by frog
At last I have taken the time to follow up on BluePeter’s comment about “An Inconvenient Cooling”, in which we were given links to various proclamations that a century of global warming had been “wiped out” in just one month. Sorry to say, this is simply not the case. Dr Lisa Moore of Climate 411 explains the cool month better than me, starting with the facts:
Source: Raw data from the U.K.’s Met Office Hadley Centre (see description of data).
This graph shows “temperature anomalies” – that is, the variation from a long-term average of temperatures between 1961 and 1990. A temperature anomaly of zero would mean the temperature is exactly equal to the long-term average – neither warmer nor colder.
As you can see from the graph, temperatures are trending upward over time in a zigzag pattern, not unlike the stock market. A shallow dip is followed by an even greater rise. Short-term dips should not be mistaken for long-term trends – in the stock market, or in climate!
January 2008 (circled in red) is cooler than other months in the past decade, but still significantly warmer than previous decades. Global warming isn’t likely to have stopped in January 2008 any more than it stopped in March 1976, December 1984, November 1992, or February 1994. These are all short-term dips in a long-term trend.
It looks like we have set yet another floor in the trend of rising temperatures. Pity that!
[I forgot two links. First, a lovely blog that reveals the backgrounds and credibility of those "climate scientists" currently meeting in New York City, as linked from the earlier comment. Second, a link to a wonderful book, available online for free, called The Discovery of Global Warming.]
Published in Campaign | Environment & Resource Management by frog on Tue, March 4th, 2008
Tags: cooling, global warming, graph, heating, temperature, trend
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
Off Topic
GO SUE K!
What a great supplementary question to the PM over the HBDHB scandal, no wonder this lady has always been my favourite Green MP.
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There is half a temperature degree variation over 50 years.
Are you suggesting that this is the start of the hokey stick graph?
Extrapolating the temperature variations out over the next 50 years what are the predictions?
More importantly what effect will the multimillion dollar carbon trading scheme have on the graph?
How “significant” is that one degree temperature change?
If you printed the graph over a 10 degree temperature range change would the almost flat line indicate climate change?
Or is this micro management to show a particular view point?
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Gerrit – well, we already have significant loss of the Arctic Sea ice, with recent science suggesting a total collapse of the Arctic ice as early as 2013, a full century earlier than forecasts from just a few years ago. We also already have an increase in significant weather events globally, increased melting of the permafrost, increased melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets and the retreat of glaciers in asia that supply water to a third of the world’s population.
How much more significant does the 0.6 degree change we already have need to be, given that the science says we already have enough CO2 in the pipeline today to get us 1.4 degrees in global averages?
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http://tqe.quaker.org/2007/aux/GWSatTemps.html
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Wow! These graphs can mean anything!
Just depends where you position the magnifying glass, eh
Meanwhile, what’s your prediction for next months graph?. And for the rest of 2008? Based on your models. What results would indicate a cooling, based on these models?
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>>well, we already have significant loss of the Arctic Sea ice…Greenland
Curious how this AGW stuff only affects the northern hemisphere, eh. Perhaps “global” is a misnomer….
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Frog,
If you look at the low temperatures 100 years ago you could constrew that the high temperatures now are a simple up and down movement of temperatures over a 100 year period.
There is nothing to say (except by those who support global warming) to say the temperatures will continue to climb.
BJ, if you carry out the same forecasts on temperature over the last 100 years instead of the 30 as indicated on your graphs, would the results be different?
Yes they would and show an almost flat line with 100 year cycles in coolng and warming.
Not saying we should continue to pump CO2 into the atmosphere but lets be realistic, the earths cools and heats, adding and subtracting ice at will.
You need to quantify the natural cycles before you can pick out and measure the man made variations.
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BluePeter – Uh, I don’t have any models myself. If I were to extrapolate from the graph shown above, I would say a decade or two that hovers at or below the long term average, or a significant (multi-year?) break from the long term support or resistance trend lines would indicate a change worth noting, for better or for worse. At the moment, the Jan 08 point looks like it is sitting nicely along the bottom support trend line.
Since we are talking long term trends and not months, I wouldn’t make any sort of “prediction” of any given month. Even guesstimating in years would be bad form. Watch the trends!
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Gerrit – the graph is from 1850 to the present. If your 100 year cycle were true, this graph would be below the average and headed for the “100 year trough” in 2050. It clearly is not headed in that direction. Read the graph!
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frog, we must be looking at the graphs in a different contaxt.
I see a large cyclical variation, You see a low line below the 0 rising to a high point today.
