Quote :

"my point, exactly. a point where there was some foolish talk about a coming ice-age."

Lmao there was indeed a leveling of temperatures around the 70's, which stopped after...the US started regulating CFC's and other aerosols. Shortly after, the hole in the ozone stopped growing and temperatures started climbing again. Remember aerosols? That thing scientists made up to describe the effect of China's sulfur emissions on global temperatures. It's almost as though there's a precedent that they're drawing on...

Further, this is another favorite conservative propaganda narrative based on irreality, the "global cooling" scare of the 70's. The actual truth is that a handful of papers were seized on by Time magazine and a few others to make a story out of. The actual scientific community overall still favored an overall warming trend: http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/Myth-1970-Global-Cooling-BAMS-2008.pdf

Quote :

"only, not really. if you go further back, you see a nice 60-year oscillation hmmm...."

Only yes, really: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bb/Instrumental_Temperature_Record.svg Weird, that looks like an overall warming pattern that spanned...oh about the amount of time since industrialization kicked off.

Quote :

"the fuck? you pointed out a year that was specifically warm due to a known weather pattern. jesus, you are being obtuse."

Look at the graphs you posted, 2009 was especially cool. And La Nina is a cooling pattern.

Quote :

"nope, just convenience. convenient that the models were so incredibly wrong, but now, I promise you, they are right! we got that final piece of the puzzle!"

Again, we saw in the 50's through the 70's that pumping aerosols into the atmosphere cools it (or at least slows down its warming). Not to mention we know the actual mechanisms by which aerosols cause this (increase albido, heat is relfected into the atmosphere) just like we know CO2 has a warming effect by the particular mechanism of radiative forcing. I know science seems like a very mystical and arbitrary thing to you, but these effects have been known for generations now by people who actually go through the trouble of learning about what they spout off about.

Quote :

"which is the "convenient" part."

It's the scientific part. HMMM A NEGATIVE NUMBER CAUSES A POSITIVE NUMBER TO DECREASE? HOW CONVENIENT...

Quote :

"any investigation that looks at an email that says "hey, delete emails related to this FOIA request, k?" and says "heh, nothin wrong there!" is obviously deeply flawed."

Lmao, as I said, man on the street interpretations of personal emails between familiar academic professionals is all you have (That's why you deleted that part of my reply, naturally.), since by all credible metrics there was no sign of wrongdoing, plus their findings were independently confirmed by multiple other scientific outfits.


[Edited on November 14, 2011 at 10:42 AM. Reason : .]

11/14/2011 10:41:13 AM

Seriously, aaronburro, the whole "aerosols cause cooling" thing has been established for decades and decades, it's not something that was recently made up. Similarly, the heat-retention effects of CO2 have been known for decades and decades.

So it's really not hard to understand: CO2 increasing year after year after year causes warming in the long run.

Aerosols increasing causes cooling.

Around 2000, China starts burning coal at increasingly faster paces, releasing sulfur aerosols into the air at even higher rates than the US did immediately post-WWII.

During this same time, CO2 continues rising. A positive force meets a negative force and the result is neither strongly positive or negative! Must be some of that scientific voodoo!

11/14/2011 10:46:50 AM

Quote :

"Citing a consensus is the definition of an appeal to authority."

-aaronburro, 8/31/2011 11:24:50 PM

[Edited on November 14, 2011 at 10:56 AM. Reason : wtf]

11/14/2011 10:56:09 AM

Quote :

"Seriously, aaronburro, the whole "aerosols cause cooling" thing has been established for decades and decades, it's not something that was recently made up. Similarly, the heat-retention effects of CO2 have been known for decades and decades."

Neither fact brings us to the conclusion that justifies catastrophic global warming. If anything, it proves that global warming is not much of a problem if injecting aerosols in the atmosphere makes it go away.

11/14/2011 12:25:46 PM

Wait so just to be clear, Loneshark, let's hammer this out now, where does your position fall:

1. Global warming is not happening

2. Global warming is happening but humans have no effect on it

3. Global warming is happening and humans have an effect but it wont be catastrophic so just let it happen

4. Whichever of 1-3 is the opposite of what the liberal I'm talking to is saying



As far as what you said:

Quote :

"Neither fact brings us to the conclusion that justifies catastrophic global warming. If anything, it proves that global warming is not much of a problem if injecting aerosols in the atmosphere makes it go away."

What? How is "inject China-like levels of sulfur into the atmosphere in proportion to our CO2 output from now on" in any way a feasible, sustainable, affordable, or not-problematic-in-its-own-right (see: return of the Ozone hole) plan of action ??



[Edited on November 14, 2011 at 1:29 PM. Reason : .]

11/14/2011 1:26:42 PM

Oh noes, the ozone layer hole. Scientists aren't even sure now how long it's been there. It's possible it's been there forever.

Quote :

"3. Global warming is happening and humans have an effect but it wont be catastrophic so just let it happen"

This is where I stand. And I argue that the increased CO2's warming effect is done. Regardless of that, if you actually think that through regulation and "green" campaigns CO2 emissions will drop enough to actually make a difference in the planet's temperature you're the most delusional person in this thread.

[Edited on November 14, 2011 at 2:50 PM. Reason : k]

11/14/2011 2:47:23 PM

Quote :

"Oh noes, the ozone layer hole. Scientists aren't even sure now how long it's been there. It's possible it's been there forever."

That's not what's in question. The issue is that, during the 40's through 70's, when CFC output was highest, the hole GREW LARGER with each year. After they started curbing CFC's because of tighter regulation, it stopped growing, and for awhile in the early 00's, looked like it was about to start shrinking again. Now that China's loading up aerosols, we might see it grow again.

