inconvenient truth- errors? 34

[davefitz]

Has anyone found any factual errors in the Movie "Inconvenient Truth" re: CO2 and expected increase in temperature?

 

[civilperson]

Climate change and air quality are different concepts. The US imported 3 million barrels of oil a day.

 

[josephv]

Honestly, if President Reagan stated that acid rain was caused by trees, what can we really expect from Vice President Gore?

Regards,

Joseph

 

[z633]

BTW my main array is 750W of used ARCO panels that were 5 years old, 18 years ago.

civil person..? not man, I deduce female. Emissions are Emissions period - pollution. Just because these are colorless and odorless do not mean they are harmless. As for LC's links; I really do not personally see any more value added, just more blabbering. And lastly, josephv, the old soviet union had a lot of trees, now they have been converted, acid rain is less of an issue... it must have worked.

Now the current PUSA. global warming happens because it is summer?

 

[DRC1]

Periods of galciation, Ice ages, are a reoccurring event in our history. The occur on large scale and small scale. The 17th & 18th century are refered to as a mini ice age. In order for a period of galciation, especialy global glaciation, an extended period of global warming must occur. how does this happen? the earth is not as stable as we would like. The axis shifts slightly over the centuries, as does its orbit and other fetures such as the ionisphere.
So will the earth get warmer? - yes

Is this period begining now? - maybe, although there are indications of it, including rising gulf current temperatures, which bring more severe huricane seasons.

Is this because of our impact on the enviornment? - That is the million dollar question no one has asked. We could all live in mud huts and at some time global warming would begin anyway.

 

[electricpete]

In the thread "the cycle of global warming, I provided several links to credible sources supporting the claim that man is significantly contributing to a global warming trend. (Again LANL, LLNL, NANA, NOAA, NAS, WHOA, IPCC, NAS).

I issued a challenge in that thread for credible sources on the other side which has been completely unanswered (unless you guys think blogs are credible).

At the beginning of this thread I have reiterated my stance on credible sources and pointed out the obvious fact that Al Gore is not among them.

The majority of comments in this thread continue to dwell on Al Gore and provide links to weblogs as if these things have any place in the serious discussion.

Another credible source which appears credible is the Hadley Center which is part of the Met Office of the British Government. The list of their publications in peer-reviewed journals is huge:

http://www.metoffice.com/research/hadleycentre/pubs/refereed.html

Their climate models are impressive and well described:

http://www.metoffice.com/research/hadleycentre/models/modeltypes.html

In my view from these facts and other things you'll see poking around their web site it is clear this is a scientific organization, not some politication propaganda mill.

Their conclusions on the significant impact of man's CO2 emissions on global warming outlook are clear in the document entitled "Climate change and the greenhouse effect
- a briefing from the Hadley Centre" available for download here:

http://www.metoffice.com/research/hadleycentre/pubs/brochures/

On page 12, they explain why man's CO2 contribution has a significant impact on atmospheric CO2 even though manmade emission rate is much less than natural emission rate.

On page 19 - CO2 is THE major contributor to global warming.

On page 22 - demonstration of how large manmade climate forcings are compared to natural (similar view as Hansen of Nasa).

On page 25 - more about their computer models.

On page 26 and 27 - evidence of global warming trend from multiple independent measurement methods.

Page 29 - natural factors cannot explain global warming.

Page 30 - the observed global warming trend is well-predicted when man-made factors are added.

This is just a teaser to a few key points. I know some of you guys will be in a rush to go point out where and why it's wrong. Do me a favor and take a read before you judge.


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[GregLocock]

Teaser is right.

I don't seem to have the same page numbers as you. Anyway

P12 If my bank balance is 200 dollars overdrawn, does that prove that when I went out to dinner and paid the 200 dollar bill, that therefore stopping eating out is the best response? no. Why is the natural carbon cycle magically able to compensate for the variations in natural CO2 production, but not the additional tiny load of the manmade CO2? How does it tell the difference?

P19, no it isn't. Water is. see P14

P22 but excludes water

Sorry, I haven't got time to read the whole thing, but it seems to be an agenda-driven botch job.


Cheers

Greg Locock

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

 

[electricpete]

Thanks for taking a look. What I called page numbers are the number on the bottom of my pdf reader (1 of 71, 2 of 71, etc).

I would agree the presentation aims to make a point.

You have a right and perhaps an obligation to be skeptical.

