The news that 2005 was the warmest year ever recorded in Australia comes at the end of a year in which, to the extent that facts can settle anything, the debate over human-caused global warming has been settled. Worldwide, 2005 was equal (to within the margin of error of the stats) with 1998 as the warmest year in at least the past millennium.
More significantly, perhaps, 2005 saw the final nail hammered into the arguments climate change contrarians have been pushing for years. The few remaining legitimate sceptics, along with some of the smarter ideological contrarians, have looked at the evidence and conceded the reality of human-caused global warming.
Ten years or so ago, the divergence between satellite and ground-based measurements of temperature was a big problem – the ground based measurements showed warming in line with climate models but the satellites showed a cooling trend. The combination of new data and improved calibration has gradually resolved the discrepancy, in favour of the ground-based measurements and the climate models.
Another set of arguments concerned short-term climate cycles like El Nino. The late John Daly attributed the high temperatures of the late 1990s to the combination of El Nino and solar cycles, and predicted a big drop, bottoming out in 2005 and 2006. Obviously the reverse has happened. Despite the absence of the El Nino or solar effects that contributed to the 1998 record, the long-term warming trend has dominated.
Finally, there’s water vapour. The most credible of the contrarians, Richard Lindzen, has relied primarily on arguments that the feedback from water vapour, which plays a central role in climate models, might actually be zero or even negative. Recent evidence has run strongly against this claim. Lindzen’s related idea of an adaptive iris has been similarly unsuccessful.
Finally, the evidence has mounted up that, with a handful of exceptions, “sceptics” are not, as they claim, fearless seekers after scientific truth, but ideological partisans and paid advocates, presenting dishonest arguments for a predetermined party-line conclusion. Even three years ago, sites like Tech Central Station, and writers like Ross McKitrick were taken seriously by many. Now, anyone with access to Google can discover that they have no credibility. Chris Mooney’s Republican War on Science which I plan to review soon, gives chapter and verse and the whole network of thinktanks, politicians and tame scientists who have popularised GW contrarianism, Intelligent Design and so on.
A couple of thoughts on all this.
First, in the course of the debate, a lot of nasty things were said about the IPCC, including some by people who should have known better. Now that it’s clear that the IPCC has been pretty much spot-on in its assessment (and conservative in terms of its caution about reaching definite conclusions), it would be nice to see some apologies.
Second, now that the scientific phase of the debate is over, attention will move to the question of the costs and benefits of mitigation options. There are legitimate issues to be debated here. But having seen the disregard for truth exhibited by anti-environmental think tanks in the first phase of the debate, we shouldn’t give them a free pass in the second. Any analysis on this issue coming out of a think tank that has engaged in global warming contrarianism must be regarded as valueless unless its results have been reproduced independently, after taking account of possible data mining and cherry picking. That disqualifies virtually all the major right-wing think tanks, both here and in the US. Their performance on this and other scientific issues has been a disgrace.
John Quiggin 
Kyoto protocol seems to have little benefit. Any idea what it might cost?
I agree entirely John, those right wing extremist “think tanks� ought to be closed immediately for impersonating real think tanks that speak to power.
Unlike our left wing think tanks, right wingers only know one thing these days -that’s sucking up to the neo-con cabal in both Washington and Canberra.
Of course, global warming is not the only thing the right wing neo-con cabal have missed and its to your sense of fairness that you didn’t make mention while you have them on the ropes over this issue. However, I think it is a mistake, John, as we need to expose these right-wing neo-con think tank imposters for the dishonest bunch they are.
We have known for several years now that Kyoto is the only treaty that would stop the enormous build up of pollutants in the southern hemisphere. After all, the ozone hole did not suddenly just appear, did it? The countries who have signed up to the treaty seem to be the only nations with a positive sense of long-term economic sustainability. France is a perfect example of a nation with a strong sense of destiny that knows Kyoto only brings growth and prosperity to its people as they move to more efficient technologies. While the cabal is busy in Iraq, France and Germany are busy building their economies without green house gas emissions. Now, as these countries move into a post industrial age we can be sure they will surpass the non-signers in such way that will only create envy- a permanent leisure class.
