Global Warming???

[Anonymous]

Actual climate scientists when they are doing scientific research, publish papers in journals.

If you want to have something which is completely sourced with close to definitive information, the 900+ page IPCC report is it, as well as the innumerable review articles on climate change in the primary literature. These agree on aggregate with the views of the people on realclimate, which is not surprising because the authors of most of the articles are themselves scientists who work in the field. In the research literature, they do not rebut in writing such obviously dumb arguments as are currently found in the popular arena, so you don’t always have a “primary source” citation contradicting all such nonsense.

But the web blogs aren’t intended as primary literature, but as explanations to laymen of what the meaning of the results are.

When you go to a cardiologist, do you demand citations justifying his diagnoses? No, but said cardiologists certainly use them when they publish papers on research results to other ones.

Nevertheless, many of the realclimate articles do have citations, and the number of the citations isn’t proportional to their validity, it is the understanding thereof which is, and this requires ultimately a professional’s understanding of the breadth of the field and the limitations of any one article.

Such as the one on solar influence here.

Recent Warming But No Trend in Galactic Cosmic Rays

In any case, this is a pretty good example of useful physics actually being published in the community, even if it is supposedly “controversial”. And a good example of proper scientific process where ‘controversial big ideas’ (like anthropogenic global warming once was) get thoroughly tested and investigated.

Regarding galactic cosmic rays it is only necessary to quote the most obvious problem for using it as a replacement for greenhouse gases to explain current anomalous warming:

“Svensmark’s failure to comment on the lack of a clear and significant long-term downward GCR trend, and how changes in GCR can explain a global warming without containing such a trend, is one major weakness of his argument that GCR is responsible for recent global warming. This issue is discussed in detail in Benestad (2002). Moreover, the lack of trend in GCR is also consistent with little long-term change in other solar proxies, such as sunspot number and the solar cycle length, since the 1960s, when the most recent warming started.”

This is the most obivous point: there is no observed consistent trend in the solar and extrasolar studies, and there most certainly is in greenhouse gases. And the actual analysis in the field shows that contrary to misrepresentations, scientists have certainly investigated and considered solar influences and similar physics.

You’re trying to look for the ‘real killer’ in the Sun when OJ’s been caught wearing the damn bloody glove.

And asserting a hypothetical solar mechanism does NOT turn off the obvious, and experimentally demonstrated mechanism of GHG.

How could it? How do you turn off known physics? The physical connection from galactic cosmic rays is tenuous (but it may influence cloud formation) and the physical connection from GHGs is primary and obvious.

[ucodegen]

If you want to have something which is completely sourced with close to definitive information, the 900+ page IPCC report is it,

We already went there.. the IPCC report is not the penultimate reference because they are rewriting the underlying scientific work to be compliant with their summary. I already referred to the reporting guidelines from the IPCC. One of the other posters also submitted a reference to one of the PhDs that pulled out because they felt that the IPCC was pushing their agenda ahead of and to the detriment of the real science. BTW: This was not a junkscience.com reference either. I am not going to bother to repost the above.. it is already here on this blog.

But the web blogs aren’t intended as primary literature, but as explanations to laymen of what the meaning of the results are.

From the perspective of realclimate.org, yes. Realclimate.org can not claim to speak for other climatologists until it does.. and yes I found some references… compared to junkscience.com, they are kind of thin. I am bothered that the ‘debate‘ here is on the two websites as opposed to the underlying references. If the underlying references are used, then the quality of the discussion improves because we are dealing direct with research papers (though it is harder and slower to do).

When you go to a cardiologist, do you demand citations justifying his diagnoses? No, but said cardiologists certainly use them when they publish papers on research results to other ones.

Bad analogy. If the cardiologist uses a non approved procedure, the cardiologist can lose his license to practice. The way a procedure becomes approved is through published procedures and clinical trials. Right now on A-CO2-GW, we are on the publish/research phase.

The reference:

Recent Warming But No Trend in Galactic Cosmic Rays

is pretty good but old (prior ref cited – most recent is 2004) I would double check to see if there are more current papers considering the rate of change/knowledge growth. I think there are, and they may contradict these results. Won’t claim them until I find them (Note: Russia has some pretty good hard science, guess those guys don’t have much else to entertain them during the winter)

where ‘controversial big ideas’ (like anthropogenic global warming once was) get

Hate to inform you, but AGW is still controversial, as well as the magnitude involved. (no effect .. to .. Armageddon)

BTW: I didn’t bring up cosmic rays.. so you have to be replying to someone else’s post..

