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General Climate Change


jethro

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Posted
  • Location: Near Newton Abbot or east Dartmoor, Devon
  • Location: Near Newton Abbot or east Dartmoor, Devon

It's not so hard.

As soon as you recognise petitio principii, you can break the circle at any point, or, even better, you can repeatedly ask for what the persons starting premise is.

It is, perhaps, worth mentioning that most arguments, unless argued by some super-arguer of whom is well versed in all the logical fallacies can be re construed so that it appears, or even is circular - this is the case since a lot of people try to misrepresent a conclusion that is in fact a premise (straw-man fallacy leading to circular argument)

A common one is:

  • Scientists think AGW is real
  • I think AGW is real
  • How do you know?
  • Because scientists think AGW is real.

.. which is a conclusion that is really a restatement of a premise which is therefore circular.

:winky:

Just as well, as you know, that's not what I'd argue then :lol:

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Posted
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......
  • Weather Preferences: Hot & Sunny, Cold & Snowy
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......

Doesn't leave much scope for folk does it V.P.? Without resorting to the results of folk more 'specialised in the field' then we are poorly positioned to make any kind of 'Global' opinion are we?

When my concerns for the state of our planet were first raised (late 60's) it was via wildlife programmes on telly. Was I wrong to let them influence me so without first hand experience? It didn't take long as , in the 70's . a favourite haunt of mine (local stream) was covered by a housing development and all the water voles I used to watch were gone. Every time I then saw development I balanced it with the loss of the habitat for some poor critters.

This was my own back yard and the 10yr old could see how that problem manifest over all the world where development took place.

As for our atmosphere my initial studies in Geology gave me insight to past 'atmosphere's' and their influence on the planet. It didn't take much more to wonder about the atmosphere we were busy creating on our planet. Yes, I needed facts and figures and those were provided by experts in the field and not from personal observation.

So where do I fit in with the 'circular,self confirmatory' view of things?

I am sold on my understandings and still resort to scientific opinion/discoveries but ,thus far, they have done nothing other than confirm my own limited understanding of how things are and where things are headed. Like the science itself my only surprises seem to be the speed and scale of changes (why the Arctic fascinates me so) and the constant revision of how far in the do-do we already are.

The past years on here have seen so much confirmation of the science I worry as to how so many folk do not seem able to lend more credence to things. Must we resort to psychiatry to figure why folk choose the 'Happy ,happy, all is well' view on things?

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Posted
  • Location: Rochester, Kent
  • Location: Rochester, Kent

GW - nothing personal (to anyone!!!)

Almost every lay argument can be refactored into one of the hundreds of fallacies that exist out there. For sure, there are some fallacies that are obvious and irritating. Indeed, I am certain that many of my posts would fall easily into a fallacy or two.

We are not (at least I am not) super-arguers (I avoided the term master-debaters) and thus we can all succumb to the odd illogical statement - but, crucially, the reader generally knows what the writer intended.

Here's one (for humour, only!)

  • I think man is warming the planet
  • Why do you think that?
  • Computer model told me.
  • Who made computer model?
  • Me.
  • Why?
  • To tell me if man is warming the planet

:D

Edited by VillagePlank
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Posted
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......
  • Weather Preferences: Hot & Sunny, Cold & Snowy
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......

Hi V.P.!

this is the issue really .We are all sat here tapping away with very little 'personal experience' of man's impacts on the planet. Many folk (my self included) haven't even been around the globe with most only straying as far as the Med (with no idea of how it looked before the resorts were put in).

We live in a very privileged part of the world and do not suffer climate in the way over a third of the global population do. We have clean water brought into our homes and food that is apparently limitless (if we have money). We are not locked in a daily struggle to provide food, water, shelter and fuel for ourselves and loved ones.

The only folk who are really suffering the impacts of AGW are those who know least about it. They have depleted their areas of available fuel (man made change) they have impoverished their lands (man made change) they have depleted both terrestrial water supplies and those in reservoirs below (man made change) and ,now , some are suffering drought followed by floods (and 'extreeming of local climate). Others are finding their way of being challenged by the melting of the permafrost/ice leading to loss of food sources or loss of grazing for their traditional herds.

We sit here in our protection playing the yes it is,no it isn't game because ,for now, the challenges we face are not well enough established to challenge us.

Some folk even play the "We were warned about A,B, and C and nothing happened so this isn't worth the worry either" as though they only ever believe what they had been told and now will not even bother doing that (very enlightened???)

So why do we all do it apart from the 'crack'?

Edited by Gray-Wolf
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Posted
  • Location: A small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Guildford, Surrey
  • Location: A small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Guildford, Surrey

As I have said many a time and oft, there are plenty of reasons why we should cut back our consumption, recycle, switch to alternative fuel sources and so on and so forth, without needing to invoke any concept of "AGW". CO2, in this respect, is a red herring, and attempts to control CO2 by carbon trading, EPA rulings and taxation are nothing more than political restrictions and money-raising tricks.

That's not what the discussions on these boards are about, though - except for those discussions that are specifically and explicitly for political debate.

Most of the discussions on here are about the science. Since the science is not actually solid enough to justifiably legitimise the political decisions (which is why it relies on "consensus" and "balance of evidence" rather than solely on facts), there is plenty of scope for debate.

From a political standpoint, we should make the changes that we all seem to agree need to be made because of the very real and good reasons that we have already, without having to rely on - or force - some other unproven argument.

Will my sudden, blind acceptance of AGW make any difference to my views on consumption, recycling, alternative fuel sources and so on? No, it won't. So I debate AGW because I don't agree with it, not because of an unwillingness to change. I think you will find that the vast majority of skeptics on these boards feel exactly the same way.

CB

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Posted
  • Location: Rochester, Kent
  • Location: Rochester, Kent

Indeed, GW.

