the available information. I am not a none believer but I see no real proof than man can make any real difference to GW one way or the other or that any difference he may be making will not be easily corrected by Mother Nature. One major volcanic eruption could put GW on the backfoot for several years 1815-1820 and what would be the offshoot of that??

[Devonian]

That graph of eruption isn't very useful unless you know it's sampling rate. Many eruption in the past must surely have gone unrecorded?

Edited February 28, 2007 by Devonian

[Hiya]

One major volcanic eruption could put GW on the backfoot for several years 1815-1820 and what would be the offshoot of that??

Thats a nice graph, where did you get it?

capt bobski - I shall have a look at your graphs this afternoon, and thanks for the links.

[Devonian]

keep googling, there are a few papers out there about it, its pretty much accepted that sunspot cycles noticably effect global temprature.

I'm doing uni work just now but I'm off tomorrow afternoon and can prepare a decent post about it if no one else has by then.

Some examples I've just dug out:

i think the name of the website could be even to get that graph slated, and no I haven't looked at it.

I know the graph you are looking for tho, I've seen a few.

If you wanna help try and find number of sunspots per month data going back as far as possible and I can make my own graphs.

That graph was trashed by two scientist by the name of Damon and Laut. Google em!

Infact I'll save you and others the bother - http://www.realclimate.org/damon&laut_2004.pdf

Oh, and even ultra sceptics like CO2 science accpet it's wrong - http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2Scien...s/V7/N41/C2.jsp

[pottyprof]

That graph was trashed by two scientist by the name of Damon and Laut. Google em!

Infact I'll save you and others the bother - http://www.realclimate.org/damon&laut_2004.pdf

Oh, and even ultra sceptics like CO2 science accpet it's wrong - http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2Scien...s/V7/N41/C2.jsp

So only 2 scientists then?? Interesting......

[Devonian]

So only 2 scientists then?? Interesting......

All it took

[pottyprof]

All it took

Ah so it wasn't a total trashing? Just the view of 2 scientists.. OK..

[Devonian]

Ah so it wasn't a total trashing? Just the view of 2 scientists.. OK..

Humm, when I say to a sceptic thousands of IPCC scientists think 'X' they often come come back with something like 'science isn't a democracy, it just has to show things'. Two scientists show something and I get something like 'The view of just two scientists' or should that be

Edited February 28, 2007 by Devonian

[pottyprof]

Humm, when I say to a sceptic thousands of IPCC scientists think 'X' they often come come back with something like 'science isn't a democracy, it just has to show things'. Two scientists show something and I get something like 'The view of just two scientists' or should that be

I agree with what you are saying but if it had been a majority debunking then I would have to accept that there was something amiss with it.. It makes no difference to me which side of the fence you sit on when faced with that amount of consensus.. so to me it hasn't been discredited other than by 2 scientists and there could be a link..

[Devonian]

I agree with what you are saying but if it had been a majority debunking then I would have to accept that there was something amiss with it.. It makes no difference to me which side of the fence you sit on when faced with that amount of consensus.. so to me it hasn't been discredited other than by 2 scientists and there could be a link..

Actually if you read D & L you can see they uncovered a pretty simple mathematical error. I think that's hard to argue against - hence why even some sceptics, grudgingly of course, accept it.

[pottyprof]

I shall have a read..

[DAVID SNOW]

-- From Wikipedia

They don't seem to match up to me. Well, not until the last few decades at least. I don't think any AGW believer denies that the Earth's climate can change and indeed has changed naturally, just not the rapid warming we are seeing today.

Imagine that we are aliens, observing Earth from far above. There are no humans on this Earth. The aliens start to notice that CO2 levels on Earth have about doubled in 200 years, faster than any previous increase they can find in the records for at least 400,000 years. They also notice that the temperature is warming significantly throughout the planet. Now, these aliens are puzzled. They look all over the Earth, do all sorts of tests to try to find the source of this CO2 increase. Nothing seems to be a very clear explanation.

Then they find a massive volcano, a volcano that's pouring out 24 BILLION tons of CO2 ever year. Now, I imagine if those aliens found that, that would be a pretty good explanation for them I would think. They'd find that also would explain the temperature rises, as it's a fact that CO2 warms up planets. It would be case solved. Of course, humanity is that huge volcano in the real Earth.

That may have made no sense, I am tired and tipsy.