Now, I'm sure Chance will come in and say BUH BUH BUH THATS JUST A CORRELATION. Well, we have a pretty tight correlation (CFC's up, ozone hole grows) and a prescribed mechanism (the interactions between CFC's and Ozone are predictable via simple chemistry and confirmable in a laboratory) and pretty decent controlled experiment in the latter half of the 20th century.

Quote :

"I argue that the increased CO2's warming effect is done."

What is the threshold for this? That is, at what concentration does increasing CO2 stop resulting in increasing warming?

Quote :

"Regardless of that, if you actually think that through regulation and "green" campaigns CO2 emissions will drop enough to actually make a difference in the planet's temperature you're the most delusional person in this thread."

How much of a drop would be necessary to make a difference?


Also: What evidence in the future would convince you otherwise on either of these points?



[Edited on November 14, 2011 at 3:25 PM. Reason : .]

11/14/2011 3:21:32 PM

Quote :

"What? How is "inject China-like levels of sulfur into the atmosphere in proportion to our CO2 output from now on" in any way a feasible, sustainable, affordable, or not-problematic-in-its-own-right (see: return of the Ozone hole) plan of action ??"

People have studied this. To create sufficient cooling to counteract even the worst case warming (whether it is man-made or natural, doesn't matter) would require emitting no more sulfur than we already do. All that would need to change is where 10% of current emissions are emitted. Namely, injected into the upper atmosphere where it will stay rather than releasing it at ground level to become acid rain.

Quote :

"let's hammer this out now, where does your position fall:"

The science today shows the planet is warming. That warming seems to be in line with warming prior to modern levels of CO2 emissions. As such, while it is sensible to say at least some of the current warming is man-made, not all of it is. And it certainly doesn't seem to be catastrophic levels of warming. And even if warming accelerates and becomes catastrophic (as the models predict with no scientific basis), sulfur injection is cheap and effective enough to counteract such eventualities. As such, slap a 1 cent per ton tax on carbon and use one million of it to build a sulfur injection facility for experimentation purposes.

11/14/2011 4:39:39 PM

Quote :

"As such, slap a 1 cent per ton tax on carbon and use one million of it to build a sulfur injection facility for experimentation purposes. "

Wouldn't it be easier to just tax carbon and see what new technologies take fossil fuel's place? It sounds like you want government to pick winners and losers here.




edit: What about all the catastrophic droughts that are a real concern with sulfur injection etc etc -- we have had this conversation before
message_topic.aspx?topic=615310

[Edited on November 14, 2011 at 4:53 PM. Reason : ::rolly eyes::]

11/14/2011 4:47:33 PM

LoneSnark: Champion of Acid Rain!

11/14/2011 4:57:05 PM

Quote :

"Wouldn't it be easier to just tax carbon and see what new technologies take fossil fuel's place? It sounds like you want government to pick winners and losers here."

That is a tax. I would love to make the tax higher in exchange for repealing the payroll tax. But keep in mind, the evidence is quite strong that the majority of warming over the past few hundred years has been natural. No point not being ready to regulate the planets temperature if temperatures accelerate while CO2 emissions fall.

Quote :

"LoneSnark: Champion of Acid Rain!"

Actually, diverting the sulfur from ground emissions to high altitude injections would result in a temporary reduction in acid rain.

11/14/2011 8:30:25 PM

Quote :

"That is a tax"

Sorry I wasn't clear again. What I meant was you are choosing a winner in this case, an experimental highly questionable one at that, and even creating a subsidy to fossil fuels by paying them to create pollution, so long as they release it where you want. It seems like you are throwing good money after bad. You are willing to support all of that but unwilling to support any thing else on the long list of other alternatives that could help us mitigate climate change?

Quote :

"the evidence is quite strong that the majority of warming over the past few hundred years has been natural."

link?

Quote :

"temporary reduction in acid rain. "

Emphasis on the temporary? What goes up must come down (well, in most cases)

11/15/2011 3:32:11 AM

What alternatives? Space mirrors? We'd be attacking the problem directly with techniques shown to work.

And here is your link. It is ice core data showing warming during the 19th century, before mankind began its love affair with CO2.

11/15/2011 7:19:00 AM

Look, I don't follow this thread

but when you put up something like that with your comment, it's patently clear you're uninterested in actual data as your mind is already made up. You're talking about a .5 degree rise pre machines as evidence of...something...while ignoring the .3 degree rise from 500 years before? That data means nothing.

Just looking at the wikipedia page we see more than double your .5 degree rise in the past 100 years.

11/15/2011 7:28:11 AM

Quote :

"What alternatives?"

any technology that actually lowers emissions



Didn't we already have an ice core discussion recently?

11/15/2011 9:37:40 AM

^^ Ice core data reports less warming than the surface data.

^ I am unaware of any technology that currently actually lowers emissions. Last I read, solar emits more CO2 being produced than it will ever save while wind about broke even if you included all the hot backups needed (versus natural gas). So, please, if one honestly believes the world is going to warm catastrophically, what else can we do but either A) crash civilization or B) regulate the planets temperature directly by technological means

[Edited on November 15, 2011 at 11:23 AM. Reason : .,.]

11/15/2011 11:22:54 AM

Quote :

"I am unaware of any technology that currently actually lowers emissions. Last I read, solar emits more CO2 being produced than it will ever save while wind about broke even if you included all the hot backups needed (versus natural gas)."

This is basically completely wrong.

Quote :

"So, please, if one honestly believes the world is going to warm catastrophically, what else can we do but either A) crash civilization or B) regulate the planets temperature directly by technological means"

Well, solving the emissions problem is one problem. It's a problem that we do need to solve. We need to decarbonize our energy, and we will run out of Carbon that's economic to burn eventually. It's just a question of whether we will burn it all first, then make the switch, or make the switch, leaving a lot of it in the ground.

