After decades of research that sought, and found, evidence of a human influence on the earth’s climate, climatologists are beginning to shift to a new and similarly daunting enterprise: creating decade-long forecasts for climate, just as meteorologists routinely generate weeklong forecasts for weather.
One of the first attempts to look ahead a decade, using computer simulations and measurements of ocean temperatures, predicts a slight cooling of Europe and North America, probably related to shifting currents and patterns in the oceans…
The authors stressed that the pause in warming represented only a temporary blunting of the centuries of rising temperatures that scientists have projected if carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases continue accumulating in the atmosphere…
Other researchers, including NASA scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, reported separately on April 21 that a slowly fluctuating oscillation in Pacific Ocean temperatures had already shifted into its cool phase, a condition that also is thought to exert an overall temporary cooling of the climate.
These natural variations can also amplify warming, and that is likely to happen on and off in future decades as well, experts say.
Nutballs – of course – will not comprehend the word “temporary”. But, then, the differences between climate and weather don’t always sink into the brains of those who use the Weather Channel as their prime source for meteorologic science.
The funny thing is, meteorologists can’t accurately predict the weather beyond 10 days, so seeing climatologists predicting what the world’s climate will be like 10 years from now will be interesting.
And I love South of the Border.
#63 – Vince,
Weather forecasting is completely and utterly separate from climate science. Here’s a list from wikipedia ‘s climatology page of the related fields inherent in climate science.
Don’t see meteorology in the list, do you?
But, since most people can’t tell the difference between climatology and meteorology, it makes great headlines when some TV weather personality states that they don’t believe in global warming, as if not believing will make it go away.
#61 – TheGlobalWarmer,
Do a simple cost/benefit analysis. Compare what we have to give up to stop Global Warming (TM) versus the effects of Global Warming (TM).
You’ve finally given me an in for an argument with you. This may be the most intelligent thing you’ve ever said. But, be prepared to be convinced that you’ve been on the wrong side for a long time.
Here’s E.O. Wilson, Harvard biologist and two time Pulitzer Prize winning author, reminding us of a study done in 1998 that showed that the services a functioning natural biosphere provide to humanity free of all cost to us are worth $30,000,000,000,000 a year!! Yes, that’s thirty trillion dollars a year.
Sorry there are no mid page links for this site. Search for trillion on the page.
http://tinyurl.com/5rgloj
Here’s a little more detail on the way such calculations can be performed.
http://tinyurl.com/6826k6
#62, Misanthropic. Yes, water vapor is usually not included precisely because it is the most difficult to model. It is also the largest greenhouse gas by far. Therefore, any model which does not accurately incorporate water vapor isn’t ready for prime time.
The reason I didn’t include Venus in the response is because it’s an idiotic comparison. I usually don’t waste my time on something so absurd, but it looks like I will have spend just a moment on this.
The Venusian atmosphere is:
Surface pressure 9.3 MPa
Composition ~96.5% Carbon dioxide
~3.5% Nitrogen
.015% Sulfur dioxide
.007% Argon
.002% Water vapor
.0017% Carbon monoxide
.0012% Helium
.0007% Neon
trace Carbonyl sulfide
trace Hydrogen chloride
trace Hydrogen fluoride
The Earth’s atmosphere is:
Surface pressure 101.3 kPa (MSL)
Composition 78.08% Nitrogen (N2)
20.95% Oxygen (O2)
0.93% Argon
0.038% Carbon dioxide
About 1% water vapor (varies with climate)
The Venusian atmospheric density is 92 times that of Earth, and the CO2 concentration is over 2,500 times greater!
Must stop typing, this comparison is making me stoopider….
#66 – Ah_Yea,
I think you may have made my point rather than your own. So, CO2 is what is responsible for the temperature of Venus. Why do you believe that we can double its concentration here on Earth and not have an effect?
To finish the thought. Misanthropic, I hope you now see that using Venus as a comparison to Earth in any way only serves to undermine your credibility.
On the other hand, the question about doubling the concentration of CO2 is legitimate.
Let’s take one quick look at this. The current concentration of water vapor to CO2 is 26.3 to one.
Given the information cited in prior posts, we can safely say that water vapor is 2X more effective in retaining heat than CO2. This tells us that water vapor currently retains 52.6 times more heat than CO2.
Doubling the concentration of CO2 will have some consequences, just not “The Day After Tomorrow” consequences.
The real question is, “What if the concentration were 3, 4, or 5 times greater?”
Not as much as most people think.
“Carbon dioxide is released to the atmosphere by a variety of natural sources, and over 95% percent of total CO2 emissions would occur even if humans were not present on Earth. For example, the natural decay of organic material in forests and grasslands, such as dead trees, results in the release of about 220 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide every year. This carbon dioxide alone is over 8 times the amount emitted by humans”.
http://tinyurl.com/23xvq9
But why take chances???
Now let me go back and state my overriding point. This entire debate on global warming is a red herring (I.E diverts us from more important matters). Governments and people waste entirely too much time debating humanities current effect, and using this debate to stall any meaningful departure from fossil fuels.
With gas prices north of $4.00/gallon, with the whole Middle East thing, the obvious detrimental health effects, etc… we don’t need to discuss global warming to have plenty of reasons to switch to something renewable.
Oh, and I forgot this link. Did you know that we are still at an unusually low CO2 concentration? That in fact, the earth did very, very well with concentrations higher than 20 times what it is today?
http://tinyurl.com/56qxkn
Also, did you know that water vapor on Venus is what kick-started the run-away greenhouse effect?
Additionally, did you know that likening the Earth to Venus in any way shows that you cannot grasp the simple concept that these two systems are not comparable? That it makes you look ignorant?
