Science/Environment The Carbon Debate, pt III

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Dan26

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Mod edit: This thread follows on from here: http://www.bigfooty.com/forum/showthread.php?t=881523&page=34

Dan I take it from your rather specific question that you now believe that CO2 causes warming?

You're obviously new to the climate debate.

ALL sceptics agree that C02 causes warming. It does. It's a fact. It's a greenhouse gas.

That is not the debate. The debate is whether it causes dangerous warming. The dispute is about the extent of any warming, the danger of it, the likelihood of it being overwhelmed by natural influences, the true sensitivity of the climate to C02, and the cost-benefit of trying to "stop" the warming we've seen - which actually halted 15 years ago.

Extra C02 will probably be a good thing. Life on earth in millienia past has thrived under more C02. Carbon Dioxide is plant food. It feeds life. it is essential for life on earth.





Of course no one can provide empirical evidence that CO2 causes dangerous warming. We have no way of directly observing it unless we dump a heap of CO2 in the atmosphere and just see what happens or someone finds a spare earth floating around somewhere. We could of course wait and see and that would prove it one way or the other or we could take the "alarmist" view and look at the empirical evidence we do have and form a reasonable theory. Lets list the evidence.

We have empirical evidence of the absorption properties of CO2.
We have empirical evidence of an increase of CO2 in the atmoshpere.
We have empirical evidence that the increase of CO2 is due to human emmissions.
We have empirical evidence of a reduction in outgoing radiation.
We have empirical evidence of temperature rises and increased ocean heat content.
We have NO EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE of any negative feedbacks big enough to offset the above

Yes we have no empirical evidence that C02 causes dangerous warming. All the ponts you make are irrelevant because it doens't matter if we know that C02 causes warming. It doens't matter if we know it is due to humans (which it is) and it doens't matter if we know it has a minor warming effect.

what matters is whether this minor warming effect due to humans is enough to offest the really big major changes in climate due to natural causes and variation? The "alarmist" AGW theory requires that there is a positive feedback of water vapour (which causes most of the warming) - and this feedback has not only NOT been observed, but that negative feedbacks have infact been observed. On this issue alone, the "catastrophic" AGW theory has been proven wrong.


Looking at that list what do you see? I see that unless some yet to be discovered negative feedback pops up.

See above.

we will continue to warm until eventually we get dangerous levels of warming.

There is no evidence that the climate is alarmist, catastrophic or unsual. The climate has bene far more variable in the past.

Could be a 500 years away but based on a combination of the empirical evidence we do and don't have it's a fairly reasonable assumption that we will get there eventually. Now if you have any empirical evidence of your own that you think I missed that disputes that assumption I'm happy to look at it. If you don't how about you stop calling everyone gullible patsies and wasting eveyone's time with your irrelevant political rambling until you find something substantial that can actually disprove the above.

Most of the below info comes can be sourced from Jo Nova's site and Wattsupwiththat, but if you really want to open your eyes, here is the ultimate resource:

http://z4.invisionfree.com/Popular_Technology/index.php?showtopic=2050

Anyway, where were we? You said you were happy to look at information. At least that one good thing that you have that Upton doesn't. Maybe there is hope for you.

1. The greenhouse signature is missing.

If greenhouse gases are warming the earth we are supposed to see the first signs of it in the patch of air 10 kilometers above the tropics. But this "hot spot" just isn’t there. Graph A (from the IPCC) shows the pattern of temperature changes the models predict for greenhouse gas-induced warming.

Graph B (published by the U.S. Climate Change Science Program) shows what actually occurred during the recent warming from 1979-1999. Weather balloons measured the global atmosphere but could find no sign of the predicted “hot spot.”

hot-spot-model-predicted.gif


A scientist called Santer said he found the hot spot. He didn't. He found “fog in the data.” After many attempts to statistically reanalyze the same old data his big news was that the hot spot might be there hidden in the noise.

Something else was causing most or all of the warming. And the models don’t know what it was. That doesn't mena C02 wasn't causing all of it, but it wasn't the main factor.

2. Temperature rises first, then C02 rises after it 800 years later.

In 1999 it became clear carbon rose and fell after temperatures did. By 2003 we had better data showing the lag was 800 years or so.