One really has to look at this whole thing objectively, seems very hard for people to do this though (both AGW believers and deniers). I do believe though that the only logical conclusion when you look at this whole thing with cold, hard, sceptical objective eyes, is that humans are mainly behind the changes we are seeing.

would not a large volcanic eruption actually lower global temps,there would be a hell of a lot of sulphur going into the atmosphere to.

[Osbourne One-Nil]

And wouldn't it add to global dimming?

[Gray-Wolf]

would not a large volcanic eruption actually lower global temps,there would be a hell of a lot of sulphur going into the atmosphere to.

Over a few short years (whilst the SO2 was still up there) but post that period the CO2 released by the eruption (which lasts far longer in the atmosphere) would tend to kick in....................

[parmenides3]

Volcanoes cause dimming, yes. Lots of work done with Pinatubo recently, backing up previous work; the measured output of the eruption was used by some to compare predicted forcings from known sources with model parameters.

There's quite a good level on knowledge about volcanic activity, because almost all eruptions leave traces in the soils, which can be measured. There's a little less knowledge about subsea volcano records, but the USGS has an ingoing monitoring program, and the global network of seismic measurement provides a very accurate indicator of both the location and force of volcanic activity.

Just to clear things up: there is a connection between solar output and temperature. Small variations in output can have noticeable effects. Though some still have reservations, the 11 year sunspot cycle is generally accepted to be one of the drivers of temperature variations. But the actual variation is not enough to account for the imbalance in the earth's heat budget. Also, there is no equivalent rise in sunspot or solar activity to match the recent rise in temperatures, so, even if the sun is causing come of the change, it cannot account for it alone.

:)P

[pottyprof]

Actually if you read D & L you can see they uncovered a pretty simple mathematical error. I think that's hard to argue against - hence why even some sceptics, grudgingly of course, accept it.

Interesting read Devonian.. I particularly like

These findings do not by any means rule

out the existence of important links between

solar activity and terrestrial climate.

Yes the mathematics were flawed and yes the recent correlation has now been removed. Then again they also fail to rule in the higher energy levels of solar activity/cycles that occur at different intervals. One of which is about 210 years and there are others.

I found this an interesting story as an example of possibility.

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/sola..._wg_010518.html

From Space.com

[Devonian]

Interesting read Devonian.. I particularly like

Yes the mathematics were flawed and yes the recent correlation has now been removed. Then again they also fail to rule in the higher energy levels of solar activity/cycles that occur at different intervals. One of which is about 210 years and there are others.

I found this an interesting story as an example of possibility.

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/sola..._wg_010518.html

From Space.com

No one claims the sun doesn't play a role in weather and climate...

What 'warmers' say is a bit like those who say floods are made worse by concreting over floodplains - that doesn't mean rain isn't the main cause, just that we're adding another factor to the mix, changing the way floods behave. Same applies to climate, we're adding another factor, changing the way the climate behaves. The real question is not if this is happening, but how much.

Edited February 28, 2007 by Devonian

[BrickFielder]

Just to clear things up: there is a connection between solar output and temperature. Small variations in output can have noticeable effects. Though some still have reservations, the 11 year sunspot cycle is generally accepted to be one of the drivers of temperature variations. But the actual variation is not enough to account for the imbalance in the earth's heat budget. Also, there is no equivalent rise in sunspot or solar activity to match the recent rise in temperatures, so, even if the sun is causing come of the change, it cannot account for it alone.

Yes it is generally agreed that if the sun cools then the earth cools as well. A combination of sunspot activity and sunsport cycle length should be used to calculate solar output. IPCC calculations show that this radiative forcing due to this is quite minor and it is something I feel a little uncomfortable with. The NASA climate model shows a distinct link between solar activity and the Artic Oscillation.

Shindell noted that the effects of this period of a dimmer Sun were concentrated more regionally than globally. "Global average temperature changes are small, approximately .5 to .7 degrees Fahrenheit (0.3-0.4C), but regional temperature changes are quite large." Shindell said that his climate model simulation shows the temperature changes occurring mostly because of a change in the Arctic Oscillation/North Atlantic Oscillation (AO/NAO).

There is nothing new in this and it does not acount for all of the recent warming and this would pretty much be in line with IPCC estimates of the affects.

What is new is that the latest NASA model shows not only that the AO/NAO changes with solar activity but precipitation and cloud cover changes as well. Increasing or decreasing low level cloud cover by even relatively small amounts can have quite an affect of global temperatures. Neither work takes into account the latest discovered affects of gravity waves and there interaction with solar activity induced activity in the ionosphere.

Read the real climate discussion(and the comments which are mostly well informed) below which is a reasonably well balanced discussion.