It’s not surprising 05 was the warmest year ever recorded- at least while neo-con Howard remains in power. Not only does he suck up to his Washington power base, he avoids the obvious s when the facts are presented to him. Not content with destroying work place harmony he now wants to destroy our environment by not signing up to Kyoto in the face of the evidence.
Thanks John for bringing this matter up.
Note: The comment above is intended as satire. It doesn’t work for me, but YMMV – JQ
The right wing think tanks have now declared war on political correctness, having virtually to abandon their long time left bashing global warming stick.
Now all i hear about on redneck radio 4bc and dumb and dumber today tonight is political correctness.
As if calling an aboriginal a “nigger” is going to solve the problems in dubbo.
A Scape goat like none other for those with no answers – too busy pushing their conservative party lines….
Good post, John. I look forward to your review of Mooney’s book.
Steve Chidio, I’m getting tired of your trolling. Please either start making constructive contributions or go elsewhere.
Not surprising that you should jump on the bandwagon, JQ, but disappointing all the same for you to draw premature conclusions, once again.
I knew it was only a matter of time before the “See! I told you!” brigade leapt on the 2005 temperature data as proof positive of imminent immolation. The ABC did a particularly good beatup (with a CSIRO talking head, no less) the other night.
You did, at least, have the decency to point to some real science (i.e. on water vapour) rather than just harping on anecdotally about one year of temperature data and “increased bushfire risk”.
We already know the earth has warmed in the last few decades – the evidence is too good to dispute, as you’ve noted previously. Whether this is anthropogenic or not is the key question, and I dispute your assertion that it is settled. Lindzen’s hypothesis on the negative feedback of water vapour is one theory suggesting that future warming will not be as severe as some models predict. Disproving that theory would not prove that existing warming is anthropogenic, or that existing projections of temperature increase are accurate.
I’ll state for the record, for those putative inquisitors out there who don’t know my position, that I am a AGW skeptic in the true sense, i.e. I don’t know what the f#ck is going on, and I don’t think the scientists do either…yet. More science, more research, please, and less jumping the gun on Kyoto to the nth degree.
Oh, and a big wet raspberry to the first person who calls me a creationist/astroturfer/ostrich/etc.
As the science gets more solid, the debate about mitigation is probably going to get more partisan as those with a big stake in free CO2 dumping pull out all stops to prevent regulation. I don’t know how much revenue our gov’ts derive from coal, gas and oil but it has to be a lot and there’s bound to be a reluctance to do anything that affects that revenue stream. When the most cashed up industries start lobbying in ernest and play the fear-of-economic-ruin card with all their might that reluctance will be likely to harden.
I really think it’s a technolgical challenge that’s within our power to meet. Here in sunny Australia solar power has enormous potential and ought to be pursued with real intent, rather than with political promises and feel good pronouncements. Multi-layered sheets with patterns printed on them over and over again, with no moving parts – once perfected photovoltaics will be very amenable to mass production, and with nano technology finding it’s stride it’s likely to be better and cheaper when it is. The same goes for better batteries, which would have remarkable benefits besides making solar,wind and other intermittent yet abundant energy sources much more consistently available.
When we have governments that put more effort into developing and deploying new clean energy technologies than they put into promoting and protecting existing energy industies we can see a real shift that might make a positive difference.
Peel and Stick solar sheeting, roads paved with solar cells and batteries that can power trucks and ships and planes – these are what the world needs. I haven’t heard that they are beyond our capabilities to produce.
“Lindzen’s hypothesis on the negative feedback of water vapour is one theory suggesting that future warming will not be as severe as some models predict. Disproving that theory would not prove that existing warming is anthropogenic, or that existing projections of temperature increase are accurate.”
Well, what would prove it? Doing nothing and waiting to see what happens would work. But that’s a rather self-defeating standard of proof.
The basic physics of AGW theory is straightforward, it fits the data, and standard models predict well out of sample, unlike alternative explanations of late-90s warming based on El Nino and solar cycles. The credible objections (AFAIK) have all been resolved in favour of the mainstream model – the satellite data was the most serious. There is (again AFAIK) no credible alternative left in the field.