As records before 1850 are somewhat suspect it is impossible to even set the temperture baseline with any degree of accuracy.
Like I said, you see what you want to see while I look at it sceptically and with an enginers sense of where the variations are.
Plot that graph over the last 30 years and it is an alarming trend.
But plot it over the 150 years (and assuming the the datum is in the right place) it is not to bad and within the bounds of a natural cyclical variation.
As a boatie I look for the varitions in the high watermark around the areas I have been boating for the last 40 years. No change at all in the high water mark. None, nada, zilch.
Oh I forgot it is only sea ice that is melting excuse. Sorry those retreating glaciers have gone where?
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Gerrit
I have no idea how you reach that conclusion… I don’t have any time now so a more careful look has to be done… and the weekend is nearest chance for me to have the time to do it, but I do not understand your problems with with the past 150 years of surface temps. The Satellite doesn’t go back that far and therefore cannot be used… and I don’t see the “down” movement you are referring to when you discuss a “simple up and down”… sigh… no time.
BJ
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BJ
“but I do not understand your problems with with the past 150 years of surface temps. The Satellite doesn’t go back that far and therefore cannot be used…”
My point exactly how can you set the the datum point at 0 if you do not know what the temperature was before 1850?
“and I don’t see the “down? movement you are referring to when you discuss a “simple up and down?…”
Again my point, unless you know what the temperatures where prior to 1850 how do you know that the lows of the 1920 where not a cyclical dip from a high in 1750?
hey I dont have a problem with people producing graphs, but selectively producing your 30 year records can only ever show an upward trend (like kiwisaver graphs).
The earth is much too old and to show temperature variations over a 30 or even 150 year periods being indicative of man made global warming is nothing but scaremongering.
Tell me what the temperatures where when the woolly mammoth ranged on the Russian tundra and the earth cooling that killed them off. And the temperature cycles we have had since then.
Maybe that will show if the rising temperatures are due to the earth natural hot and cold cycles and that the current rise is due to man made global warming.
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“0″ is the average point accross the whole data collection process, Gerrit. I think the average is generally going to be a very good place to zero a graph if you’re looking for trends rather than actual measurements- and AGW/global climate destabilisation is all about unexpected trends, not measurements.
The danger of global warming is not that the temperature will get warmer than it has before. The danger is that it will get warmer much faster than the climate has ever regulated before, and that’s an unprecedented experiment which you wouldn’t really want to risk the appropriateness of your climate on.
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Ari,
My argument is that 150 years is to short a period to establish where the 0 point should sit.
To establish the zero point you need at least 2000 years of temperature measurements.
We dont have those so the 0 point has been set who knows in the correct position. One could argue either way so therefore the graph is inconsequential.
Can you set a trend based on 150 years of measurements when the earths cooling and warming cycles take hundreds of years. Is that mathematicilly sound?
If you look at the BJ graphs taken over 30 years the trend line is certainly horrendous but it always will be on such a short time scale.
All I’m suggesting is that before we dive into trying to “fix” global warming through such dubious scheme as carbon trading (which even Greenpeace thinks it is a load of the proverbial) we accurately establish that the upward flow the graph is showing is not a normal cyclical event.
“and that’s an unprecedented experiment which you wouldn’t really want to risk the appropriateness of your climate on.”
Why not?
Sort out the world over population for a start. Seems like you are more afraid of change where as I welcome it.
Roll on the warming. Becasue if you welcome the change you wont be hindered by the consequences.
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Still no time… the dataset is far longer than 150 years… and less reliable the further back. My question is. It IS getting warmer over the past 100 years. Tell me why.
My pet theory says it is CO2. CO2 has increased faster than at ANY time in the paleo record. 50 TIMES faster, More than at any time in the last 6 interglacial periods.
You cannot prove that theory is wrong and I have not seen an alternative explanation that is even arguably better AND there is always the question of how all the CO2 is doing nothing at all when we know that the PHYSICS demands that it actually does something and we see the exact something we expect in the Satellite channels, cooling the Stratosphere and warming the surface, while that alternative explanation of solar activity is lacking in, measurable changes in solar activity, and the cosmic ray effects need actual changes in cosmic rays that we haven’t been able to discern and how in the HECK did any of that happen to happen at EXACTLY the same time as all the CO2 (that has no effect at all) got dumped in the atmosphere. Recall that the ocean is warming too. The capacity of water to absorb heat is prodigious and the WHOLE ocean is getting warmer.