That we affect our environment is a given. I recall the argument of yesteryear when the temperature record was criticised because it included urban heat island effects. It simply didn't seem apparent to those objecting that that in and of itself was an argument for us affecting climate - since if we weren't there there would be no effect. :fool:

On a conciliatory note - I suspect that if the main protagonists, myself included, were to meet in a pub somewhere, I think we'd find much more that we'd agree on than disagree. After all, the argument is now about the extent of impact, rather than 'if' isn't it? I think we'd also agree that limiting impact is also a very wise move, too.

My view, as espoused within the LI arena, is that CO2 effect is limited, and, perhaps, even self limiting. And, to come to that view, does not require the dismissal of eons of research, either, since it does not require that CO2 behaves in some new mysterious way. :lazy:

There's always a middle ground, and, in my very limited experience, it seems to me, that that is the place where the answers lie. Not some extremity where there is an ice-age tomorrow :cold: , nor the heat from hell arrives next week. :crazy:

OK - enough of that -someone might get the (wrong) impression that I might be (half) reasonable :D

EDIT: Seems like you feel the same way (ish) CB! And you got there first! :good:

Edited by VillagePlank
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Posted
  • Location: Edinburgh
  • Location: Edinburgh

Hi sss,

where did I say that I could overturn the physics of the CO2 molecule? I said that I could address the issue, not that I could show the science to be wrong. Indeed, I have addessed the issue several times in the past, but for the sake of clarity I shall quickly readdress it here.

The physical behaviour of the CO2 molecule in the laboratory is a matter of scientific fact. However, the real world, outside of the laboratory, consists of rather more than a CO2 molecule in a closed system and a heat source. For a start, the Earth is not a closed system. What other factors may counteract the effects of CO2 in the real world is a matter of debate. The physics (and chemistry) of a CO2 molecule are not up for discussion, but the interaction of those physics with all the other physical and chemical effects going on in the Earth climate system is rather more complicated.

I have also addressed the issue of how the IPCC have skewed the reporting of the science with the links a few pages back. The omission of studies that "muddy the water" is a deliberate choice to make the science seem more solid than it actually is. Is that not skewing the reporting of science? Further details can be found by clicking on the two links within the link below:

http://forum.netweat...ost__p__1796142

I see you're going back to the "to prove AGW wrong you have to present a whole new theory" argument. This is not strictly true, and we have been over this particular point several times in various threads before. AGW theory could well be broadly right (especially the "GW" bit), but with attributions of effects to mankind that seriously overstate our impact on the environment (less of the "A" bit). A complete rewriting of the science is not necessary, but I would suggest that the issue of "how much warming is attributable to man" is rather more than a "fiddly little detail".

CB

[note to others - I'm just continuing a discussion form the 'consensus' thread that got OT, thought I'd put it in here]

Hi CB,

I think we can agree that it is a complex system, but I am at a loss to understand how you don't think CO2 would be effective in the real world. There's observational evidence from both above and below the atmosphere that show it is being effective... in the real world.

We could have a go around on your snippets from the stolen emails, but rather pointless I think. There's nothing there to suggest improper practice, and your interpretation of individual words is not necessarily the same as mine. For example "some authors argue" to me seems actually weaker than "many authors suggest", as "some authors" may be authors with as much credibility as MacLean, Baliunas or McKitrick, while 'many authors suggest' indicates a much more mainstream opinion... which is what it is. 'A' as opposed to 'the' is also fair enough, unless you think that Milankovitch wasn't also operating on millennial timescales? So I'd suggest you're seeing ghosts where there are none. The papers are out there in the literature, so they're not being hidden.

Your second link - alleges that they are ignoring some unknown lagging mechanism, and blocking papers that have suggested such a mechanism. What are those papers? And what is the lagging mechanism? You do agree that solar radiation has been stable or declining over the last 50 years, and that our 'radiator' has just been through a remarkably low point? Now I understand the mechanism you suggest for the LI, but you need to couch it in a physical basis for there being long lags, and why those lags do not appear around other, acknowledged solar-driven changes during the last 1000 years? You didn't answer my previous point that the warming and cooling of one degree is insufficient to account for presence/absence of a long lag. At our temperatures we should see the same lagging around all solar changes. We do not.

sss

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Posted
  • Location: A small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Guildford, Surrey
  • Location: A small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Guildford, Surrey

Hi CB,

I think we can agree that it is a complex system, but I am at a loss to understand how you don't think CO2 would be effective in the real world. There's observational evidence from both above and below the atmosphere that show it is being effective... in the real world.

The short answer is this: because of mitigating factors. In a laboratory, studying CO2, there is no means of investigating what factors might balance out the basic physical process's effect, so although the basic physical process is a matter of scientific fact, the effect of that process in the company of any other process is less well understood. I think there is ample scope for investigation into this.

We could have a go around on your snippets from the stolen emails, but rather pointless I think. There's nothing there to suggest improper practice, and your interpretation of individual words is not necessarily the same as mine. For example "some authors argue" to me seems actually weaker than "many authors suggest", as "some authors" may be authors with as much credibility as MacLean, Baliunas or McKitrick, while 'many authors suggest' indicates a much more mainstream opinion... which is what it is. 'A' as opposed to 'the' is also fair enough, unless you think that Milankovitch wasn't also operating on millennial timescales? So I'd suggest you're seeing ghosts where there are none. The papers are out there in the literature, so they're not being hidden.