And asserting a hypothetical solar mechanism does NOT turn off the obvious, and experimentally demonstrated mechanism of GHG.

How could it? How do you turn off known physics? The physical connection from galactic cosmic rays is tenuous (but it may influence cloud formation) and the physical connection from GHGs is primary and obvious.

Huh on the first one (must not be replying to one of my posts) On the second one (influence cloud formation), this is one mechanism that I much mentioned much earlier, that would cause H20’s positive feedback to switch to a negative feedback as far as AGW would be concerned. I will not link it directly to Cosmic Rays though, until I had read the literature.

[Anonymous]

A half billion years ago–it is 450M or 650M, not sure–the earth was very cold yet had 10x CO2.

Never heardof that, but 0.5 billion years ago the Sun indeed could have been in a different configuration, and besides that is probably near the time of evolution of eukaryiotic cells.

More recently there was the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum which had lots of extinction, with CO2 levels of 2000-3000 ppm, and crocodiles in the arctic. Permian-Triassic mass extinction may also have been caused by global warming from immense volcanism and release of oceanic methane hydrates.

Anthropogenic CO2 being the primary reason for 20th century warming is still an unproven theory that was borne out of 1. the need to assign blame to man for global climate change, and 2. noticing correlations in the geological record.

So if #2, noticing correlations in the geological record is unreliable, then your first comment is also irrelevant.

But it is asserting a lie, that the primary impetus came from ‘correlations in the geological record’. This is flatly untrue, since the idea was first advanced in the 19th century before any of the geological record was known.

Screw the geological record, and just go by presently observed physical phenomena:

1) GHG re-radiate infrared. This is observed fact.

2) The amount reradiated is increasing. This is observed fact.

3) The GHG concetration is incresasing because of humans. This is observed fact. The numbers of #1,2,3 all go together.

4) Laws of electromagnetism and thermodynamics say that when there’s more atmospheric emissivity the temperature will go up.

These four essentials have been there since the beginning and have never been invalidated, and won’t be. Anthropogenic global warming is based on physics, not just correlations. If somebody first saw the correlations, then the next task would be to search for the mechanism. If there wasn’t one then the correlation would be suspect. Since there is a mechanism, and the correlation is very good, it gives the obvious conclusion.

[Anonymous]

Do you have a citation for this 1960-70’s prediction of anthropogenic warming, based on physics?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Revelle

Global warming

Revelle was instrumental in creating the International Geophysical Year in 1958 and was founding chairman of the first Committee on Climate Change and the Ocean (CCCO) under the Scientific Committee on Ocean Research (SCOR) and the International Oceanic Commission (IOC). During planning for the IGY, under Revelle’s directorship, SIO participated in and later became the principal center for the Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Program. In July 1956, Charles David Keeling joined the SIO staff to head the program, and began measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide at Mauna Loa, Hawaii, and Antarctica.

In 1957, Revelle co-authored a paper with Hans Suess that suggested that the Earth’s oceans would absorb excess carbon dioxide generated by humanity at a much slower rate than previously predicted by geoscientists, thereby suggesting that human gas emissions might create a “greenhouse effect” that would cause global warming over time.[1] Although other articles in the same journal discussed carbon dioxide levels, the Suess-Revelle paper was “the only one of the three to stress the growing quantity of CO2 contributed by our burning of fossil fuel, and to call attention to the fact that it might cause global warming over time.”[2]

Revelle and Suess described the “buffer factor”, now known as the “Revelle factor”, which is a resistance to atmospheric carbon dioxide being absorbed by the ocean surface layer posed by bicarbonate chemistry. Essentially, in order to enter the ocean, carbon dioxide gas has to partition into carbonate ion, bicarbonate ion, carbonic acid and sodium bicarbonate, among other ionic compounds, and the product of these many chemical dissociation constants factors into a kind of back-pressure that limits how fast the carbon dioxide can enter the surface ocean. Geology, geochemisty, atmospheric chemistry, ocean chemistry … this amounted to one of the earliest examples of “integrated assessment”, which 50 years later became an entire branch of global warming science.