Now the alarmsit all agree on this and have tried to invent excuses to justify it. Why? Just accept the evidence. The use a theory called amplication to say that even if C02 didn;t start the warming, it amplifies it. If CO2 was a major driver, temperatures would rise indefinitely in a "runaway greenhouse effect." That hasn’t happened in 500 million years, so either a mystery factor stops the runaway greenhouse effect, or CO2 is a minor force. Either way, CO2 is trivial, OR the models are missing the dominant driver. ONE OR THE OTHER

3. C02 is aborsing nearly all it can already.
The carbon that’s already up in the atmosphere is close to its saturation point. The natural greenhouse effect is real, and it does keep us warm, but it’s already reached its peak performance. Throw more carbon up there and most of the extra gas is just "unemployed" molecules.

co2%20log.jpg
 
Re: The Carbon Debate - Part II

Good luck with that.

I think Port Phillip Bay would have to lapping at the steps of Fed square before you'll see Dan concede any of your well made and decidedly logical points.

Hate to say "I told you so" ... :rolleyes:
 

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Re: The Carbon Debate - Part II

Dan26, good post.

The Vostock (sp?) core is interesting to read about too and I have not seen much mention of it in here. If nature repeats a cycle seen many time in the history of the core, we are heading to an ice age and there would be little we can do about it as the natural causes far outweigh the human factors.

These are forces that act in 1000+ year cycles and not 10s-100s that are the real time measured data (and often quoted).
 

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Dan26

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Re: The Carbon Debate - Part II

What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the wish to find out, which is the exact opposite.

Too many alarmists have the will to believe, but not the wish to find out.
 

medusala

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Re: The Carbon Debate - Part II

We have NO EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE of any negative feedbacks big enough to offset the above.

CO2 rises by themselves wont increase temperatures much ie 1% odd for doubling. All the rest of your argument is a red herring

Where is all the evidence for very high positive feedbacks which are necessary to validate these models?

Negative feedback is not needed to invalidate them.
 

Windhover

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Re: The Carbon Debate - Part II

What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the wish to find out, which is the exact opposite.

Too many alarmists have the will to believe, but not the wish to find out.

As an unhappy alarmist wanting to believe everything will be fine can you please help me "find out". I am particularly interested in why you would rely on Lindzen and Choi 2009 when even you must know Lindzen himself no longer stands by that peer reviewed paper that has been universally debunked. You don't believe me? Well try looking at Lindzen's 2011 paper - after all you claim to have "the wish to find out".
 

Dan26

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Re: The Carbon Debate - Part II

As an unhappy alarmist wanting to believe everything will be fine can you please help me "find out". I am particularly interested in why you would rely on Lindzen and Choi 2009 when even you must know Lindzen himself no longer stands by that peer reviewed paper that has been universally debunked. You don't believe me? Well try looking at Lindzen's 2011 paper - after all you claim to have "the wish to find out".

Lindzen is a sceptic to the alarmist catastrophic theory of climate change. As are thousands and thousands of other scientists. What a real scoientist does is change their opinions to suit the evidence. What a political pawn does is refuse to change their opinions even though a lack of empirical evidence should make it obvious to do so.

I'm not sure what your point is here, anyway? Are you suggesting Lindzen is now an alarmist? You know damn well he's not. If you are going to go down ther "consensus" line, why not look atthe 30,000 Americna scientists who signed the petition project and compare them to the "97% of scientists are alarmists, which is really only 75 people out of 77 who answered two questions, worded as such that even I would be one of the 75"

The problem is that alarmists don't ask the right questions. They are determined to find a cause for alarmist global warming and will make assumptions and build those assumptions into the models. The climate models have ALL got their predictions wrong. All of them. Every. Single. One.

evans_figure1.png


If the CO2 level doubles (as it is on course to do by about 2070 to 2100), the climate models estimate the temperature increase due to that extra CO2 will be about 1.1°C × 3 = 3.3°C.

Now, see the "times three" bit? The threefold amplification by feedbacks is based on the assumption, that more warming due to carbon dioxide will cause more evaporation from the oceans and that this extra water vapor will in turn lead to even more heat trapping because water vapor is the main greenhouse gas.

This amplification is built into all the climate models. The amount of amplification is estimated by assuming that nearly all the industrial-age warming is due to our CO2. Why assume? The whole point of science is to find out an answer, not assume a cause.

The argument has never been about the direct cause of C02 (which does have a warming effect.) It is all about the feedbacks.

What the sceptics say:
image_thumb20.png


The feedbacks dampen or reduce the direct effect of the extra CO2, cutting it roughly in half. The main feedbacks involve evaporation, water vapor, and clouds. In particular, water vapor condenses into clouds, so extra water vapor due to the direct warming effect of extra CO2 will cause extra clouds, which reflect sunlight back out to space and cool the earth, thereby reducing the overall warming.