The basic point I will repeat is that this is a credible organization (not based on the content of the report but based on the fact that it employs many scientists and actually studies the issue through state of the art models, rather than just talking about it like 99% of the naysayers).

My primary criteria for credible organizations are 1 - large organizations whose primary function is technical and 2 - who have made their reputation outside of the realm of global warming predictions.

I think you should agree these folks meet #1. I'm not so sure about #2... I think global study is the main point of the Hadley center although they are part of a larger organization that has a much broader role. Maybe someone from the U.K. can chime in. There are of course among the other organizations listed plenty who meet both criteria.

I have not seen anything close to a large credible technical organization endorsing the naysayer stance. I think if you look through the links posted on that side posted in this and the other site you will see single individuals (Dr X from University Y), a few cleverly named centers which upon digging invariably have no function other than to "provide information" and usually are funded by big business. Is there someone out there with a supercomputer model that supports the naysayer view? I haven't seen it.

It will never be an open and shut case but to me the credible sources are all lined up on one side. Again please judge the credibility considering the technical nature of the organization and not whether you agree with their conclusions. I repeat my challenge to everyone... credible organizations on the other side?

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[electricpete]

"P12 Why is the natural carbon cycle magically able to compensate for the variations in natural CO2 production, but not the additional tiny load of the manmade CO2? How does it tell the difference?"

P12
"As can be seen from the slide, these man-made
fluxes are much smaller than the fluxes in the
natural carbon cycle. However, the natural carbon
cycle is in balance, and has led to concentrations
of CO2 in the atmosphere remaining relatively
constant for the thousand years before the
industrial revolution."

If you disagree with their logic, why not look at the data. Atmospheric CO2 has increased 25-40% in the industrial era and is now the highest in the 600,000 year history recorded in ice cores. Do you think it's just a coincidence that we happened to hit our 600,000 year high (and still increasing) at this particular point time? That's a pretty big coincidence for me to swallow. I find it easier to believe that the scientists who study this full time actually know what they're talking about.




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[electricpete]

Let me quickly clarify that the "actually know what they're talking about" was NOT meant as a slam against anyone here. It was meant to emphasize the irony of the unlikely vs likely alternatives (imho). Unlikely that we hit the 600kyr high by coincidence. Likely that they know what they're talking about.

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[electricpete]

In an attempt to provide some backup for my statements about CO2:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4467420.stm

Over a five year period commencing in 1999, scientists working with the European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica (Epica) have drilled 3,270m into the Dome C ice, which equates to drilling nearly 900,000 years back in time.

Gas bubbles trapped as the ice formed yield important evidence of the mixture of gases present in the atmosphere at that time, and of temperature.

"One of the most important things is we can put current levels of carbon dioxide and methane into a long-term context," said project leader Thomas Stocker from the University of Bern, Switzerland.

"We find that CO2 is about 30% higher than at any time, and methane 130% higher than at any time; and the rates of increase are absolutely exceptional: for CO2, 200 times faster than at any time in the last 650,000 years."

I'm not saying these guys are necessarily in the category of those credible groups we can trust to draw unbiased conclusions (I haven't researched them). I don't think the extradinary increase in CO2 is in question (but I'll dig up some more sources if anyone doubts it). There seems far more questions discussed concerning whether increased CO2 will affect the climate.

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[electricpete]

"P19, no it isn't. Water is. see P14"
The way I understand it, we have a big model which includes many feedbacks. Water vapor is one of the most important parts (and somewhat unknown) parts in the system model and the feedbacks.

There are also forcings. These are things outside the system model that change over time and provide an input to the system model. That would be CO2 concentration change, earth tilt change, etc.

NASA and Hadley center both describe it this way (although I may have jumbled it a little in the translation).

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[GregLocock]

OK, I've skimmed through the whole thing now.

The modelling looks pretty convincing (although see point 3), and although I think they are pushing an agenda in accordance with the prejudices of their paymasters, it seems to be a reasonable summary.

so, for my initial set of questions

1 is the climate changing? Yes

2 is it getting warmer (on average)? Yes

3 is a large part of this change due to increasing levels of greenhouse gases? Probably - assuming that all of the models are as convincing as the one shown. I'm making the assumption that if the output of the model is correct, and the science is honest, then they are able to break down the contributions correctly. However, many of these models are calibrated by fine tuning the 'constants' in the program, to agree with historical data. The fact that they then agree with that data is no proof that they are correct.