Revelle, R., and H. Suess, “Carbon dioxide exchange between atmosphere and ocean and the question of an increase of atmospheric CO2 during the past decades.” Tellus 9, 18-27 (1957).

Sorry, 1957.

[FutureSDguy]

There is a very good correlation between sun activity (measured in terms of sunspots) and climate. While that in itself is not proof, it gives probable cause. This is no different than looking at the ice core and seeing that CO2 is probable cause for causing temperature rise. Even if CO2 is disproven to cause the amount of global warming as originally purported, there will be those who will want to go through with the Kyoto treaty anyway (in other words, the guiding interest is not in understanding climate, but rather to enact a desired outcome.)

But I digress… Realclimate’s refutation of Svensmark’s, to give the benefit of the doubt, is probably scientifically honest. (I need to understand what is meant by GCR trends.) But in general, I find that Realclimate stands to attack any dissenting scientific opinion no matter whom it is from. That is why I think Realclimate and Junkscience has to be tempered with a view that they aren’t neutral.

It has not been proven that CO2 is the cause of 20th century warming, and at the same time solar activity is at an 8000 year high. The real killer, in my mind, is more likely to be the sun. There needs to be more research, and IPCC should not be telling the public about a 90% consensus and “the matter is settled,” because it’s far from that.

Chaos: “And asserting a hypothetical solar mechanism does NOT turn off the obvious, and experimentally demonstrated mechanism of GHG. …. How could it? How do you turn off known physics?”

Who claimed that solar variance turns off known physics? Remember, no one is claiming that there is only one factor that sets the earth temperature. It’s well established that GHC does modulate temperature, but there is no evidence that increases in CO2 really do lead to the kind of temperature rises observed. Remember, the Ice ages came and went without man’s help!

Actually in 2005 Svensmark demonstrated in the lab that cosmic rays do in fact cause condensation in an environment that was set up to replicate the earth’s atmosphere. This is a real-time experiment where results are seen immediately (i.e. it didn’t need to demonstrate any time-delayed effect.). The beauty is that he formulated a hypothesis based on knowledge of the relationship between ions and condensation, gathered funding, set up the experiment, performed it, and proven his hypothesis. This is the scientific method as it should be.

Chaos: “Never heardof that, but 0.5 billion years ago the Sun indeed could have been in a different configuration, and besides that is probably near the time of evolution of eukaryiotic cells.

More recently there was the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum which had lots of extinction, with CO2 levels of 2000-3000 ppm, and crocodiles in the arctic. Permian-Triassic mass extinction may also have been caused by global warming from immense volcanism and release of oceanic methane hydrates.”

Fair enough–it’s not conclusive.

Chaos: “So if #2, noticing correlations in the geological record is unreliable, then your first comment is also irrelevant.”

I didn’t say the correlations are not reliable. There’s a clear correlation, but that does not establish causation, especially considering the 800-1000 yr lag.

[ucodegen]

Sort of chiming in here..

2) The amount reradiated is increasing. This is observed fact.

Please state reference/paper as to this measurement over time.

4) Laws of electromagnetism and thermodynamics say that when there’s more atmospheric emissivity the temperature will go up.

Not exactly. The correct statement would be; as the atmospheric temperature goes up, atmospheric emissivity goes up (basic physics of black body radiation). The opposite is not true. If a black body is radiating, then it is losing energy, thereby its temperature would be dropping (unless energy is being supplied to it at the same time it is emitting). Now using my corrected statement, if observed black body radiation is increasing w/o any change in the body’s ability to radiate, then one might say that the atmospheric temperature has increased. The best way though is to look at the center frequency of the black body emissions, this is directly correlated to temperature. The center frequency of black body emissions shifts to the right(higher freq) with higher temps. If center frequency does not shift but emissivity ‘flux’ has increased, no temperature change has taken place, but the body has improved its ability to radiate.

ie. chrome on a car under the sun can get very hot even though it is very reflective. This is because its ability to emit as a black body is very poor. On the other hand, dark painted metal will gain a considerable amount of thermal energy but will not get as hot under the same conditions because it is a much better black body emitter. (ignoring for certain types of paint that have odd characteristics)

My personal opinion is that correlating emissivity directly to AGW is too simplistic a far as the earth’s processes. There are both positive and negative feedbacks, with the negative feedback having the ability to shut down/block a large forcing factor(sun). Some of the feedbacks are also affected by the atmospheric emissivity.

