Global warming

[gamervivek]

Great post, gamervivek, very scientific!

That's also what I tend to do if I hear some outrageous claim, I should take notes and post them here.

The problem is how can one go through a paper which basically employs techniques and vocabulary which is Latin and Greek to people outside that field. In a way very much similar to priests analogy.

That scientist even admitted:

Worm has sinced admitted that the 2048 date for a collapse of fisheries had no basis in science but was simply a "news hook to get people's attention."

http://2coolfishing.com/ttmbforum/showthread.php?t=315341

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003340489_seafood03m.html

 

[gamervivek]

The masses could understand Latin if it were permitted to teach them, and there is no proscription against learning scientific literature. Note that the medeival masses are excused in that they can't read, but the modern masses simply do not understand, so the situations are not directly comparable.

Masses never understand.

edit:
Thanks for laying it out, but that's your own opinon.

 

[3dilettante]

I have opinions, but I also have a critique of the argumentation in that list.

Drawing parallels is a tool for making an argument and to show relationships, but doing so means one must set down consistent relationships for the two sides of the list and should be specific enough that it makes a meaningful link between the two sides, rather than one so general that it makes the comparison weak.

My opinion is that the list is too loose with the method to make a strong case, with some items being much more loose than others.

As I said, carbon offsets and indulgences have a stronger parallel, since both involve paying money to mitigate responsibility by paying money into a system that does not give a limit to the negative behavior. It would have helped if the list had used that one.

 

[Blazkowicz]

The problem is how can one go through a paper which basically employs techniques and vocabulary which is Latin and Greek to people outside that field. In a way very much similar to priests analogy.

there's a dozen words which are either latin, greek or both in that very sentence

Incidentally we now all speak the artificial, global languages of former aristocratic elites (i.e. French, or the kings's english), which happen to contain a lot of latin and greek, whereas in the Middle Age or even not so long ago everyone just spoke local languages. Starting in the 19th century and with the rise of nation states, each nation gradually got a common language (and still you have accents, casual or former styles, etc.)

Science especially is all done in english and constantly uses jargon made up from greek such as "oncology", "paraphilia", "phyllology" and so on. This results in everyone in the world being able to read it. [well, easier for european/western people than for chinese ones for sure]

Can't understand the jargon? duh, it's jargon. You might as well pretend your car mechanic is the new Medieval Christian Church.

 

[corduroygt]

It looks like they overestimated the amount of dust, and therefore its cooling effects in the current models, so this just casts more doubt to just how much warming is caused by increased CO2 emissions:
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/12/23/1014798108.abstract

Mineral dust aerosols impact Earth’s radiation budget through interactions with clouds, ecosystems, and radiation, which constitutes a substantial uncertainty in understanding past and predicting future climate changes. One of the causes of this large uncertainty is that the size distribution of emitted dust aerosols is poorly understood. The present study shows that regional and global circulation models (GCMs) overestimate the emitted fraction of clay aerosols (< 2 μm diameter) by a factor of ∼2–8 relative to measurements. This discrepancy is resolved by deriving a simple theoretical expression of the emitted dust size distribution that is in excellent agreement with measurements. This expression is based on the physics of the scale-invariant fragmentation of brittle materials, which is shown to be applicable to dust emission. Because clay aerosols produce a strong radiative cooling, the overestimation of the clay fraction causes GCMs to also overestimate the radiative cooling of a given quantity of emitted dust. On local and regional scales, this affects the magnitude and possibly the sign of the dust radiative forcing, with implications for numerical weather forecasting and regional climate predictions in dusty regions. On a global scale, the dust cycle in most GCMs is tuned to match radiative measurements, such that the overestimation of the radiative cooling of a given quantity of emitted dust has likely caused GCMs to underestimate the global dust emission rate. This implies that the deposition flux of dust and its fertilizing effects on ecosystems may be substantially larger than thought.