BP… all the models show warming affecting the North much more than the South. More water in the south. Different ocean circulation. More Land in the North. Less ocean circulation. The whole thing is much more complicated than just saying “here’s a ball surrounded by gases” and the models reflect that. It isn’t a big mystery and the temperature of the planet as a whole includes colder spots.
Which is all the 5 minutes I can give this. There is a lot of data. It has been analyzed to a fair-thee-well and some of it is arguably not up to snuff, but there isn’t anything that says this isn’t happening… except a couple of people with weird and unrealistic expectations. Decade to decade the temperature rises… and it takes decades to get anything out of the noise. It is a very small signal compared with the noise. It takes a LOT of data to detect it.
BJ.
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Gerrit,
I too don’t have time to address all your issues. But one statement you made is probably incorrect:
“Tell me what the temperatures where when the woolly mammoth ranged on the Russian tundra and the earth cooling that killed them off. And the temperature cycles we have had since then.”
There is a lot of evidence that most of the megafauna extinctions in the last few tens of thousands of years were caused by human hunting, not climate change. In every continent except Africa, megafauna extinctions coincided with human migration to the continent. It is argued (by some) that the large African animals have fared better because they have been around humans since before humans were effective hunters, and the animals have thus had time to learn that when they see a person, running away is a good tactic.
I knows its off topic … but it is interesting.
Cheers,
Miuela.
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gerrit the reason the graph showing temparatures over 150 years (not 30 years) was used is because that is all that was necessary to make the point about the one single month’s result. change the zero point to anywhere you like on that graph & the point remains, just as graphically.
there have been graphs published showing temperatures over many centuries, but we don’t need to see them for the purpose of this thread.
i suppose though that if it were shown that temperatures had been rising over 10000 years you would still be able to point out that as we didn’t have temperatures from over 10000 years ago we had no reference point with which to judge whether the rise was merely cyclical (say over 100000 years… or whatever)
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hey samiuela do you suppose it was really global warming which killed off the mammoths – by bringing warm-climate pests into their environment (namely homo sapiens)
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Gerrit is quite right that the temperature anomaly is cyclical, 35 years +/-5 rising folowed by 35 years +/- 5 falling or plateaued. Frog is quite that the trend is rising. As evidenced by the change from falls to plateaus.
While the duration of the cycle seems to be consistent with solar theories of global warming the shift from falls to plateaus is consistent with the AGW theory interposed on the solar cycle.
Prediction. Proponents of the solar theory are going to be disppointed that their anticipated cooling period will only be a plateau at best. Proponents of AGW are going to placed in a tricky position. Their theory wont be discredited by the facts which actually suggest a rapid warming from 2040 or 2050. But the theory could be discredited in the eyes of the public thereby wasting our stay of execution.
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BJ
“You cannot prove that theory is wrong”
I dont have to “prove” the theory wrong at all. You have to “prove” your hypotatis (sp?) is right.
Now you can believe it in all you might, that is your poragative, just as I will call it my poragative to question the graphs so proudly displayed as showing trend lines from a very smal volume of input values.
Andrew
“the reason the graph showing temparatures over 150 years (not 30 years) was used is because that is all that was necessary to make the point”
Problem is I can make any graph “make a point” by being selective about the imput values.
if you click on the links that BJ provided in an earlier post they had graphs showing temperature rises over the last 30 years. Now these graphs show a most alarming trend line (as they would) but because the volume of input values are so limited the trend lines cannot seriously be considered correct.
Hence we need much greater quantities of information to base quantitive trend lines on.
For example if you were to plot the potential returns from KiwiSaver onto a graph the trend line would be a disaster. You have less then one year of history but the trend line is downwards due to the sharemarket being down.
You would not be expected though to take the current KiwiSaver trend line serious on such a small volume of input values.
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Andrew,
I think there is fairly compelling evidence that mamoths (and many other species of large animals) were driven to extinction by humans. But, human migration to new lands didn’t always happen when the climate was warming. For example, migration to Australia happened in a cold period, when it was possible to almost walk from Asia to Australia (with a short stretch of water to cross). Australia used to have a range of megafauna, which became extinct some time after humans arrived (whether humans caused the extinctions in Australia is still controversial, I think they did).
In the last million years, there have been several ice ages, with warm periods in between. Most of these large species survived the preceding inter-glacial periods, but not the last (current) warm period. What is the difference between this warm period and the previous ones: humans. The warming climate no doubt didn’t help, but it was the humans that pushed most of these species over the edge.
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Gerrit,
You mention that we need long temperature records. These exist. Have a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleoclimatology for a brief introduction to palaeoclimatology. The accuracy of the data gets worse the further back you go, but we have a fairly cood idea of the global average temperature for most of the last million years.
