How or Why we will reverse global warming

[ghi]

  Hurricane Patricia cat 5, the strongest hurricane recorded in Pacific wind gusts  245mph=394kmh     





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[PJ_Godzilla]

See Rule #14

Regarding your now Rule 14'd remarks, Bustr (pbuh), yes, I believe what you described near the end is what I would summarize as "the construction of an unimpeachable theory". The key weasel word is always "may".

I noticed it more acutely when the "pause" occurred and the language accompanying shifted to "climate change" (or, as my local UM college radio station, itself a hotbed of political thought of a very particular variety now calls it: "global weirdness") from "global warming". This is beautiful, in a snake-oil sales sort of way, because, as we know, the climate changes and has done so since Day 1. Attributing this to a cause is also easy. It's substantiating the causal link where the IPCC isn't quite so good. Hence the need for a murky and unimpeachable theory for the masses. Welcome to the Temples of Syrinx. The IPCC appears to have appointed themselves priests.

I note as a FUN aside, btw, that Pachauri ran afoul of some harassment charges. I enjoyed a little schadenfreude at his expense. He probably would NOT enjoy time in a room alone with me, since I put him right up there with serial plagiarist Zakaria as someone whose map I'd fully rearrange, if given the chance. In Zak's case, there would be particular focus on hammering those lower stubs out with the butt (why waste a knuckle?)  of my wicked left hand. I REALLY don't like either Pachauri or Zakaria, bottom line, and am still big and fit and mean enough to be capable of that kind of nastiness, despite my years and domestication and generally benevolent disposition.

[bustr]

As long as a GW scientist is never placed before a judge and jury, then asked the obvious questions with consequences for lying.

1. Can you tell me what the weather will be on 1\1\2100?
2. Can you tell me what the weather will be on 1\1\2085?
3. Can you tell me what the weather was on 1\1\ -13,000?
4. Can you tell me what the sunspot activity will be on 1\1\2100?
5. Will you be alive on 1\1\2100 to verify your opinion?

As long as it's only scientists opinions the movie used for inspiration, then it is buyer beware if the scientists are not attempting fraud. And this cannot be proved because the event will happen so far in the future. That is why the judge in the UK didn't find against the movie because the movie is only opinion. No party was harmed by the watching of the movie.

Granted the opinions have basis in sound physical phenomenon computer models projecting the future. But, we as a species have not kept records through one complete cycle of warming, ice age, and warming. So in the courtroom scenario, the scientist would have to admit he is trying to predict the future and it is his "opinion" what will happen after he is deceased. And if you choose to believe his opinion in predicting the future, that is your choice.

[SysError]

The trend in the antarctic, as I cited, is one of increase.

In short, there are a number of competing theories and explanations out there and, when the theory and data match and when the theory proves itself to have predictive and correlative value, THEN the science will be settled.

I had actually responded to a similar post a few weeks ago.  You are making a slightly more nuanced point though.

I can agree with you on the issue in that there are still competing theories out there, but I sense that the disparity between a melting hypothesis and the data is not as far apart as you seem to be suggesting. But my main point is only that what is in disagreement in the mainstream now is how fast the melting/collapse will be.  Are you aware of anyone/group that is signaling that their data is showing that all Antarctic LAND ice is either completely stable or increasing?

Your statement that: “The trend in the antarctic, as I cited, is one of increase” has already been superseded by new experiments, data and analysis.  In 2012, because of the data sets, you had a strong point.  Today, in 2015, the data and consensus is that LAND ice is certainly not increasing.  What is increasing is SEA ice, which of course would be seasonal.  So all the frozen water you are looking at in August is gone six months later.  And of course the pattern repeats itself year after year.

There have been observations that from year to year the SEA ice in the Antarctic during these winters shows an increase in the area, or surface size, of the SEA ice pack.  Annually this phenomenon is the source of many joyous declarations that the “warmist” cart has been toppled.   “Late breaking Climate Science shows that warmists are idiots and blah, blah, blah.  But of course whatever freezes in the winter down there, melts in its summer.