[drunkle]

Submitted by ucodegen on February 21, 2007 – 11:16am.

@drunkle
In addition, any scientist would know that doing all your references from one site, a blog no less (realclimate.org) would get you laughed out of the scientific community.

and yet you point to junkscience? huh?

I don’t use him as sole source, and if you had paid attention I pointed out that he refers to other sources in support of his contention, while realclimate.org doesn’t!.

it’s not whether or not you use junkscience as your sole source, it’s the fact that you use it at all. it’s creator is politically funded. it’s not scientific. it’s garbage.

In fact, using your reference (http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/Cosmic_rays_and_climate.html), within the first paragraph, junkscience.com/Milloy has referenced at least 6 background articles (both pro and con to his position). This is how real science articles are written. Personally, I do not support all that Milloy states, but the method he uses is actually scientifically sound, while the method that realclimate.org uses is not scientifically sound.

if a = b and b = c, what does that tell you about d? absolutely nothing, the fact that he uses references is meaningless when he makes assertions and claims that are not founded by the references he makes. ie:

stephen hawking theorized about black holes (brief history of time, 1988), that they exist. the hubble telescope has taken pictures of anomolies that support the existence of black holes (http://www.spaceimages.com/blackhole.html). therefore, black holes must be doors to other dimensions.

see the problem? similarly, junkscience refers to the swed’s study on sun spot activities and then jumps to the conclusion that sun spots are responsible for all the recent warming. there’s no reason to believe that, there’s no evidence provided in the reference to support that claim.

[FutureSDguy]

Drunkle: “it’s [junkscience] creator is politically funded.”

And what of IPCC?

[drunkle]

The IPCC receives funding from UNEP, WMO, and its own Trust Fund for which it solicits contributions from governments.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPCC#Contributors

are you trying to suggest that being funded by governments is the same as being funded by oil companies?

[Anonymous]

Who claimed that solar variance turns off known physics? Remember, no one is claiming that there is only one factor that sets the earth temperature. It’s well established that GHC does modulate temperature, but there is no evidence that increases in CO2 really do lead to the kind of temperature rises observed.

OK, so you accept that the physics of the greenhouse gases is there—will you start to accept the rest of the science?

Now you are arguing the specific physics and number of “climate sensitivity” and to go further you have to do quantitative science. This is what professionals have spent decades working on.

This number is around what the vast majority of scientists who work on this think it is, and you get to the current consensus, which is mostly reflected in IPCC.

Now you have to show quantitatively that solar variance explains the current observations. Here is what current science says: It does not, on its own. Adding in GHGs does, and, most importantly GHG influence is going to increase strongly with time over the next 100 years.
The Sun & cosmic rays will do what they do.

It is true that there remains scientific uncertainty in the role of cosmic rays, but not enough to believe that the basic picture is broken.

Remember, the Ice ages came and went without man’s help!

Right. And if you work the numbers you find that the change in solar insolation from orbital forcing is not sufficient to explain the variation in climate, and so you have to look for feedforwards and feedbacks, and these are greenhouse gases and ice albedo. And sure enough the greenhouse gases DO change quite strongly with temperature (meaning that there is a feedforward amplification thanks to GHG).

The paleological record shows the physics of the greenhouse effect and changes thereof is valid both then, and now.

The emissivity of the greenhouse gases is not changed very much whether humans or natural phenomena released them (modulo small changes from isotopic composition balance affecting their mass and perhaps mixing to a small degree).

Nevertheless there is a final point. Even if there existed enough climate feedbacks to make the “sensitivity” be ZERO (which nobody serious believes), this also means that the patterns of the climate might change quite significantly from where they are now, because of all the effects necessary to maintain the temperature change at zero, and usually that’s a bad thing.

For instance, suppose you imagine that the ocean will absorb nearly all the CO2 and clouds will do the rest with albedo.

This still can significantly change weather patterns to be in a situation which is unprecedented over the last 600,000 years or so.

Is this a good thing? Human activities and agriculture and domesticated plant species are adapted to current conditions. Acidification of oceans would probably be really bad for food chains—and this is starting already.

