There’s no longer any serious debate among climate scientists about either the reality of global warming or about the fact that its substantially caused by human activity, but, as 500+ comments on my previous post on this topic show, neither the judgement of the overwhelming majority of climate scientists, nor the evidence that led them to that judgement, has had much effect on the denialists[1].
And the Australian media are doing a terrible job in covering the issue. I’ve seen at least half a dozen pieces this year claiming that the whole issue is a fraud cooked up by left-wing greenies, and January isn’t over yet.
The latest is from Peter Walsh in the Oz. Walsh is still banging on about the satellite data, and the Medieval Warm Period, suggesting that his reading, if any, in the last few years has been confined to publications emanating from the right-wing parallel universe. But that hasn’t stopped the Australian from running him, and a string of others.
If an issue like genetically modified food, or the dangers of mobile phones was treated in this way, with alarmist cranks being given hectares of column space, most of those who sympathise with Walsh would be outraged and rightly so.
Walsh does make one valid point however, saying. “If your case is immaculate, why feed lies into it?” To which, I can only respond, “If the cap fits …”
fn1. At this point, the term “sceptic” is no longer remotely applicable. Only dogmatic commitment to a long-held position (or an ideological or financial motive for distorting the evidence) can explain continued rejection of the evidence.
John Quiggin 
UHI
For those of you labouring under the illusion that there is no Urban Heat Island effect … NASA disagrees with you.
Read it all on the NASA website, at http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2005/nyc_heatisland.html
w.
Ken, I just noticed that I didn’t answer one of your emails, my apologies. You said:
1) You say you are “injecting reality” by saying that the forcing is “between 3.5 and 4.1 w/m2”. I had said that it was about 3.7 w/m2 … what’s the difference? Where’s the reality injection?
2) The IPCC “business as usual” scenario assumes that the current rate of CO2 rise (about 0.5%/yr.) will continue indefinitely into the future. This gives a doubling time by the “rule of 70” of 70/0.5 = 140 years. I said about 130 … no reality injection there either.
3) You are correct, the increase in forcing is logarithmic, so the first year, it calculates out to be … hang on … log(1.005)/log(2) *3.7 = 0.027 w/m2. I had said about 0.03 w/m2 … whoa, that’s a really big reality injection there, I was off by 0.003 w/m2, thanks for clearing that up. And you know what? You were totally right, Ken … that’s “ludicrous” …
4) I divide the climate forcings up as follows:
First order forcings – plate tectonics, the distribution of the ocean currents. Such things as the closing of the isthmus of Panama, and the thrusting of the Himalyas 10 km into the equatorial atmospheric winds, seem to have been what initiated the onset of the current cycles of ice ages, while when the Panama gap was open and warm currents could flow round the world, the earth was warmer than today. 15° to 20°C variations over periods of up to hundreds of millions of years.
Second order forcings – Milankovich cycles. These seem to have caused the onset and end of the ice ages. 5° to 15°C variations over periods up to hundreds of thousands of years.
Third order forcings – El Nino/La Nina, volcanoes, variations in greenhouse gases – changes of up to 3°-5°C on shorter timescales.
Dude, I may be wrong in my division of what drives the climate, and I certainly have made lots of errors in my life, but I never deal in “meaningless fluff”, and the sooner you notice that, the less foolish you will look. You have “injected” absolutely nothing at all into the conversation, you have merely confirmed that I was correct and have wasted my time and everyone elses as well …
w.
PS — I’m still waiting for evidence of AGW. Not only hasn’t there been any confirmed evidence, no one has even offered anything up and claimed it was evidence.
You guys do realize that the fact that you personally can’t provide any evidence means you personally believe in AGW with absolutely no evidence to support that belief, don’t you?
I mean, if you had some evidence, you’d trot it out … and you claim I’m in denial? It is to laugh. So far, you’ve not provided not a single thing to deny, which means your AGW beliefs are built on thin air … but the good news is … at least it’s hot thin air …
Simonjm said he would love for me to take this discussion elsewhere, I noticed that as soon as it got hot he wanted me out of the kitchen. But I’m not taking anything anywhere else, because I’m not talking about anyone else. I’m talking about
you
and
your beliefs, and whether they are based on reality or fantasy.
So show’m if you got’m, folks, it’s crunch time. JQ, let’s go, either come up with the evidence, or admit you’re basing your AGW belief on faith and not science. You started this thread by saying I was denying the evidence … what evidence did you have in mind? Or were you just insulting me without any evidence at all?
WHERE’S THE EVIDENCE FOR AGW?
PPS — Please don’t try the hoary and time-worn “we have evidence, but we won’t show you because you’re too mean and nasty” dodge, I don’t want to have a coronary from excess laughter … besides, it’s well known that laughing creates CO2, and we wouldn’t want that …
Willis says: “Once again, the finding that the coral reefs are a source of CO2 … since they are a source of CO2, the idea that CO2 will keep them from growing seems doubtful. Of note in this one is that calcification rates are higher when the water is warmer.”
Yet another preposterous comment that goes far beyond what the authors of your nominated studies actually say. It is like saying “human respiration is a source of carbon dioxide, therefore excess carbion dioxide in our environment will not harm us.”
Willis further says: “Yes, as someone pointed out, sometimes reefs don’t recover from bleaching. This usually happens when the reef is under some other kind of pressure, such as human predation or pollution.”
I deliberately chose Scott Reef as an example of a reef that failed to recover from the 1998 bleaching event BECAUSE it is remote, not fished, not polluted and almost never visited.
Nevertheless, the “death of a thousand cuts” is often the reason why a species becomes extinct or an ecosystem is wrecked. Bleaching and excess CO2 uptake may be only two of many factors.
By the way, I have scuba dived and snorkelled on several occasions around Newcastle and Kelso Reef near Townsville. Not that this makes me an expert.
Willis say: “Steve, find one place where I disagreed with that statement you quote above. Find one place that I said that the Arctic was not warmer than in 1960. Find one place that I said that sea ice was not decreasing recently.
Yes, sea ice has decreased over the last 50 years. You seem to find that highly significant, but I don’t. Why? Because Arctic sea ice has also increased over the last 75 years… ”
Yet according to a BBC report on 28/9/05: “The current rate of shrinkage they calculate at 8% per decade; at this rate there may be no ice at all during the summer of 2060.
An NSIDC analysis of historical records also suggests that ice cover is less this year than during the low periods of the 1930s and 40s.” (1)
I think we’ve seen more weasal words from our good mate wily Willis the wonderkid. Next time I’m in Fiji you better beware of the big Aussie bloke with a frozen schnapper!
p.s. Have you read the 21,100 Google Scholar papers yet? There will be a Q&A session when you’ve finished.
(1) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4290340.stm
Steve, discounting your obligatory, puerile and childish personal attacks, thanks for your reply.
You quote the BBC as saying that at the current rate of shrinkage, there may be no sea ice at all by the summer of 2060 …
The taking of a short term trend and extending it out for fifty or a hundred years is … man, I don’t even have words for the stupidity of that one. Mark Twain said it better than I ever could …
For example,as I pointed out in the data I cited, the sea ice increased by a couple of percent from 1995-2002. Would it be valid for me to say that “at this rate of increase, by the winter of 2060 you’ll be able to ice skate in Miami”?
Of course not. Steve, you keep demonstrating your poor grasp of what science is about.
I’m still waiting for you to come up with the evidence, Steve. You can call me all the names you want … me, I’ll just note that your science is absurdly simplistic. “Wow, let’s take a trend and extend it in a straight line for half a century” is not a generally recognized method of predicting the future …
w.
“If you want to use dodgy analogies yours is slightly wrong. The ‘utopian socialists’ want to disarm the criminals and institute programs to stop crime through education in schools etc not wipe out the moon.”
No the analogy is a good one. You have to go back and sort out what an analogy is. Once you sort out what an analogy is and then you review what the subject was that the analogy was being made for then you will see that the analogy was very appropriate indeed.
And as a practical matter its not possible to figure out what Utopian socialists will be wanting at any given time period. That the dummies are off on a crusade against warmer winters could not possibly have been predicted in advance as we live in a world which for three and a half million years has had a marked tendency for glaciation creating the most pitiful of conditions.