There are a number of ideas as to what this all might mean.  Far from being a reassuring phenomenon it actually could be a sign of real trouble ahead.  See links below.  I do not know, maybe I should cast it as the handy work of the Greek Gods of trickery and deceit: Dolos and Apate.  You know, just to give the whole thing a bit of a religious bent to make the subject more appealing for some.

LAND ice in Western Antarctic is melting fast.  LAND ice in Eastern Antarctic appears stable.  But take a look at a UTeaxs study:
http://www.jsg.utexas.edu/news/2015/03/east-antarctica-melting-could-be-explained-by-oceanic-gateways

Not very reassuring or calming is it?

In summary:

•   Antarctic land ice is decreasing at an accelerating rate
•   Antarctic sea ice is increasing despite the warming Southern Ocean
•   Currently there are significant observational differences between East and West Antarctic.

http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/warming-seas-and-melting-ice-sheets

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2014/12/02/the_melt_rate_of_the_amundsen_sea_embayment_in_west_antarctica_has_tripled.html



UQx DENIAL101x 2.3.3.1 Antarctica land ice vs sea ice

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PUmKHBtnlA

[SysError]

Think of adding CO2 to the atmosphere as a trial insurance policy against a next ice age.

Talk about giving a drowning man a glass of water!

...atmospheric CO2 would go from 400 ppm (today's level) to about 800 ppm (unless I made a math error)...

Hmm…

Right now experiments at target ambient [CO2] + 200 ppm (µmol mol-1 on a volume basis) are showing on average of 50% less crop yields. 
(So that would be ~600 ppm)

https://www.bnl.gov/face/

http://jxb.oxfordjournals.org/content/60/10/2859.full


“800 ppm”… Time for you to go and tap into your rice and bean supply perhaps?\

http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php/topic,374259.msg4986005.html#msg4986005


Interesting:


UQx DENIAL101x 5.4.3.1 Agricultural impacts

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcDUaBO8T34

[SysError]

Some historical perspective on climate and CO2 in the atmosphere.

Temperature over time:

CO2 over time:

So it looks to me as if you are using charts from Dana Royer’s 2006 paper on: “CO2-forced climate thresholds during the Phanerozoic”

http://droyer.web.wesleyan.edu/PhanCO2(GCA).pdf

I am actually OK with you using her charts and providing your own alternative explanation of the data, (perhaps you could email her on your thoughts and start a back and forth discussion),


But I really do think that if you would have thought about it that you would have included some form of her statement on what to consider when viewing her work.  She ends up in a very different place, perhaps the complete opposite place (?) from you.


“Atmospheric CO2 is positively correlated with globally averaged surface temperatures for most of the Phanerozoic. This pattern has been previously shown at coarse 10-million-year timescales and is demonstrated here at finer resolutions (one million to five million-year timescales). The two longest-lived Phanerozoic glaciations during the Permo-Carboniferous and late Cenozoic are the only Phanerozoic intervals associated with consistently low levels of CO2 (<500 ppm). This pattern supports predictions from global climate models for a CO2-ice threshold of 560–1120 ppm (DeConto and Pollard, 2003; Pollard and DeConto, 2005).  (Pages 5672-3).

Many factors are important in controlling the average surface temperature of the Earth, including solar luminosity, albedo, distribution of continents and vegetation, orbital parameters, and other greenhouse gases. The message of this study is not that atmospheric CO2 is always the dominant forcing (see Section 3.7 for an early Paleogene example). Instead, given the variety of factors that can influence global temperatures, it is striking that such a consistent pattern between CO2 and temperature emerges for many intervals of the Phanerozoic. This correspondence suggests that CO2 can explain in part the patterns of globally averaged temperatures during the Phanerozoic.”

