Remember, it wasn’t long ago when the favorite scare was that there was going to be another ice age due to CO2
Maybe among sensationalists, but there was nowhere near the current scientific consensus, and in fact the mainstream scientific opinion back then was not at all convinced that any large scale accelerating global cooling was imminent. There was *1* damaging and irresponsible article in Newsweek. Now there are thousands of serious peer-reviewed scientific articles and the consensus of every climatological and geophysical scientific society on the planet and large conferences discussing the matter. Even back in 1979 the JASON panel estimated climate change from the greenhouse effect and predicted a temperature rise and sensitivity which is still remarkably consistent with the most modern evidence. Why? The laws of physics were the same then as now and even unmodeled complexity cannot overcome the overarching basic physics of the problem.
And yes maybe in 10,000 or 50,000 years the orbital effects will change more to the cooling side (as in previous ice ages). Let’s cross that bridge when we get there, and try to make it through the next 200 years.
“Yes, very solid in favor of temperature rising before CO2 does. This supports the theory that the ocean is absorbing less of it due to temperature.”
OK, sure, do you understand this is a feed FORWARD which will amplify any external perturbation which increases temperature?
If this mechanism were at all comprehensive to fully explain the current situation you would need to demonstrate, experimentally, the following:
1) an external mechanistic source of warming distinct from the greenhouse effect sufficient to explain present situation
2) that the CO2 increase in atmosphere is a result from emission of dissolved oceanic CO2
3) the combustion products from human fossil fuels are not emitted in the atmosphere
In truth there is no answer for (1), and (2) and (3) are contradicted by experimental results.
Give them 8000 years of cycical evidence (that what is happening today happened before), they reject it.
Give them 30 years of cyclical evidence (it got cooler then), they reject it. But how about exactly since 1942, now they’re convinced that man is the culprit.
Well, for one there’s the fact that CO2 concentrations are well above history for thousands of years.
You misunderstand the obvious point. The existence of natural fluctuations (with their own causal influences) in historical time does absolutely nothing to disprove the underlying physical phenomenon, as well as the obvious experimental facts that both greenhouse gases, and now temperatures are growing well above the bounds of natural fluctuations for the last thousands of years.
The question is quantitative magnitude and this requires hard-core science and observations: at what level of exogeneous fossil CO2 will the climate delta induced be at least of the same magnitude as natural variability sufficient to distinguish it. We have found it. Human influences are added to usual variation. You can have CO2 rising monotonically (with yearly cycles) but until the effect is sufficiently large it may not be easily visible, and could be subsumed under other effects (like aerosol smog {human induced} and volcanism {natural}) until it does become sufficiently large. The climate modelers do not at all forget about other influences.
The paleological record does nothing to refute the GW consensus, but it critical in supporting it.
Finally it must be remembered that even in past times natural climate fluctuations had their own physical causal influences. If we had modern instrumentation then we could have said most likely why things were going as they were. We can do so now, and of course current observations are more reliable than proxy paleoclimate estimations. And the answer is that there is NO explanation consistent with all facts without including human-emitted greenhouse gases, and that the contribution of human greenhouse gases is significant.
Remember. The change in greenhouse gas concentrations is an experimental result. The increase of IR emissivity is an experimental result. The oceans receive energy from the Sun in the visible plus the IR from the upper atmosphere. The latter has been increasing. The former hasn’t, but it does seem to oscillate.
How is it possible to assert that this will NOT have an effect on climate? If you say that it will but it is small, now you’re starting to finally be in the realm of accepting modern quantitative physical science, and if you follow that thread comprehensively and seriously you end up at the mainstream estimate of climate sensitivity.
Even if you ignore my words, please read the links at RealClimate.