4 Is the increase in greenhouse gases affected significantly by mankind? Not proven. The report does not identify why the natural carbon cycle is in equilibrium, but special naughty manmade carbon is outside the feedback loop. That seems frankly preposterous.

I'll add some new ones, gleaned from this thread and that article.

5 Is the predicted climate change a beneficial or a retrograde step, on average?

6 Is there any sign that any amount of effort by the global community will actually have much effect on the climate change? No. In the next 30 years NONE of the 4 economic/greenhouse scenarios will make a skerrick of difference (look at the results for 2005-2035 on the graph on pdf P41). No politician is capable of planning that far ahead, and no democratic nation will opt for low growth, if the pain is immediate and continual, and the benefits will be completely invisible for 30 years.

7 Are there better approaches than just reducing economic activity to suppress greenhouse gas concentrations? or warming?

Well, they've suggested one, pouring fresh water into the Gulf Stream. That's probably not a smart move, fresh water is a far more valuable resource than that. So, how about cloud seeding? Sulphate smog chimneys? High albedo roofs? Aluminium foil (oops bad idea) coverings for deserts?

As I've said before, I'm not against reducing fossil fuel usage. It is an irreplaceable resource, and its extraction and consumption (particularly coal) are both messy and unnattractive industries.



Cheers

Greg Locock

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

 

[electricpete]

I think we are not too far apart in opinions on this subject.

I agree on your item 3 - model constants can be tweaked. The more numeric assumptions you can tweak, the more ability to make it match the test case trial data (in this case historic data). It's not a proof unless you trust the source.

On your item 4 I think we go back to the ice cores again. Is it some coincidence that we happen to live at a time with highest CO2 in 650,000 years and increasing at a rate 200 times higher than at any time in the past ( between 650k years ago and the start of the industrial revolution). No, I do not buy that coincidence.

On item 5 - We are creating an experiment introducing a very strong bias for upward temperature change. And a ton of inertia in the system which means that even when we stop adding CO2 the effects will continue. Obviously, the safe thing is not to journey too far into the unknown. Meanwhile there are plenty of adverse effects we can anticipate (massive displacement of people near sea level).

On item 6 - Our CO2 is the major forcer in this change. To say it's not worth trying because we're not sure it'll make a difference... sounds like the guy who is $100k in debt in his credit cards. Why pay more than the minimum monthly payment... after all that few hundred extra dollars a month to drive down the principle will barely make a dent. The answer is it's not going to go away unless we make it go away. Ignoring it won't make it go away. The longer we ignore it without addressing it the more painful it is to dig out of the hole.







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[z633]

Yeah, I Know, more of the ridiculous again. But if in fact large cold? blooded reptilian creatures roamed, well, pretty much the whole planet. The global temperature must have been well above what it is today. The question I wounder is what did these creatures do in the winter? Snakes and lizards hibernate, maybe that is it.

 

[LCruiser]

Again: Correlation is not causation, and just because A causes B does not mean all of a change in B is caused by A, nor that it's portion is even detectable.

There is a great deal of discussion now whether or not some collection of temperatures on land accurately reflects "global warming" (7 collections, 7 different trends). The new measurement, in light of the magnintude of heat storage capacities, is heat in the ocean. There is as much heat capacity in the top two meters of the ocean than the atmosphere, and in land a mere few more centimeters.

The fact that the ocean is now cooling, in concert with natural variability theory, is something the sites electricpete quotes will not mention.

http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/~lyman/Pdf/heat_2006.pdf

The Hadley Centre is hardly an objective source.

Here is the beginning of a discussion on heat capacities, and a good access point to the previous and subsequent threads on the site - black carbon and uncertainties.

http://tinyurl.com/lbukh

 

[electricpete]

z633 - I know... science is so annoying. It's so much more pleasant to listen only to the sources that tell us what we want to hear. For that I would refer you to LCruisers links in this thread and past links.

LCruiser
"The fact that the ocean is now cooling, in concert with natural variability theory, is something the sites electricpete quotes will not mention."

You might want to go back and read my previous post which suggested that you actually READ the document before you criticize it.

If you did, you would have known that the type of trends you mention are specifically shown and discussed on page 32 of 71 of my link. Specifically an overall upward trend, with a smaller variation up and down approx on the scale of decades which they had a hard time explaining. They never said it was a monotonically increasing function. They also acknowledged that ocean temperatures are a weaker and more unknown link in the argument based on challenges of sampling and vertical distribution.