For grid storage applications we already have good batteries.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricity
Terje wrote:
“Kyoto protocol seems to have little benefit. Any idea what it might cost?”
Measures to reduce pollution and protect the environment over the past thirty-odd years have actually yielded a slight economic benefit, according to the OECD. Economic models predicting large economic costs from such measures in the US have been found to be consistently wrong – see Eban Goodstein’s The Trade-Off Myth for details. Reducing emissions by using energy more efficiently (thereby getting more bang for your buck) are economically beneficial. Try turning off your TV and computer at the wall instead of leaving them on standby, and try hanging your washing out on the line instead of using a dryer, and see how much more money you have left after paying your power bill. Try walking or cycling to the shop, or to work, and see how much money you save on petrol.
JQ,
The AGW is one hypothesis potentially explaining why the Earth has warmed in recent decades. Like most scientific hypotheses, it remains contingent. It fits the data in recent history, but does not explain significant temperature variation in earlier recorded history. The absence of a superior hypotheses does not make AGW conclusive or correct. It is just the best, albeit flawed, hypothesis we have available. The fact that is the only answer does not necessarily make it THE answer, particularly with a system we know to be so incredibly complex.
“We already know the earth has warmed in the last few decades – the evidence is too good to dispute, as you’ve noted previously. Whether this is anthropogenic or not is the key question, and I dispute your assertion that it is settled.”
Fyodor, is that really the key question? As far as I see it (not knowing much about any of this), the bottom line is that global warming is happening really quickly, and this will have significant effects on human welfare if sustained. As an unabashed ‘species-ist’, this concerns me, and I think that we should make significant sacrifices to preserve our way of life as best we can. What does it matter whether the warming is anthropogenic or not? Reducing man-made carbon emissions is the only instrument humanity has to use against climate change, so lets start pushing on that string I say! Unless your argument is: well its natural, the climate will self-correct (with or without humanity extant) so lets just sit back and cop it sweet?
The sky is falling! The sky is falling!
“What does it matter whether the warming is anthropogenic or not?”
Well, for one thing, if it’s not anthropogenic, then “reducing man-made carbon emissions” will do SFA for our chances, except potentially reducing our capacity (e.g. by lowering economic growth) to manage climate change.
That’s why getting the science right is important. First, identify the problem, then find the solution. You seem to prefer leaping at a solution without really understanding the problem. I don’t agree.
“Unless your argument is: well its natural, the climate will self-correct (with or without humanity extant) so lets just sit back and cop it sweet?”
This may actually be the case, though I’d suggest we should be planning for mitigation (e.g. reviewing agricultural practices and water distribution in already dry areas, reviewing coastal settlement, etc.) no matter what the cause of warming. It’s worth pointing out that even the most extreme projections for global warming do not anticipate the extinction of humanity. Don’t hit the panic button just yet, Chris.
Fyodor, if all you mean is that climate science, like evolution, quantum physics and most other scientific theories is contingent and subject to revision, then fine, but it seems odd to present this as “I don’t know what the … is going on and neither do the scientists”, and to criticise ABC TV for not including a guide to Hume every time science is mentioned.
I’m not sure what you mean about not explaining earlier fluctuations. There are good climate science explanations for these, obviously not anthropogenic ones. The comparison between historical and recent changes is an important part of the evidence supporting AGW – hence the ferocity of attacks on the “hockey stick” by people like McKitrick.
We make decisions on the basis of the best scientific evidence we have – we can never attain absolute certainty.
JQ,
I criticised the ABC (and you, for that matter) for taking one year of anecdotal data and presenting it as conclusive evidence “proving” the AGW hypothesis. No inhumeation required – just a decent handle on science, free from hyperbole.
Would you like to provide the “good climate science explanations” for past climatic changes, e.g. the Medieval Warm Period, or Little Ice Age? My understanding is that they are NOT well explained. There is little consensus on the causes of these events, because we don’t understand natural climate change well enough to know.
“We make decisions on the basis of the best scientific evidence we have – we can never attain absolute certainty.”