This is an argument that is dangerously close to being about semantics and interpretation. As far as I can see, the interpretation is clear, though I'm sure you feel much the same way from your standpoint. I disagree with your suggestion that "some authors may be authors with as much credibility as McLean, et al" because you yourself have argued that discredited papers would not be mentioned, so the "some authors" must, by extension, be reputable. Also, a "suggestion" is not as strong as an "argument", surely? I would suggest, in return, that you are failing to see ghosts where there are ghosts aplenty, but that is clearly a subjective opinion. And yes, the papers are not being hidden, but neither are they having any attention drawn to them in the way that all the "mainstream" papers are, which is almost as bad. I would argue that it is improper practice to disregard a paper just because it doesn't support your view, and to actively tell other scientists that you are ignoring it for that reason.

Your second link - alleges that they are ignoring some unknown lagging mechanism, and blocking papers that have suggested such a mechanism. What are those papers? And what is the lagging mechanism? You do agree that solar radiation has been stable or declining over the last 50 years, and that our 'radiator' has just been through a remarkably low point? Now I understand the mechanism you suggest for the LI, but you need to couch it in a physical basis for there being long lags, and why those lags do not appear around other, acknowledged solar-driven changes during the last 1000 years? You didn't answer my previous point that the warming and cooling of one degree is insufficient to account for presence/absence of a long lag. At our temperatures we should see the same lagging around all solar changes. We do not.

sss

Not exactly. My points in that second link emphasise they are stating as indisputable fact something which, quite clearly, can be disputed. (Further to that, there are plenty of legitimate and accepted scientific papers that suggest a variety of time lags in the solar/climate system, so the statement as indisputable fact is on fairly shaky ground from the get-go.)

I'm not sure where I alleged that they were "blocking papers that have suggested such a mechanism" As for "what are those papers", typing in the words "solar lag" in Google should give you plenty to start looking through - I'm not suggesting that all of them are paragons of scientific endeavour, and I'm sure that at least a few of them have issues, or have been rebutted, but there are certainly several in there that are examples of good science. Perhaps I'll make a list another time (although I did post links to several of them in a discussion with Iceberg a while ago).

What is the lagging mechanism? For a start, I'm not sure that there is "a" lagging mechanism - there may be several mechanisms (or perhaps one actual mechanism that operates slightly differently in different places, e.g. land, sea and atmosphere). I've pondered this very question on and off for several months now, and I have a few vague ideas. Perhaps I shall focus some more attention to the matter of mechanism in the near future. (Although, finding a statistically significant lag between solar effects and climate would be good evidence in and of itself, regardless of mechanism.)

Yes, I do agree that solar activity has remained static or decreased over the last 50 or so years. But what has that got to do with anything? Here's a quick bath analogy:

If there's only an inch of water in a bath then you might be inclined to say that the bath is nearly empty.

If the bath then fills up so that there is over a foot of water in the bath you might be inclined to say that the bath is quite full.

If the bath then empties by two or three inches, would you then be inclined to say that the bath is nearly empty again?

So the fact that solar activity has remained static or decreased over the last 50 or so years is really neither here nor there - we have still had a period of unusually high solar activity. Surely it is the period of unusually high solar activity that is of interest, not the fact that it is coming to an end?

I will, if you don't mind, come back to the question of lagging around all solar changes. I admit that I didn't answer your question when you first posed it - I apologise for that, since I really do try to answer every question that people ask of me. I think the issue is a little more complex than you seem to be suggesting - I believe it is tied in with the duration of periods of high or low solar activity more than the actual temperature level. That does slightly contradict what I started arguing when you first raised the point. My only defense is that I wasn't thinking as clearly then as I am now! :doh:

Anyway, more later.

CB

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Posted
  • Location: A small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Guildford, Surrey
  • Location: A small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Guildford, Surrey

Okay, after a minute's thought, here's a quick example of a potential mechanism for you...

Think of a pan of water being brought ot the boil. Now, at 100C we know that water changes state from a liquid to a gas. We say that the pan of water is boiling when it starts to bubble.

The bubbles, of course, are pockets of water which have changed into gas. If we pop a thermometer into the water then it will read 100C and we'll know that our water is, indeed, boiling.

But not all of the water is boiling - it's just boiling on average.

As the gas bubbles off, the level of water in the pan decreases. It takes time for all of the water to boil away (it takes several minutes for a full pan of water to "boil dry").

Why does this happen? It happens because, at the molecular level, not all of the water molecules have absorbed enough energy for there to be a phase change. The longer the pan of water is heated, the more likely it is for every molecule to absorb the required amount of energy.

Similarly, when you take the pan off the boil it will continue to bubble for a while (not long, perhaps, but a while). The bubbles may well be smaller, because fewer water molecules absorb enough energy to cause a phase change.

Now, if we change the focus of our attention to the Earth we can extrapolate precisely the same process. Let's consider solar radiation on a patch of concrete in my back garden.

Let's say, for the sake of argument, that the patch of concrete reaches a temperature of 40C. Does every atom in that slab of concrete have the same amount of energy being applied to it? No. For a start, the bottom of the slab will be colder than the top. Why? Because the solar radiation does not directly hit the bottom of the slab - the energy must be transferred down through the layers of atoms before it reaches the bottom.

That's all fair enough, so let's focus on the very top layer of atoms on the concrete slab. Does every one of those atoms have the same amount of energy? Again, the answer is no, for the same reason that not all of the water in the pan reached 100C at the same moment.

But, the longer the top of the concrete slab is exposed to the incoming energy, the more chance there is that all the atoms will reach the same energy level.

There's a lot more to it than that, and I can go into greater detail if people want me to (we can get all atomic if you like!), but that's the basic principle. Anyone agree, or even see where I'm coming from?