A complete discussion on solar climate affects.

Models underestimate solar forcing (Met Office)

Real Climate Discussion

Precipitation and Solar Activity

A review of ionisation and electrocharging and clouds

[DAVID SNOW]

And wouldn't it add to global dimming?

yes, the vast amounts of sulphur compounds released would combine with water vapour,producing tiny sulphuric acid droplets, these have the effect of reflecting solar radiation.I think the earths volcanoes act as the earths thermostat, continually regulating the temperature,so as a pinatubo sized eruption would reduce global temps by a degree or so, a much larger eruption would reduce temps by several degrees.It has happened before, and will happed again, its all just a matter of TIME.

[Devonian]

yes, the vast amounts of sulphur compounds released would combine with water vapour,producing tiny sulphuric acid droplets, these have the effect of reflecting solar radiation.I think the earths volcanoes act as the earths thermostat, continually regulating the temperature,so as a pinatubo sized eruption would reduce global temps by a degree or so, a much larger eruption would reduce temps by several degrees.It has happened before, and will happed again, its all just a matter of TIME.

If it were a thermostat it wouldn't be a matter of time but temperature.

Why are regular ice ages a comparatively recent development? Indeed, why are there ice ages if the Earth has a volcanic 'thermostat'?

Edited February 28, 2007 by pottyprof
to keep on topic.. :)

[Admiral_Bobski]

Just a quick interjection - several comments seem to suggest that skeptics are trying to pin all of the recent warming on solar output. Just to reiterate what I have said previously, I think the IPCC have not given natural forcings (including, but not limited to, solar output) enough credit (thereby leaving a greater proportion of warming left over that "must" be due to mankind). I don't think it has been suggested that solar output is the sole driver of climate, just as it has not been suggested that mankind is the sole driver of climate.

The correlation between global temperatures and solar output seems quite conclusive up to around 1950-1960 onwards (where solar output increases but temperatures level off - possibly something to do with global dimming?), but then it goes out of step. But there could be other factors (not necessarily human) that have driven the warming in tandem with solar output since then - as soon as I figure out what, I'll let you know!

C-Bob

[DAVID SNOW]

If it were a thermostat it wouldn't be a matter of time but temperature.

Why are regular ice ages a comparatively recent development? Indeed, why are there ice ages if the Earth has a volcanic 'thermostat'?

NO, that's just to ad hom, to attack the characters, of participants you clearly dislike. Is that really all you have to add to the debate? Just ad hom, not substance?

regular ice ages have been occuring for HUNDREDS of millions of years(hardly recen).Large volcanic eruptions and the changing continental positions(plate techtonics) are the most important factor controlling periods of multiple glaciation.Also a large undersea volcanoe could end an ice age, by causing global warming,in that vast ammounts of methane released from clathrates would cause a large and rapid increase in the greenhouse effect.works both ways.

[Devonian]

regular ice ages have been occuring for HUNDREDS of millions of years(hardly recen).

I think that's a bold claim. The recent cyclical ige ages seem to have only started since Antarctica developed an permanent ice sheet - the exact date this happened isn't clear but it's within the last 50 million years.

Large volcanic eruptions and the changing continental positions(plate techtonics) are the most important factor controlling periods of multiple glaciation.Also a large undersea volcanoe could end an ice age, by causing global warming,in that vast ammounts of methane released from clathrates would cause a large and rapid increase in the greenhouse effect.works both ways.

Well, it's possible I suppose, but, over the times scales of AGW (hundreds, maybe thousands of years) that concern us it's imo unlikely to be relevant.

[Mondy]

Hey all. Just catching up.

In what could be the simplest explanation for one component of global warming, a new study shows the Sun's radiation has increased by .05 percent per decade since the late 1970s.

Further satellite observations may eventually show the trend to be short-term. But if the change has indeed persisted at the present rate through the 20th Century, "it would have provided a significant component of the global warming the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports to have occurred over the past 100 years," he said.

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/sun_output_030320.html

Solar activity was lowest during the 17th Century, when Earth was most frigid.

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn4321

Just to add to all the speculation

[Mondy]

One other: http://www.grandunification.com/hypertext/...eteorology.html

When sunspots increase, the amount of radiation from the sun increases. Thus, earth receives more energy from the sun. When the sun receives more energy from the sun -- the theory goes -- this affects the weather. This may seem counterintuitive. If the sun has black spots on it, you might think that there is less of an area giving off heat. Not so. When there are more sunspots, the sun is decaying more quickly and is giving off more heat.