None of this is in contradiction with the link you cited. In fact the link you cited provides many of the same thoughts:

http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/~lyman/Pdf/heat_2006.pdf

INTRO...With over 1000 times the heat capacity of the atmosphere, the World Ocean is the largest repository for changes in global heat content [Levitus et al., 2005]. Monitoring ocean heat content is therefore fundamental to detecting and understanding changes in the Earth’s heat balance. Past estimates of the global integral of ocean heat content anomaly (OHCA) indicate an increase of 14.5 ´ 10 22 J from 1955 to 1998 from the surface to 3000m [Levitus et al., 2005] and 9.2 (± 1.3) ´ 10 22 J from 1993 to 2003 in the upper (0 – 750 m) ocean [Willis et al. 2004]. These increases provide strong evidence of global
warming. Climate models exhibit similar rates of ocean warming, but only when forced by anthropogenic influences [Gregory et al., 2004; Barnett et al., 2005; Church et al.,
2005; Hansen et al., 2005].
While there has been a general increase in the global integral of OHCA during the last half century, there have also been substantial decadal fluctuations, including a short period of rapid cooling (6 ´ 10 22 J of heat lost in the 0–700 m layer) from 1980 to 1983 [Levitus et al., 2005]. Most climate models, however, do not contain unforced decadal variability of this magnitude [Gregory et al., 2004; Barnett et al., 2005, their Figure S1;
Church et al., 2005; and Hansen et al., 2005] and it has been suggested that such fluctuations in the observational record may be due to inadequate sampling of ocean
temperatures [Gregory et al., 2004]. We have detected a new cooling event that began in 2003 and is comparable in magnitude to the one in the early 1980s. Using high-resolution satellite data to estimate sampling error, we find that both the recent event and the cooling of the early 1980s are significant with respect to these errors.

DISCUSSION:...
This work has several implications. First, the updated time series of ocean heat content presented here (Figure 1) and the newly estimated confidence limits (Figure 3)
support the significance of previously reported large interannual variability in globally integrated upper-ocean heat content [Levitus et al., 2005]. However, the physical causes for this type of variability are not yet well understood. Furthermore, this variability is not adequately simulated in the current generation of coupled climate models used to study the impact of anthropogenic influences on climate [Gregory et al., 2004; Barnett et al.
2005; Church et al. 2005; and Hansen et al., 2005]. Although these models do simulate the long-term rates of ocean warming, this lack of interannual variability represents a shortcoming that may complicate detection and attribution of human-induced climate influences.

So these guys see the same overall upward trend with shorter term oscillations that are hard to explain (just like the Hadley center). Their major finding is that we happen to be in the middle of a shorter-term downward oscillation. Exactly what do you think this proves?

For the record, NOAA is a part of the US government and a scientific organization and far more credible than the majority of leaks spewed by the sketpics here. You may find it informative to browse their website to step beyond the business and political links and see what science is telling us:

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/globalwarming.html

"Are greenhouse gases increasing?
Human activity has been increasing the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (mostly carbon dioxide from combustion of coal, oil, and gas; plus a few other trace gases). There is no scientific debate on this point. Pre-industrial levels of carbon dioxide (prior to the start of the Industrial Revolution) were about 280 parts per million by volume (ppmv), and current levels are about 370 ppmv. The concentration of CO2 in our atmosphere today, has not been exceeded in the last 420,000 years, and likely not in the last 20 million years. According to the IPCC Special Report on Emission Scenarios (SRES), by the end of the 21st century, we could expect to see carbon dioxide concentrations of anywhere from 490 to 1260 ppm (75-350% above the pre-industrial concentration)."

"Is the climate warming?
Yes. Global surface temperatures have increased about 0.6°C (plus or minus 0.2°C) since the late-19th century, and about 0.4°F (0.2 to 0.3°C) over the past 25 years (the period with the most credible data). The warming has not been globally uniform. Some areas (including parts of the southeastern U.S.) have, in fact, cooled over the last century. The recent warmth has been greatest over North America and Eurasia between 40 and 70°N. Warming, assisted by the record El Niño of 1997-1998, has continued right up to the present, with 2001 being the second warmest year on record after 1998.....Indirect indicators of warming such as borehole temperatures, snow cover, and glacier recession data, are in substantial agreement with the more direct indicators of recent warmth.