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Gerrit – the link in my afterthought, pointing to the book. There is an entire chapter in their that discusses the history of all the work that has been done on the temperature records, back to the first days of the global warming theory, which if memory serves was roughly 1850ish.
As for my graph. You keep insisting that it is meant to ‘prove’ global warming. It is not. It is meant to show that January’s cool temperature is irrelevant to the trend of the last century. Not the trend of the last million years. (For which it is truly irrelevant) That data is elsewhere. It is in response to those who would say that January’s figure disproves global warming, which it doesn’t.
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samiuela,
thanks for that link.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Vostok-ice-core-petit.png
If we look at the graph in the above link we find that not only does temperature cyclically vary bewteen -8 to +2 degrees over the last 400K years, so do the CO2 levels almost in complete unison with the temperature variations.
Makes the last 150 years graph look pretty puny and insignificant. Half a degree variation is nothing on the cyclical scale of -8 to +2. In fact it would not even register on the graph.
Maybe, just maybe we are in a cyclical swing which judging by the half degree variation could be either up (as is being diagnosed now) or down (as diagnosed in the 1970′s)
And the CO2 build up is a natural occuring event that happens when the planet warms up. It disappears when the planet cools.
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frog,
As my comment above shows the temperature variations you are woried about are nothing in the greater scheme of cyclical variation between -8 and +2.
So you are right the January figures dont disprove global warming, nor do they prove global warming. The range and time frame is just to small a sample. That is what my argument was with your graph. Selective presentation of facts to suit an argument.
Historical data shows we are on the end of a warm cycle where CO2 levels have always been high.
Now you could argue that because of human misuse of the planet, this warm cycle could contue upwards (with corresponding naturally increasing levels of CO2) or you could argue that we are in for another cold cycle.
The sample data you are presenting is too small to make a decision either way.
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Perhaps putting the alarmists on the stand might be a good idea:
tinyurl.com/2wu3zz
“oleman also told the audience his strategy for exposing what he called “the fraud of global warming.? He advocated suing those who sell carbon credits, which would force global warming alarmists to give a more honest account of the policies they propose.
“[I] have a feeling this is the opening,? Coleman said. “If the lawyers will take the case – sue the people who sell carbon credits. That includes Al Gore. That lawsuit would get so much publicity, so much media attention. And as the experts went to the media stand to testify, I feel like that could become the vehicle to finally put some light on the fraud of global warming.?
Earlier at the conference Lord Christopher Monckton, a policy adviser to former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, told an audience that the science will eventually prevail and the “scare? of global warming will go away. He also said the courts were a good avenue to show the science.”
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The only thing “alarmist” is the inclusion of Sinclair in the NZ test team, are we trying to lose this game?
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“You cannot prove that theory is wrong?
I dont have to “prove? the theory wrong at all. You have to “prove? your hypotatis (sp?) is right.
Nope- That is NOT how science works. You select the hypothesis that best explains and predicts the facts you see.
If you find a fact that the hypothesis does not permit, the hypothesis is rejected… it is “proved” wrong… but you don’t even know THAT until you’ve tested that fact a few times and re-examined the hypothesis.
The fact is that no one can prove in scientific terms, anything. Nor can we disprove any particular thing. We can only accept a theory for as long as its explicative power is better than all the alternative theories and usually if that continues for a long enough time it is regarded as “proved” when all that means is that it has been well tested. Newton was more wrong than Einstein, but his explanations were explicative of everything we knew at the time and the differences were not important.
Science doesn’t do “proof”. Mathematics, and Logic and Law concern themselves with “proof”. None of those latter subjects are actually based on the real world which has to be examined very carefully with the imperfect vision we have and which fools us all the time.
That is one of the things that makes this SO contentious. Almost nobody actually uses the scientific method or really understands it in their gut EXCEPT the scientists and some few engineers who work with them.
The method is even further removed from the methods that the politicians use, in which the theory is tested against opinion polls and if it gets them more votes then it is accepted.
Not a good look for the future of the species.. given who controls what we will do about what they think is happening as opposed who knows what is probably actually happening.
I wind up speaking in definitive ways because if I don’t people don’t even listen. I look at a lot of stuff and it all tells me that the CO2 is forcing now… even though it is just as often clearly forced in the paleoclimate.
This CO2 isn’t natural. Look harder. Isotopes.
respectfully
BJ
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BJ,
“You select the hypothesis that best explains and predicts the facts you see.”