Not only have we committed to probably 4x as much warming as what we've already experienced, but we've committed to burning various forms of Carbon by the types of capital investment we've made into power plants and extraction infrastructure. Even if we decommission those plants early (ha!) like a Greenpeace wet dream, we've got quite a lot of momentum. We will need geoengineering either way.

So these are two problems - stopping CO2 emissions and artificially preventing large climate excursions. We need to solve them both, and we will have no choice but to solve them both.

11/15/2011 11:41:53 AM

^^You never link to anything, why?

I can concede that solar requires CO2 to be produced but from what I have read most of the scenarios put it at somewhere between 2x and 10x less than most fossil fuels. These numbers will only get better as production becomes more efficient and more renewables become a part of our energy portfolio. We may still need fossil fuels as backups but their are other better options that need to be looked at closely (pumped hydro).

also conservation is going to play an increasingly important role.

http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2008/03/the-ugly-side-o.html
note: this was written in 2008 and we are much better than that now.

I think its MUCH smarter to be putting our revenues toward this type of research than shots in the dark like stratospheric sulfur emissions

11/15/2011 11:49:32 AM

Quote :

"but their are other better options that need to be looked at closely (pumped hydro)."

In what way do you see the amount of pumped hydro increasing, when the # of viable sites has been constant throughout all of history and hydroelectric + pumped storage have been constant or decreasing throughout the developed nations because of environmental stewardship?

Pumped hydro is a grueling, expensive, solution.

Maybe we'll use flywheel tech like Beacon Power which just went bankrupt. Maybe Al Gore should have put his money into that.

Quote :

"These numbers will only get better as production becomes more efficient and more renewables become a part of our energy portfolio. "

Grid management challenges increase with more wind power, not the other way around. Wind for one, is very demonstrably MORE efficient in terms of backup power deployment when there is less of it.

Solar thermal's efficiency is just another side of the coin from the water problem. Want to conserve water? Use dry cooling. BAM, your efficiency is now shit. And guess what, water usage also has reverse economy-of-scales just like wind. We're already using many of the optimal sites for power plant cooling and an expansion of solar will stress those resources even more. You know... unless we allow it to become less efficient and economic. I would hope, for all things good in this world, that solar thermal projects get less efficient in the future.

Maybe you're thinking that PV will get more efficient. Think again. Efficiency has almost nothing to do with the economics of PV.
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/8461

Quote :

"also conservation is going to play an increasingly important role."

Yes, increasing role, too bad it's not something you can credit with decreasing demand. The majority of the world is poor and young. We should expect to increase net energy use unless these efficiency improvements can get like a 4x improvement, because we will spread prosperity to those people who don't yet have it.

Quote :

"shots in the dark like stratospheric sulfur emissions"

It's well established. There is no scientific doubt that it will be effective. If you believe the science behind climate change in the first place, you should believe the science that says this will work.

[Edited on November 15, 2011 at 12:39 PM. Reason : ]

11/15/2011 12:39:00 PM

Quote :

"In what way do you see the amount of pumped hydro increasing, when the # of viable sites has been constant throughout all of history and hydroelectric + pumped storage have been constant or decreasing throughout the developed nations because of environmental stewardship? Pumped hydro is a grueling, expensive, solution. Maybe we'll use flywheel tech like Beacon Power which just went bankrupt. Maybe Al Gore should have put his money into that. "

I mentioned pumped hydro as only one component of the technologies we need to be investigating. Its probably one of the more developed compared to batteries or flywheels, thats why I mentioned it. Other methods of storage like flywheels need to be investigated too, I'm not writing them off by any means. While the number of sites for pumped hydro has remained fairly constant there are also designs that allow for the pumping of water underground and into mines that I have seen discussed, although I'm not sure how close they are to actually being implemented. Pumped hydro is expensive but if we price CO2 emissions correctly I'd be interested to see just how much more expensive it is when compared to burning a coal plant all night.

Quote :

"Maybe you're thinking that PV will get more efficient. Think again. Efficiency has almost nothing to do with the economics of PV. "

In this case I was discussing the amount of CO2 emissions per m^2 of PV manufactured. We can expect this number to drop as more and more panels are installed in the grid because a) economies of scale -- our processes become more efficient (less material used) b) because more solar panels are supplying the energy needed for manufacture. I was attacking the notion that solar panels don't produce a net decrease in the amount of CO2 emissions emitted.

Quote :

"Yes, increasing role, too bad it's not something you can credit with decreasing demand. The majority of the world is poor and young. We should expect to increase net energy use unless these efficiency improvements can get like a 4x improvement, because we will spread prosperity to those people who don't yet have it. "

I really hate to say this here, because I know it won't be accepted well, but here goes:

Conservation is a two sided coin. We can use energy more efficiently and we can also use less energy. We can expect our appliances to become more efficient but at the same time we should also expect fewer conveniences. That is to say: The third world will rapidly increase its energy consumption (although not likely to the levels that the average american enjoys today) and the first world should expect its energy consumption per capita to fall (both because of efficiency increases and because of rationing due to price). I realize that is unpoplar but its reality IMO. We can decouple ourselves from energy as a measurement of prosperity . . . . we can still be happy without limitless consumption. I think I have told you before that I'm biased toward a lower energy future.