:doh:

CB

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Posted
  • Location: Eastbourne, East Sussex (work in Mid Sussex)
  • Location: Eastbourne, East Sussex (work in Mid Sussex)

I hope this isn't old news:

A member of the House of Lords appointed to investigate the veracity of climate science has close links to businesses that stand to make billions of pounds from low-carbon technology.

www.timesonline.co.uk

Professor Trevor Davies, the university’s pro-vice-chancellor for research, said that the university had been aware of Lord Oxburgh’s business interests but believed that he would lead the panel of six scientists “in an utterly objective way”. The panel will meet in Norwich next month.
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Posted
  • Location: Evesham, Worcs, Albion
  • Location: Evesham, Worcs, Albion

World has underestimated climate-change effects, expert argues

Even if all man-made greenhouse gas emissions were stopped tomorrow and carbon-dioxide levels stabilized at today's concentration, by the end of this century the global average temperature would increase by about 4.3 degrees Fahrenheit, or about 2.4 degrees centigrade above pre-industrial levels, which is significantly above the level which scientists and policymakers agree is a threshold for dangerous climate change

Personally I'm pretty sure that if we stopped all CO2 emissions today and brought atmospheric CO2, methane etc levels back to pre industrial levels tomorrow, we'd still see temperatures continue rise due to AGW :winky:

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Posted
  • Location: A small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Guildford, Surrey
  • Location: A small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Guildford, Surrey

World has underestimated climate-change effects, expert argues

Personally I'm pretty sure that if we stopped all CO2 emissions today and brought atmospheric CO2, methane etc levels back to pre industrial levels tomorrow, we'd still see temperatures continue rise due to AGW wink.gif

This expert also recommends massive geoengineering projects to reduce the effects. Is he crazy?!

Here's a link directly to his study:

http://www.tos.org/oceanography/issues/issue_archive/issue_pdfs/23_1/23-1_greene.pdf

CB

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Posted
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......
  • Weather Preferences: Hot & Sunny, Cold & Snowy
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......

I too generally wince when I read of schemes to heal man's messing with some more messing by man.

If I'm remembering the right article he sees the oceans slow uptake of heat as a long term issue (driving higher temps) so even if we stop the GHG emissions right now we still face a nasty hundred years or so.

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Posted
  • Location: Edinburgh
  • Location: Edinburgh

Okay, after a minute's thought, here's a quick example of a potential mechanism for you...

Think of a pan of water being brought ot the boil. Now, at 100C we know that water changes state from a liquid to a gas. We say that the pan of water is boiling when it starts to bubble.

The bubbles, of course, are pockets of water which have changed into gas. If we pop a thermometer into the water then it will read 100C and we'll know that our water is, indeed, boiling.

But not all of the water is boiling - it's just boiling on average.

As the gas bubbles off, the level of water in the pan decreases. It takes time for all of the water to boil away (it takes several minutes for a full pan of water to "boil dry").

Why does this happen? It happens because, at the molecular level, not all of the water molecules have absorbed enough energy for there to be a phase change. The longer the pan of water is heated, the more likely it is for every molecule to absorb the required amount of energy.

Similarly, when you take the pan off the boil it will continue to bubble for a while (not long, perhaps, but a while). The bubbles may well be smaller, because fewer water molecules absorb enough energy to cause a phase change.

Now, if we change the focus of our attention to the Earth we can extrapolate precisely the same process. Let's consider solar radiation on a patch of concrete in my back garden.

Let's say, for the sake of argument, that the patch of concrete reaches a temperature of 40C. Does every atom in that slab of concrete have the same amount of energy being applied to it? No. For a start, the bottom of the slab will be colder than the top. Why? Because the solar radiation does not directly hit the bottom of the slab - the energy must be transferred down through the layers of atoms before it reaches the bottom.

That's all fair enough, so let's focus on the very top layer of atoms on the concrete slab. Does every one of those atoms have the same amount of energy? Again, the answer is no, for the same reason that not all of the water in the pan reached 100C at the same moment.

But, the longer the top of the concrete slab is exposed to the incoming energy, the more chance there is that all the atoms will reach the same energy level.

There's a lot more to it than that, and I can go into greater detail if people want me to (we can get all atomic if you like!), but that's the basic principle. Anyone agree, or even see where I'm coming from?

:winky:

CB

OK, I'll bite, though I suspect we're back to radiators again, and I think your reasoning is incorrect. I'll start with:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/solar-activity-sunspots-global-warming.htm

and specifically the graph showing TSI from the 19th Century to present. You can see that TSI has dropped off sharply and is back to 19th Century LIA levels at present. This is the equivalent of turning off/down our radiator, or the gas under the pan - whatever you prefer. So if the premise of long-term well above average solar activity is a good one, the heat is 'on' until recently. But now it's not 'on', and irradiance is dropping, the pan must cool immediately. To follow your analogy, the pan is boiling, and continues to boil for a bit after turning the heat down. Is it because it is retaining the heat before cooling? No! It's mean temperature immediately must be dropping as the heat source has been removed. The water remains boiling, because the temperature of the pan itself has risen slightly above 100C (notably the metal at the base of the pan), and takes a small amount of time to cool below 100C. This time will be shorter if you use a thinner pan, compared to a thicker pan, for obvious reasons. Once the temperature of the pan, and consequently the lowest part of the water, slides below 100C boiling ceases. Similarly, if you turn a radiator off, it cools immediately, even if the cooling is slight.

And all this does not explain why 50 years of high solar irradiance that has just recently ended should lead to a greater lag in time than the 70 years of the Maunder Minimum, wich coincides with the peak of the LIA in Europe (and does not apparently lead or lag it). Yet in each case we are talking about the energy gain and loss of a degree or so C, in the same world system. Yet temperatures are still rising (March looks like yet another record), and GISS note that the 12-month running all-time record will most likely be broken in the next few months. What is much more plausible is that the solar activity increase in the early 20th Century had a noticeable (if relatively small) impact, but then the effect levelled off, indicating a relatively short lag time. Anthropogenic impacts, already present in the early part of the century, become dominant once they override aerosol effects by the late 1970s. The trend since the 1970s has been approximately linear, as expected from an exponential increase in GHG counterbalancing the logarithmic forcing property of CO2. This sequence of events fits the observations, and a solar-dominated sequence of events does not.