When I look at the Vostok Ice Core graph I see that in the last 1000 years the temperature on earth has remained reasonable constant (+-1)
My theory is that because the extra CO2 humans have been adding to the atmosphere it has staved of a big drop in temperature we could otherwise have been expecting. Noticed that the previous highs have been spikes.
Earths temperature has now reached an even keel.
So as long as we keep adding CO2 into the atmosphere we can keep this temperature fairly even (burn more coal baby!).
Now if we ban CO2 we will see global cooling.
Hows that for interpreting the facts as I see them?
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If Gerrit is right and we are staving off cooling by pumping CO2 in the air, and we stop pumping CO2 into the air, then the earth will cool, we will notice and we can resume burning coal, etc.
If Gerrit is wrong, and we continue to burn coal etc, and the temperatures continue to climb, how do we go about unburning that coal?
The only sane course of action when presented with these options is to take actions that minimise our use of fossil fuels, i.e. insulate, develop renewable energy sources, encourage telecommuting etc and improve our efficiencies, and then hope. If AGW is incorrect (which I doubt) then we will still be better off than mindlessly burning fossil fuels because we will be in a better position to handle peak oil.
Trevor.
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you’ll find that those who don’t believe in agw are also those who don’t believe in the oil peak
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“you’ll find that those who don’t believe in agw are also those who don’t believe in the oil peak…”
or peak-gas or peak-coal.
Trevor.
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Andrew,
“you’ll find that those who don’t believe in agw are also those who don’t believe in the oil peak”
pretty immature statement.
On what do you base that hypothesis?
Global warming AND global cooling are facts. Historical data shows that it can range from -8 to +2 in variation.
Curently we have a +0.5 variation so yes we have global warming.
The debate is not whether there is global warming but the cause.
I’m suggesting it is a natural cycle where we should be heading to a global cooling period but because humans have been introducing CO2 into the atmosphere we have prevented the expected cooling period for now some 1000 years.
However we have finite coal, oil and gas reserves (but not timber) so being able to maintain CO2 levels at a point where the earths temperatures can be artificially maintained at the present levels is not possible.
So long term we will be heading for a global cooling period where we should drop down to somewhere to -8 over the next few thousand years.
trevor29,
Yep, you are right, it is the only sane course of action. My problem is the schemes in place to try and achieve this (such as carbon trading) that will make that goal impossible.
As BJ says it will become a political football, when New Zealand has to purchase $3 billion of carbon credits (every year) to function as a society as we know it. (do we have enough tax payers in New Zealand to fund this?)
Would that $3 billion annually be better spent in New Zealand on sustainable carbon reducing alternatives or best sent to the Russians as a carbon offset payment?
That is were the politics will enter into it.
I respectfully suggest that any government that will retain that money in New Zealand for carbon reduction and alternative energy development will win the votes to govern.
Hence Kyoto is a dead duck and should be removed as an albatross around our collective necks.
A positive for global warming is that plant life will flourish with the incresed CO2 levels together with the increased rainfall caused by warmer oceans increasing the evaporation rate of water.
Interesting times ahead.
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Gerrit
That’s actually one of the theories about the “result” of the Greenhouse effect.
The problem here is that we are conducting an experiment with the only planet we can live on. There’s no control ( planet on which we are not conducting the experiment ) and there is no control over whether we emit the CO2 or not.
In other words,.. we are like incontinent babies peeing and pooing where we happen to live. Greens and Scientists are saying it is time to “grow up” and control our “emissions” and folks like Lomborg and Limbaugh are wailing that they don’t want to.
Your hypothesis is valid so far as we know. A competing hypothesis and one suggested several times. The tests done in support of it are not conclusive or complete. Trevor29 suggests a test that would work eventually, but the bulk of the warming from the CO2 already in the air is still ahead of us. There’s a lag on that effect and the CO2 stays in the air a long time.
The problem with the Kyoto agreement is that when signed we were in a very GOOD position for not having to pay, and indeed being paid. We would have needed to do very damned little THEN… but even “very damned little” is too much for the people who don’t want to grow up.
=========
There are some folks who disbelieve both AGW and Peak-Oil. Usually on misstatements of what Peak-Oil means though. The commonality of the two views exists, but I think it is one-way. All the “no peak-oil” folks are “no agw” believers, but the “no agw” folks are much more diverse in their view of peak oil.
Gerrit – the difficulty with all this is that we aren’t in control and never have been and we can’t even get off the planet. This includes the peak-oil/peak-energy issue as Chefurka explains it (I’ll post the link again if someone asks), Controlling the climate would be better done with mirrors in space than by burning the hydrocarbons sequestered in the planet’s depths for 40 million years. Solar power satellites and solar power on the ground would be smarter.