Absolutely, in a relative sense. You believe we have “the best scientific evidence we have”. But that ‘s not true: we’re evidently learning all the time, and the longer we wait, the better the evidence. Personally, I’m willing to trade more time for more evidence, particularly if it helps us avoid a major economic mistake.
“Would you like to provide the “good climate science explanationsâ€? for past climatic changes, e.g. the Medieval Warm Period, or Little Ice Age? My understanding is that they are NOT well explained. There is little consensus on the causes of these events, because we don’t understand natural climate change well enough to know.”
I think you’ve been reading too much McKitrick here.The Medieval Warm period and Little Ice Age were local European events. Claims to the contrary are not taken seriously outside contrarian circles. Wikipedia is, as usual, a handy reference.
Again, no one knows exactly how the eye evolved, or how to reconcile quantum theory and general relativity.
Finally, the phrase “anecdotal data” is a new one on me. We’re looking at over 100 years of data accumulated at thousands of sites and seeing (as you agree) an upward trend in recent decades. We can go back 1000 years and find that this trend is unprecedented in recent history.
The Global Warming debate will never end – much like the geocentricism and evolution debates.
Terje: Warwick McKibbin, an eminent economic modeller and a critic of Kyoto, provides his estimates of Kyoto costs here: http://www.brookings.edu/views/papers/20040215_bdpie159.pdf
I just had an urgent phonecall and have to go. I haven’t read the paper yey myself and probably won;t until some tiem this evening.
Warwick McKibbin is usually good value though.
There is some evidence that global temperatures were slightly higher in the MWP, and slightly lower in the LIA, but these are easily explained by changes in solar and volcanic activity.
Only in peusdoscience la-la land are they are problem for climate scientists.
Proponents of AGW base their conclusions on the positive correlation between the now almost universally acknowledged observation that global temperatures are rising quickly and the almost univerally acknowledged observation of increases in the by-products of human activities, notably greenhouse gasses.
More controversial is the causal relationship. Now, it appears, a positive feedback loop may be causing naturally created methane and CO2 to be released into the atmosphere.
Rather than proponents of both positions taking potshots at each other from prepared defences, as an interested and sceptical observer of this debate I’d like to read something slightly different.
That is: what evidence would proponents of both sides accept as falsification of their position? This Popperian test may help to winnow sound scientific thinking from prejudice.
Any takers?
“…it would be nice to see some apologies”
Prof Q, surely you know that writing for Rupert[1] means never having to say you’re sorry! Cf Greg Sheridan’s fawning panegyrics over three decades of the butcher Suharto’s tyranny and his contemptuous dismissal of the East Timor independence movement.
[1] Climate change deniers Janet Albrechtsen, P P McGuinness, Ian Plimer, Frank Divine etc etc.
In many cases far less disgraceful than the performance of nearly every pro-environmental think-tank, environmental NGO, most individual environmentalists and many climatologists. I can’t count the number of times in the last 10 years Greenpeace have attributed a major climate event to global warming. The latest example: here in SA we’re currently being deluged with taxpayer-funded ads featuring Tim [I’m-a-zoologist-not-a-metereologist] Flannery exhorting us to turn off our 60W light globes as if that is going to somehow reverse global warming.
If we’re to have a Stalinist purge then lets at least be impartial.
JQ and Ken,
The global nature of the MWP and LIA are disputed, as are their causes. They are not “easily explained” by changes in solar and volcanic activity. It is generally assumed that they played a role, simply because they are known major causes of natural climate change. HOW they affected temperatures, whether regionally or globally, is not well understood. Furthermore, JQ, reread the wikipedia entries. MWP and LIA events have been found outside of the North Atlantic basin.
JQ, your dog-whistling reference to the evolution of the eye is sly, but still insulting. I am not a creationist or IDer.
The anecdotal data referred to is the 2005 Australian temperature record recently released by the BoM and referred to by both the ABC and yourself. “The End of the Global Warming Debate” indeed. The debate is very far from over.
Fyodor – I agree that taking one year and saying that the debate is over is a bit premature however this is not the only evidence that global warming is happening and is anthropogenic. Certainly the high average temperature of 2005 in the absence of an El-Nino is very significant. The last high average was 1998 when there was a strong El-Nino contributing to that years high temperatures.