This in fact is why we grew big brains enabling left-wingers to be wrong about a vast variety of subjects.
The first time that a group of species evolved under tree-living, came down from the trees to become bi-pedal stick-wielding gangster animals………
The first time this happened it was with the proto-dinasaurs. But since there was no land at any pole there was also no glaciation. Just endless benign conditions.
Of course the other larger animals were no match for stick-wielding gangster bipedalism and the proto-dinasaurs took over but they did not evolve very much for many millions of years. When the land mass broke up they finally diversified into a wide range of modes.
But why didn’t they go down the same route as us.
We are the product of twenty-plus White Death Holocausts. This is what seperates us from the other animals.
Stick-wielding, gangster bi-pedalism is such a winning formula that it would be natural for us to have spread out everywhere but like the proto-dinasaurs not to have evolved a whole lot.
But we get a window of 6000-10000 years to spread out and multiply and then the 60 000-100 000 year punishment ensues.
So we don’t want another ice age. That is to say non-psycopaths don’t want another one.
By the way your solution to crime is ridiculous and can’t work. It will increase crime.
Steve, you wrote:
Please note the differences in the two situations of reef and humans, Steve. I’ll put it in short, clear sentences so there’s no confusion. What you have done is called a “false parallel”, because the two situations are quite dissimilar.
With regards to the coral, you have claimed that high levels of CO2 in the water physically harm the coral. The same is not true of humans.
The study said that the reef itself creates high levels of CO2 in the water on a daily basis, double the usual concentrations. The same is not true of humans.
Since the reef itself creates high levels of CO2 in the water, I said it seems doubtful that the high levels of CO2 in the water will hurt the reef.
You have responded with the false parallel between the reef and humans.
Steve, if doubling the CO2 in the water damages the reef as you claim, perhaps you’d be so kind as to explain — why does the reef itself double the CO2 in the water? Doesn’t exactly strike me as a brilliant survival strategy, but hey, I’m sure you can explain the unrevealed brilliant evolutionary logic of a creature poisoning itself on a daily basis …
However, we do appear to agree on one thing, which is kinda cool in itself. This is that the reefs can die from a variety of small physical insults, what you call “the death of a thousand cuts”.
In the case of Scott Reef, it has not recovered much, as you say. However, you may not have realized that the main reason it has not recovered is not bleaching or CO2 as you claim. You say:
Not fished, not polluted, rarely visited, a perfect test case to prove your point that coral reefs aren’t recovering from bleaching … what could possibly go wrong? …
What went wrong was the cyclone which happened to strike the reef, uprooting and destroying the huge porites corals which had survived the bleaching and generally causing massive damage, not only to Scott, but to other reefs as well.
As I said, absent other damage, reefs recover from bleaching, and Scott Reef will recover. You’ve chosen a poor example, one that doesn’t prove what you think it proves.
w.
PS – Look, Steve, I know you don’t like being shown to be wrong, and in some cases foolishly wrong. No one does. But thats no reason to take it out on me. Take your medicine like a man, and cease your childish whining and blaming the messenger when I point out your errors.
Someone above, 272 posts ago or so, showed that I was wrong. I said I hadn’t posted something, I had searched and didn’t find it, but he showed I was wrong. I said “You’re right, I was wrong.” I did not abuse him and call him names, didn’t say he was “wily” or “preposterous” or a “hypocrite”, I just agreed that he was right and I was wrong, and we moved on.
I previously criticized Willis’s dishonesty in misrepresenting a scientific paper to support his contention that “… the idea that CO2 will keep them [coral] from growing seems doubtful�. One of the authors of the paper was Jean-Pierre Gattuso. (see Willis’s post on 1 Feb 2006 2:52pm on this thread).
Tonight I perused the newly released British report called “Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change�. One of the dangers identified by the report is a reduction in calcification of coral and other marine organisms as a result of anthropogenic climate change and in particular increased CO2 emissions. In other words the report makes precisely the same point I made. (1)
I note with delicious irony that one of the citations for this claim is a paper authored by the ubiquitous Mr Jean-Pierre Gattuso. The details are as follows:
“CO2 partial pressure controls the calcification rate of a coral community�
“Previous studies have demonstrated that coral and algal calcification is tightly regulated by the calcium carbonate saturation state of seawater. This parameter is likely to decrease in response to the increase of dissolved CO2 resulting from the global increase of the partial pressure of atmospheric CO2. We have investigated the response of a coral reef community dominated by scleractinian corals, but also including other calcifying organisms such as calcareous algae, crustaceans, gastropods and echinoderms, and kept in an open-top mesocosm. Seawater pCO2 was modified by manipulating the pCO2 of air used to bubble the mesocosm. The aragonite saturation state (Ωarag) of the seawater in the mesocosm varied between 1.3 and 5.4. Community calcification decreased as a function of increasing pCO2 and decreasing Ωarag. This result is in agreement with previous data collected on scleractinian corals, coralline algae and in a reef mesocosm, even though some of these studies did not manipulate CO2 directly. Our data suggest that the rate of calcification during the last glacial maximum might have been 114% of the preindustrial rate. Moreover, using the average emission scenario (IS92a) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, we predict that the calcification rate of scleractinian-dominated communities may decrease by 21% between the pre-industrial period (year 1880) and the time at which pCO2 will double (year 2065). “ (2)
I can only plead with Willis once again to respect the conventions of intellectual honesty. If you he is unable to do so, further discussion between us on AGW would be otiose on my part.
(1) p84 of “Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change� at http://www.stabilisation2005.com/
(2) see http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1046/j.1365-2486.2000.00315.x
Willis says: “What went wrong was the cyclone which happened to strike the reef, uprooting and destroying the huge porites corals which had survived the bleaching and generally causing massive damage, not only to Scott, but to other reefs as well.
As I said, absent other damage, reefs recover from bleaching, and Scott Reef will recover. You’ve chosen a poor example, one that doesn’t prove what you think it proves.”
I CLEARLY said in my original post about Scott Reef that it was again devastated by a hurricane in 2004. I also clearly said that the reef was examined prior to the hurricane and HAD NOT recovered.
You are obviously not paying attention.
Jeff Harvey Said January 31st, 2006 at 10:29 pm :
This week there was a Indian steel manufacturing company trying a hostile takeover bid on Belgian steel factory.
Palm oil producers from Malaysia are building heated storage tanks in Rotterdam.
A russian takeover from Hoogovens (Netherlands) nearly succeeded.
Forestry in Surinam is an Asian business.
I used my first mobile telephone while living in Tanzania
We’ll see, about this repatriating,…..
As for the rich getting richer, of course, but the poor are not getting poorer.
Let me give you an example: 40 years ago I stayed at my grandparents in rural netherlands. They had no shower or bath, we had to pump our water, and you had to flush the toilet using pump water. Of course they heated her house using coal. Just ten years later they had a central heated house, running cold and warm water and a a color TV.
Tim Curtin Sayd January 31st, 2006 at 7:41 pm:
I referred to the lab experiments by Arrhenius just doing that:
Arrhenius, S, Annalen der Physik Bd 4. 1901, p690-705.
But here is also a recent sattelite observation showing the same:
Steve, thanks for your reply. You quote a study saying (emphasis mine):
“Conventions of intellectual honesty”? Steve, I suppose that some day you will actually accuse me of something that is falsifiable. You accused me before of “lying about MWP”. I asked you to name the lie, and in your usual craven fashion, you refused to say what it was. Then you accused me of lying about CO2. Once again, I asked you to put up or shut up, name the lie you think I told. And once again, you chickened out of backing up your bullshit.
Now you say that I am not following the “conventions of intellectual honesty” (i.e., lying), and once again you have not specified what you think I lied about. You are a coward who makes vague accusations without having the balls to say what you are accusing me of.
Setting that aside, we still have the same problem I identified with the previous citation you sent, which is that it is in an aquarium. So to clarify things, let me go over it again.
