dagblog - Comments for "Liberal Climate Hoax Ratchets Up in March"

They're already aware of

Verified Atheist — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 11:12:05 +0000

In reply to Part of their hard conclusion

They're already aware of dozens of natural global temperature variations (if not more), so I reject your inference of an "implied 'so'".

I do want to thank you, however, for bringing the Lu et al. article to my attention. It's definitely worth knowing about, and despite any implied reservations, I suspect no flaws in their methodology.

Part of their hard conclusion

PeraclesPlease — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 09:32:50 +0000

In reply to OK, with the caveat of within

Part of their hard conclusion that the last century is man-made is because they have no non-glacial examples of natural global change from the last 11,000 years.

There's an implied 'so' in their chain of argument.

Provide them 2 prior examples of natural global, and they then have to take natural effects more seriously as a partial cause of current global warming.

OK, with the caveat of within

Verified Atheist — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 09:18:50 +0000

In reply to Specifically over the last

OK, with the caveat of within the last 11,000 years, I'll accept the first of the two clauses I currently challenged. The second clause is simply not valid, but that's because of the word "so". Nowhere do they claim that because there has been no "globally synchronous periods of anomalous cold or warmth over this timeframe" that "most of the warming of the past 50 years is attributable to human activities". It is seen as supporting evidence, but no one thinks of it is as primary or even secondary evidence of such. Going back to my handgun analogy, it's like saying that we've seen a rise in handguns being fired at people and people dying, and we know how these two are related. Furthermore, we've never seen such a large scale increase (or decrease) in people dying since guns have been invented. If someone found evidence that the last sentence was not 100% true, it would not have little impact on the original assertion, although it would weaken the supporting evidence.

I'm glad to see you're a fan of RealClimate. They are an excellent resource.

E.g. plasma

PeraclesPlease — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 06:42:31 +0000

In reply to Another example of

E.g. plasma research.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/04/04/fusion_power_temp_record/

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/03/23/nif_laser_pulse/

Let me put this in macro

jollyroger — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 06:36:30 +0000

In reply to Another example of

Let me put this in macro terms.

Gasoline has a real cost (including military adventures in search of cheap fuel) around 11.00/gal.

Americans vote en bloc as "give me $2.50/gal. gas or give me death" Patriots.

Cheap carbon is the devil's own instrument, and he has us by the short and curly.

Another example of

PeraclesPlease — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 06:35:15 +0000

In reply to If all denialists disappeared

Another example of assumptions: do current climate models accurately predict ocean rise over 100 years?

Another interesting study showed that heatwaves and droughts only drastically affected grass growth during a couple weeks of their yearly growth - making that aspect of global warming less scary.

Not all assumptions play out.

Nevertheless, if we develop electric cars and then replace coal plants with lower emission energy sources, much of our CO2 output can be handled, and problem goes away in the century you're learning kayaking.

The electric car part seems well on its way. The energy plant part involves either getting much more elegant with nuclear production or coming up with a new idea that makes sense for large quantities.

If all denialists disappeared

jollyroger — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 06:08:20 +0000

In reply to Look, cut out the insulting

If all denialists disappeared it would make no difference.

We are not wired, it would seem, to respond in a timely fashion.

I am taking up kayaking. It seems the prudent thing to do.

Look, cut out the insulting

PeraclesPlease — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 06:06:38 +0000

In reply to I can't believe I'm butting

Look, cut out the insulting ad hominems, a****** or I'll wedge something else up your crack.

The IPCC has a number of dogmatic claims made despite lack of real or proxy indicators of temperature over the last 11000 years.

The lack is understandable - mankind is new to this. The dogmatism is understandable - people like Roy Spencer and non-scientists like Rush Limbaugh are attacking just because it's what they do, ignore real facts and arguments.

Nevertheless, our understanding of the situation is evolving, and this new understanding may hopefully help us provide cheaper, more timely and more appropriate reactions.

So realizing that global climate change happened in the past without glacier conditions would change our understanding. It doesn't however disprove anthropogenic warming this century. (and 1 study is not conclusive)

A relatively accurate 30-year-old temperature prediction based on CO2 before global warming was the rage helps confirm our CO2 models and assumptions as correct.