It should set some alarm bells ringing. While it is not correct to say the sky is falling providing early warning is not alarmist if the action to contain the problem has to be started many years before the actual event.
I also do not agree that is it sufficient to say that just because there were warming and cooling events in the past where there were no humans that this present warming is also natural. The big difference now is anthropogenic greenhouse gases which is driving THIS warming event. In the past there were others triggers or drivers however this time it is us.
The global warming debate will end. Unike evolution, which would need a time machine to settle conclusively, in 20 or 30 years we will know what this grand experiment will bring one way or the other. I hope that the skeptics are correct and nothing severe happens however I do not think that this is likely.
The global nature of the MWP and LIA are disputed, as are their causes. They are not “easily explained� by changes in solar and volcanic activity. It is generally assumed that they played a role, simply because they are known major causes of natural climate change. HOW they affected temperatures, whether regionally or globally, is not well understood.
The evidence for this is much much stronger than what your comment implies. It isn’t just assumed that they played a role. Rather we have proxy measurements of both past solar and volcanic activity. These proxy measurements correlate well with past temperature reconstructions.
Paul and Ian,
My question about costs was somewhat sarcastic, however thanks for the cost references. My main point was not that the costs of Kyoto might be tolerable but rather that there don’t seem to be many benefits to Kyoto.
If my energy costs (electricity and petrol) double tomorrow I think I will still have a good lifestyle. However if my energy costs double and my we still cook then I will be somewhat annoyed. Most of the IPCC models seemed to suggest that Kyoto would provide little benefit.
Regards,
Terje.
P.S. If all the Left Wing think tanks apply themselves to the problem and eventually decide that we need to implement a carbon tax then can we use the revenue to abolish income tax? Or do we have to spend the revenue like left wingers also.
JQ
John,
The comment above was not meant to be a satire. You castigate a real supporter of yours and yet you let that Fydor character spew his venomous skepticism on your site. Attack him, not me, as he has the temerity to suggest that he doesn’t know AGW is happening.
Please, John , you should be asking Fydor to take his nonsense elsewhere. Maybe Blair would accept it, but not here. Not at a Social Democratic site. We don’t need that kind of thing.
Katz,
I’ll bite.
I would consider the science of global warming to be falsified if there was a future temperature trend which defied our understanding of how climate variability works. For example, if global temperatures start to fall significantly, while climate forcings (greenhouse gases, solar effects etc) keep on rising, I would accept this as a falsification of the theory.
Terje, the Kyoto proposal as it stands would not provide much benefit. I think of it as the first step in the right direction.
Katz, I agree with Ken. I asked the same of Fyodor way upthread.
Terje, the most promising proposal for carbon tax revenue is to use it to fund the abolition of payroll tax.
If all the Left Wing think tanks apply themselves to the problem and eventually decide that we need to implement a carbon tax then can we use the revenue to abolish income tax? Or do we have to spend the revenue like left wingers also.
I’m not a left-wing think tank, but I advocated this carbon tax + reductions in tax rate at Troppo a while back. http://troppoarmadillo.ubersportingpundit.com/archives/009575.html
Terje, the Kyoto proposal as it stands would not provide much benefit. I think of it as the first step in the right direction.
I see Kyoto’s biggest advantage that it stimulate more R&D into reduction of carbon emissions. Which will (long term) play a much bigger role than any short term reduction in emissions.
Paul,
It seems to me that it is like saying it would be good to have a bridge from Tasmania to the mainland, justifying it through a cost benefit analysis and then deciding to save money by building just the first half of the bridge. If we are going to do a cost benefit analysis then lets analyse a proposal with all the benefits and all the costs. Or at least something with substancial benefits. Asking people to sign on for an incremental bridge building project seems somewhat wishful. Actually signing up seems pretty naive.
Regards,
Terje.
John,
I am all for getting rid of payroll tax. Except that it is one of the few taxes that remains decentralised (ie state based).