We aren’t doing anything that intelligent. I will believe in Homo Sapiens when I see evidence that such a species is emerging.
respectfully
BJ
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Gerrit,
Your hypothesis that CO2 emissions are preventing an ice-age may well be true, We currently live in a warm inter-glacial period, and should (normally) expect a cooler climate to return sometime in the next few thousands of years.
I went to a seminar which someone presented some work suggesting that North America would already have been returning to ice-age conditions were it not for human influences on the climate. The work seemed quite speculative to me, but was interesting.
The problem with your hypothesis is that the anthropogenic changes to the climate may not only prevent an ice age, but have “overshot” the mark and result in a substantially warmer climate.
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BJ,
I have no problems at all with controlling our CO2 emmisions and are with the Greens on that issue.
Just want to point out that we cannot “control” the earths temperature to a consistant +-1 for ever.
Soomer or later it will go beyond those boundaries either up or down. I have no view on which way.
The data is just not there to make a guess.
samiuela,
It is a problem with the hypothesis and as we just dont know what will happen, we should plan for the future using both scenarios.
If another ice age was to start shortly what should we do?
BJ’s idea of solar reflectors in space would suit both scenario’s.
I’m not all that confident us humans have enough brian power to actually work together for the common good. We have the technology to build these things but you think we can organise ourselves to cooperate and do it?
It will be the failing and deathknell of the human species, this inability to cooperate together.
Long after we are all gone, the earth wil keep rotating and have its -8 to +2 cyclical warming and cooling events to keep ants or humans from over populating the planet.
Have a ponder at this.
Over the last hundred years we have had rubber tires on our vehicles. These wear out. Where does all the rubber dust go.
In theory we should have mountains of the stuff at each storm water outlet flowing into river, lake and ocean. But we dont. Where does the rubber dust go from the millions and millions of tires used over the years?
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Any theories as to why jan 08 was down so much? I didn’t notice any major eruptions…
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No, samiam, no major eruptions.
But we’re at a long-time low in sunspot activity, which is likely to have a cooling effect. And we alos have a La Nina weather pattern in the sub-arctics, temprorate, and subtropical zones.
The combination of the two is bound to result in temperatures lower than normal short-term.
Let’s forget one month, or one year, or even 10 years if there is a major volcanic eruption. It is the long-term movement in temperature that counts. And that is increasing, just as quantum theory re the response of increased concentrations of greenhouse gases says it should.
I’m happy to believe the scientific theory as long as it is robust. It says that long-term temporature increases will occur. The empirical evidence over 150 years supports this. Changes over one month, or one year, are irrelevant in this timeframe.
Some of you are starting to sound like those silly Christians who insisted the Earth was flat, despite the scientific evidence to the contrary, in the middle of the last millennium. Predicting the future is to some extent about probability theory, based on the empirical evidence of what has happened in the past. Probability theory can never assure certainty, even when the odds are certain, as with cards or dice.
But it does make the arguments of the anthropogenic climate change deniers highly unlikely, given the evidence of climate change over 150 years and its corelation to increased greenhouse gas emissions. Cosmic rays, sunspots, volcanic eruptions etc come and go from year to year.
What explains the long-term trend? Mouldy? Samiam?
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la nina
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toad,
a 0.5 degree increase over 150 years is proof of what?
It is nothing when temperature variation have occured from -8 to +2.
You are sounding more like a “silly christian”.
But we are deniers now are we.
Your scientifiic theory is no more robust then mine.
What a pompous statement you make.
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No use arguing science with believers, Gerrit
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Gerrit- You are the skeptic. It is your responsibility to present a viable and rigorous alternative to the accepted model. This is how reasonable debate works when you challenge an entrenched position. I’m open to considering your points so long as you labour under the correct burden of proof- otherwise it’s not worth the time reading your comments.
On the ice core temperatures- explaining our current predicament away on a periodic cycle would be great, if axis wobbles or solar forcings were the only issues that face us today, just like back then. However we pump out several gigatonnes of carbon (that’s not counting the oxygen attached to it, either) every year, most of which has been buried underground and completely absent from the atmosphere for some time.
In previous warming cycles, this CO2 buildup has followed the warming cycle slightly as a result of the feedback loops that are caused by climate warming. If you look at the current data, CO2 is roaring ahead of temperature development. That’s not a good thing- it means that we are stressing all of the planet’s temporary coping mechanisms to absorb excess carbon, even though you are probably correct that we’re currently compensating for a cold trend. That means we are using up the planet’s ability to cope with a potential upcoming warm period by soaking up the extra CO2.