Well, hopefully now you do.
About Venus.
“Studies have suggested that several billion years ago Venus’s atmosphere was much more like Earth’s than it is now, and that there were probably substantial quantities of liquid water on the surface, but a runaway greenhouse effect was caused by the evaporation of that original water, which generated a critical level of greenhouse gases in its atmosphere.”
And here is the link.
http://tinyurl.com/5qv693
I’m done with this thread. Some people, no matter how much you show their ignorance, will decide to remain in the dark.
#70 – Ah_Yea,
Some people, no matter how much you show their ignorance, will decide to remain in the dark.
Not much of a way to convince people.
From your first link, in post #90, I note that the CO2 levels correspond nicely to mass extinction events, especially the P/T boundary, the largest of them all.
I also note that it was only when the CO2 began to fall after the K/T impact, that life began once again to proliferate.
Oddly, you didn’t point out how today’s level is still dramatically higher than during any period through which humans have survived.
You might try reading Under a Green Sky. It’s a very good book written by the geologist who proved the impact theory of the K/T extinction. He now points out another mechanism for the other 4 non-human caused mass extinctions.
Regarding Venus, I know there are differences. However, there are also some similarities that can be legitimately discussed. But since you don’t like that as an argument, perhaps you’ll look at any of the other evidence put forth in the peer reviewed publications.
Yes, solar radiation makes it in there too. But to claim it as the primary cause goes strongly against the vast majority of published climate science papers floating around.
Bobbo, water vapor is built into the models, the problem is they really don’t know how it should be treated. Global warming creates more evaporation of the oceans which means more water vapor, which means more warming, which mean higher temperatures. Or is it that global warming creates more evaporation which creates more clouds which means more sunlight reflected back into space which means lower warming?
This is one of the three main variables that blow the models away. The others are ocean sensitivity and aerosol forcing. You adjust these and you can change or even reverse warming by many degrees Celsius over a century.
It is obvious that more CO2 means more warming. It is less obvious that CO2 released at the surface will reach the upper atmosphere and have the same impact. Given the somewhat newly discovered timelag, that global warming creates CO2 700 years later, and the relationship between the sun and temperature, it is certainly possible that all of the observed CO2 increase is due to natural forces.
It is more obvious that even if industry is causing the warming, that the proposed solutions are worse, especially as even under the scientists own models, they don’t work.
A $5 gas tax lowers temperatures negligibly. The Kyoto Treaty is only supposed to be a first step, and in fact much deeper restrictions are ‘needed’ under the models. Europe is having trouble meeting even the restrictions under Kyoto, despite all their advantages(England switched to gas Germany got East Germany) so how even deeper cuts are achieved is beyond me.
I’ll check out the book.
MikeN makes a good point about the models. As of yet, they apparently need more work.
Even the introduction says as much when they say “probably”. We are talking about a computer simulation, and they don’t even know how they got the answers?
I’ll read the book. I bet it’s good.
Remember, one of the best hallmarks of science over such things as religion is that science can change it’s conclusions based on new facts and evidence. The effects of the solar cycle is one of these new evidences.
Remember also, it was accepted fact, backed with volumes of scientific papers, that the earth was the center of the universe. That is, until more evidence was produced.
And I apologize if it got too personal. My mistake and I’m sorry for it.
#74 – Ah_Yea,
Apology accepted. No big deal. My skin is pretty thick.
It’s not that new that solar radiation is one of the factors in global warming. Check the number of hits on this Google Scholar search with an upper bound of 1999. Some of the articles about it go back to 1990.
http://tinyurl.com/5uc4m7
This has not had much of an effect on the opinions of climate scientists to date. This is and the percentage influence most papers attribute to solar radiation are the reasons I don’t put too much hope in the possibility that global warming is not a human catastrophe.
That said, I agree that science changes as new data is discovered. I would love to believe that we’ve been wrong and that everything is fine. The problem is that the majority of data simply doesn’t support the viewpoint.
Further, acting on such a viewpoint is betting on the long shot that anthropogenic climate change is false … and the stakes are the survival of our species and many other species I find far more beautiful than our own.
Thank you, and I agree completely.
Yea, I’ve worked with some of these models. You give values for these variables as well as greenhouse gas emissions from different countries, and out pops temperature after about 10 minutes. Change those variables a little is like changing greenhouse gas emissions substantially.
There is also some sort of economic model built in, as they all showed the Chinese being the big emitter in the future, which has now come to pass.
Scott–Ah Yea’s point is that whatever happens on Venus, stays on Venus. Correlations are NOT PROOF. Silly to argue they are. Correlations offer avenues of investigation to find causative relationships, not correlations.
Mike–very similar to above, what “proof” do you have that increases in atmospheric co2 will raise temps on earth and how do you say this even after noting the time lag?
Questions are asked to defend the proposition of global warming–and perhaps to understand the scientific method?
#65 – Ah but what is the cost of living in a city and using mass transit. That’s the equivalent of being dead, which trumps money.
I’m looking forward to building a 8000 sq ft home on Greenland when it thaws.
Well, we have Venus, and of course any number of small scale observations of the greenhouse effect. This is not proof, just indicates a possibility. The time lag is significant, and it could be that the current increases in CO2 in the upper atmosphere are all natural. More importantly, the historical record shows that there is a means by which the planet reduces the level of CO2 as well, instead of being in a constant feedback loop. Of course this has also led to ice ages.
I had a really big version of a wood stove custom built, and I’m drying and seasoning a big stack of industrialists for use as fuel in the coming winter months. Does that make me carbon neutral?
Spoken like a true fan of Captain Planet.