Here is another view on the issue.  (BTW: This guy is from George Mason!)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqkGoCglp_U

[SysError]

You are correct that a theory is not a law, however the common use of phrases such as "its just a theory" used with regard to scientific theory illustrate that the meaning of theory as used in science is not understood by a great number of people.

About once a year we go to a particular relative’s house (once in a while they come to us) and every year it is a bit like Bill Murray’s Groundhog Day.  These relatives of ours (who strangely are on my wife’s side) do not believe in things like evolution and so on.

“I mean it is a theory!  It says so right in the title – The Theory of Evolution.  If it was a law they would call it the Law of Evolution…”

BTW (and this might sound like a strange statement), these relatives of ours, in a sense, don’t really view their account of creation as a religious matter.  To them it is a historical account from a source that they trust.

In a sense I can understand where they are coming from and I feel that I should respect what they might refer to as their “secular” perspective on this specific matter.  (I’m not sure what other word to use here).

Consider the following.  If someone approached you and said:

•   Don’t kill people

•   Don’t steal their stuff

•   And Don’t sleep with my spouse

Most of us are willing to accept this advice in its plain and simple context.  My guess is that you are going say/think something like “Well that sounds like pretty good advice”.  I doubt that most people are going to reject it because they believe that they can establish an association of it to some religious reference.

I suppose that what I am saying is this. I find it annoying/frustrating in discussions when the vernacularized sense of the term Theory is used to construct what in reality is a weak argument against a particular scientific belief; However, I don’t automatically dismiss or hold in contempt people who do not agree with me as to when something should be viewed through the lenses of generally accepted scientific principles.

In some cases I only try to get an acknowledgement that a particular view that they hold, while perfectly acceptable to hold within a faith based system, is none-the-less not science.  Sometime I succeed, sometimes I don’t.


I should point out, that these relatives of ours, are very nice, gentle and caring people.  I really don’t mind going through “the routine” once a year.  It is usually fun.  And in some years, towards the end of our stay, I actually see them give ground and start to consider some of what I say.  (I worry about their kids though.  They are home schooled and I wonder in what manner they will function in a modern world.)

But getting back to the main point, the scientific/academic community has not always maintained consistency in the usage of the terms (or perhaps just explaining them) over I guess what would be centuries.  I have a pet hypothesis (note that I didn’t say theory) that sometimes scientists have perhaps chosen one term over the other based on contemporaneous perceptions of relative prestige.  (I also have a competing pet hypothesis that if you are on the lower end of the Department’s organizational chart, your Department Chair is not going to let you use the term Law on anything).

I ran across this story a few years ago.  A famous mathematician from the 1940s and 50s, John von Neumann provided the following advice to Claude Shannon.  (Some people consider him to be the founding father of the electronic communication age https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2Whj_nL-x8).  Anyway I thought that the quote was memorable.

“You should call it entropy, for two reasons. In the first place your uncertainty function has been used in statistical mechanics under that name, so it already has a name. In the second place, and more important, no one really knows what entropy really is, so in a debate you will always have the advantage.”
-    John von Neumann

http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Von_Neumann.html

http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Shannon.html


The point is that scientists and academics are not immune from the temptations of what might be called the “marketing” of their ideas.


Anyway, I came across a definition and discussion of the terms by a Professor Ronald Matson.  I was impressed with his thoughts.
.
http://science.kennesaw.edu/~rmatson/3380theory.html

One quick definition he provides:

•   A law describes what nature does under certain conditions, and will predict what will happen as long as those conditions are met.

•   A theory explains how nature works.


There is more on the site.

[SysError]

All previous climate model software will require a rewrite... The global warming apple cart has been overturned by a new discovery, it seems....

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/09/30/massive_global_cooling_factor_discovered_ahead_of_paris_climate_talks/

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.est.5b02388

I have no hostile intent here; but could you please point out to me where you think there is a relevant argument in the ACS paper that proves, or just somehow supports, the Register’s charges or your contention that  “The global warming apple cart has been overturned by a new discovery, it seems....”?