The “calcium carbonation saturation state of seawater” referred to in your citation is buffered in the real ocean by, among other things, the lysocline. This cannot be modelled in an aquarium, because it only happens at a pressure of 4,000 tonnes per square metre. In addition, the water in aquariums is not like seawater in a number of respects (see my previous posting).
Because of the buffering, we do not know how much, or even if, the calcium carbonation saturation state will change with a change in atmospheric CO2. Your author weasels around this by saying it is is likely to decrease … this is an altogether too typical statement from someone who really doesn’t know. If he knew, he’d say.
Yes, I agree. If, and it’s a very big if, the calcium carbonation saturation state changes when atmospheric CO2 changes, then coral may grow slightly slower. How much? We don’t know. Will the state change? We don’t know.
As your study notes, all other things being equal, the calcium carbonation saturation state can be changed by increasing the pCO2 of the water. The missing link in your study, of course, is that the pCO2 of the water, as I have shown, is not controlled by the atmosphere. It is controlled by the coral reef itself, which renders your argument meaningless.
Take your talk of “intellectual honesty” and stuff it where the sun don’t shine. I’m doing my best to tell the truth as I see it. If you disagree, that’s fine, but your insults are unwarranted.
w.
Interesting mix of libertarian conservative Evangelical/creationist (Pseudo) Ecologist.
There might indeed be leftie greenie creationists out there, one cannot discount it since i didn’t think there would be any Evangelical/creationist right wing (Pseudo) environmentalists.
Willis this isn’t meant to attack by association but it does mean intelligent educated individuals can collect a great deal of information -we would agree on creationism- and go against mainstream science if they cherry pick and use their file draws to confirm estabished beliefs.
given confirmation bias congnitive dissonance and emotive reasoning show in that other study I posted about one shouldn’t be surprised.
The Evangelical Ecologist
http://www.evaneco.com/2005_12_01_enviroguy_archive.html
“Evolution is a theory in the scientific sense. It has been tested repeatedly by examining the remains of now-extinct creatures to see how one species has emerged to replace another. Even today we can see some kinds of evolution at work…
If evolution was truly a scientific theory, why is it as religiously defended as I.D. [heh! clever webpage] by using myths like emergent/transitional species?
At least I’m consistent when I religously defend Biblical creation.”
Simonjm, thanks for your contribution to this thread, always interesting.
However, I have to confess, I can’t make heads or tails of this one.
Are you saying that I’m a libertarian conservative evangelical creationist (pseudo) ecologist, or am I misreading your posting? It’s not clear.
And what does the sentence mean that reads, in its entirety,
?
Was something accidentally erased by the same blog gremlins that ate part of my post on satellites?
All the best,
w.
ERRATA:
Up above, I incorrectly said:
Aaah, the frailty of memory. Now that I have looked it up, I find I should have said:
Then you [Steve Munn] accused me of lying about weather related morbidity. Once again, I asked you to put up or shut up, name the lie you think I told. And once again, you chickened out of backing up your bullshit.
I figured I should correct the record before Steve, as is his unfortunate habit, accused me of mopery* or some other heinous crime …
w.
–
*mopery: “Mopery is a vague and obscure legal term, used in certain jurisdictions to mean “walking down the street with no clear destination or purpose”. Like loitering and vagrancy laws, it can be used by law enforcement either to legitimately detain unsavory types before they have committed a clearer or more dangerous crime, or to illegitimately harass otherwise lawful citizens — obviously an easily abused and easily challenged judgment call.”
SOURCE: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mopery
Graeme – Not sure you have a strong grip of ancient history. The analogy you presented was false because no-one is advocating wiping out the moon just not letting greenhouse gases rise to a level that could possibly lead to climate change.
I suggest that if you really believe that climate change will be benign then invest heavily in seafront property. If you are American there should be lots going cheap down New Orleans way. You can then experience first hand the benign climate change.
Hans Erren Says:
February 2nd, 2006 at 7:18 am
Tim Curtin Said January 31st, 2006 at 7:41 pm:
why are there no experiments showing the infrared blocking effects of CO2?
I referred to the lab experiments by Arrhenius just doing that:
Arrhenius, S, Annalen der Physik Bd 4. 1901, p690-705.
But here is also a recent sattelite observation showing the same:
Thanks Hans – and I love your site. But your referenced graph lacks labels for the horizontal axis, and what are the ks on the curves? Nor do I see any indication of the CO2 in ppmv up there where these “measurements” allegedly took place. The Sahara reaches the Med in Egypt, eg at el Alamein, so no surprise these are identical curves whatever they are.
BTW how many Nobel prizes have been won by the IPCC mob?
Hans
I would also like your comment on the following:
“A few years after Arrhenius published his hypothesis, Knut Ã…ngström sent infrared radiation through a tube filled with carbon dioxide. He put in as much of the gas in total as would be found in a column of air reaching to the top of the atmosphere. The amount of radiation that got through the tube scarcely changed when he cut the quantity of gas in half or doubled it. The reason was that CO2 absorbed radiation only in specific bands of the spectrum, and it took only a trace of the gas to produce bands that were “saturated” — so thoroughly opaque that more gas could make little difference…..” The problem was that “more CO2 could not affect radiation in bands of the spectrum that water vapor as well as CO2 itself were already blocking entirely”. What has changed? the change in the mix or composition of the total atmosphere since 1750 is only 0.009%. Why would the effect of the water vapor dissipate so much with such minimal increases in CO2’s share of the atmosphere?
Tim
In Willis’s previous post in relation to coral he attempts to gain mileage out of the fact that the author of a study I quoted used words such as “likely”, “may” and “suggest”. I’m sure Willis is well aware that this is the convention in scholarly papers.
Willis seems to prefer the likes of Singer, Michaels and McKitrick and McIntyre, who prefer to shout their gospel from the roof tops.
This thread has grown boring and unproductive. I think I’ve collected enough red herrings from Willis to keep me in fish for a lifetime.
As such, I will now bow out of this discussion and allow Willis to continue his auto-erotic grandstanding unabated.
Hi Willis,
I’m in a rush, so I’ll have to bundle all of my responses into one comment…
Firstly, I did make a couple of mistakes, sorry.
I thought that you had used data from different time periods. Sorry. However I still think that your attacks on the different global temperature trends are ludicrous. To see how the trends match, you shouldn’t just compare final – initial / time. This is because you miss all of the detail of what’s happening the middle. And one bad year could completely screw the results. And this is a particular problem when one starts as far back as possible where there is more uncertainties with the data.
For any readers interested in how the different temperature trends match up with other should check out this link.
Also, in my comment on sunspots and climate, I thought that I had made my point clearly enough. Obviously I didn’t because you have missed it totally – so sorry about that. I should have quoted you as saying “My feeling is that variations in the sun are responsible for the warming which has occurred since 1700.” Then it would have been clear that the I was not claiming that there wasn’t a relationship between sunspots and climate, but rather there isn’t a relationship on the scale which you suggest between sunspots and climate (nothing on the scale which your comments suggests).
If your actually interested in finding out more on sunspots and climate, instead of trying to score cheap debating points, I would suggest that you check out “Solar Forcing Of Global Temperature Change Since AD 1400” by P. E. Damon and A. N. Peristykh (Climatic Change, 68, 101–111, 2005).
A good test of your solar forcing hypothesis would be to look backwards. If solar variations were “responsible for the warming which has occurred since 1700” then one would expect to see warming comparable to the mid-20th century during the period 1750 ish – 1790 ish. What was happening during that time? The Little Ice Age I think.
Your still screwing up the calculations of Wm-2yr-1. There isn’t an IPCC business as usual case (there may have been one in the past, but that isn’t the case now). The IPCC have a number of scenarios which having different rates of ghg growth. No probability is assigned to which scenarios are more or less likely to be correct. So to sum up this little episode, you picked a numerator at the lower end of the range, you used the wrong dominator, plus you shouldn’t have been using division in the first place.
Willis, making up your own terms to describe forcings and arbitrary assigning CO2 a low one, is pretty much the definition of meaningless fluff.