Quote :

"It's well established. There is no scientific doubt that it will be effective. If you believe the science behind climate change in the first place, you should believe the science that says this will work. "

I believe it will work at least temporarily, what I'm not sold on is the repurcussions. What do we do when we find that both the acid rain problem (or other similar imbalances that might occur by pumping emissions into the stratosphere) and the possible drought problem (I linked to a paper early ITT) end up costing us more than just cutting back on emissions? At that point it will be even harder to convert to renewables than it is now. The fact is we don't know the consequesences of most of these "global engineering" projects and the consequences may be more expensive than the problems the projects solve. The best example I can think of is the draining of Mississippi river wetlands and building of dikes. If we had left the wetlands in place we might have avoided or atleast mitigated the cost of some costly disasters:

http://www.landenconsulting.com/downloads/LC-Case-study--large-scale-impacts-of-wetlands-degradation.pdf

Quote :

"A multi-faceted analysis conducted by an interdisciplinary team (led by The University of Missouri-Columbia, The Audubon Society, and The Wetlands Initiative, with participation by dozens of state and federal agencies), determined that the bulk of the flood damage from the 1993 flood was driven by the degradation or outright destruction of the region’s native riparian & wetlands ecosystems, and if those ecosystems had remained intact, the full volume of the floodwaters could have been contained/regulated by the ecosystem with minimal impacts to industry & society: • To truly solve the ecological problems facing the Upper Mississippi River Basin in five states—Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, and Wisconsin—an ecological solution is required. Despite a century of massive capital investment in flood control structures across the 18 million acres of flood zone, flood damages have increased. • In addition, the region faces degraded wildlife habitat and water quality due to sediment and nutrient contamination as a result of wetland loss. • The proposed ecological solution is to restore natural hydrological functions by reconnecting some of the leveed floodplains to the parent river. Where lands are frequently flooded, economic activities adversely affected by inundation need to be eliminated. In short, the bottomlands of the Upper Mississippi River Basin should be returned to their natural state, which would hold floodwaters for weeks, if not months, at a time, rather than the hours, or at most, days, given the current conditions. A 1993 study by the Illinois State Water Survey found that for every 1 percent increase in protected wetlands along a stream corridor, peak stream flows decrease by 3.7 percent. • Landscape analysis: First, landscape ecologists identified 1.9 million acres in the 100-year flood zone that could readily be used to store floodwaters. These areas are either behind existing levees (able to store water 10 feet deep) or on existing or drained wetlands outside of levees (able to store water 3 feet deep). Together, these areas could hold 9.6 million acre-feet (one acre covered by a foot of water) of floodwaters. Secondly, ecologists sought to find the best opportunities for wetland restoration within these flood storage areas by identifying areas (totaling 740,000 acres) that are drained wetlands currently used for row crops. The areas identified for restoration have the ability to contain all of the water present in the 1993 flood, with room to spare. The approximate volume of water in the 1993 flood was 39 million acre-feet of water - a minimal ecological restoration could contain 40 million acre-feet of water, while a more comprehensive ecological restoration could contain 72+ million acre-feet of water (nearly double the amount in the 1993 flood)7. 7 Flood Damage Reduction in the Upper Mississippi River Basin: An Ecological Means, The Wetlands Initiative, 2004 • Economic analysis: An agricultural economist calculated the annual social costs and benefits of converting all cropland in the 100-year flood zone (1.8 million acres) to wetland. Results of the benefit-cost analysis show that cropland conversion is socially efficient for all counties in the study area except for St. Louis County, Missouri. The estimated total annual net benefit of cropland conversion for all sampled counties is $120.9 million or $68 per acre. This analysis suggests that society would be better off if cropland acreage in the 100- year flood zone in the study counties was restored to wetlands than if it remained as cropland."

comparing wetland destruction to climate change is by no means a perfect comparison but the lessons are the same IMO. In some cases we are better off learning to live with what has preceded us (in this case a low energy, low carbon life style) than try to stick engineering band -aids on the environmental problems we create.

note: this is coming from someone educated as a biological engineer.

[Edited on November 15, 2011 at 2:03 PM. Reason : also: Check your PMs]

11/15/2011 2:01:36 PM

What is a "biological engineer"? At NC State we have biomedial engineering, as well as microbiology. Biological engineering is a new one to me.

Quote :

"I was attacking the notion that solar panels don't produce a net decrease in the amount of CO2 emissions emitted."

You were right about that

Quote :

"rationing due to price"

...your wording fails to represent a certain fundamental understanding of economics. Price decreases consumption, but a decrease in consumption (even as a result of policy) does not imply rationing. You use the word a little bit more liberally than what correctness allows.

Quote :

"A: end up costing us more than just cutting back on emissions?"

Quote :

"B: At that point it will be even harder to convert to renewables than it is now."

While A is defensible, B is not. We have no reason to believe B.

11/15/2011 2:18:16 PM

lol, Biological and Agricultural engineer -- the unknown engineering science. I only mentioned that to let you know sorta where I was coming from on the wetlands and to sorta clue you in on how much I value ecosystem processes (which often aren't included in any economic analysis of engineering solutions, unfortunately)

Quote :

"Price decreases consumption, but a decrease in consumption (even as a result of policy) does not imply rationing. You use the word a little bit more liberally than what correctness allows. "

Perhaps you're right. The point I was trying to get to was that most individuals in the future will likely not be so rich as to just forget about their energy use as is common today. Many could care less what their thermostats are set at or how hot their water is during their morning shower. I just don't see that as being sustainable. I think our children will be well aware of how much they use on a daily basis and will be more likely to change their habits accordingly, as well as, coming up with more drastic solutions to circumvent price increases, like solar showers during the summer months. I hope this addresses your point.

Quote :

"While A is defensible, B is not. We have no reason to believe B. "

I mean, the deeper we get into the fossil fuel game, the harder I think it's going to become to come up with alternatives. That is to say, its going to take increasing amounts of political will (which will be fueled by climate science) to combat our increasing dependance on fossil fuels (we will become increasingly dependent on cheap energy as a form to convert into wealth). People want energy to just become increasingly cheaper as it has for the past 100+ years and I don't think thats necessarily possible. It's not easy for people to switch between new paradigms IMO. Its why I always hesitate to mention that we might have to start making choices between keeping our thermostats at 78 degrees in our 3000 sq foot homes and having 3 TVs and 2 computers running at the same time. I think renewables will necessarily make energy more expensive, although they will be less expensive than fossil fuels after we price in the cost that carbon plays (in the form of a carbon tax). Basically what I'm saying is the sooner the better, the farther we go down the road of the status quo (we are pretty far down it already) the harder and harder it is going to become to turn around and create a society built on something other than increasingly cheaper energy.