And my last point for now - you keep mentioning laboratory CO2 (first sentence of your last-but-one post), but I was talking about real-world observations in the actual atmosphere. Why can we actually observe the CO2 energy imbalance from above and below, in the real world, as predicted by the physical properties of CO2, if it's not supposed to be effective or if there are mitigating factors? The energy imbalance caused by anthropogenic CO2 is as real as the observations of sunspots or the measurement of air pressure. Why try and invoke another mechanism that has been tried and does not fit, when we have one that we can see, have a very sound physical mechanism for, and fits very well? Speaking of which, how do you warm the troposphere and cool the stratosphere by increasing solar activity?

sss

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Posted
  • Location: Rochester, Kent
  • Location: Rochester, Kent

...the pan must cool immediately ...

Err...no.

All other things being equal and if solar is the only degree of freedom then it will start to cool - if it cools at a uniform rate then the more that is 'stored' means it will take longer to cool to a given temperature. Unless you think that when the sun sets we immediately approach the uniform temperature of the universe - of course, you don't think that.

And that thought experiment is highly bias towards your point of view, and not mine - since most of it isn't true in the real world, and there are plenty of factors including CO2 that slow the cooling rate down.

Edited by VillagePlank
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Posted
  • Location: A small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Guildford, Surrey
  • Location: A small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Guildford, Surrey

OK, I'll bite, though I suspect we're back to radiators again, and I think your reasoning is incorrect. I'll start with:

http://www.skeptical...bal-warming.htm

and specifically the graph showing TSI from the 19th Century to present. You can see that TSI has dropped off sharply and is back to 19th Century LIA levels at present.

So all of a sudden we don't use averages any more? Why do we use averages when it suits the argument and then discrete data when the averages don't suit us?

This is the equivalent of turning off/down our radiator, or the gas under the pan - whatever you prefer. So if the premise of long-term well above average solar activity is a good one, the heat is 'on' until recently. But now it's not 'on', and irradiance is dropping, the pan must cool immediately.

It must cool immediately on average. Some of the energy given off by water molecules will be absorbed by other water molecules, allowing them to maintain their energy content or even increase it for a time.

To follow your analogy, the pan is boiling, and continues to boil for a bit after turning the heat down. Is it because it is retaining the heat before cooling? No! It's mean temperature immediately must be dropping as the heat source has been removed. The water remains boiling, because the temperature of the pan itself has risen slightly above 100C (notably the metal at the base of the pan), and takes a small amount of time to cool below 100C. This time will be shorter if you use a thinner pan, compared to a thicker pan, for obvious reasons. Once the temperature of the pan, and consequently the lowest part of the water, slides below 100C boiling ceases. Similarly, if you turn a radiator off, it cools immediately, even if the cooling is slight.

As I said above, the temperature will cool on average. Besides that, the Earth system is comprised of all sorts of stuff, not just one thing. The "sides of the pan" are equivalent to some parts of the Earth system that warm more than others. (In fact you could argue that the land and oceans are the sides of the pan, and the atmosphere is the water inside the pan - exactly the same reasoning, and just as legitimate.)

And all this does not explain why 50 years of high solar irradiance that has just recently ended should lead to a greater lag in time than the 70 years of the Maunder Minimum, wich coincides with the peak of the LIA in Europe (and does not apparently lead or lag it). Yet in each case we are talking about the energy gain and loss of a degree or so C, in the same world system.

This is where it gets a bit more complicated, and it's not just to do with the (perhaps spurious) idea that objects get harder to heat at higher temperatures and harder to cool at lower temperatures. I will go into this in more detail tomorrow as I'm going out to dinner in half an hour!

Yet temperatures are still rising (March looks like yet another record), and GISS note that the 12-month running all-time record will most likely be broken in the next few months. What is much more plausible is that the solar activity increase in the early 20th Century had a noticeable (if relatively small) impact, but then the effect levelled off, indicating a relatively short lag time. Anthropogenic impacts, already present in the early part of the century, become dominant once they override aerosol effects by the late 1970s. The trend since the 1970s has been approximately linear, as expected from an exponential increase in GHG counterbalancing the logarithmic forcing property of CO2. This sequence of events fits the observations, and a solar-dominated sequence of events does not.

The solar-dominated sequence of events as you envisage them does not fit - that doesn't mean that they don't actually fit. More on this tomorrow as well.

And my last point for now - you keep mentioning laboratory CO2 (first sentence of your last-but-one post), but I was talking about real-world observations in the actual atmosphere. Why can we actually observe the CO2 energy imbalance from above and below, in the real world, as predicted by the physical properties of CO2, if it's not supposed to be effective or if there are mitigating factors? The energy imbalance caused by anthropogenic CO2 is as real as the observations of sunspots or the measurement of air pressure. Why try and invoke another mechanism that has been tried and does not fit, when we have one that we can see, have a very sound physical mechanism for, and fits very well? Speaking of which, how do you warm the troposphere and cool the stratosphere by increasing solar activity?

sss

So you have a mechanism which fits, yes? Can there be no other possible mechanism? Just because an answer fits does not make it true - perhaps there are a variety of possible mechanisms which can all explain the same thing (x+y=10: x could be 5 and y could be 5, but x could be 2 and y could be 8 - both legitimate answers, but that doesn't tell us what x and y actually are).

That troposphere/stratosphere thing could be trickier to explain. I shall have to get back to you on that one. But one should never assume anything, and just because it fits your theory does not mean that it can't also fit mine. I shall do some reading up and get back to you soon.