In sum, significant global climate alteration (which is the inevitable consequence of doubling greenhouse gases in a geologically tiny amount of time) will occur even if you imagine all sorts of feedbacks. Solar influence will add random noise, increasing the risk of the high-side turning really bad.

[FutureSDguy]

Great exposition. I’ll have to try to pick it apart later.

One question: you discount orbital insolation? Does this mean you’re rejecting Milanhovich cycles as a driver of climate?

I’m reading this: http://www.john-daly.com/solar/solar.htm

You may rebut that if you’d like.

[Anonymous]

2) The amount reradiated is increasing. This is observed fact.

Please state reference/paper as to this measurement over time.

I’ll try to find it but I only remember the outlines—a few years ago there was a synthesis of a number of satellite datasets which convinced many of the remaining (honest) sceptics.

Ucodgen, sorry, I was sloppy in my use of the word “emissivity”. How about just “radiation”?

The only point is that more greenhouse gases, means more greenhouse effect of infrared radiation coming back down from the atmosphere.

[ucodegen]

it’s not whether or not you use junkscience as your sole source, it’s the fact that you use it at all. it’s creator is politically funded. it’s not scientific. it’s garbage.

Unsupported statement. I can use it because it draws upon earlier work. You can’t condemn a publication because you don’t like the publisher. You have to condemn it because it is incorrect.. and have to prove it in the process.

see the problem? similarly, junkscience refers to the swed’s study on sun spot activities and then jumps to the conclusion that sun spots are responsible for all the recent warming. there’s no reason to believe that, there’s no evidence provided in the reference to support that claim

This is a better technique to invalidating a statement. Show that the derivation is not supported by the underlying research.. only one problem. He makes no such claim. He just states that it is significant and point that in 5 years the cloud effect was responsible for a 2% decrease….

He also points to the weakness in the data “While we are hesitant to extrapolate from very short data series (always a dubious procedure) it… “. It could be that you mistook this statement as saying categorically that all warming attributable to AGW is attributable to Cosmic Rays.. the problem is that the author used the word could. This is not a categorical statement.. it is speculative by its wording.

[ucodegen]

The only point is that more greenhouse gases, means more greenhouse effect of infrared radiation coming back down from the atmosphere.

Kind of the definition of greenhouse gases.. I tend to consider them a thermal mass. After absorbing the energy in the bands corresponding to chemical bonds, they re-radiate as blackbodies in all directions.. including back down. Some of that re-radiation (if it is re-radiated in the same wavelength that the gas absorbs in, gets reabsorbed and then yet again re-re-radiated (making the whole process a potential nightmare to project/simulate)). Most of greenhouse gas re-radiation will not be in the exact same band that it was absorbed in (property of blackbody radiation), since the blackbody radiation frequency is temperature driven, and not all atoms within a sample of gas at a specific temperature will have exact same thermal energy.(shouldn’t need to reference this last sentence since it is beginning college chemistry).

[drunkle]

Submitted by ucodegen on February 21, 2007 – 5:03pm.

it’s not whether or not you use junkscience as your sole source, it’s the fact that you use it at all. it’s creator is politically funded. it’s not scientific. it’s garbage.

Unsupported statement. I can use it because it draws upon earlier work. You can’t condemn a publication because you don’t like the publisher. You have to condemn it because it is incorrect.. and have to prove it in the process.

the support was provided in context, specifically, my comments on his conclusions and the link to the wiki describing his political connections.

i can condemn the blog on the basis of its partiality *and* its accuracy. i again gave an example of his false logic:

see the problem? similarly, junkscience refers to the swed’s study on sun spot activities and then jumps to the conclusion that sun spots are responsible for all the recent warming. there’s no reason to believe that, there’s no evidence provided in the reference to support that claim

This is a better technique to invalidating a statement. Show that the derivation is not supported by the underlying research.. only one problem. He makes no such claim. He just states that it is significant and point that in 5 years the cloud effect was responsible for a 2% decrease….

are you suggesting that argument structure should be of the form of a single paragraph run on sentence?

regardless, he makes this claim:

“The one thing we are reasonably sure of is that twiddling about with emissions of carbon dioxide will have no discernable effect on global mean temperature. ”

based on his prior incorrect assumptions about solar forcing and water vapor.

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