Kicking the Climate Change Cat Further Down the Road... 43

[ewh]

What is the reputation of the NIPCC (Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, a organization of 50 "top" scientists) in the engineering community? I really don't know how reliable they are, but a study (Climate Change Reconsidered II) produced by them and published by the Heartland Institute (an organization which espouses other ideas I disagree with) claims to be "double peer reviewed" and presents a seemingly well-founded arguement that AGW is a political red herring.
I am not a climate scientist, but thought that this was a good example of one side of the differing dogmas surrounding the issue. Just how is a layman supposed to make sense of these opposing arguments?

http://climatechangereconsidered.org/

or the summary

http://heartland.org/media-library/pdfs/CCR-II/Summary-for-Policymakers.pdf

“Know the rules well, so you can break them effectively.”
-Dalai Lama XIV

 

[AELLC]

I could care less if CO2 lags temperature or vice versa - horse droppings.

If your house is on fire, you don't wait and wonder what caused it - you get your butt out, quick

 

[AELLC]

If the United States can make the effort to be the World Number One Supplier of Armaments, then I would think our political leaders could do something about global warming. It is merely a long process of shifting our production from Bombs to Butter. Very simple, it just may take a few years.

 

[JohnRBaker]

...the rising sea levels will be the least of our worries.

Perhaps, but rising sea levels will be an issue that will be harder to pretend as being in dispute by quoting conflicting studies and suggesting that perhaps we need to wait a bit longer to see if the 'science' becomes a bit clearer before we start to take any preemptive actions. I mean when the major coastal cities around the world start looking like Venice, it may be a bit late to conclude that perhaps something actually has been causing the polar ice-caps to melt.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[rb1957]

maybe our contribution (to global wamring) is the amount of hot air we're spilling over it ?

@rconnor ... nice graph, showing the globe's temperature warming after an ice age. tell me, if CO2 is the villian of the piece, why does the temperature fall at about 14,500 years whilst CO2 is increasing ? and likewise, why does it increase when CO2 is falling (some 1500 years later) ? tell me, if "The more CO2 that is released, the more the temperatures rise." is true, then why does the temperature stablise some 11000 years ago, yet CO2 continues to increase ?

Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati

 

[GregLocock]

"But that's no proof that 100% of global warming is due to anthropogenic carbon."

Indeed and I was very careful not to draw that conclusion.

I used it as an illustration that bleating about sceptics having closed minds and are not looking at the evidence is 100% wrong in my case at least. If someone says X, and I look at the data, and find that X is wrong, then typically that someone is either deluded or deliberately misrepresenting the facts. Which, inevitably gets found out, eventually.


Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376

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[zdas04]

Language is an interesting thing. First we see

A paper by Shakun et al, 2012 found that 90% of the warming during the last glacial-interglacial transition (~20,000 years ago) occurred after the CO2 increase.

And against my better judgement I followed the link and found an abstract that says (bold lettering is mine):

The covariation of carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration and temperature in Antarctic ice-core records suggests a close link between CO2 and climate during the Pleistocene ice ages. The role and relative importance of CO2 in producing these climate changes remains unclear, however, in part because the ice-core deuterium record reflects local rather than global temperature. Here we construct a record of global surface temperature from 80 proxy records and show that temperature is correlated with and generally lags CO2 during the last (that is, the most recent) deglaciation. Differences between the respective temperature changes of the Northern Hemisphere and Southern Hemisphere parallel variations in the strength of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation recorded in marine sediments. These observations, together with transient global climate model simulations, support the conclusion that an antiphased hemispheric temperature response to ocean circulation changes superimposed on globally in-phase warming driven by increasing CO2 concentrations is an explanation for much of the temperature change at the end of the most recent ice age.

To read the article requires paying $32 and I'm not $32 worth of interested, but the abstract seems a lot more reasoned than the "found that 90% of the warming" statement above. It is a major problem that when authors present research and people spin it to support an agenda. Shame on you.

Could it be that CO2 lags warming and then drives global cooling? Mother Nature is not real big on positive feedback loops so it is certainly plausible that warming temperatures (20,000 years ago absent mankind's contribution) releases CO2 from the retreating permafrost and from the oceans. This CO2 in the environment triggered some mechanism that reduced the solar energy reaching the earth in some second-order fashion but over the centuries is enough to reverse warming trends and the CO2 is recpatured by the oceans and permafrost. This scenario matches the data without relying on computer models. The time-scale resolution of the ice-core data is so course that lagging a hand full of decades or so would look very similar to an unbiased eye to concentration changes that lead warming by the same amount. Neither leading nor lagging can be "proven" from the data.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

Law is the common force organized to act as an obstacle of injustice Frédéric Bastiat

 

[cranky108]

AELLC---
"It is merely a long process of shifting our production from Bombs to Butter." If I am correct I believe that would require more cows to make butter, and would increase the production of methane.
Now that's really clean.

I do agree that the production of bombs is not the best thing, but at least it produces more jobs in this country than wind or solar does (I have no facts to prove this, but if you do, show them).

If you don't have any suggestions other than more taxes, then I will make a few for you tax freeks.
Why don't you try growing your own food (or at least part of it), by hand. Most people just don't understand how difficult it is, and why the heavy use of machines has brought down our food prices so much.
Maybe you should look at a 'get out and grow' movment as a way to reduce our dependence of fossel fuels.
Have you consitered boycotting plastics?
Have you insisted on paper bags? (they compost you know).

 

[AELLC]

I have thousands of miles commuting to work on bicycle, that was my contribution to ecology.