CB

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Posted
  • Location: Edinburgh
  • Location: Edinburgh

Last one for the day - I think it's looking increasingly likely we can quite safely put the "world hasn't warmed since 1998" rubbish to bed. As I've shown many times (with reference to Tamino's excellent graphs, see his 'riddle-me-this' post), the world has continued to warm exactly as it was predicted to do throughout the 2000s, with ENSO-induced variations about the mean and the decrease in solar activity making the noise in the signal not peak above 1998 (if you use HADCRU). If you use GISS which adds the Arctic, 2005 was unsurprisingly hotter than 1998. 2009 ended and 2010 has begun with a bang as far as high global temperatures are concerned, and exactly as you would expect in a noisy rising trend, a new high global temperature is imminent, when the cyclically-varying factors (ENSO, solar) trend in the right direction. This time, the El Nino isn't even particularly remarkable, solar activity is still pretty low, and yet 1998's record is under threat. Only a dramatic La Nina or a big volcanic eruption can save the day for the "no warming since 1998" loonies...

http://climateprogre...satellite-data/

Of course, by 2011 there'll be a "no warming since 2010" crowd too...

1998: close to solar maximum, record El Nino

2010: close to solar minimum, moderate El Nino, yet matching and beating 1998. Looks like some other forcing factor has changed... can it possibly be the AGW effect we have already observed to be occurring?

sss

Edit: CB, I await your explanations. I absolutely understand that you should always be alive to alternative explanations. But solar activity has a hard time explaining the observed energy balance changes in longwave radiation, as well as the stratospheric effect, hence why GHGs are an easy winner at present.

Edited by sunny starry skies
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Posted
  • Location: Lincoln, Lincolnshire
  • Weather Preferences: Sunshine, convective precipitation, snow, thunderstorms, "episodic" months.
  • Location: Lincoln, Lincolnshire

The contentious point in the above argument is that not all scientists would agree with the premise along the lines "GISS is a better indicator of global temperature than CRU/NCDC because it includes the Arctic". There are many other factors involved as well, such as how good surface coverage is, use of satellite data etc, and I've seen the GISS dataset queried in various sources in recent years.

The NCDC results also support the same conclusion, showing Winter 2009/10 as the 5th warmest on record despite a solar minimum, weaker El Nino and a strongly negative NAO/AO over the Northern Hemisphere (a factor promoting cold anomalies over land and warm anomalies over the oceans), and with the Southern Hemisphere at record or near-record warmth, but they point to a smaller warming trend than is suggested by GISS. Thus, I can see a case for arguing that the warming trend might have slowed or at least not accelerated over the last couple of decades (I don't necessarily agree or disagree- I'm reserving judgement), though the argument that it has stalled is looking very flimsy at best.

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Posted
  • Location: A small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Guildford, Surrey
  • Location: A small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Guildford, Surrey

<snip>

And all this does not explain why 50 years of high solar irradiance that has just recently ended should lead to a greater lag in time than the 70 years of the Maunder Minimum, wich coincides with the peak of the LIA in Europe (and does not apparently lead or lag it). Yet in each case we are talking about the energy gain and loss of a degree or so C, in the same world system. Yet temperatures are still rising (March looks like yet another record), and GISS note that the 12-month running all-time record will most likely be broken in the next few months. What is much more plausible is that the solar activity increase in the early 20th Century had a noticeable (if relatively small) impact, but then the effect levelled off, indicating a relatively short lag time. Anthropogenic impacts, already present in the early part of the century, become dominant once they override aerosol effects by the late 1970s. The trend since the 1970s has been approximately linear, as expected from an exponential increase in GHG counterbalancing the logarithmic forcing property of CO2. This sequence of events fits the observations, and a solar-dominated sequence of events does not.

And my last point for now - you keep mentioning laboratory CO2 (first sentence of your last-but-one post), but I was talking about real-world observations in the actual atmosphere. Why can we actually observe the CO2 energy imbalance from above and below, in the real world, as predicted by the physical properties of CO2, if it's not supposed to be effective or if there are mitigating factors? The energy imbalance caused by anthropogenic CO2 is as real as the observations of sunspots or the measurement of air pressure. Why try and invoke another mechanism that has been tried and does not fit, when we have one that we can see, have a very sound physical mechanism for, and fits very well? Speaking of which, how do you warm the troposphere and cool the stratosphere by increasing solar activity?

sss

Well, I said I'd get back to you, so here I am. :doh:

I've snipped the first paragraph since I've already replied to that bit, so I'll move on to the second. My first issue with what you say is that you're comparing a peak going to a trough with a just a trough(unless you are talking about the dip into the Maunder Minimum rather than the whole Maunder period).

The thing is that the current period is not really comparable with the Maunder Minimum (yet!) because the Maunder minimum was a period of 70 years with little to no sunspot activity. We have had a prolonged minimum, but it was only about 2 years and it would appear that we are now coming out of it, so we are still potentially on the "downward slide" rather than "in the trough". Prior to the Maunder minimum there had been a general downward trend in solar activity for over 1000 years (compared with the current slide over about 60 years, or even 100 years if you want to round up to the nearest century).

(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/27/Sunspots_11000_years.svg/800px-Sunspots_11000_years.svg.png)

Now onto the issue of the "gain or loss of 1 degree or so". The LIA started in the 16th Century and continued through to the 19th Century - the Maunder Minimum, by comparison, started around 1645 and ended around 1715. Clearly, then, something forced the start of the LIA prior to the Maunder Minimum. But solar activity had been steadily declining all ready for centuries. So perhaps the LIA was a symptom of decreasing solar activity, and the bottoming-out of sunspots over the Maunder minimum came too late to have any further effect (bearing in mind, of course, that even when there are no sunspots, the sun still gives us energy!).