[Edited on November 15, 2011 at 2:55 PM. Reason : I R enguneer -- engrish is not my best suit]

11/15/2011 2:50:35 PM

Quote :

"And here is your link. It is ice core data showing warming during the 19th century, before mankind began its love affair with CO2. "

Loneshark, the industrial revolution started in the 19th century, fyi



Also I like that your "link" is an unsourced graph with no axes labels or anything, haha

Here's a temp graph with a little more info:



[Edited on November 16, 2011 at 3:03 PM. Reason : .]

11/16/2011 2:57:31 PM

Odd, the period on your graph from the 1980s onward doesn't look anything like this graph:

11/16/2011 3:17:56 PM

That's because the graph I posted tracks anomalies relative to the 1950-1979 mean, while your tracks them relative to 1981-2010 mean. In other words, your graph tracks warming relative to a period of time that's already much warmer than the preceding decades. Yours is also horizontally stretched by a factor of like 10 for that time period.


[Edited on November 16, 2011 at 3:29 PM. Reason : .]

11/16/2011 3:20:37 PM

I was referring to the shape, not the axis. All the noise has been taken out of the hockey stick you posted.

Anyway, I finally managed to find the graph I posted above in my RSS feed. You seemed curious.
http://www.foresight.org/nanodot/?p=3553

11/16/2011 3:25:53 PM

Oh yeah you've bandied that link around a few times. The one where he shows how small the hockey stick of global temperatures is compared to the temperature record of Greenland.

Funny thing about Greenland, it's hypersensitive to temperature changes. Even today:



In other words, if you were to use Greenland temperatures NOW to make conclusions about global warming, you'd think Staten Island was already knee-deep in sea water.

And I'm really, really impressed that you were able to mentally take that 40x40 pixel block from my graph, rescale it against the 1980-2010 mean, stretch it across the x-axis, and compare its shape to your graph. I mean, either you did that, or you're completely full of shit and still don't understand what a difference it makes that the two graphs use different reference temperatures.

11/16/2011 3:35:50 PM

Quote :

"All the noise has been taken out of the hockey stick you posted."

...it's almost like that graph was a 10-year moving average.

or something

11/16/2011 3:39:02 PM

Here, I made a lil visual to demonstrate just the effect of the x-axis:



The only way that graph is making the hockey stick less extreme is by stretching it horizontally.

There's no "noise removal" in that graph, in fact there's MORE noise in your graph. One can tell just by looking at it.


That noise helps to obscure the fact that it shows roughly the same thing as mine if you look at the numbers, an average temperature increase of around .4 degrees between 1980 and 2000.



[Edited on November 16, 2011 at 3:49 PM. Reason : .]

11/16/2011 3:44:03 PM

goddammit

I said:

Quote :

"Didn't we already have an ice core discussion recently? "

and I was right, ITS ON THE PAGE RIGHT BEFORE THIS ONE (page 57)

there I posted that the GISP2 data you are posting graphs of has been misrepresented before, see this link:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/10000-years-warmer.htm


If you read closely from your link the author says that the last point in his graph is:

Quote :

"(the youngest datum is age=0.0951409 (thousand years before present) "

in other words its 95 years old, which the graphs at the FORESIGHT link present the last data point as 1905. However, paleoclimate naming conventions generally refer to the "present" as 1950 (to keep the data consistent). That would mean that the graphs in your FORESIGHT link show the actual last data point as 1855, before most of our present day warming.


on top of all that is representing one temperature history as the entire world's temperature history, and therefore proof that a majority of climate scientists are wrong, as was discussed two posts up ^^^.


I don't really mind you bringing skepticism in this thread because that is what it is here for, but just please stop bringing up the same tired arguments that have already been refuted.

[Edited on November 16, 2011 at 3:50 PM. Reason : carrots]

11/16/2011 3:49:19 PM

Ahaha holy shit that's a beatdown, especially when he plots the actual (not adjusted 150 years backward) temperatures

11/16/2011 3:56:42 PM

Quote :

"There's no "noise removal" in that graph, in fact there's MORE noise in your graph. One can tell just by looking at it."

Well, no, you're wrong, as the poster just above you pointed out:

Quote :

"...it's almost like that graph was a 10-year moving average."

Yes, that would indeed explain it. Good work.

Quote :

"However, paleoclimate naming conventions generally refer to the "present" as 1950 (to keep the data consistent). That would mean that the graphs in your FORESIGHT link show the actual last data point as 1855, before most of our present day warming."

Then it is pretty safe to say he is violating paleoclimate naming conventions and assuming "present" is around 2011. As he did not say he was obeying paleoclimate naming conventions but did put dates on his graphs, to assume otherwise is to call him a liar.

11/16/2011 4:29:48 PM

I'm exactly calling him a liar, although I expect its unintentional because the devil is in the details and climate science is pretty complex, especially for us folks that haven't devoted our lives to it. You can't take a data point at 95 years before present(measured from years before present (which is in 1950)) and place it at 1905 (in AD years) when it is actually supposed to be placed at 1855 (in AD years) and then claim that all present day warming is meaningless in the context of history (when the fact is you aren't even displaying the past 150 years, arguably the most important years, in your graph).

That is to say, The FORESIGHT author explicitly states he downloaded the GRISP2 data and started graphing it himself with "no smoothing or adjustments." But the GRISP2 data ends in 1855, no ice core data was gathered from any later than that, probably because it takes many years for snow on glaciers to turn into a solid sheet of glacier ice, so scientist must have felt that the point from 1855 was the last point they thought was reasonably accurate in reflecting temperatures at that time.