There are thousands of feedbacks, all either reinforcing or opposes the direct warming effect of the extra CO2. If a systems reacts by amplifying it, the system is likely to reach a tipping point and become unstable (like the electronic squeal that erupts when a microphone gets too close to its speakers). The earth's climate is long-lived and stable— it has never gone into runaway greenhouse, unlike Venus — which strongly suggests that the feedbacks dampen temperature perturbations such as that from extra CO2.

It's not that c02 doesn't have an impact. It's just that it's no match atall for the other factors out there that influence the climate. Humans are just not that influential. We think we are, but we're not.

As I've stated, the alarmist theory requires a positive feedback of water vapour (which causes most of the warming) - and this feedback has not only NOT been observed, but negative feedbacks have been observed. On this issue alone, the "catastrophic" AGW theory has been proven wrong.
 

MeeSo

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Dan I'm not going to bother going into detail because this stuff has been addressed repeatedly and you won't listen anyway.

1. Hotspot is not a signature. Stratospheric cooling coupled with tropospheric warming is a signature.
2. Coming out of an glacial period CO2 acts as a feedback. Releasing CO2 sequestered for millions of years acts as a forcing.
3. Neither the lower or upper layers atmosphere are saturated.

Nothing you've presented is empirical evidence that disputes our current understanding of AGW. Also positive water vapour feedback has been observed by the AIRS satellite. Watts argument relies on clouds acting as a negative feedback large enough to offset the positive feedback of water vapour. This has not been observed.
 
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The facts are very simple and remain this.

There is a large and organised conglomerate of people comprised of climate change scientists who agree climate change is man-made.

There is no unifying theory for climate change amongst sceptics.

It is the height of irresponsibility for some very egotistical, conservative and socially *ed scientists - the minority though they are - to keep banging this drum.

The precautionary principle should dictate that until you can provide evidence of a cohesive positive theory, you don't keep scuppering the dominant theory, especially when the risk is human annihilation.

Even if the dominant theory were wrong, the worst thing that could happen by following such recommendations is a transition from polluting, finite resources which have been a major cause of human misery in health and geo-political terms for a century to cleaner energy sources which must happen in the next half century anyway.

If it were all wrong, what is the cost? A quicker and inevitbale transition.

If it is right, what is the consequence? Human extinction.

This really needs to be the mantra. Not that we can convince the crazies here (many of whom have unstated and peculair interests) but we must argue it as broadly as we can across the populace, including here.
 

Windhover

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Re: The Carbon Debate - Part II

Lindzen is a sceptic to the alarmist catastrophic theory of climate change. As are thousands and thousands of other scientists. What a real scoientist does is change their opinions to suit the evidence. What a political pawn does is refuse to change their opinions even though a lack of empirical evidence should make it obvious to do so.

I'm not sure what your point is here, anyway?
Fair enough Dan, no one ever suggested you were the brightest globe in the ceiling. My point is a pretty simple. Why do you publish a graph that comes from a paper by Lindzen and Choi 2009 that even you must know is a paper Lindzen himself no longer stands by? If you rely on dodgy science you will get dogdy results.


Dan26;23459376The problem is that alarmists don't ask the right questions.[/QUOTE said:
Well, well another deep thought from a shallow dish. How about you explain why the many questions asked of you by Upton are "not the right questions" or, simpler still just for you, explain why my question above it "not the right question" to ask of some one who relies on dodgy science (Lindzen and Choi 2009). Or are you incapable of even that?
 

medusala

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There is a large and organised conglomerate of people comprised of climate change scientists who agree climate change is man-made.

So what? It is the % of the increase that is man made that matters.


The precautionary principle should dictate that until you can provide evidence of a cohesive positive theory, you don't keep scuppering the dominant theory, especially when the risk is human annihilation.

Human annihilation. You really expect anyone to take that seriously?


Even if the dominant theory were wrong, the worst thing that could happen by following such recommendations is a transition from polluting, finite resources which have been a major cause of human misery in health and geo-political terms for a century to cleaner energy sources which must happen in the next half century anyway.

You must be kidding. That's like building a nuclear bomb proof bunker at massive cost and then saying well at least you have a granny flat.


If it were all wrong, what is the cost? A quicker and inevitbale transition.

If it is right, what is the consequence? Human extinction.

Absolutely mind boggling that someone can think like that. Staggering.

Not that we can convince the crazies here ...

Humour
 

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Dan26

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Medusala,

You've hit the nail on the head.

This "precautionary principle" theory is mind-boggingly stupid. Made by stupid people. How much should we spend to fix something that isn’t a problem? There’s a cost involved in every action.