So, basically what I'm getting at is that the Maunder Minimum was just the lowest point in an all ready existing downward trend. If we were to have a Maunder-type minimum right now it would (tgo my way of thinking) have a more serious effect because a bottoming-out would be a particularly long way to fall from our decreasing, but still particularly high, level of solar activity.

You put forward the idea that your suggestion regards solar activity is "more plausible", yet the Leaky Integrator shows that it is eminently plausible for the Sun to be responsible for 20th Century warming. It's a long way from proven, I'll grant you, but If we're talking plausibility then I think it has sufficiently shown that.

I'm not entirely sure about your "exponential increase in CO2 balancing the logarithmic effect of CO2" comment either, because it seems like a heckuva coincidence that we should, quite without trying, just happen to be increasing our CO2 emissions at the perfect contrasting speed to offset a logarithmic warming effect. Does that not strike you as coincidental, or just plain odd?

I will have to come back (again!) to your third paragraph - I'm starting to get some ideas of how the troposphere/stratosphere thing might work without invoking CO2, but I need to check some things through before I make an idiot of myself!

As a quick reply, though, I would like to say that I have read through the RealClimate article which discusses this, and they link to this page:

http://www.atmosphere.mpg.de/enid/20c.html

I would draw your attention to this quote:

It's, of course, harder to measure the temperature in the stratosphere than in the troposphere where we have a network of measurement stations. Stratospheric temperature measurements do exist. They have been made using weather balloons, microwave sounding units, rocketsondes, LIDAR and satellites. Most of these readings only go back two or three decades at most and there are large uncertainities associated with the data.

Just how well quantified is this cooling/warming effect? I shall dig a bit more before getting back to you.

I will get back to you though!

:rofl:

CB

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Posted
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......
  • Weather Preferences: Hot & Sunny, Cold & Snowy
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......

I'll have to have a little 'tippy tap' before you do that C-Bob, and ,I'm thinking as I type (not my best 'colour'!).

So , on the one hand we have the 'uncertainty of what occurred before the Maunder min, the slope down ,on the other we have GHG warming and how it reaches it's potential max for a given concentration.

The GHG thing is what we all seem to spend a lot of time on and ,if there is one thing we all agree on, the checks and balances that the planets continental distribution, ocean currents, settled atmospheric circulations, position/attitude towards the sun are in no way understood fully. I would go as far to say that we are unique in all of those factors when compared to other periods of similar atmospheric mix. The one thing we must surely agree on is that past instances of our levels of GHG's have been accompanied by a warmer world.

We do not have the detail as to how the 'upslope' looked (in the same way we know not what the 'downslope of the Maunder looked like) but we do know that we will warm in the same way we did before.

Even with a reduction in input from the sun to match 'maunder levels' the fact we have a lot more GHG's in the atmosphere than then must surely mean that we have a greater potential to hold onto more of that 'lessened' input that during the Maunder period?

It may mitigate the WCS but it will not negate our future warming.

And what of the impacts of such warming? the carbon cycle in the past has nearly always responded to Milankovich forcings (maybe the odd extreme carbonate weathering period could have coupled with flood basalt/mountain building epochs upping the GHG levels in a similar way to ourselves but we can come back to those?) i.e. natural elevations /decreases in GHG levels as the carbon cycle settles to the new 'energy' level.

We have 'forced' the carbon cycle, tricked it if I may, with our outpourings.

Do we not now stand to inherit the same Carbon cycle alterations that correspond to the new warmer globe (over time)? are we not poised to see natures outpourings of GHG's as has occurred in past warmings?

The way I see it nature hasn't even started to dump her load (via the carbon cycle) of GHG's into the atmosphere yet.

Failing CO2 sinks , methane outpourings, Ice melt are surely the first rumblings of nature responding to rising temps and allowing her to move to the 'high energy' settings for the carbon cycle (poor dear doesn't know it was our CO2 that caused this slow warming and not the position of her planet to the sun). She doesn't know we've pumped an amazing amount of CO2 into her atmosphere over a teensy weensy time period and it is that alone driving the warming. Methane from melted permafrost, CO2 from decaying biomass in the permafrost, warming ocean surfaces holding less CO2, drought and pests downing Forrest's to then decompose and release their CO2 (Katrina's damage negated the whole of the U.S. sinks for over ten years as the squished trees rot off) changes in land use and drying of soils releasing more and more CO2, ice covered rocks now bare to be weathered and release their CO2 by product. Acidification of the oceans eating away at more carbonate rocks to give off even more CO2...........and all the while we keep pumping out our load whilst mouthing pledges of reductions.

Are some folk not arguing about it not being CO2/GHG's during the only 'window of opportunity' they will have because the steamroller, that is GHG warming, takes a while to get up to speed?

Back to my blocked up sinus' and head under the bathwater hearing...........

Edited by Gray-Wolf
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Posted
  • Location: A small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Guildford, Surrey
  • Location: A small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Guildford, Surrey
The one thing we must surely agree on is that past instances of our levels of GHG's have been accompanied by a warmer world.

We do not have the detail as to how the 'upslope' looked (in the same way we know not what the 'downslope of the Maunder looked like) but we do know that we will warm in the same way we did before.

Once again, GW, you are assuming cause and effect! So what that a warmer world generally has higher concentrations of GHGs? The cause and effect link between these two facts is assumed because we all "know" that CO2 causes warming. Do you not see the logical fallacy of that argument?

I shan't respond to the rest of your post for now (I've decided to have a relaxing evening of horror movies after my day of repairing my car!) but perhaps I shall come back to it tomorrow and restate all of my past counter-arguments again.

CB

PS - Hope you're feeling better soon :whistling:

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Posted
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......
  • Weather Preferences: Hot & Sunny, Cold & Snowy
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......

I shan't respond to the rest of your post for now (I've decided to have a relaxing evening of horror movies after my day of repairing my car!) but perhaps I shall come back to it tomorrow and restate all of my past counter-arguments again.