[Edited on November 16, 2011 at 4:42 PM. Reason : ,]

[Edited on November 16, 2011 at 4:47 PM. Reason : I hope that answers your question. Its definitely a complex data set and it would be an easy mistake]

11/16/2011 4:39:20 PM

That does indeed answer my question. Thants.

11/16/2011 5:14:04 PM

Lmao you simultaneously acknowledge the 10 year average, but then deny that it contains less noise. Do you understand ANY of the words you use or is it really just 1,000 monkeys on typewriters over there?

11/17/2011 12:28:57 PM

Quote :

"Lmao, as I said, man on the street interpretations of personal emails between familiar academic professionals is all you have "

well, then, explain to me how someone asking someone to delete emails that are specifically the subject of a known FOIA request isn't bad. I'm waiting.

Quote :

"It's the scientific part. "

yep. the entirety of our climate system is determined by aerosols and a trace gas. that's some damned good science!

Quote :

"You are willing to support all of that but unwilling to support any thing else on the long list of other alternatives that could help us mitigate climate change?"

only because the others have shown very little ability to actually mitigate climate change. something like a .2F change in temperatures is projected to occur with the Taxman-Mallarkey bill. woooooooooo!!! we saved the world!

Quote :

"Just looking at the wikipedia page we see more than double your .5 degree rise in the past 100 years."

and that is almost universally due to UHI affects that completely make the that dataset useless. not only that, but, AGAIN, 100 years ago was a known low point in temperatures due to long-term trends. it's like you people can't make an honest argument to save your life. It's also not like we've been coming out of a little ice age, either.

[Edited on November 22, 2011 at 9:41 AM. Reason : ]

11/22/2011 9:39:51 AM

Quote :

"well, then, explain to me how someone asking someone to delete emails that are specifically the subject of a known FOIA request isn't bad. I'm waiting. "

Science is a competitive business, researchers cling to their data harder than you cling to your guns. It's really not hard to understand. All of this is irrelevant anyway as multiple distinct research groups using multiple distinct data sets from multiple distinct measuring sources confirm the CRU's observations as well. If the CRU faked their data, they amazingly managed to make it coincide with everyone else's completely unrelated datasets.

Quote :

"yep. the entirety of our climate system is determined by aerosols and a trace gas. that's some damned good science!"

http://www.skepticalscience.com/CO2-trace-gas.htm

Quote :

"and that is almost universally due to UHI affects that completely make the that dataset useless."

http://www.skepticalscience.com/urban-heat-island-effect.htm

Quote :

" not only that, but, AGAIN, 100 years ago was a known low point in temperatures due to long-term trends.It's also not like we've been coming out of a little ice age, either."

http://www.skepticalscience.com/coming-out-of-little-ice-age.htm

Quote :

" it's like you people can't make an honest argument to save your life. "

Aaronburro, step back and look at what's happened in this thread multiple times now.

You have a big bag of arguments against AGW. Every time you come back to this thread you reach in and pull one out. It gets shot down, so you reach in and pull out another, and another, and another, and another. At the end, you gather them all up, put them back in the bag, and start again as though none had been shot down. You don't want AGW to be true, so you will repeat literally any stupid idea you hear no matter how many times its proven wrong or how much it contradicts with your other arguments.

Earlier you were saying it's all the Sun. Then you were saying it's all the ice age cycle. Then it's all the UHI. Then it's all the sun again. Then it's all a scientist conspiracy and there's no warming anyway. Then it's all volcanos. Then it's all water vapor. Then it's all the little ice age ending again."

Tell me, how can there be no warming (scientist conspiracy/UHI) and yet there is also warming but it's natural? How can something that doesn't exist be natural in its existence? Is this some Zen koan or what?

You're a fucking joke. How can you go through this ritual for so long and show absolutely no self-awareness of your pathetic flailing like this? You haven't made an honest argument in this entire thread, you just throw shit at a wall to see if it sticks over and over again. You aren't concerned with knowing the truth, you're willing to repeat literally any line you can if it backs up your pre-conceived conclusion.

[Edited on November 22, 2011 at 11:58 AM. Reason : .]

11/22/2011 11:54:22 AM

Quote :

" something like a .2F change in temperatures is projected to occur with the Taxman-Mallarkey bill"

Waxman Markey was often criticized as being too weak, and I'm pretty sure that 0.2F figure came from the Heritage Foundation, which makes it pretty dubious IMO.

11/22/2011 12:39:13 PM

This is a pretty good description of GW skeptics:

Quote :

"They [skeptics] mostly look at observation papers and ignore modelling ones, as they believe by default models are wrong!"

http://di2.nu/foia/foia2011/mail/1998.txt

11/29/2011 10:11:24 PM

Skeptics prefer to look at data that says they're wrong, rather than models that say they will continue to be wrong

11/30/2011 11:45:51 AM

What's going on in this thread recently?


I've been too busy eating popcorn and reading emails from Climategate 2.0 to come over here much recently.

11/30/2011 3:42:00 PM

^^ I have seen no data not derived from a computer model which suggests the Earth will become uninhabitable with a doubling of CO2. Neither have you. No such data exists. If it did, we wouldn't have a disagreement.

11/30/2011 5:58:34 PM

I'm just astounded at how many times you can come in here, present some half-baked paper you found with all the smugness you can muster, have it torn to shreds for being methodologically flawed in serious, obvious ways, and not even blink. What exactly do you draw your conclusions from, anyway? It's certainly not from any kind of data or evidence, because you seem to be absolutely impervious to your primary sources being obliterated.