...Large and rapid climatic changes affecting the atmospheric and oceanic circulation and temperature, and the hydrological cycle, occurred during the last ice age and during the transition towards the present Holocene period (which began about 10,000 years ago). Based on the incomplete evidence available, the projected change of 3 to 7°F (1.5 - 4°C) over the next century would be unprecedented in comparison with the best available records from the last several thousand years.

LCruiser wrote:

The Hadley Centre is hardly an objective source.

Here is the beginning of a discussion on heat capacities, and a good access point to the previous and subsequent threads on the site - black carbon and uncertainties.

http://tinyurl.com/lbukh

[The link leads to "Climate Science: Roger Pielke Sr. Research Group Weblog"

So if I'm understanding you correctly, the Hadley center which is an arm of the British government, using one of the best climate models in the world is not an objective source. But you would refer us instead to a blog. Am I the only one that sees the irony here?

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[LCruiser]

The irony here is that you are dismissing Colorado State University for the Hadley Centre. I have no intention of reading more than a couple of pages from the Hadley Centre as they are in no way objective. Compare their position on their brochures with this statement from the IPCC about their third report:

"Feedbacks between atmospheric chemistry, climate, and the biosphere were not developed to the stage that they could be included in the projected numbers here. Failure to include such coupling is likely to lead to systematic errors and may substantially alter the projected increases in the major greenhouse gases."

http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/128.htm

 

[electricpete]

I am the first to admit I have no idea what I am dismissing. The page you linked is labeled "webblog". If there is some link there to some organization then I missed it (entirely possible). If you can point more more directly to a description of this organization that you are holding up as more credible than the Hadley center, then I would appreciate it. It would be at least the beginning of an attempt to answer my challenge for credible sources on the other side which still remains unanswered.

Is Hadley's model perfect? Absolutely not. Are there better models? Not too many that I know of. (I doubt that CSU has any but I'm interested to hear). Yes there is uncertainty in Hadley's projections. And Hadley does not shy away from those uncertainties - you will find plenty of discussion of them in that document and their other literature (but you actually have to read them).

But the important part, even though they're not perfect, the best available projections that we have as input to our decision-making come from folks like Hadley center. The real unknown truth could be better or worse than those projections. Depending on your predisposition, that will make your less or more comfortable about the situation.

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[LCruiser]

Both the Pielkes - one at Colorado State in Fort Collins, the other at the University of Colorado in Boulder, are highly respected in their fields. Here are some basic links about their organizations:

http://blue.atmos.colostate.edu/

http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/about_us/index.html

The first uncertainty is how much warming is due to increased CO2, and how much is due to other GHG's, denudation of existing arable land, solar factors, and other unknowns.

Then, the second uncertainty is the question of how bad is warming anyway? A lot more people live on the equator than at the poles, indicating logically that warmer is better than colder.

Third concerns the fact that CO2 is the base of the food chain. How much good, considering Earth's burgeoning population, will an increase in that supply be, compared to how bad it is. How, exactly, will the biosphere react to this increased food supply - particularly on marginally arable land?

http://www.co2science.org

The comprehensive question, then, is do we really need to address increasing CO2 or should we be looking more at education concerning land use etc. We don't have those answers, but the wannabe power brokers (literally) like the Oil for Food guys at the UN and the Enrons of the world just want to set up a carbon trading scheme for their profit. That's the real irony - the current leaders at the UN don't care about feeding the third world - they just want to broker carbon.

 

[electricpete]

Well, you'll have to give me just a little bit more to go on as to why you consider these guys a credible source. I'm sorry to be blunt, but the fact that an anonomous eng-tips user such as yourself says they are highly respected doesn't quite meet my burden of proof. I hope we all are excercizing just a little more skepticism on the sources of our informaiton than that.

It looks like these guys rely on donations:

http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/about_us/donate.pdf

Do they have any financial disclosure that tells us exactly who they are working for? In the absence of knowing who paid for these opinions, they mean nothing. There are of course plenty of people who would pay money to get quack PhD's to say whatever they want. In contrast, the Hadley center is part of the British government that has no financial stake in skewing the results one way or another.

What kind of models do these guys run? What do their results say about the feedbacks? Do they predict more or less change in temperature from CO2 than what the Hadley center is saying? Can you provide a link to their model results?

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