[Brooke]

Hmm…

Right now experiments at target ambient [CO2] + 200 ppm (µmol mol-1 on a volume basis) are showing on average of 50% less crop yields. 
(So that would be ~600 ppm)

https://www.bnl.gov/face/

http://jxb.oxfordjournals.org/content/60/10/2859.full

I don't see that detriment to crop yields in your references. Many references talk about more co2 increasing plant growth significantly. Your references seem to mention benefits, too, but they are so cumbersomely wordy that I can't tell in a quick reading.

[Brooke]

I am actually OK with you using her charts and providing your own alternative explanation of the data,

Thanks. 

What I'm pointing out is very simple -- and I don't need to reference anything other than the data for this point:

In the past of the earth, both temperature and co2 was a substantially higher than today, yet life (both animal and plant) thrived.  That is all.

[Zimme83]

Thanks. 

What I'm pointing out is very simple -- and I don't need to reference anything other than the data for this point:

In the past of the earth, both temperature and co2 was a substantially higher than today, yet life (both animal and plant) thrived.  That is all.

I would say that that is a bit irrelevant, we can sustain higher temperatures yes but that is not the main issue, The problem would be that the change happen too fast for us to adapt to it. it will not kill all life on the planet but it can cause some major issues like droughts forcing people in warmer countries to move to less warm countries. That mean poor people moving to richer countries and as we all know that isn't friction free... The rules does not allow us to cover that part of the climate change issue but my point is that its more in it than just psychical survival.

[Brooke]

I would say that that is a bit irrelevant, we can sustain higher temperatures yes but that is not the main issue, The problem would be that the change happen too fast for us to adapt to it.

But many people do make the argument that magnitude is the thing, not just rate of change -- people who think that life on earth is threatened if co2 reaches a particular level (regardless of rate of change).  I addressed it for those people.

As for rate of change, we already determined that the change is very slow on human scale (like 1.3 m of sea level change over 80 years, where change in tides is many places is a lot more than that).

Also, none of the folks expressing concern about climate change seems even the slightest bit worried about ice ages.  An ice age is drastically more destructive than warming.  An ice age would wipe out the large majority of life on earth, humans included.  Also, ice ages are not speculation and have happened regularly in the past.

[Zimme83]

A lot of this debate is about irrelevant issues. The worst case scenarios are just worst case scenarios but they are the ones that media picks up. On the other end of the scale is the deniers and unfortunately that is the 2 standpoints that you hear most of. People forget about the more realistic issues, heavy pollution of air and water in cities for ex. Or more frequent droughts in poor countries forcing people to move. Many poor countries have a very thin margin and are very sensitive to climate changes. But the debate is most about polar bears and sea level rise, typical "first world" issues.

An ice age is not too good either but we are not in any immediate danger of it, it will come a new ice age but it will still be in a (for humans) distant future. The solar spot activity and "mini ice age" is again something exaggerated by media. 

[SysError]

I don't see that detriment to crop yields in your references. Many references talk about more co2 increasing plant growth significantly. Your references seem to mention benefits, too, but they are so cumbersomely wordy that I can't tell in a quick reading.

The link that I had to the article in my post was part of a much more robust response to your comments.  It was suggesting that even with really interesting positive indications on crops with increased CO2, it none-the-less looks as total crop yield will drop significantly.  The reference to:  Elevated CO2 effects on plant carbon, nitrogen, and water relations: six important lessons from FACE shows I think those benefits.

At one point when I was typing up my thoughts I said to myself ‘Boy this is going on a bit’.  And my estimate was that I was probably only about half way through.  So when I am the one that is thinking that it is ‘going on a bit’, we can all be reasonably assured that it has gone on for a bit.