 

[KimB]

It looks like they overestimated the amount of dust, and therefore its cooling effects in the current models, so this just casts more doubt to just how much warming is caused by increased CO2 emissions:
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/12/23/1014798108.abstract

Yes, according to the paper, the expectation is more warming than has previously been predicted. From the abstract:

Because clay aerosols produce a strong radiative cooling, the overestimation of the clay fraction causes GCMs to also overestimate the radiative cooling of a given quantity of emitted dust.

Overestimated cooling = underestimated warming.

 

[rpg.314]

Yes, according to the paper, the expectation is more warming than has previously been predicted. From the abstract:

Overestimated cooling = underestimated warming.

 

[corduroygt]

Yes, according to the paper, the expectation is more warming than has previously been predicted. From the abstract:

Overestimated cooling = underestimated warming.

How do you arrive at that?
1. We know we have warming based on actual temperature data, before we even read this paper.
2. According to this paper, GCM models overestimate clay aerosols, and thus overestimate their cooling effects, which are fighting against the warming effects caused by CO2 according to the current theory.
3. So the previous models said that CO2 was warming up the Earth despite this huge radiative cooling effect from clay aerosols. Now that cooling effect is much less than it was thought to be, which means the warming effect of the CO2 is not as powerful, since it's overcoming a much weaker cooling effect.

 

[rpg.314]

How do you arrive at that?
1. We know we have warming based on actual temperature data, before we even read this paper.

Yes

2. According to this paper, GCM models overestimate clay aerosols, and thus overestimate their cooling effects, which are fighting against the warming effects caused by CO2 according to the current theory.

Yes

3. So the previous models said that CO2 was warming up the Earth despite this huge radiative cooling effect from clay aerosols. Now that cooling effect is much less than it was thought to be, which means the warming effect of the CO2 is not as powerful, since it's overcoming a much weaker cooling effect.

No. The change in temperature is net of the heating effect of Co2 minus the cooling effect of aerosols. Now if it turns out that the cooling effect is weaker than it was assumed to be, then the the same heating effect of CO2 will cause more warming. This paper in no way affects our estimates of the warming effect of CO2. And hence, on balance, there will be more warming than anticipated earlier.

 

[corduroygt]

No. The change in temperature is net of the heating effect of Co2 minus the cooling effect of aerosols

So Tchange = CO2 effect - Aerosol effect (and other factors and constants we're just omitting here because they're the same)
Let's put some numbers here:
2 = 4-2
But aerosol effect is lower now:
2 = 3-1
Seems like CO2 effect has to decrease to maintain the same change in temperature. Because jow do we know CO2 causes warming? Isn't it by looking at temperature vs. CO2 concentration data in the first place?

 

[KimB]

No. The change in temperature is net of the heating effect of Co2 minus the cooling effect of aerosols. Now if it turns out that the cooling effect is weaker than it was assumed to be, then the the same heating effect of CO2 will cause more warming. This paper in no way affects our estimates of the warming effect of CO2. And hence, on balance, there will be more warming than anticipated earlier.

Possibly. This is perhaps the default assumption. However, because the dust amounts in GCM's are tuned based upon radiative measurements, which correlate directly with the impact based on global warming, there may not actually be any difference. Basically, I think it would require factoring in the more accurate dust measurements to find out the full effect (if they are more accurate...single-author papers are typically suspect).

In any event, it's not major for global climate models.

 

[rpg.314]

So Tchange = CO2 effect - Aerosol effect (and other factors and constants we're just omitting here because they're the same)
Let's put some numbers here:
2 = 4-2
But aerosol effect is lower now:
2 = 3-1

OK, if aerosol effect is found to be lower, then why do you insist on lowering the CO2 effect? Is

Seems like CO2 effect has to decrease to maintain the same change in temperature.

The world - and CO2 - doesn't work that way.The CO2 effect does NOT decrease just to maintain some desirable - or expected - value of temperature change. The CO2 effects remain the same. The predicted temperature rise would be larger than previously predicted instead.