If we are to have a carbon tax and it merely elliminates payroll tax then it would seem to be a quite modest tax. Will there be much benefit for such a modest tax in terms of changes to global warming?
I assume that in practice a carbon tax would be levied on power stations and petrol retailers. Given the politics of petrol taxes do you think it is likely to happen any time soon.
Do you personally think carbon taxes is the way to go?
Regards,
Terje.
“I would consider the science of global warming to be falsified if there was a future temperature trend which defied our understanding of how climate variability works. For example, if global temperatures start to fall significantly, while climate forcings (greenhouse gases, solar effects etc) keep on rising, I would accept this as a falsification of the theory. ”
Thanks Ken.
What in your opinion is the minimum credible timeframe which would allow for the possibility that non-anthropogenic factors may be causing the hypothesised observed significant fall in global temperatures despite continuation of production of high levels of greenhouse gasses and solar effects etc.?
(Are there no AGW sceptics out there willing to be as explicit as Ken?)
I’m a little late to the party, but Fyodor said:
Like most scientific hypotheses, it remains contingent. It fits the data in recent history, but does not explain significant temperature variation in earlier recorded history.
This looks like a Googler argument – it’s all cockeyed, an indication the Google results are not well-understood. It would help if the ‘earlier recorded history’ were defined, but then we’d have something to pin you down on, eh?
If Fyodor means the cooling in the mid-20th C, perhaps the websites he reads have ‘forgotten’ to include cooling effects of landcover changes and other albedo changing events, like air pollution. The ocean can absorb heat, too; these are promising lines of research as to how much and when.
Certainly the physics is clear: raise the CO2 content of the atmosphere and the temp will rise.
I see no septic hypothesis that explains away the little problem of increased CO2, and Lindzen’s infrared iris hasn’t stood up to scrutiny in the literature (despite the occasional trumpeting on the Internets).
The septics, simply, don’t have an answer, model, theory, idea, .pdf. or clue as to the question: why wouldn’t temps rise with an increase in CO2? Of course they would, so we must distract, atomistically quibble, tap dance, prevaricate, and/or mendacicize.
Thus, maybe we have to modify John’s assertion: the scientific debate is nearly over.
The denialist/contrascientist debate is, as Fyodor says, far from over, sadly. Or not sadly, if you gain entertainment from the display.
Best,
D
P.S.: Nice comment utility, John. I’ve been away from here for awhile & missed the upgrade. -D-
Correction to the P.S.: nice preview utility, John. The comments themselves don’t seem to have the same HTML functionality as preview…
D
If 2005 being the hottest Australian year since 1910 means the global warming debate is over, what does the fact that Perth had the coldest December on record mean?
http://www.bom.gov.au/announcements/media_releases/wa/20060103.shtml
Which climate events entitle one to terminate the debate?
>If all the Left Wing think tanks apply themselves to the problem and eventually decide that we need to implement a carbon tax then can we use the revenue to abolish income tax?
I doubt it’d come close to replacing the money raised from the incoem tax.
A possible alternative to eliminating the payroll tax would be to significantly raise the level at which busiensses have to register fo the GST from the current $50,000 to, say, $2,000,000.
The compliance costs for small busiensses in paying GST are extremely high as a proportion of the revenue raised making it a very inefficient tax.
In the US you could argue that paying down the national debt is a higher priority than tax cuts.
Hi Katz, that’s a hard question to give a definate answer to, because, there are still uncertainities in what drives climate (we can explain a large part of observed climate variability by greenhouse gases, solar, volcanic, ozone and atmospheric particle forcing, but not all of it). Personally, I would like to see between five and ten years of measurements, however, if the difference between theory and observation was extremely large, a shorter time frame would do.
The point is that global warming IS happening so;
What’s to be done about it?
My ideas on mitigation run more toward adaptions to the new climates that have been created. In the subarctic there are vast tracts of land that might be opened to agriculture. Increased violent storms may require some coastal cities to be abandoned.
If we had controlled our carbon usage we might have avoided this situation. We didn’t. It’s time to do what people have always done;
adapt and survive.
I run a small business with a turnover near the million dollar mark. I don’t find GST anywhere near as painful to administer as PAYG or payroll tax.