That we are seeing warming regardless of all these favourable conditions is not a good sign, Gerrit. If we exceed the capacity of any of our current carbon sinks, or if we simply emit for too long, the warming has the potential to trigger all sorts of feedback effects (shutdown of ocean currents, melting ice caps, aso… you’ve heard it all I bet) that will cause us to dramatically overshoot a desirable stable climate state. If we do prepare for global warming, all we will have done is invested some carbon-credit aid in developing countries, and held off on burning carbon. We can always burn that carbon later if we are wrong or we are right but we prevent disaster in time. Hardly a dire cost, and I’m sure our neighbours will appreciate the help from carbon credits either way.
Our case of warming is very atypical even judging from the record of previous similar events, and that is what should disturb you. “Maybe it’s just a natural cycle” doesn’t cut it when neither our forcings nor our trends are matching up with historical data. You need to explain those away rather than just insisting that the temperature is currently within error limits of the long-term trend- especially seeing we have no idea how close the limits of the trend come to our planet’s ability to cope with excess CO2.
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Gerrit, BP
I’ll be back in the weekend to take this up again. Your argument of “cyclical” change is true…. the planet cycles between Ice Ages and Interglacials and the planet does go up and down over time. The Cores tell us much of that history but there are other measures as well, and those all show us that something unusual is going on now, with consequences.. That’s all I can give now. You have help by researching answers to your questions too and there are plenty of links on our main page. Each question you ask has two sides. Present both, Consider it a homework assignment.
This can’t be taught to anyone, yet it has to be learned.
CO2 both forces and is forced. The transitions between Ice Age and Interglacial has always been solar forcing and nobody in the science community doubts that. CO2 however, amplifies the forcing that ends the Ice-Age. The stability WITHIN an interglacial however, is the stability you have to be wary of Gerrit. That’s your comp. Not the whole record. The record of times when the Solar forcing is not changing… because it is NOT changing in any inexplicable or unconsidered way now (it could of course be undetectable Q rays from the invisible planet Necron but THAT, like God’s will, is not about science). The science doesn’t show increasing amounts of solar insolation, or changes to cosmic rays, that explain what we see. The CO2 uptake of the ocean is slowing… the buffer is full… overflowing.
Got to go. There is too much in this that has to be understood thoroughly, but I think better of you for asking questions.
respectfully
BJ
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Ari said,
“Gerrit- You are the skeptic. It is your responsibility to present a viable and rigorous alternative to the accepted model.”
You are wrong in that toad almost pious (bordering on the religious cult status) believe is the correct and accepted model. Who made you guys the font of all knowledge?
And the arbitrator of what is the “acceptable” model?
You and toad will not, in fact cannot allow any alternative than the “accepted” model.
Well sorry, but I dont buy into your dogma.
What I find obnoxious is toads pompous, arrogant, high and mighty, shoot the messenger sermon.
Sounds like a politician (labour type attacking the person not the argument). Sanctimonious babble. This is what his pontification was.
BJ,
Looking forward to reading your thoughts. Something intellegent to discuss and be persuaded by, as always.
Wont be able to reply till Monday as competing in a regatta all weekend.
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when beliefs become entrenched that’s precisely when they need to be questioned. that’s why the athenians put socrates to death – because he kept annoying the hell out of them by asking them to justify universally held beliefs.
burden of proof (if it is even a helpful concept at all in science debates) is on those proposing action (“we want to put this person in jail for burglary”..), in this case regulation of energy practices, although i accept that given the consequences, merely showing a high enough possibility is enough to warrant action.
when a theory is published, the burden is upon those putting forward the theory – the peer review process does NOT require that those taking pot shots at the theory should have a fully formed alternative theory of their own – only that they be able to find flaws in the theory they are reviewing.
in fact places an almost insurmountable barrier to the man on the street to participate in a debate of this nature if they must have a rigorous theory of their own before they may query the mainstream theory.
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Toad
I’m with the anthropogenic camp on the last 150 years worth of rise, I was just curious on the short term. La Nina/El Nino surely won’t effect the global mean, only local, as heat gets moved around the planet in different pathways. Sunspots is a different matter as it changes the amount of energy arriving, Co2, water vapor etc effects the amount leaving. But sunspots should be a more gradual cycle not resulting in a sudden drop. Interesting.