Thirdly, bad public science doesn't help anyone. Just because there are 7500 bad weather events doesn't by itself confirm or refute CO2-caused human-caused global warming - they have to be correlated properly to draw conclusions.

A decrease in global temperature doesn't refute human CO2-caused global warming if the temperature drop is a short period offset e.g. due to lower solar activity (where the temperature rise could be calamitous at the end of this period)

Fourthly, ideally we should all be overjoyed if there were a factual reason why global warming is not so dangerous, as it would save us trillions in spending that could be used elsewhere. Sticking heads in the sand is not the same as accurately assessing risks and containment. Even if all warming denialists went away tomorrow, there would be public debate on how much we should spend, which are the most effective actions to take, etc.

Fifth, I'm not writing all this and adding references just so people can glibly accept the points that seem to confirm made up opinion, and ignore the parts they deem denialist. It's an exciting time for climate science, and as more studies come in, we get a better picture - some confirming, some refuting, some refining or giving better precision. Where it's real science, it's all good. Of course science includes hypotheses that we work with in absence of better models, and until struck down or revised be better info.

I can't believe I'm butting

jollyroger — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 05:35:48 +0000

In reply to Specifically over the last

I can't believe I'm butting into this circle jerk...what is your point, exactly? That some portion of the "reasoning section" of an IPCC report drew or purported to draw, a logically indefensible inference, so your panties are permanently wedged up your crack?

As you cogently (!) point out in the end, it's getting hotter along just the dismal predictive curve.

Specifically over the last

PeraclesPlease — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 05:28:23 +0000

In reply to however previous IPCC

Specifically over the last 11000 years, yes, that is their position:

It is thus clear that the current rate of global climate change is much more rapid and very unusual in the context of past changes....

....Another unusual aspect of recent climate change is its cause: past climate changes were natural in origin (see FAQ 6.1), whereas most of the warming of the past 50 years is attributable to human activities......

....Before 2,000 years ago, temperature variations have not been systematically compiled into large-scale ave ages, but they do not provide evidence for warmer-than-present global annual mean temperatures going back through the Holocene (the last 11,600 years; see Section 6.4).....

....Second, local changes must not be confused with global changes. Local climate changes are often much larger than global ones, since local factors (e.g., changes in oceanic or atmospheric circulation) can shift the delivery of heat or moisture from one place to another and local feedbacks operate (e.g., sea ice feedback). Large changes in global mean temperature, in contrast, require some global forcing (such as a change in greenhouse gas concentration or solar activity).....

...It is thus clear that the current rate of global climate change is much more rapid and very unusual in the context of past changes.....

[more detail at: http://co2now.org/Know-the-Changing-Climate/Climate-Changes/ipcc-faq-why... ]

Elsewhere:

Thus current evidence does not support globally synchronous periods of anomalous cold or warmth over this timeframe, and the conventional terms of �Little Ice Age� and �Medieval Warm Period� appear to have limited utility in describing trends in hemispheric or global mean temperature changes in past centuries. With the more widespread proxy data and multi-proxy reconstructions of temperature change now available, the spatial and temporal character of these putative climate epochs can be reassessed.

http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/wg1/070.htm

Elsewhere:

During the last ice age, over 20 abrupt and dramatic climate shifts occurred that are particularly prominent in records around the northern Atlantic (see Section 6.4). These differ from the glacial-interglacial cycles in that they probably do not involve large changes in global mean temperature: changes are not synchronous in Greenland and Antarctica, and they are in the opposite direction in the South and North Atlantic. This means that a major change in global radiation balance would not have been needed to cause these shifts; a redistribution of heat within the climate system would have sufficed.

http://co2now.org/Know-the-Changing-Climate/Climate-Changes/ipcc-faq-nat...

However, some good/bad news released today - a Dutch group's 30-year-old temperature predictions (before global warming was an issue) based on CO2 emissions seems to be spot on, supporting the contention of CO2 as the main cause in global temperature change:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/04/04/1981_climate_paper/

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/about/ for a non-dogmatic scientific climate site