12/2/2011 9:26:30 AM

Like I'm starting to think that the seas will literally have to boil in order for you to even consider the possibility that maybe you're wrong on this. Even then you'd probably be saying "Yeah but notice that seas have been boiling at a slightly lower temperature since 2005."

Hell you'd probably link articles from UFO chaser magazines if the article posited that aliens were in fact interfering with our temperature satellites.

Anyway you're back to your usual tactic which is to switch gears to an entirely different charge or angle once you're disproven. That's okay though, I'm sure you'll post that same graph again in 5 pages as though none of this ever happened.

[Edited on December 2, 2011 at 9:30 AM. Reason : .]

12/2/2011 9:29:07 AM

Quote :

"Like I'm starting to think that the seas will literally have to boil in order for you to even consider the possibility that maybe you're wrong on this."

Then there is something wrong with you. You clearly fail to understand where we are. There is no way to prove what the Earth is going to do in the future, only guess based upon what happened in the past. This leads to disagreements based upon interpretations of the available past evidence. I don't think others are crazy because they choose to believe the hype. There is evidence available to justify the hype. Neither do I think people are crazy because they choose to not believe the hype, as evidence is available to justify skepticism.

But you can't seem to allow yourself to just discuss the topic. Clearly you feel some need to believe others can't just disagree with you, they're clearly crazy.

Quote :

"I'm just astounded at how many times you can come in here, present some half-baked paper you found with all the smugness you can muster, have it torn to shreds for being methodologically flawed in serious, obvious ways, and not even blink."

You mean once? And why should I feel bad? I read an article, didn't see any obvious flaws, presented it here as a minor point of order, and the criticism brought to bear against it seemed justified. What point of this was supposed to make me feel bad? I didn't write the article. It came up in a Google search. It certainly isn't what convinced me global warming isn't a catastrophe, it was only written a little while ago.

12/2/2011 10:46:49 AM

The hype? 97% of practicing climatologists believe it, over 90% of ALL publishing scientists believe it. That isn't hype, it's the state of our scientific knowledge.

"Hype" is sensationalism like the "Climategate" "scandal", where journalists focus on personal correspondence instead of ACTUAL TEMPERATURE DATA

Quote :

" You mean once? And why should I feel bad? I read an article, didn't see any obvious flaws, presented it here as a minor point of order, and the criticism brought to bear against it seemed justified. What point of this was supposed to make me feel bad? I didn't write the article. It came up in a Google search. It certainly isn't what convinced me global warming isn't a catastrophe, it was only written a little while ago."

This wasn't the first time, please don't make me go back 56 pages to dreg up all the rest.

Just tell me this then: Now that you see that that particular analysis is incorrect, how have your opinions changed at all? You obviously wouldn't cite that article unless you felt it bolstered one of your conclusions, so explain to me how the refutation (that, for instance shows the hockey stick is quite real, and that we are already exceeding the medieval warming period for temperature) has affected your conclusions? If you can't show that your convictions are actually susceptible to new information, then I'm seriously done humoring your shit. Someone famous once said it's impossible to rationally convince somebody that the conclusions they came at irrationally are wrong.

Knowing what you learned from the refutation, are you going to look at any other sources that make similar claims any differently? Are you going to go back to other papers you've read that cite it or make the same argument, and re-evaluate them? Or are you going to just do more google searches until you find something that confirms what you already believe then post that?

Quote :

"It certainly isn't what convinced me global warming isn't a catastrophe"

So what DID convince you? Why don't you try reading through the argument list on skepticscience.com, see how many other of your convince articles are there.

[Edited on December 2, 2011 at 11:00 AM. Reason : .]

12/2/2011 10:54:23 AM

Quote :

"97% of practicing climatologists believe it"

Believe what? That CO2 should warm the Earth? That the Earth has warmed? That man has caused much of that warming? Or that civilization is going to collapse in global warming induced Armageddon? It is this last one we disagree on, so bringing in the 97% of climatologists is not information.

Quote :

"Now that you see that that particular analysis is incorrect, how have your opinions changed at all?"

Hmm, the criticism leveled against it on this board in no way challenged the conclusion, merely decided the data offered by the author did not justify the conclusion, as his data did not include warming in the 20th century. No data was counter-offered to demonstrate that in fact ice-core data to the present did show modern warming was unusual. Did I overlook something?

Quote :

"So what DID convince you?"

Well, it is more of a personal structure of beliefs. I am not a climatologist, so I yield to the IPCC on the laboratory effects of CO2, which is 1.2 deg C with a doubling of CO2. I am an engineer, so I love laboratory work, and therefore accept this conclusion implicitly. Let me quote from the IPCC Third Assessment: http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/wg1/044.htm

Quote :

"If the amount of carbon dioxide were doubled instantaneously, with everything else remaining the same, the outgoing infrared radiation would be reduced by about 4 Wm-2. In other words, the radiative forcing corresponding to a doubling of the CO2 concentration would be 4 Wm-2. To counteract this imbalance, the temperature of the surface-troposphere system would have to increase by 1.2°C (with an accuracy of ±10%), in the absence of other changes."

However, this is where the laboratory work ends and models take over, attempting to discern what a 1.2 deg C of warming due to CO2 will look like on the ground after all feedbacks have been taken into account. This is where we part company, as this work presupposes the planet Earth is an inherently unstable system chock full of positive feedbacks. As an engineer I simply cannot accept that a system which has been relatively stable for hundreds of millions of years is inherently unstable.


So, what I will need is a few decades to hopefully see these unlikely but possible 3+ feedback multipliers in operation, because the best we have is the 20th century which warmed 0.7 deg C with a 44% doubling of CO2, for a final total of 1.2 deg C per doubling. Maybe this is due to temporary natural and unnatural cooling such as Chinese coal use. Either way, it means the data does not exist yet to convince me of catastrophic feedback multipliers which cannot be discerned in a laboratory. (This ending math I copied from here: http://www.climate-skeptic.com/2011/06/just-20-years.html)

[Edited on December 2, 2011 at 5:45 PM. Reason : .,.]