One final point, you write “You guys do realize that the fact that you personally can’t provide any evidence means you personally believe in AGW with absolutely no evidence to support that belief, don’t you?” – there has been lots of evidence presented of this thread to support AGW. You just chose not to believe it. A case of Morton’s demon, if ever there was one.
But for the record, one piece of evidence for AGW is the ir absorbance spectra of carbon dioxide. QED.
In Willis’s previous post in relation to coral he attempts to gain mileage out of the fact that the author of a study I quoted used words such as “likely�, “may� and “suggest�. I’m sure Willis is well aware that this is the convention in scholarly papers.
Actually Steve, it’s entirely possible that he isn’t aware of the convention. When I used to debate creationists, there were many who would state that evolution was just a theory, as if it was a killer point.
Looking back through the posts, I realized that I had not responded to a very valid point Steve had made. He said that I had assumed he had not known about the cyclone that struck Scott Reef, when in fact he had mentioned it in his post. He is correct, and my assumption was wrong. He also said that Scott Reef had not recovered much from the bleaching before the cyclone hit, which was also correct.
Scott Reef went from about 40% coral cover before the bleaching event to about 16% afterwards, and had recovered only slightly from the bleaching event when it was struck by the cyclone. This slow recovery was due to the isolation of the reef, and the amount of damage sustained in the bleaching.
My point in all of this, though, has not particularly been the speed of the recovery, which is sometimes six months, and sometimes, as Steve pointed out, ten years or more. Here in Fiji, on the reefs I am familiar with, it was about five years. Of course, by geological standards, all of these time frames are extremely short.
My point is that coral bleaching is a natural event, one which has been going on since forever. When waters get too hot, corals bleach. Indeed, when they get too cold, they bleach as well. Always have, always will, it’s how coral deals with changing temperature.
If the temperature change is temporary, the same species mix of coral regenerates. If the temperature remains hotter or colder, a species of coral adapted to the new temperature colonizes the reef, replacing the old species.
This is how, for millions of years, coral has dealt with changing temperatures. The idea that bleaching is unnatural is incorrect. The idea that warming (or cooling) oceans will wipe out the coral is also incorrect.
And of course, while warm-water bleaching events are evidence that the oceans are warming … once again they are not evidence that humans are causing the warming. Overall the oceans, like the earth, have been warming for about three centuries. It is not possible that the early part of this warming is caused by CO2, as it had not risen then, and we have no evidence that the more recent warming is CO2 driven either.
My best to everyone, and just to remind y’all, I’m still waiting for the first bit of evidence supporting AGW … none to date … still waiting …
w.
Steve and Ken, I am keenly aware that the use of “likely” and “suggest” and “may” and “might” has lately become more and more common in scholarly papers. However, it is a pernicious trend, and one that I do not support in any way.
I am not interested in someone, scientist or not, who says that we “may” see pigs fly. Yes, we “may” see that, and we may not. Another scientist says the thermohaline circulation “may” shut down. They are right, it may, but then again it may not.
Why don’t I like those terms in scientific papers? Because they are not science.
And why are they not science? Because they are not falsifiable. For a statement to be science, it must be falsifiable. Otherwise, it is speculation or faith, and it has no place in a scientific paper.
Nor am I alone in my dislike for this kind of vagueness. The outcry against the extremely common use of terms like “very likely” and “likely” in the first two IPCC reports was strong enough that in the third IPCC report they actually defined mathematical ranges for the use of the various terms … hang on, let me look them up … OK, here you go:
Virtually certain (probability > 99%)
Very likely (probability > 90% but 66% but 33% but if he knew, he would say. Since he doesn’t know, he favours us with his guess …
Sorry, friends, I don’t read scientific papers to find out what the scientist guesses. Will it change, or won’t it? If you know, tell me; and if you don’t, tell me that. But don’t bother me with your guesses. For example, the scientist may also believe in God. That’s fine, and he can say without fear of contradiction that it is “likely” that God exists, but you know what?
That’s not science either, any more than his claim about carbonate saturation is science. Science deals in falsifiable statements. “God is likely to exist” and “Increasing pCO2 is likely to increase saturation rates” have the same scientific truth content, that is to say, none.
Falsifiability is the core of science. If you don’t understand that statement, do a google search on “Karl Popper”, and you will see why a statement that something “may” or “could” or “is likely to” happen is not science.
w.
GRRR … gremlins ate part of my post again. Here’s the correct copy … if it goes through …
–
Steve and Ken, I am keenly aware that the use of “likely” and “suggest” and “may” and “might” has lately become more and more common in scholarly papers. However, it is a pernicious trend, and one that I do not support in any way.
I am not interested in someone, scientist or not, who says that we “may” see pigs fly. Yes, we “may” see that, and we may not. Another scientist says the thermohaline circulation “may” shut down. They are right, it may, but then again it may not.
Why don’t I like those terms in scientific papers? Because they are not science.
And why are they not science? Because they are not falsifiable. For a statement to be science, it must be falsifiable. Otherwise, it is speculation or faith, and it has no place in a scientific paper.
Nor am I alone in my dislike for this kind of vagueness. The outcry against the extremely common use of terms like “very likely” and “likely” in the first two IPCC reports was strong enough that in the third IPCC report they actually defined mathematical ranges for the use of the various terms … hang on, let me look them up … OK, here you go:
Virtually certain (probability > 99%)
Very Likely (probability > 90% but 66% but 33% but if he knew, he would say. Since he doesn’t know, he favours us with his guess …
Sorry, friends, I don’t read scientific papers to find out what the scientist guesses. Will it change, or won’t it? If you know, tell me; and if you don’t, tell me that. But don’t bother me with your guesses. For example, the scientist may also believe in God. That’s fine, and he can say without fear of contradiction that it is “likely” that God exists, but you know what?
That’s not science either, any more than his claim about carbonate saturation is science. Science deals in falsifiable statements. “God is likely to exist” and “Increasing pCO2 is likely to increase saturation rates” have the same scientific truth content, that is to say, none.
Falsifiability is the core of science. If you don’t understand that statement, do a google search on “Karl Popper”, and you will see why a statement that something “may” or “could” or “is likely to” happen is not science.
w.
Once more with feeling … scientific experimentation shows it doesn’t like the greater than or less than signs … I think …
–
GRRR … gremlins ate part of my post again. Here’s the correct copy … if it goes through …
–
Steve and Ken, I am keenly aware that the use of “likely” and “suggest” and “may” and “might” has lately become more and more common in scholarly papers. However, it is a pernicious trend, and one that I do not support in any way.
I am not interested in someone, scientist or not, who says that we “may” see pigs fly. Yes, we “may” see that, and we may not. Another scientist says the thermohaline circulation “may” shut down. They are right, it may, but then again it may not.
Why don’t I like those terms in scientific papers? Because they are not science.
And why are they not science? Because they are not falsifiable. For a statement to be science, it must be falsifiable. Otherwise, it is speculation or faith, and it has no place in a scientific paper.
Nor am I alone in my dislike for this kind of vagueness. The outcry against the extremely common use of terms like “very likely” and “likely” in the first two IPCC reports was strong enough that in the third IPCC report they actually defined mathematical ranges for the use of the various terms … hang on, let me look them up … OK, here you go:
Virtually certain (probability more than 99%)
Very Likely (probability more than 90% but less than 99%)
Likely (probability more than 66% but less than 90%)
Medium Likelihood (probability more than 33% but less than 66%)
So yes, as you point out, it has become common of late for scientists to use weasel words like “might” and “could” and “possibly”. You guys sound like you think that’s great. But if you look at scientific papers from fifty or a hundred years ago, you don’t find nonsense like “E is likely to equal MC^2”, or “Force is likely to equal mass times acceleration” … back then, scientists stated what they knew, and didn’t bother us with their beliefs. If they didn’t know, they studied it until they did know, and then they wrote the paper. Or alternatively, they clearly identified what they were writing as speculation and not fact.
So when a scientist says, as in your paper, that it is “likely” that rising CO2 will change the calcium carbonate saturation state of sea water, all that he is saying is, he doesn’t know if it will or not.