CB

PS - Hope you're feeling better soon smile.gif

Wine and a hot bath to recover from the car and thanks! so do I!!!smile.gif

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In this document http://www.ldeo.colu...er_battisti.pdf Seager and Battisti present some evidence that there are two stable atmospheric circulation patterns in the North Atlantic, a warmer pattern, and a colder pattern.

They propose that temperature and rainfall patterns during the colder pattern may be explained by a more zonal and southerly displaced jet stream. They also describe how the warmer pattern is self-reinforcing. Heat released to the atmosphere from the North Atlantic Drift (NAD) helps maintain low pressure near Iceland. This in turn deflects the jet stream to a more SW to NE flow, which then helps to maintain the NAD.

I am curious how a flip from one state to the other occurs. Does it have to be as dramatic as, a shift in global teleconnections, or a shutdown of the thermohaline circulation? Could it perhaps be something simpler? For example: If the two patterns are self reinforcing, would after a period of time with the alternate pattern, make the future more predisposed to this new pattern? If perhaps by chance, we are have several years of a southerly tracking and zonal jet stream, is it more likely that subsequent years will continue in this pattern?

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Posted
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......
  • Weather Preferences: Hot & Sunny, Cold & Snowy
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......

I am curious how a flip from one state to the other occurs. Does it have to be as dramatic as, a shift in global teleconnections, or a shutdown of the thermohaline circulation? Could it perhaps be something simpler? For example: If the two patterns are self reinforcing, would after a period of time with the alternate pattern, make the future more predisposed to this new pattern? If perhaps by chance, we are have several years of a southerly tracking and zonal jet stream, is it more likely that subsequent years will continue in this pattern?

I imagine in a reasonably 'balanced system' the flip flop is dependant upon many other global cycles nudging things one way or another.

What happens in a gradually warming system?

If ,in the past, a conflagration of other 'warm' signals tipped the balance to 'warm' then wouldn't a warming world 'mimic' this leading to more and more 'warm' phases?

Would not the logical conclusion be the same as the predicted ENSO changes (with it turning more and more Nino' as the oceans warm leading to a permanent state of 'Nino' [as we measure it now])?

Edited by Gray-Wolf
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Posted
  • Location: Liphook
  • Location: Liphook

http://climateprogre...satellite-data/

Of course, by 2011 there'll be a "no warming since 2010" crowd too...

1998: close to solar maximum, record El Nino

2010: close to solar minimum, moderate El Nino, yet matching and beating 1998. Looks like some other forcing factor has changed... can it possibly be the AGW effect we have already observed to be occurring?

sss

Edit: CB, I await your explanations. I absolutely understand that you should always be alive to alternative explanations. But solar activity has a hard time explaining the observed energy balance changes in longwave radiation, as well as the stratospheric effect, hence why GHGs are an easy winner at present.

A few points on this post, which is a good one by the way!

Firstly the El Nino is STRONG, probably peaking about 1.8-1.9C in terms of monthlies....I think it was the 3rd strongest since the super event of 82-83 with only 97-98 being stronger, so it was a pretty hefty event, though granted not as strong as 97-98...but thats where my second point comes in...

Secondly, the 1998 event had an impressive La Nina snapback, one of the strongest La Nina events since the 70s...and indeed I'd argue given the La Nina was more dominant in 98 and lasted much longer then the El Nino, its not totally correct to claim the El nino was a big part to blame for how warm 98 was, indeed I'd even go as far to say the La Nina balanced out the El Nino that year, I think thats important because that La Nina is never ever mentioned despite it being on the cusp of a strong event!

Indeed if you take 1998 as a whole, the ENSO zone was just 0.09C above normal for the year...now lets compare other years and see just how pitiful that actually is!

1: 2002= +0.77C

2: 2004= +0.55C

3: 2006= +0.25C

4: 2009= +0.47C

Of course I'm not going to say the 1998 event had no impact, because it was an extreme event, but pretty much every year was warmer in the ENSO overall than 1998 that had an El Nino event that year. Of course the globe will have been warmer by the El Nino however the La Nina snapback must have taken the edge off those global temps, esp in the autumn and December of the year.

The third point I'd raise is actually funnily enough because of the super -ve AO...that is the Atlantic temps. Right now they are insane in terms of how high they are, the Feb record got smashed and its all because the super -ve AO of the winter helped to really raise temps in the Atlantic because there was no Azores/Bermuda high so to speak thanks to the southerly jet, and that has meant the whole of the tropical basin has been warmed up in a huge way.

Indeed I'd argue the strength of the warm Atlantic (which is very likely to be warm due to the +AMO anyway) has in effect made up for a weaker El Nino, and slight background warming that has occured due to GW maybe enough to tip us over the egde IMO. The truth is unless we get a mod-strong La Nina in the Autumn...I'd be worried if we didn't break the record to be honest!

So to conclude, this El Nino actually is decently strong, not as strong of course as 1998 BUT the Atlantic is far warmer then it was in 1998 which probably makes up most of the difference in terms of El Nino. Of course there is likely to be some background warming as well.

AGW true test will be coming next solar min...because then we will be in a cold phase in the Pacific AND Atlantic, we saw very *briefly* what that was like in the first few months of 2009 (we saw global temps drop away quite a lot despite only lasting a few months at most) My whole arguement has always been one that AGW is of course happening but regulated to some extent by the ocean cycles that flip from cold to warm. Therefore though the base keeps going up in theory, warm/cold cycles will either surpress the warming and halt it, or accelerate the warming, just like we saw in the 1990s when we flipped to warm cycle in both basins.

By the way, how warm was just the first 6 months of 1998 in terms of anamolies, it'd be quite interesting to compare.

Edited by kold weather
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