12/2/2011 5:41:19 PM

Quote :

"Or that civilization is going to collapse in global warming induced Armageddon?"

Strawman ahoy! It doesn't take an Armageddon to seriously knock civilization off-kilter. Shifting rain and heat patterns could trigger dust bowls, deplete water tables, fry crops, and a hundred other incidental effects can come together in a food shortage in a world that's already precarious in that area. No fucking climatologist (or me, for that matter) thinks the world is going to erupt in flames. What we *are* concerned about is that our civilization which has only really matured in the past few hundred years, is set up for a pretty specific climate configuration. Our agricultural infrastructure is directly dependent on known patterns, our cities are placed next to known coastlines, our fishing industry operates on known currents (and the non-extinctness of particular species).

You don't think the seas are going to boil and NYC is going to be 50 meters underwater in 20 years? Good fucking work, Sherlock. Now can we talk about actual concerns that climatologists and AGWers have?

Quote :

"As an engineer I simply cannot accept that a system which has been relatively stable for hundreds of millions of years is inherently unstable. "

I simply don't understand why an engineer, who works with mechanistic systems that look like tinker toys next to something as complex as the climate, thinks that their engineering experience lends even a gram of credibility to their "personal beliefs" in the "stability" of such a system and apparently thinks positive feedbacks are a myth or somehow inherently trivial. What you're saying is that, ultimately, your opinion to constantly play for the skeptic side comes down to an untraceable intuition. I know your type, though, and that untraceable intuition is "Argue with every liberal, on every point they make, always." paired with "Everything works out if you let it be" thinking that goes hand-in-hand with free market dogmatism.

Quote :

"No data was counter-offered to demonstrate that in fact ice-core data to the present did show modern warming was unusual. Did I overlook something? "

Yes, you did overlook something.


The entire conclusion of that article, that present warming is relatively trivial compared to past warmings, is directly contradicted by actually using the data in a half-intelligent way. The current warming IS unusual, and blows the medieval warming period out of the water.

Christ man, if a source matters enough to you to post it, but that source being proven blatantly wrong and its conclusion contradictory to reality, how can you not second guess your own conclusions? Please, from now on, don't post something if your beliefs obviously aren't affected by its conclusions unless they support your pre-existing notions.

[Edited on December 6, 2011 at 2:17 PM. Reason : .]

12/6/2011 2:02:24 PM

Quote :

"Strawman ahoy!"

You say Strawman, then you spend a paragraph arguing that in fact "civilization is going to collapse in global warming induced Armageddon." Why quibble with the word Armageddon? The collapse of civilization sure sounds like Armageddon to me, whatever caused it.

So I'll say it again: there is no consensus that all the negatives you list will either come to pass on a warmer Earth or that civilization is sufficiently unstable to not survive them. Neither of these assertions was mentioned during whatever poll you are referring to.

Quote :

"What you're saying is that, ultimately, your opinion to constantly play for the skeptic side comes down to an untraceable intuition."

Same as you. The only evidence we have is that the Earth has warmed about 1.2 deg C with a doubling of CO2 (measured 0.7 deg C increase after a 44% increase in CO2). But you feel in your gut global warming is going to be a problem, because you believe not telling everyone else how to live their lives always results in disaster. So you choose to believe global warming has so far been dampened by a host of temporary cooling events rather than believe the record so far. No evidence exists to prove otherwise, so right thinking people can believe that. Of course, no evidence exists to justify such a belief either, but according to you those that don't are the only self delusional people here.

Quote :

"The current warming IS unusual, and blows the medieval warming period out of the water. "

Where? According to you current warming does not appear on the graph and therefore cannot be compared to medieval warming. Therefore no one can say which blows the other out of the water. Therefore, while it cannot justify my position, neither can it justify yours. I guess your point is that you can use different surface data to get from 1855 to the present, which as an engineer is kinda absurd. We don't have surface data going back to the medieval warm period, so there is no way to check whether surface readings actually scale well with ice data. Why does no ice core data exist through to the actual present rather than just 1855?

12/6/2011 2:56:36 PM

Quote :

"Science is a competitive business, researchers cling to their data harder than you cling to your guns. "

so that makes it OK to break the law and to delete data in the realm of SCIENCE? really?

Quote :

"All of this is irrelevant anyway as multiple distinct research groups using multiple distinct data sets from multiple distinct measuring sources confirm the CRU's observations as well."

So, fraudulent method + right answer = good science? what? and then there's the little problem that the "confirmations" have their own problems, and ALSO won't release their methods or data. shit.

Quote :

"http://www.skepticalscience.com/CO2-trace-gas.htm http://www.skepticalscience.com/urban-heat-island-effect.htm http://www.skepticalscience.com/coming-out-of-little-ice-age.htm"

Oh look, more quotes from a site that won't call Mann a fraud and thinks there's nothing wrong with doctoring graphs and hiding your data. not to mention that they now say that UHI isn't real. keep it coming, dude.

Quote :

""Hype" is sensationalism like the "Climategate" "scandal", where journalists focus on personal correspondence instead of ACTUAL TEMPERATURE DATA"

yes, personal correspondence like "hey, break the law and delete your data." yep, nothing to see there.

Quote :

"http://www.skepticalscience.com/CO2-trace-gas.htm"

that link is hilarious. "trace things can have huge effects!" Yes, that is true. But that is massively different than saying "the entire system is wholly dependent on this trace element of the system," which is what climate computer tinkerers are trying to say

[Edited on December 7, 2011 at 4:44 PM. Reason : ]

12/7/2011 4:41:18 PM