How do I know that he doesn’t know? Because if he knew, he would say. Since he doesn’t know, he favours us with his guess …
Sorry, friends, I don’t read scientific papers to find out what the scientist guesses. Will it change, or won’t it? If you know, tell me; and if you don’t, tell me that. But don’t bother me with your guesses. For example, the scientist may also believe in God. That’s fine, and he can say without fear of contradiction that it is “likely” that God exists, but you know what?
That’s not science either, any more than his claim about carbonate saturation is science. Science deals in falsifiable statements. “God is likely to exist” and “Increasing pCO2 is likely to increase saturation rates” have the same scientific truth content, that is to say, none.
Falsifiability is the core of science. If you don’t understand that statement, do a google search on “Karl Popper”, and you will see why a statement that something “may” or “could” or “is likely to” happen is not science.
w.
Actually I studied the philosophy of science during my tertiary studies. I still have my textbook, “What is This Thing Called Science” by AF Chalmers.
Your understanding of science appears to be a naive version of Karl Popper’s Falsificationism. There are problems with Popper’s theory and it is fair to say that he has long been unfashionable among philosophers of science. However I must admit I like much of what he says.
One of the more amusing critcisms of Popper’s Falsificationist theory is that the theory itself is unfalsifiable.
Clearly you have joined the messiahs shouting THE TRUTH from the rooftops.
I hope you have a coat and an umbrella, ‘cos it can get a little wet and windy up there.
Tim, thanks for pointing to angstrom, your ref is from Weart
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm
It made me reread the original german text, available here:
Ångström K, 1900, Ueber die Bedeutung des Wasserdampfes und der Kohlensäure bei der Absorption der Erdatmosphäre. Annalen der Physik Bd 3. 1900, p720-732.
http://home.casema.nl/errenwijlens/co2/angstrom1900/index.html
I just discovered that Ã…ngström used “flussspat” (Fluorite CaF2) as transmission windows in his experiments. Unfortunately for him CaF2 is opaque for wavelenghts greater than 10 micron,
http://www.crystran.co.uk/products.asp?productid=203 well outside the main CO2 absorption window, which perfectly explains his negative results.
Thanks.
and I forgot the most important thing: The sun has virtually no energy in the far infrared, contrary to the the earth or moon (wien’s displacent law).
“Graeme – Not sure you have a strong grip of ancient history. The analogy you presented was false because no-one is advocating wiping out the moon just not letting greenhouse gases rise to a level that could possibly lead to climate change.”
No no Ender. Now go away and find out what an analogy is and how its used and get back to me.
Steve, thanks for your reply, which said:
Please review what I have written. I have no truth to shout, either from the rooftop or the basement. What I have said is:
1) I am an agnostic about global warming, because
2) The “evidence” to support the AGW hypothesis is so thin as to be transparent.
Arguing that i am “naive” about science misses the point by about 3 parsecs … the point being …
Where is the evidence for AGW?
Whether we agree about falsification or not, surely you must agree that for a scientific hypothesis to be accepted, it must be supported by evidence.
You seem to think that a scientist saying things like the “calcium carbonate saturation state of seawater … is likely to decrease in response to the increase of dissolved CO2” means something. I suppose it does, it means the scientist believes what he or she is saying, but like the song says, “that don’t impress me much.” Because if that scientist had evidence that it is “likely to decrease”, they’d be the first to trot it out.
And the question remains …
Where is the evidence for AGW?
Who is being “naive” about science here? Your failure to present even a single speck of evidence for your obviously strongly-held beliefs speaks volumes about your understanding of the difference between science and faith … although it does not say as much as JQ’s similar failure to present evidence.
This is because, unless I’ve missed something in your posts (always possible) you’ve never claimed to have evidence of AGW.
JQ, on the other hand, is so clear about what the evidence is that he insults me (and countless others) by claiming that we are distorting, denying and rejecting that evidence … OK, JQ, since you are so certain about the evidence as to insult people you’ve never met over said evidence …
Where is that evidence for AGW?
w.
Hans said:
I just discovered that Ångström used “flussspat� (Fluorite CaF2) as transmission windows in his experiments. Unfortunately for him CaF2 is opaque for wavelenghts greater than 10 micron,
http://www.crystran.co.uk/products.asp?productid=203 well outside the main CO2 absorption window, which perfectly explains his negative results.
I say:
Thanks – that proves my point, there is no experimental evidence for the so-called greenhouse gas effect, if there was IPCC would trumpet it. Their 2001 “scientific (sic) assessment” again relies on childish drawings showing nothing except arrows shooting off in all directions, and as usual no stats. apart from the ludicrous “confidence intervals” which show for most if not all predictions that the standard errors are larger than the predicted effects. I can point to experimental evidence showing the rapid build-up of CO2 in a car with a sleeping infant and windows closed leading to rapid temperature increase and death, but we are not living in closed cars, and the atmosphere’s CO2 at even 760 ppmv falls well short of the dangerous levels in that experiment (which of course said nothing about radiation).
Tim
Graeme –
“Noun
* S: (n) analogy (an inference that if things agree in some respects they probably agree in others)
* S: (n) analogy (drawing a comparison in order to show a similarity in some respect) “the operation of a computer presents and interesting analogy to the working of the brain”; “the models show by analogy how matter is built up”
* S: (n) doctrine of analogy, analogy (the religious belief that between creature and creator no similarity can be found so great but that the dissimilarity is always greater; language can point in the right direction but any analogy between God and humans will always be inadequate)”
You said this:
“Face it. The left has no judgement. Imagine if I was chief of police somewhere. And it was noticed that there is more crime during the full moon.
Do I change the schedule so that there are no rostered days off during the full moon or yet even short holidays. And do I also ask the guys to do more overtime during that period? That is to say a host of cost effective small measures.
Or althernatively do I team up with a bunch of Utopian socialists who are pushing to wipe the moon clean out with a massive nuclear attack? ”
By the definition presented at the top of this post this in an analogy. I challenged it because you saying that “of Utopian socialists who are pushing to wipe the moon clean out with a massive nuclear attack? ” is comparable to efforts to combat greenhouse gases which is clearly false. No utopian socialist it trying to change the energy output or physical characterics of any heavenly body. Therefore the analogy you presented is clearly false and misleading.
Now I would like you to explain this:
“Of course the other larger animals were no match for stick-wielding gangster bipedalism and the proto-dinasaurs took over but they did not evolve very much for many millions of years. When the land mass broke up they finally diversified into a wide range of modes.”
Are you suggesting that stick wielding gangster bipedals were comtemporous with proto dinosaurs? What are proto-dinosaurs anyway?
Willis it was the political bias post.
JQ knows one of my pet interests is confirmation bias and other cognitive/social/cultural biases. Combine that with cognitive shortcuts we use to make judgments from incomplete information and you can have intelligent educated people who hold completely opposing views and be quite comfortable with it.
I’ve seen numerous examples of individuals who may indeed be technically gifted in on area of science or academia but maintain worlds views in conflict with the scientific evidence. Whether it is a 6000 year old Earth or an astrophysicist who believes an Indian guru can materialise objects out of thin air.
If these sincere individuals cannot see they are under extreme case of confirmation/cognitive bias how can we ever be sure this isn’t happening to us?
To go with the mainstream science would seem to be a safe bet but they have not always been right.
If you had been against the prevailing views during the 20’s with race or Victorian England with sexuality you would have been in the extreme minority and have been right. Mortons demon is indeed with everyone else.
(There could be an argument that in both sexuality and race it wasn’t the science that ended –to a large degree-the flawed world views but socio -political events/movements with emancipation and a world war and it will take an upheaval on that scale before the biased are put right )
If it weren’t for the consistency of the overwhelming majority of the pro-business anti-environmental lobby to not only contest any claims that humans are having an adverse impact on the environment but also wind back environmental regulations or positive eco steps that in fact make business sense-
Revenge of the Free Market Utopianhttp://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/02/revenge_of_the.php
Doubt is their product.
David Michaels
Scientific American June 2005
-& the consistency of mainstream science to show the degradation of the global environment is happening, you may have had some room to argue your case.
The trend has been for most AGW sceptics with expertise in this area to come round, but like the creationists the remaining AGW recalcitrants neither have the training or ability to overcome their bias to change, morton’s demon has too much of a hold.
