Is Global Warming Real?

[jordan179]

With the revelation of the British hoax regarding global warming, an obvious question is "Do you think that anthropogenic global warming is real?" And here's my answer:

Comments

[metaphorsbwithu]

I've written dozens of posts on the subject and believe this it the biggest scam in the history of the world.

I have no doubt some climatologists believe in man-made global warming. Their belief, however, can affect their objectivity ... as has been demonstrated in "Climategate."

There is no scientific justification for saying an increase of CO2 from one part in 3,500 to one part in 2,600 will cause an increase in temperature of 1 degree C over 100 years

Re: Effects of Atmospheric CO2 (II)

[superversive]

Actually, CO2 levels do follow temperature fluctuations, and our understanding of atmospheric physics explains why perfectly. As someone mentioned elsewhere in these comments, when the earth grows warmer, the oceans grow warmer; when the oceans grow warmer, the solubility of CO2 in sea water decreases (much more rapidly than the solubility of O2 or N2); and since it takes centuries for ocean water to cycle between the deep basins and the surface, the oceans go on releasing CO2 for about 800 years after the peak temperature is reached.

As I understand it, this 800-year lag has been reliably observed by comparing temperature proxies and CO2 levels in glacial cores taken from Greenland and Antarctica, and the record is consistent and continuous going several hundred thousand years into the past.

Re: Effects of Atmospheric CO2 (II)

[jordan179]

Yes, but ...

The purely geological cycle involves CO2 emission from erosion and vulcanism and solution from the seas, and uptake by combination with rocks and solution into the seas; the geological part of the biological cycle by extraction from rock by bacteria and sequestration into rock by fossilization. We've added to this the emissions from burning long-sequestered fossil organic material as fuel, and once emitted the CO2 doesn't care how it got into the atmosphere, or whether it's lagging a natural temperature increase: it works strictly by the laws of physics. And the laws of physics say that it should increase the greenhouse effect.

Re: Effects of Atmospheric CO2 (II)

[superversive]

That’s all very well, but I think we’re talking at cross purposes here. CO2 is a relatively minor contributor to the existing greenhouse effect; the largest single contributor is water vapour. The IPCC model assumed that H2O forcing would increase linearly with CO2 forcing, at a ratio (I forget the exact number) of something like 3 to 1. This is nonsense: H2O forcing increases proportionally to the vapour pressure of water at a given temperature. It also assumed that CO2 added to the atmosphere would remain in the atmosphere, whereas actually about half of it is absorbed by the surface layers of the ocean, and a smaller percentage is taken up by plant life (which, in the case of trees or fibre-producing plants, can remain sequestered for decades or centuries

Re: Effects of Atmospheric CO2 (II)

[metaphorsbwithu]

Assuming, of course, that there actually has been an increase in temperature over the last 100 years. The methodology has been suspect and now ClimateGate emails affirm many of the dozens of objections that have been suggested for the last several years.

Re: Effects of Atmospheric CO2 (II)

[jordan179]

The evidence for warming over the 20th century pre-dates "global warming" as a political issue. What this does call into suspicion is the data from the 1990's on.

Re: Effects of Atmospheric CO2 (II)

[metaphorsbwithu]

And yet the CRU has said it LOST or DESTROYED all that raw data so it can't be checked.

When James Hansen had to admit 1934 was the hottest year on record in the U.S. he whined that all those old statistics weren't all that accurate anyway.

Sorry but the entire record of warming estimates on a global scale have been shown to be suspect.

There are any number of scientists who argue you can't really quantify an average global temperature today.

You can look it up.

Re: Effects of Atmospheric CO2 (II)

[jordan179]

And yet the CRU has said it LOST or DESTROYED all that raw data so it can't be checked.

!!!

If they really did this, they should be brought up on charges -- the data is immensely valuable to all Mankind!

Sorry but the entire record of warming estimates on a global scale have been shown to be suspect.

The Anglian CRU is hardly the entirety of climatological studies; many other scientific organizations monitor global temperatures. One thing I bet is happening right now is that a lot of climatologists are groaning and re-doing their studies with a deliberate exclusion of the CRU's data, because now they know it's untrustworthy.

Re: Effects of Atmospheric CO2 (II)

[metaphorsbwithu]

This has been known for months.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/08/13/cru_missing/

That's why when I first heard of the CRU emails I knew something was up.

Researchers have been trying to get at the data for years through the FIA.

The emails discuss hiding data, etc.

Re: Effects of Atmospheric CO2 (II)

[jordan179]

There are any number of scientists who argue you can't really quantify an average global temperature today.

Hard is not the same thing as impossible. And we know that global climates have changed over time. It was colder during the Little Ice Age than it is today: rivers like the Hudson and Thames routinely froze in the winter. It was warmer during the Paleocene Maximum than it is today: tropical forests grew in areas which are today temperate or even subarctic. A phenomenon doesn't disappear simply because it's hard to quantify in the short term.

Re: Effects of Atmospheric CO2 (II)

[metaphorsbwithu]

By "CO2 theory" I mean the theory that CO2 increases in the atmosphere have caused a rise in "global temperatures."

When a scientist believes his hypothesis, his research is doomed from the start.

Re: Effects of Atmospheric CO2 (II)

[jordan179]

When a scientist believes his hypothesis, his research is doomed from the start.

When he blindly believes in his hypothesis, he will not succeed in disproving it.

Not so

[luagha]

Actually, if you read up on ClimateGate and the actual raw data from Australia, we haven't risen 1 degree Centigrade since 1900. If you start from 1860, we've risen, .06 of a degree Centigrade - a negligible amount

Re: Not so

[jordan179]

What you are ignoring is that we are, right now, in a short-term cooling phase due to the fact that we are entering a Solar minimum. And yes, you're right that it's hard to pick out the actual climate change (and climates do change over time) from the static. But I don't think that it is impossible.

The actual data seems to show that the Earth's temperature has been overall declining since around 3000 BCE (when it was about 2 degrees Centigrade warmer than it is today), with a steep deep between 1350 and 1850 (the Little Ice Age), followed by a climb of about a degree to our present (c. 2000) climate, with a probably very short term dip occurring right now

If I have one point

[luagha]

It's that the data is trash. The only decent, precise data that's worth looking at is the satellite-based data that isn't affected by urban heat islands. And that's recent, and the data stream there is just starting.

Re: If I have one point

[jordan179]

I do not believe that all the data is trash. I think that we are roughly correct as to relative increases and decreases in past temperatures -- but the coupling of these past temperatures to present ones may be imperfect.