All fine so long as change is gradual and limited. If we hit a climatic tipping point then mitigation may seem wishful.
Can one apply for pastoral leases in the Australian Antarctic Territory?
WHEN we hit the climatic tipping point then mitigation will be absolutely necessary.
Some people have the erroneous idea that the greenhouse effect is nothing more than a hypothesis that is yet to be tested thoroughly enough to be able to be relied upon. These people ignore the fact that basic physics (which are no longer considered to be mere hypotheses) says there will be some warming unless by some incredibly lucky fluke the climate system just happens to produce forever-lasting weather events that counteract the effects of basic physics.
It’s relatively easy to work out using the laws of physics how much warming there would be with simple models of the earth and atmosphere. e.g. you could model the atmosphere as having a particular fixed cloud reflectivity, water vapour content, etc. and the earth’s surface as having a particular fixed albedo. The point is that nomatter what set of paramter values you choose from the range that exists on the earth, the laws of physics say that increasing CO2 and leaving every other independent variable the same always increases the temperature at the surface. This is a consequence of the laws of physics. It is not a hypothesis.
Now of course the earth’s atmosphere and surface are not uniform and static and these aspects lead to the climate and weather being very complicated and the dynamic nature to global temperature varying simply because of changes in the weather. e.g. if the global weather happens to be causing a lower-than-normal transfer of heat from the equator towards the poles then the equator will be hotter and the poles colder than normal and this would cause the global average temperature to become lower than normal because of the non-linearity of the Stefan-Boltzman equation that relates radiation to temperature.
The point is that even though global weather may produce variations in global average temperture (and these are probably always limited in duration and effect, unlike a lot of the anthropogenic CO2 which will stay in the atmosphere on average for many thousands of years) they don’t alter the basic physics and the global warming we expect in basic physical models. If someone says they want to wait until complex dynamic models show that by some amazing fluke of nature the actual global warming is much less than it would be in a world that was uniform and unchanging then they’re effectively praying for a miracle. They’ve got to ask themselves, “Do I feel lucky today, well do I?”
It should be remembered that according tio the Australian government, Australia is on track to meet its Kyoto targets.
So the additional cost of signing Kyoto would appear to be zero.
Refusing to sign has, however , probably created additional costs for Australia (since we can’t sell credits into the Kyoto markets) and deterred some investment into Australia.
Chris,
Tossing a coin is an exercise in basic physics. A mass of known size and shape has a force applied and follows a trajectory. However few scientists can accurately predict the outcome.
To call the greenhouse effect as it applies to the earths climatic trends an exercise in basic physics is misleading. Calculating the trajectory of a single cannon ball in zero atmospheric conditions under the influence of gravity is basic physics. The atmospheric and climatic systems of the planet are very complex.
Of course the notion that the atmosphere is mostly transparent to short wave radiation from the sun and somewhat opaque to long wave radiation re-radiated from the earth has been understood for a very long time. However calling the topic basic is IMHO a poor characterisation.
Regards,
Terje.
Chris – where skeptics get their wedges from are the mistakes and missteps taken on the road to what you accurately say is “These people ignore the fact that basic physics (which are no longer considered to be mere hypotheses) says there will be some warming”. They use the media and public distrust of science to cloud the issue. I agree that the science of warming is fully based on facts.
The devil is in the details. Our chaotic atmosphere reacts in unpredictable ways to this warming – this is what cannot be predicted. Unfortunatly there is no scientific test or experiment that can conclusively prove AGW induced climate change before it happens. Until then the fossil fuel industry can go on as normal happily saying “Prove it and we will take action” or “technological breakthroughs are needed to combat climate change”.
“…anthropogenic CO2 which will stay in the atmosphere on average for many thousands of years”
This is just not the case. All the CO2 in the atmoshere is part of the carbon cycle. Thankfully, the human generated CO2 is only a fraction of the total. The Earth will take care of this imbalance as soon as we run out of fossil fuels. Unfortunately there are other gases (CFCs eg.) which are not naturally occuring and might continue to accumulate. These “exotic” gases are the real long term problem.