I was suggesting that the the first (or proto) dinosaurs WERE stick-weilding gangster bi-pedals who dominated their larger four-legged contemporaries once they’d come down from the trees.
Now I don’t know this of course. It’s just a theory of mine. But I’d sure like to go back in time and give these critters sunglasses and bandanas since I figure they’d look real cool.
Not good enough just to READ the definition of an analogy Ender. You have to also inderstand it.
Tim Curtin Said February 3rd, 2006 at 9:33 am :
Tim you’re thick.
I explained why Angstrom could not detect any effect in the solar spectrum: I’ll repeat it here: There is no significant absorption in the solar spectrum because due to Wien’s law the peak is in the visible light with hardly any contribution in the infrared. The CO2 bands are infrared bands so it is extremely logical that Angstrom did nid find an effect using sunlight.
However, Lab experiments by Arrhenius in 1901 using infrared heat sources, showed that CO2 absorbes infrared light. Even Angstrom showed in his spectrum that the biggest absorption occurs in the mid infrared. We have quantum mechanics which exactly calculates the absorption. We have lab experiments (arrhenius 1901), we have field experiments(Notholt, ARM), we have sattelite observations(Nimbus), we have model calculations (modtran). All proving your initial question. Yes CO2 absorbs in the infrared.
And No CO2 doesn’t absorb in the visible light.
Just a note from this source on the history of the discovery of climate change: http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm
These measurements inspired the theoretical physicist Lewis D. Kaplan to grind through some extensive numerical computations. In 1952, he showed that in the upper atmosphere the saturation of CO2 lines should be weak. Thus adding more of the gas would make a difference in the high layers, changing the overall balance of the atmosphere. Meanwhile, precise laboratory measurements found that the most important CO2 absorption lines did not lie exactly on top of water vapor lines. Instead of two overlapping bands, there were two sets of narrow lines with spaces for radiation to slip through.(25)
Radiation math
Nobody could say anything more specific without far more extensive computations. By 1956, these could be carried out thanks to the increasingly powerful new digital computers. The physicist Gilbert N. Plass took up the challenge of calculating the transmission of radiation through the atmosphere, nailing down the likelihood that adding more CO2 would increase the interference with infrared radiation.(26) Going beyond this qualitative result, Plass announced that human activity would raise the average global temperature “at the rate of 1.1 degree C per century.” The computation, like Callendar’s, paid no attention to possible changes in water vapor and clouds, and overall was too crude to convince scientists. “It is almost certain,” one authority scolded, “that these figures will be subject to many strong revisions.”(27) Yet Plass had proved one central point: it was a mistake to dismiss the greenhouse effect with spectroscopic arguments. He warned that climate change could be “a serious problem to future generations” — although not for several centuries. Following the usual pattern, Plass was mainly interested in the way variations in CO2 might solve the mystery of the ice ages. “If at the end of this century the average temperature has continued to rise,” he wrote, then it would be “firmly established” that CO2 could cause climate change.(28)”
It seems that very early on AGW could not be dimissed from these spectroscopic arguments alone.
Hans,
Thanks, I know I am thick, but please keep trying!
You said:
Lab experiments by Arrhenius in 1901 using infrared heat sources, showed that CO2 absorbes infrared light. Even Angstrom showed in his spectrum that the biggest absorption occurs in the mid infrared. We have quantum mechanics which exactly calculates the absorption. We have lab experiments (arrhenius 1901), we have field experiments(Notholt, ARM), we have sattelite observations(Nimbus), we have model calculations (modtran). All proving your initial question. Yes CO2 absorbs in the infrared.
And No CO2 doesn’t absorb in the visible light.
I say:
1. Why no experiments since Arrhenius 1901?
2. So 380 ppmv of CO2 absorb infrared! Big deal. What about the 999,920 ppmv that do not? Think blankets comprising 380 ppm of CO2 absorbing the infrared and 999,920 ppm of Non-CO2 that do not. You will be quite chilly in bed in winters in Amsterdam or Canberra. The big issue is the RELATIVE quantitative, IPCC has refused to deliver on that and largely glosses over the diurnal aspect (ignored in their childish drawings).
Tim
3 Feb 2006
Hans,
BTW, here’s a reference to a paper from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (2005) that will never be mentioned by the IPCC, on the JQ basis that any scepticism must have been paid for by Exxon.
The author concludes that the records would indicate a cooling climate in the Arctic, and that while this does not prove that there is no global warming, “the observations available give no proof of such a warming”.
Wibjorn Karlen, “Recent Global Warming: an artifact of a too-short temperature record.” (www.ambio.kva.se)
Over to JQ and Willis!
Tim
No tim I won’t bite on Karlen’s paper, first we deal with the greenhouse effect by CO2.
Let me introduce the concept of absorber amount to you.
In spectroscopic absorption the absorber amount is the pressure of the gas multiplied by the path length.
A gas with a denstity of 1 atm and a pathlength of 1 meter has hthe same absorber amount as a gas with a density of half atmosphere and a pathlength of 2 meters.
The absorber amount is expressed in atmosphere meters, atmosphere centimeters (atm cm) or Dobson Units (DU). 1000 DU = 1 atmosphere centimeter
The total amount of the CO2 in the atmosphere has as an absorber amount of 300 atm cm. This small amount has already an absorbing power of 18%. CO2 is a powerful greenhouse gas, and the only gas working in the region around 14 micrometer wavelength. The reason why you won’t see any publications is because it has become fundamental physics. EPA produces reference datasets.
http://www.epa.gov/ttn/emc/
And any lab with a FTIR spectrometer can do it, no journal wil publish it, just like no journal will publish the physics undergraduate measurements of light speed.
Hans
Here’s the Karlen paper (unfortunately it seems not possible to import my pdf file which includes the Figs.).
Thanks for yours. Karlen’s data suggests that the CO2 as measured by you does not lead to AGW! Nor is the EPA a reliable source with its quaint ruling that no level of radiation is tolerable.
Best
Tim
Karlen’s paper follows (any transcription errors are mine):
Recent Global Warming: An Artifact
of a Too-Short Temperature Record?
INTRODUCTION
Although the magnitude of the greenhouse effect has been of major concern during the
last decades, the reality of the processes involved has hardly been discussed. It has
become common to base planning on predictions that indicate a major warming.
Assumptions concerning the future have been repeated at numerous occasions and
are reflected in a number of statements in the recent report, ‘‘Impacts of a warming
Arctic’’ (1). The warming of the Arctic has become an important issue, because the
prediction is that changes will be strongest and first noticeable in the Arctic and
because of the undesirable environmental impact that might accompany the elevated
atmospheric CO2 (2). The following discussion focuses on temperature observations from meteorological
stations in the Arctic and surrounding areas. Is the temperature really rising at an alarming rate? Has the well documented
and rapidly increasing concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere really affected the temperatures at Arctic
stations, where, according to the models, this effect will first will be observed?
DATA
There are several data sets showing the temperature in the Arctic and its surrounding
areas. One set of data, which has been made available on the Internet during the last few years, is the Nordklim database
(3). This database includes temperature observations made between 1890 (or from
the time when observations were initiated) and 1999, and has been obtained from meteorological
stations in the Nordic countries (3). Information about changes in the Arctic
climate is also reported in several papers (4, 5, 6) and data for many stations are
available on the Internet (7).
For the purpose of this discussion, mean annual air temperature have been used.
Svalbard Lufthavn, located on a group of islands at 788N, is selected as representing climate
in the Arctic. The first few years of observations from
this station may have been affected by several shifts in
the position, but this factor is not believed to have affected the record for the temperature
maximum that was reached during the late 1930s (Fig. 1). The Svalbard temperature
is compared with the annual mean temperature at Arctic stations. In addition,
the temperatures of the Arctic are compared with data from Stockholm, because
observations have been carried out there for 250 y, thus making it possible to place the
short Arctic record in a longer perspective.
The long record has been corrected for urban effect (8, 9). Corrections for urban effect are quite important, because it does
influence climate even when the population is relatively small (10).