So lets do those things for the right reasons. Random policy because it "feels good" is government-by-accident. Taxing the wrong thing is a lousy way to "solve" something else.

Old spice mentioned human extinction.

I mean seriously give me a break. C02 has been more than 10-20 times higher than what it is now at various times in the earth's histroy. And life thrived. Life always thrives with more C02. And because of a piddling increase of C02, and no empirical evidecne to suggest it is dangerous we get catastrophic, alarmist calls of human extinction? Laughable. And pathetic.

The precautionary principle? LOL. What a laod of bollocks. If we make it harder or more expensive for people in Africa to use their coal, it means they keep inhaling smoke from wood fires, babies get lung disease, forests are razed for fuel etc. Meanwhile electric trucks cost more to run, and that makes fresh food more expensive. More children could miss out on refrigerated vaccines and die. In more advanced countries, money could have been used for gene therapy or cancer research but wasn't. the delay in medical advances means people die.

We can’t afford to get this wrong. That's why the responsible thing to do is look at the evidence.

Old Spice would argue that we should be looking for greener alternatives to fossil fuels anyway.

But, hoping for a good outcome while acting on something for all the wrong reasons is called policy-by-accident. Oil is expensive and finite, so yes, we could adopt a national taxation system based on a false assumption, employ more accountants and lawyers, and if we don’t cripple the economy too badly, there might be enough money left to research greener alternatives (except we’re not sure what "green" means anymore, since carbon dioxide feeds plants). Yeah, sounds good. :rolleyes:
 

Mcveigh

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Arrogance is the people who demand other Australians lose jobs, pay higher taxes, higher electricity prices etc because they say so.

Hmmm unemployment dropped last time I heard about it. You make it sound like higher taxes and electricity will have a devastating effect on human kind if we don't act NOW to stop these price hikes!
 

Windhover

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So what? It is the % of the increase that is man made that matters.

No old moo, on two scores. First it actually doesn't matter if none of the increase in temperatures is man-made - it is the scientifically predicted increase in global temperatures that matters, whatever the cause. Secondly the % of the increase in temperatures that is man-made (at least over the geological short-term of 500 years) is 100% - unless you have some evidence of another cause of global warming than the increase of atmospheric carbon.
 

Windhover

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We can’t afford to get this wrong. That's why the responsible thing to do is look at the evidence.

And there it is folks, out of a pile of piffle Dan has posted something that can, indeed should, be agreed with. But, funnily, when we "look at the evidence" Dan looks at Jonova and listens to Lord Monkey as he flops asleep (and dreams that he is a scientist looking at and understanding "primary data") and I look at that most nefarious third hand source of information, people who refer to and rely upon peer-reviewed papers (prepared by a conspiracy of scientists too stupid to make money otherwise but too clever to be bumped out of their prestigious positions in leading scientific organisations throughout the world).
 
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Mod edit: This thread follows on from here: http://www.bigfooty.com/forum/showthread.php?t=881523&page=34



You're obviously new to the climate debate.

ALL sceptics agree that C02 causes warming. It does. It's a fact. It's a greenhouse gas.

That is not the debate. The debate is whether it causes dangerous warming. The dispute is about the extent of any warming, the danger of it, the likelihood of it being overwhelmed by natural influences, the true sensitivity of the climate to C02, and the cost-benefit of trying to "stop" the warming we've seen - which actually halted 15 years ago.

Extra C02 will probably be a good thing. Life on earth in millienia past has thrived under more C02. Carbon Dioxide is plant food. It feeds life. it is essential for life on earth.







Yes we have no empirical evidence that C02 causes dangerous warming. All the ponts you make are irrelevant because it doens't matter if we know that C02 causes warming. It doens't matter if we know it is due to humans (which it is) and it doens't matter if we know it has a minor warming effect.

what matters is whether this minor warming effect due to humans is enough to offest the really big major changes in climate due to natural causes and variation? The "alarmist" AGW theory requires that there is a positive feedback of water vapour (which causes most of the warming) - and this feedback has not only NOT been observed, but that negative feedbacks have infact been observed. On this issue alone, the "catastrophic" AGW theory has been proven wrong.




See above.



There is no evidence that the climate is alarmist, catastrophic or unsual. The climate has bene far more variable in the past.



Most of the below info comes can be sourced from Jo Nova's site and Wattsupwiththat, but if you really want to open your eyes, here is the ultimate resource:

http://z4.invisionfree.com/Popular_Technology/index.php?showtopic=2050

Anyway, where were we? You said you were happy to look at information. At least that one good thing that you have that Upton doesn't. Maybe there is hope for you.