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http://ams.confex.com/ams/pdfpapers/131047.pdf
Gerrit
That’s not an answer to your questions, but it is an answer to a lot of questions about what we knew about and when.
Andrew
The people who take pot-shots at a theory can do much to tear it down or cause it to be re-thought. That is particularly true if they are backed by actual science.
You are correct. They do not need to have a competing theory in order to participate in the debate. They can offer evidence that the theory in question is wrong and offer no replacement. That’s not normal practice in science… if you have evidence of some process you do generally want to explain it, but it is not necessary to the method.
However, the “pot-shots” DO have to be scientifically valid… and the longer a theory survives the clearer it is that there isn’t that much wrong with it.
So it is with AGW and Evolution. Both contentious but neither yet shown false. The “man-on-the-street” is probably not ever going to be in a good position to cope with this level of debate, and never has been. It is important though, that the “man-on-the-street” understand the scientific method itself, and that is well within his/her grasp. If the schools teach it, it makes much of the world far easier.
Samiam – January is about la nina…. as was December and February of this year. It isn’t any mystery.
respectfully
BJ
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Gerrit
I realized as I was reading that the issue you raise is actually something missed in the reading of the historical record. For the most part, the “handle” of the “hockey stick” is so fuzzy (the reliability and variability of the data is so low, as to be quite impossible to say of a certainty whether the Medieval Warm Period was “warmer” than today or not. We don’t think it was but it isn’t like we have a “way-back machine” to go back and measure it.
That variability decreases enormously as of the invention of the thermometer, but the global temperature is still hard to be certain of, what we have are proxies and fuzzy data sets and stories about wine being made in Britain… and the French had nothing to worry about on that score… but we don’t have hard numbers.
Using the proxies we have and checking them for agreement with the direct measures we have, we see a number of things that are pretty striking.
First is that Mann et.al. still defend their version of the hockey stick with some success and the various considerations of this make interesting reading… but no, I don’t have access to these papers either.
http://www.springerlink.com/content/h483676101066104/
http://www.springerlink.com/content/c668835m747q4823/
I am assuming you are familiar with the “Hockey Stick” itself. I reckon the handle to be too fuzzy to be of much use but… the fact that IT is fuzzy doesn’t give any comfort to the last 150 years… for the “fuzziness” does not shift forward into them. You cannot say that the variability and reliability of data now is as bad as it was then, and so you cannot judge the current trends we measure based on the problems with earlier data.
Hmmm… I probably need to figure out a better way to explain what I mean.
Suppose you are trying to predict the growth of a tree.
You have data for how much the tree grew each year for the past 35 years… but for the first 25 it is an indirect measurement of the amount of leaves collected in the compost bin. For the past 10 years however, you know about the rainfall, the temperature every day, the solar insolation, the nutrient levels in the soil and all the rest. You still don’t KNOW what will happen, but when you examine this you discover that the soil chemistry is deteriorating gradually and you can tease that effect out from the statistics… a weak signal… and you can do something with it and calibrate somewhat… the compost bin data.
That doesn’t give you the ability to say that because the compost bin data is highly variable and iffy, the recent data is. Which is what I think you imply (albeit without meaning to) when you say
“When I look at the Vostok Ice Core graph I see that in the last 1000 years the temperature on earth has remained reasonable constant (+-1)”
The interpretation of those two sets of data is basically what the “hockey stick” controversy is about. The vostok core is good data, but it isn’t nearly as fine grained and accurate as what we have today. Now we have much less variability and a greater requirement to identify component causes.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/ctl/clisci100k.html
Going back 100k years looks more like this. The site is pretty good but not specific. There is more recent data available for the past million years.
The spikes and dips, and the abrupt changes are all very interesting… but all are measured by proxies, not by direct measures.
I’m not done but I have to go now.
respectfully
BJ
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http://www.brighton73.freeserve.co.uk/gw/paleo/paleoclimate.htm
Pretty much the same data, better presentation.
respectfully
BJ
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what a cop-out! so there’s nothing sensible a man-on-the-street can say in a debate like this other than to cheer-lead for mainstream science, & education should go as far as to teach everyone to automatically respect the mainstream science view!
if the man on the street has a query which can’t be answered other than by saying “the big experts think you’re wrong, & they’ve been saying it for quite a while now” we’re in trouble. if the experts in the field are so far ahead of the man in the street, they should have no trouble in dealing with such queries.
the “pot shots” in peer review typically consist of finding problems with the experimental method, or of simply reporting that the results have not been replicated. it is not “normal practice” to confine criticism to offering alternative theory.
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