RESULTS
The Svalbard mean annual temperature increased rapidly from the 1910s to the late
1930s. The temperature thereafter became lower, and a minimum was reached around
1970. Svalbard thereafter became warmer, but the mean temperature in the late 1990s
was still slightly cooler than it was in the late 1930s. Svalbard is, of course, only one
point in the vast Arctic area. However, the observed warming during the 1930s is
supported by data from several stations along the Arctic coasts and on islands in
the Arctic, e.g. Nordklim data from Bjo¨ rno¨ ya and Jan Mayen in the north Atlantic,
Vardo¨ and Tromso¨ in northern Norway, Sodankylaeand Karasjoki in northern Finland,
and Stykkisholmur in Iceland (3). There is also data from other reports; e.g.
Godthaab, Jakobshavn, and Egedesmindde in Greenland, Ostrov Dikson on
the north coast of Siberia, Salehard in inland Siberia, and Nome in western
Alaska (7). All these stations indicate the same pattern of changes in annual mean
temperature: a warm 1930s, a cooling until around 1970, and thereafter a warming,
although the temperature remains slightly below the level of the late 1930s. Although
details of the temperature fluctuations vary over time between the stations, the pattern
of these fluctuations remains similar. Many stations with records starting later
than the 1930s also indicate cooling, e.g. Vize in the Arctic Sea north of the Siberian
coast and Frobisher Bay and Clyde on Baffin Island (7).
In Stockholm, where temperature observations have been made since 1756, it is apparent that the temperature has been
affected by the growing city. This urban effect has been studied in detail, and a compensation has been made for this
bias in the data used here (8, 9). The Stockholm temperature also increased Figure 1. Annual mean temperature and trends for Stockholm,
Sweden and Svalbard Lufthavn, Svalbard. Ambio Vol. 34, No. 3, May 2005 263 Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences 2005
http://www.ambio.kva.se
Synopsis
between the beginning of the century and the 1930s, then reached a minimum around
1970 and rose again, a pattern similar to the one observed in the Arctic. The 250-ylong
Stockholm record shows that the fluctuations of the 1900s are not unique;
changes of the same magnitude as in the 1900s occurred between 1770 and 1800,
and distinct but smaller fluctuations occurred around 1825 (8).
DISCUSSION
How can a distinct warming so often be reported for the Arctic areas when the temperature
observations indicate variations but no consistent trend? If it was clearly
stated that the warming is predicted, not yet indicated by empirical data, these claims
could be accepted. The prediction is based on theory, but the empirical data used to support the theory
is misleading. For example, to select a short period between a minimum and a high point, possibly a maximum, call it a trend
and use it in support of a theory, is not acceptable. Obviously, neither the difference
between two maxima nor the calculated regression during an arbitrarily selected
period is an acceptable measure of trend either. However, either of these two methods
is better than using nothing more than a temperature increase to indicate a trend.
A trend showing considerable warming in northern Siberia and also in parts of
Alaska has been used as an indication of a drastic warming in the Arctic. The temperature
increase in Siberia is based on a record restricted to 40 y (11), a period following a cold period in the 1970s. The
meteorological station Ostrov Dikson, located in this area of warming climate, has
reported temperatures since 1917. Regression analysis of the 65-y annual temperature record after the maximum in the late
1930s indicates a temperature decrease of 1.58C between 1935 and 1999. The reported increase is a result of the selected period
(1960–2000). In addition, Alaska is reported to have experienced a rapid warming.
One of the stations often referred to is Point Barrow on the north coast of Alaska,
for which a recent study shows that even the small settlement (4600 persons) creates
an urban effect (10). This was measured to be 2.28C during the winter of 2001–2002
(10).
There is no definite period of time that should be used to study temperature trends.
However, it is obviously wrong to start a calculation of a trend at a minimum and
finish at a high point (possibly a maximum). The result will be misleading; from a minimum
to a maximum there will always be an increase.
Ostrov Dikson has experienced a very distinct decrease in temperature since the
late 1930s. This decrease is unusually large, but a trend towards a cooling seems
to be typical for Arctic stations, e.g. Iceland (3) 1935–1999, 0.78C; Frobisher
Bay (7), 1942–1999, 0.88C). For other stations, e.g. Vardo¨ (3), the cooling was
small, 0.18C. The data do not indicate a warming of the Arctic. The cooling after
the maximum in the 1930s occurred during
the time when the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere had increased
markedly; thus, an increase in temperature could be expected.
The increase in temperature during the early 1900s is considered to be caused by
increased solar irradiation (12). The temperature increase at several Arctic stations
was greater and more rapid during this
earlier period when carbon dioxide, according to models, did not contribute to the
temperature. During the 50 y in which the atmospheric concentration of CO2 has increased
considerably, the temperature has decreased. The Arctic temperature data do
not support the models predicting that there will be a critical future warming of the
climate because of an increased concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere.
At a few locations in Europe, temperature
has been recorded for considerably longer than it has in the Arctic. The
Stockholm temperature record, which covers the last 250 y, has been discussed by Moberg and Bergstro¨ m (8) and by Jones et
al. (9). The patterns of this record are similar to those from the years of overlapping
data (1930s to 1999), for the Arctic stations (Fig. 1); therefore, it is probable
that the Stockholm record can be used for an estimate of variations in the Arctic
climate. If there is a similarity between the long Stockholm record, other European
records (13), and the Arctic record, as the overlapping period of records indicate, it is
likely that the recorded fluctuations in the Arctic temperature are short fragments of
a series of fluctuations in the climate.
The so called ‘‘global temperature’’ (12), frequently taken as a proof of a human
influence on the climate, is based on a short record beginning during the cold second
half of the 1800s and going to the warm present. Even this global temperature record
begins during a very cold period and ends during a period that some scientists
claim to be the warmest in very long time.
Considering the 250-y record from Stockholm,it becomes obvious that these last
100 y of warming climate comprise only one section of a fluctuating climate, or, in other
words, a small fraction of a series of several such fluctuations in the temperature. The
so-called ‘‘global temperature record’’ covers too short a period and therefore does not
yield empirical support for an anthropogenic effect on the climate, which so often is
claimed.
CONCLUSIONS
The frequently mentioned rapid increase of the temperature in the Arctic is based on
a record beginning at a minimum in the temperature around the 1970s and ending
during a period of relatively warm climate.
If the time series had begun a few decades earlier, the records would indicate a cooling
climate in the Arctic. This conclusion does not prove that there is no global warming, but that the
observations available give no proof of such a warming.
References and Notes
1. ACIA 2004. Impact of a warming Arctic, Arctic
Climate Impact Assessment. (http://amap.no/acia/)
2. Søgaard, H., Elbering, B., Friborg, T., Sørensen, L.,
Larsen, S.E., Rysgaard, S., Grøndahl, L. and Bendtsen,
J. 2004 High Arctic carbon sink identification—
a systems approach. Global Change NewsLetter no. 59,
11–14.
3. Tuomenvita, H., Drebs, A., Fo¨ rland, E., Tveito, O. E.,
Alexandersson, H., Vaarby Laursen, E. and Jo´ nsson, T.
2001. Klima, Nordklim Data Set 1.0, Description and
Illustrations. DNMI Report no. 08/01, 1–26.
4. Kahl, J.D., Charlevoix, D.J., Zaitseva, N.A., Schnell,
R.C. and Serreze, M.C. 1993. Absence of evidence for
greenhouse warming over the Arctic Ocean in the past
40 years. Nature 361, 335–337.
5. Kahl, J.D.W., Jansen, M. and Pulrang, M.A. 2001.
Fifty-year record of North Polar temperatures shows
warming. EOS, Transactions 28, (1), 1–5.
6. Humlum, O., Instanes, A. and Sollid, J.L. 2003.
Permafrost in Svalbard: a review of research history,
climatic background and engineering challenges. Polar
Res. 22(2), 191–215.