So it would be 3 = 4 - 1

Because jow do we know CO2 causes warming? Isn't it by looking at temperature vs. CO2 concentration data in the first place?

No. That way you are trying to infer causation from correlation.

You look at the absorption spectrum for CO2 and the spectrum of reflected heat from earth.

 

[corduroygt]

The world - and CO2 - doesn't work that way.The CO2 effect does NOT decrease just to maintain some desirable - or expected - value of temperature change. The CO2 effects remain the same. The predicted temperature rise would be larger than previously predicted instead.

So it would be 3 = 4 - 1

I was talking about past temperature data, not future predictions. So you cannot change the past temperature rise like that. So in the past, the aerosol effect was calculated to be some value, and now that value might be too high, which reduces the effect CO2 had in raising it to the same temperature.

 

[rpg.314]

I was talking about past temperature data, not future predictions. So you cannot change the past temperature rise like that. So in the past, the aerosol effect was calculated to be some value, and now that value might be too high, which reduces the effect CO2 had in raising it to the same temperature.

This paper does not discuss predictions of temperature of recent past. It says that aerosol effect has been overestimated. And hence, when we make future predictions, we should expect more warming.

AFAIK, so far, temperature predictions have been carried out only on time scales of decades. And hence your argument about predictions of recent past do not seem to be applicable here.

 

[Squilliam]

2010 was apparantly only the 2nd warmest year on record. Obviously that disproves Global Climate change. We still like you Chalnoth even if year after year your theories don't stand up to reality.

 

[FUDie]

Global warming is a myth: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110103/ap_on_re_eu/eu_russia_ships_trapped

BTW, did you forget some smilies, Squilliam?

-FUDie

 

[Squilliam]

Well no I didn't because I hold Chalnoth personally responsible for causing all of the climate change to happen. If Chalnoth wasn't around we wouldn't really be talking about climate change, therefore climate change is caused by Chalnoth.

 

[Mintmaster]

Because jow do we know CO2 causes warming? Isn't it by looking at temperature vs. CO2 concentration data in the first place?

WTF? Why are you engaging in AGW discussion if this is the strawman you're attacking? Only complete noobs use CO2 vs temperature to prove or disprove AGW, and they just wind up hurting their case as a result.

No, that has very little to do with how we know what CO2 does to climate. GW theory is based on measuring the physical properties of all gases in the atmosphere, and throwing in bulletproof physics about absorption and emission to make a computer model for an experiment that we cannot possibly conduct in a lab. Even skeptics with half a brain accept that CO2 causes warming. CO2 vs. time just confirms that humans are pumping out enormous amounts of CO2 capable of changing the atmosphere's composition. Model temperature vs. time and proxy temperature vs. time is merely a sanity check to see if the models are plausible. Nobody in the scientific community is using temperature vs CO2 to predict anything, whether directly or indirectly.

The real debate is over the degree and certainty of warming attributable to CO2, as some physical processes (especially cloud formation) are arguably too chaotic and poorly understood to correctly model with our current understanding, and even when we do have hypotheses, they're next to impossible to verify.

 

[KimB]

CO2 vs. time just confirms that humans are pumping out enormous amounts of CO2 capable of changing the atmosphere's composition.

I'd also like to mention that measuring the particular isotopes in the atmosphere also demonstrates that humans are responsible for the increase (carbon exhaled by organisms typically has different isotope concentrations than carbon that's been buried for millions of years).

 

[Squilliam]

Does anyone have a record of exactly how warm it was in 2010? Also are these sort of lower bound higher temperatures? I.E. The temperature has increased but if we had another outlier year like 1998 if would be higher again by a reasonable margin? Could we have a year which for whatever reason was say 0.3C higher than 1998?

Also Chalnoth still hasn't apologised for causing global climate change.