1. The greenhouse signature is missing.

If greenhouse gases are warming the earth we are supposed to see the first signs of it in the patch of air 10 kilometers above the tropics. But this "hot spot" just isn’t there. Graph A (from the IPCC) shows the pattern of temperature changes the models predict for greenhouse gas-induced warming.

Graph B (published by the U.S. Climate Change Science Program) shows what actually occurred during the recent warming from 1979-1999. Weather balloons measured the global atmosphere but could find no sign of the predicted “hot spot.”

hot-spot-model-predicted.gif


A scientist called Santer said he found the hot spot. He didn't. He found “fog in the data.” After many attempts to statistically reanalyze the same old data his big news was that the hot spot might be there hidden in the noise.

Something else was causing most or all of the warming. And the models don’t know what it was. That doesn't mena C02 wasn't causing all of it, but it wasn't the main factor.

2. Temperature rises first, then C02 rises after it 800 years later.

In 1999 it became clear carbon rose and fell after temperatures did. By 2003 we had better data showing the lag was 800 years or so.

Now the alarmsit all agree on this and have tried to invent excuses to justify it. Why? Just accept the evidence. The use a theory called amplication to say that even if C02 didn;t start the warming, it amplifies it. If CO2 was a major driver, temperatures would rise indefinitely in a "runaway greenhouse effect." That hasn’t happened in 500 million years, so either a mystery factor stops the runaway greenhouse effect, or CO2 is a minor force. Either way, CO2 is trivial, OR the models are missing the dominant driver. ONE OR THE OTHER

3. C02 is aborsing nearly all it can already.
The carbon that’s already up in the atmosphere is close to its saturation point. The natural greenhouse effect is real, and it does keep us warm, but it’s already reached its peak performance. Throw more carbon up there and most of the extra gas is just "unemployed" molecules.

co2%20log.jpg
No data on the earth is a hundred percent . None . So why not clean up anyway?
 
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No old moo, on two scores. First it actually doesn't matter if none of the increase in temperatures is man-made - it is the scientifically predicted increase in global temperatures that matters, whatever the cause. Secondly the % of the increase in temperatures that is man-made (at least over the geological short-term of 500 years) is 100% - unless you have some evidence of another cause of global warming than the increase of atmospheric carbon.
One proven cause of global warming is nature , forever , we are but a spit in the ocean of time. We will be dead and gone and the earth will warm and cool thousands of times before our poor young sun burns out.
We have no god given right to this planet anyway, so if nature kills us off , even our own nature of developing a modern world , so what! The dinasaurs were here millions of years longer than us . We,re nothing, and if ants get as big as us we,re all dead anyhow.
Don,t worry everything inside the atmosphere is created by the earth and its land its critters , so polluting by developement is just another way nature lets us come and go
when we,ve stuffed up enough. Hawthorn for premiers the year before the sun burns out !
 
O

Old Spice

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One proven cause of global warming is nature , forever , we are but a spit in the ocean of time. We will be dead and gone and the earth will warm and cool thousands of times before our poor young sun burns out.
We have no god given right to this planet anyway, so if nature kills us off , even our own nature of developing a modern world , so what! The dinasaurs were here millions of years longer than us . We,re nothing, and if ants get as big as us we,re all dead anyhow.
Don,t worry everything inside the atmosphere is created by the earth and its land its critters , so polluting by developement is just another way nature lets us come and go
when we,ve stuffed up enough. Hawthorn for premiers the year before the sun burns out !

Very clarifying, thanks for the illumination.
 

medusala

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No old moo, on two scores. First it actually doesn't matter if none of the increase in temperatures is man-made - it is the scientifically predicted increase in global temperatures that matters, whatever the cause.

Of course it matters if it is man made. If it isnt man made then carbon taxes etc are an idiotic idea. You are badly contradicting yourself.

Secondly the % of the increase in temperatures that is man-made (at least over the geological short-term of 500 years) is 100% - unless you have some evidence of another cause of global warming than the increase of atmospheric carbon.

NOONE claims it is 100% due to man not even the IPCC.
 
O

Old Spice

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You get the sense that the game is up for the hard-core science denier nuts, like Medulusa:

NOONE claims it is 100% due to man not even the IPCC.

The former position was that there was no proof that there was any man made element, now Medulusa wants to talk about percentages.

What a sad little admission that is not manly enough to be a frank admission.

Every petty denier has been cluncked on the head so heavily, they can't emerge with any credibility. The opportunists here are trying to snake away.
 

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