7. Daly, J.L. 2004. (http://www.google.se/
search?q=cache:Z8N2Su-hGSgJ:www.john-daly.com/
+John.L.+Daily,+Australia&hl=sv&ie=UTF-8)
8. Moberg, A. and Bergstro¨ m, H. 1997. Homogenization
of Swedish temperature data. Part III: The long
temperature records from Uppsala and Stockholm.
Int. J. Climatology 17, 667–699.
9. Jones, P.D., Briffa, K.R., Osborn, T.J.,Moberg, A. and
Bergstrom, H. 2002. Relationships between circulation
strength and the variability of growing-season and coldseason
climate in northern and central Europe. The
Holocene 12, (6), 643–656.
10. Hinkel, K., Nelson, F.E., Klene, A.E. and Bell, J.H.
2003. The urban heat island in winter at Barrow,
Alaska. Int. J. Climatology 23, 1889–1905.
11. Kerr, R.A. 2004. A few good climate shifters. Science
306, 599–600.
12. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Working
Group II, Climate Change Impacts, Adaptation and
Vulnerability Summary for Policymakers. (http://www.
meto.gov.uk/sec5/CR_div/ipcc/wg1/WGI-SPM.pdf)
13. Luterbacher, J., Dietrich, D., Xoplaki, E., Grosjena, M.
and Wanner, H. 2004. European seasonal and annual
temperature variability, trends and extremes since 1500.
Science 303, 1499–1503.
Wibjo¨rn Karle´n
Luthagsesplanaden 3B
SE-752 25 Uppsala,
Sweden
264 Ambio Vol. 34, No. 3, May 2005 Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences 2005
http://www.ambio.kva.se
Ken, thanks for the post. I didn’t see it until just now.
Also, thank you for being the very first person to offer up what you think is evidence for AGW. You say:
Yes! We have a claim of evidence of AGW. Ken says the fact that CO2 absorbs “ir” (infra-red, also called “longwave”) radiation, is evidence that humans are warming the climate.
Ken, you say this is just one single piece of the “lots of evidence presented on this thread to support AGW”. I must have missed the postings where all the rest of the different evidence was presented, which is no surprise, it’s been a very long thread.
Now, I want to deal with all of this evidence for AGW at once, and not get sniped at piecemeal by you saying “Yes, but you forgot to discusse this bit of evidence over there …”.
So before we go any further, could you please list all of the “lots of evidence” you saw posted here on this thread? As soon as we’ve gotten the complete list, we can proceed to discuss it.
Many thanks for reminding us of the rest of the evidence that has already been presented,
w.
Tim, good I didn’t bite, as the Karlen paper doesn’t adress the physics of CO2 absorption at all, it deal completely with temperature trends.
Your dismissal of physics data because you don’t trust EPA is typical.
Sorry tried my best to explain the physics, but can’t help you if don’t want to study. You can bring a horse to the watyer but can’t make it drink.
Bye.
To others who read this blog. I am a greenhouse sceptic who doesn’t like deniers and alarmers.
So have you boffins managed to sort out whether the CO2 released from the pursuit of the good life can warm the planet sufficiently to overmatch the natural tendency toward glaciation?
This is the question. The only question of any real weight when it comes to deciding policy.
People are so easily distracted.
Hans
Actually I did appreciate your physics, but if that is correct, how come the temps don’t match? Let empiricism reign. IF CO2 was concentrated at 1 mn ppmv then it would no doubt have serious consequences because of infrared absorption, but it is not, even for horses. Why does the infrared seek out the scattered 380 ppmv CO2 molecules in each sliver of the spectrum instead of slithering through the many more numerous non-CO2 bits? If you are a greenhouse sceptic but accept the physics there seems to be risk of schizophrenia!
Tim
Tim, thanks for posting. Although it is a bit difficult to visualize, in a real atmosphere, the ~380 ppmv of CO2 entirely covers the sky, with no holes for radiation to “slither through”.
It seems that you are visualizing it as though it were a window pane, with 380 places on the window pane out of a million that would absorb radiation, and 999,620 places that would not absorb. That would leave lots of room to slither through.
But because of the thickness of the atmosphere, which is much more than a million molecules thick, it’s not like that at all. It’s more like looking the long way down through a very skinny optical fiber with a few ppm impurities … even though there are not many of the impurities, when we look through enough length of the fiber, we are bound to hit one of them.
Which is why, as an aside, glass for fiber optics needs to be insanely pure … because, as with the atmosphere, even the slightest impurity affects the performance by absorbing some of the energy. It can’t, for example, be ordinary window glass.
You can see why by looking at a piece of window glass edge on. Even though it is quite transparent from the front, the very small amount of impurities in window glass make it almost opaque when you are looking at a metre of it edge on. Now think about looking through a couple of km of window glass … this shows the effect of even tiny, parts-per-million impurities.
A few mm of window glass is quite transparent, with the impurities only absorbing a very tiny fraction of the radiation, but a window 100 metres thick would not pass any light at all, there’s no where for the radiation to “slither through”.
All the best,
w.
This depends greatly on a parameter called “climate sensitivity”. degrees per W/m-2. A CO2 doubling will cause approximately 3.7 W/m2 increase greenhouse radiation. I personally am convinced that a doubling of CO2 will cause a rise of only 1 degree celcius, however the IPCC thinks its between 1.5 and 4.5 degrees.
The observed temperature hasn’t risen that much because aerosol cooling parameters are postulated by climate modellers which alledgedly mask the “real effect”.
But the aerosols are ideal fudge factors in the climate models because IPCC could not even define a central value for it, contrary to that of CO2.
See the Level of Scientific Understanding of the aerosol indirect effect:
It does. eg in the 10 micron region ozone does the absorption and co2 doesn’t. A good example is a sodium light in the visible part of the spectrum. Sodium vapour absorbs only yellow light but also emits only yellow light, that’s why sodium lamps are so efficient.
here is the calculated absorption for 300 atm cm and 600 atm cm, using EPA data ;-D
Tim Curtin wrote:
I say:
1. Why no experiments since Arrhenius 1901?
Tim, you are wrong. There have been experiments since Arrhenius. I have, in front of me, the paper “The influence of the 15 micron carbon-dioxide band on the atmospheric infra-red cooling rate” by Gilbert Plass of the Johns Hopkins University. You will find this journal article (Q. Roy. Met. Soc., 1956, vol.82, p.310) referenced in Spencer Weart’s excellent collection of web material on GW at the American Institute of Physics website. In his paper, Plass presented calculations based on then-new data measured by Cloud at Johns Hopkins. These new data on the band absorption were combined with the then-new digital computers to allow Plass to predict that “the average temperature at the surface of the earth would rise by 3.6oC if the carbon-dioxide concentration were doubled…” (and if nothing else changed). I do not know if there are more recent data than Cloud’s for the strength of the 15-micron band- I am an atomic, not molecular spectroscopist- but I do know that experimental data of this kind are usually allowed to stand unless serious deficiencies in them become apparent.
Further, Tim, you appear to be unwilling to accept the concept that all molecules are not created equal: they do not absorb equally at a given wavelength. As Hans Erren has tried to get you to understand, carbon dioxide happens to be a strong absorber at 15 microns. This can be appreciated by looking at the Figure on page 130 of C.W. Allen’s Astrophysical Quantities (3rd Ed., 1973). The peak absorption of CO2 is orders of magnitude more than that of, say, water at the same wavelength.
If I had to add anything to Hans’s words, it would be to say that the strength of absorption depends on the product of number density (which is proprtional to partial pressure), absorption path length, and what is known as oscillator strength, f. I.e., three quantities are involved. This is true for atoms and molecules. ‘
Cheers,
P.
Tim, and Hans, my apologies. I did not notice that Ender had also noted the work of Plass in his post above. This thread has grown too fast for my liking! Cheers, P.
Hans, Willis, psdoidge:
Many thanks for enlightenment. Now can we hear what’s wrong with more CO2, less infrared radiation to space, and so higher temperatures. The physics may be great, but the predictions less reliable. psdoidge cites temps up by 3.6C if CO2 doubles (from 1956 level). Here in Canberra our ave min in Jan 06 was up by 2.2C on 2005 and our ave max by 1.6C. But the sky has not fallen, we had record rainfall, and the garden looks great.