So I thought just make the main point, other people have lives to live.  Here is the reference I should have posted:

https://www.bnl.gov/face/pdfs/Long_2006.pdf

Food for Thought: Lower-Than Expected Crop Yield Stimulation with Rising CO2 Concentrations

“Model projections suggest that although increased temperature and decreased soil moisture will act to reduce global crop yields by 2050, the direct fertilization effect of rising carbon dioxide concentration ([CO2]) will offset these losses. The CO2 fertilization factors used in models to project future yields were derived from enclosure studies conducted approximately 20 years ago. Free-air concentration enrichment (FACE) technology has now facilitated large-scale trials of the major grain crops at elevated [CO2] under fully open-air field conditions. In those trials, elevated [CO2] enhanced yield by È50% less than in enclosure studies. This casts serious doubt on projections that rising [CO2] will fully offset losses due to climate change.”

“The CO2 fertilization effects, derived from chamber experiments, currently used in crop models forecast substantial increases in future crop production under conditions associated with climate change. The FACE experiments, conducted in open fields, are not without their limitations (26, 35), but represent our best simulations of the future elevated [CO2] environment”


Thanks for pointing out the issue to me.

It is not a straight line series of causations.  (I fully expect someone to come along and quote something like this study and say that “direct fertilization increases crop yield in experiments with high levels of CO2” show increased crop yields”.  It will show up as a FOX News science special one day.)

What is interesting about FACE is that as an open air experiment, results are expected to be more realistic than those from a traditional closed lab environment.  One of the notations I picked here and there going through the articles was that the observations from FACE are quite different from traditional labs.  I am sure more interesting observations will come from FACE.

[SysError]

If you are falling prey to warming alarmist group think, here's something to add perspective:

http://www.breitbart.com/london/2015/10/15/greenpeace-founder-lets-celebrate-co2/

The most-concise summary of it I can manage:  Mankind's generation of CO2 is a vitally good thing.  Without it, nearly all life on earth would cease to exist at the bottom of one of the next ice ages.

There are only a few people in the world who to my mind don’t need to be afforded any of the courtesies or niceness usually provided to other people.  (Playing the man instead of the ball?  Yep, but in my book anyone who tries to excuse and ‘pretty up’ the murder of 35,000 people for a fee isn’t going to get much of anything from me.)

If you want to argue the point, find someone else who makes the same claim and I’ll reply.

So who is Patrick Moore?

Patrick Moore is not the founder of Greenpeace.  (He used to call himself the Co-founder of Greenpeace. I guess either he or someone else has given him a promotion).

Here is Greenpeace’s statement on Moore’s claim:

Patrick Moore Did Not Found Greenpeace
Patrick Moore frequently portrays himself as a founder or co-founder of Greenpeace, and many news outlets have repeated this characterization. Although Mr. Moore played a significant role in Greenpeace Canada for several years, he did not found Greenpeace. Phil Cotes, Irving Stowe, and Jim Bohlen founded Greenpeace in 1970. Patrick Moore applied for a berth on the Phyllis Cormack in March, 1971 after the organization had already been in existence for a year.
….
Patrick Moore promotes such anti-environmental positions as clearcut logging, nuclear power, farmed salmon, PVC (vinyl) production, genetically engineered crops, and mining. Clients for his consulting services are a veritable Who’s Who of companies that Greenpeace has exposed for environmental misdeeds, including Monsanto, Weyerhaeuser, and BHP Minerals.


http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/news/greenpeace-statement-on-patric/

There is just a ton of stuff on him out there.

Among the many other sickening things he is quoted as saying:

•   That - “clear-cutting is good for forests”
•   That – “Three Mile Island was actually “a success story””..
•   That - “drinking glyphosate [(Monsanto's Roundup herbicide)] was safe”
        (Which he refused to drink himself when presented with the opportunity in an interview)

And the one that just goes too far me:

•   He said that well – “people get killed everywhere” when asked why he was involved with improving the image of the Argentinian government during the period that 35,000 people were killed by death squads.


Where to find out more?  See here:

http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2014/06/27/who-founded-greenpeace-not-patrick-moore/

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Patrick_Moore