It may be impractical to grow food here, because we are having a disastrous drought, and the water rates are going to be increased draconically. Caused be global warming. Plus, the weather most of the year here is extreme high temperature. However, sorghum, cotton, some corn, and alfalfa are grown here.

Plastic bags are brought back to the grocery store to be recycled. One use of a paper bag is nonsense, and it is risky to re-use those.

Plastics are so essential, it would be idiotic to boycott that.

There is recyclable garbage pick-up for most residential homes in the area. Paper, cardboard metal cans, most plastics except bags and films, and glass.

 

[ornerynorsk]

"if your house is on fire" . . . . .

Alarmism. The sky is falling.

I'm all for taking care of our planet, don't get me wrong. Governments collecting more taxes accomplishes nothing, historically. Mandates = more burden/expense for the ordinary person, more opportunity for corruption and graft in government and big corporate.

It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.

 

[AELLC]

@ornery,

That isn't proper - you took my comment out of context.

 

[ornerynorsk]

I may have, but that was somewhat my point, the potential for extremism on both sides of the argument. There is balance somewhere in the whole mess.

It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.

 

[AELLC]

OK.

 

[satchmo]

Looks like we can all relax now.

http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-...-not-cost-the-earth-leaked-IPCC-report-admits

 

[JohnRBaker]

If anyone can be rated lower on a scale of factual and useful information than does Faux News, it would be Breitbart. At least Rupert Murdoch took the time to go to court and actually win a case where his layers argued that the 1st Amendment protected his right to have his reporters knowingly LIE on the air:

http://www.projectcensored.org/11-the-media-can-legally-lie/

In the case of Breitbart, they lie simply because that's ALL they know how to do.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[ornerynorsk]

http://news.yahoo.com/dinosaur-era-had-5-times-todays-co2-212124284.html

It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.

 

[rconnor]

zdas04,

The comment “The role and relative importance of CO2 in producing these climate changes remains unclear” is the problem statement. This paper looks to help clarify that problem. They explain their method on how they attempt to do that in the very next sentence, “Here we construct a record…”. They find that “temperature is correlated with and generally lags CO2 during the last deglaciation.”

“warming driven by increasing CO2 concentrations is an explanation for much of the temperature change at the end of the most recent ice age”

Let’s look into the article to see if we can try and quantify “much”.

First, we’ll relook at the figure I present in the last post. In haste, I didn’t explain it very well at all, my mistake. The red line is the Antarctic temperature, the yellow dots are atmospheric CO2 concentrations and the blue line is the global temperature.
[image

http://www.skepticalscience.com/pics/ShakunFig2a.jpg

]

Quotes from the paper:
“Our results indicate that CO2 probably leads global warming over the course of the deglaciation.”
“the small apparent lead of Antarctic temperature over CO2 in the ice-core records does not apply to global temperature”
“An important exception is the onset of deglaciation, which features about 0.3 C of global warming before the initial increase in CO2.”

From the figure, The global temperatures went from -3.5 C to 0 C, a rise of 3.5 C. The author states that 0.3 C of that warming occurred before the increase in CO2, so 0.3/3.5 = 8.5%, leaving 91.5% of the warming occurring after the CO2 rise. So, explain how I misrepresented the authors when I said:

90% of the warming during the last glacial-interglacial transition (~20,000 years ago) occurred after the CO2 increase

The major problem is that you don’t know what the paper says, thought that you did (but got it wrong), and attempted to blame me for misunderstanding what the authors were saying. Shame on you.

Almost the entire argument surrounding the trope “CO2 lags behind warming” comes from the comparison between Antarctic temperatures and atmospheric CO2. However, as illustrated in Shakun et al 2012, this does not tell the whole story or even the correct story. Antarctic temperature trends are very different than global temperature trends. Understanding the difference and relationship between the two is crucial (…but not for “skeptics” apparently). From discussion on variations in the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), Shakun et al present a consistent physical description of the warming during the last glacial-interglacial transition and demonstrate that CO2 was most likely the main driver behind the warming.

They conclude with:

Our global temperature stack and transient modelling point to CO2 as a key mechanism of global warming during the last deglaciation. Furthermore, our results support an interhemispheric seesawing of heat related to AMOC variability and suggest that these internal heat redistributions explain the lead of Antarctic temperature over CO2 while global temperature was in phase with or slightly lagged CO2.

 

[zdas04]

An author that writes an abstract that is as different from the paper as you are indicating isn't much of an author, hope he is a better scientist.

Regardless, there is a huge difference between a statement in a paper that 8.5% of the warming was lagging and you extrapolating that 90.5% was leading. An honest author will state conclusions. If the only conclusion he was able to draw was about the 8.5% then your extrapolation that the rest is leading is laughable. The granularity of the ice core data is certainly centuries, probably millennial. A 30 year or 80 year lead/lag would be lost in the granularity. The Church of AGW is hanging a lot of faith on the time period since the end of WWII which would not even be a blip in the ice core data.

Finally, today's version of Moses's conversation with a burning bush (i.e., computer model output) is only taken as gospel by the believers. I've only been doing computer modeling since 1980, but there are people in this conversation with real experience in the subject. They all say "models cannot prove anything". I can calibrate a CFD model to whistle Dixie. Then if my funding source changes, it is no big deal to re-calibrate it hum The Battle Hymn of the Republic. If I have a dataset with millennial data and I have to make up the intervening years to meld it with annual or seasonal data, then non-believers will continue to call foul, the faithful will nod wisely. This graph you keep posting has a "global temperature" line that is somehow extrapolated from ice core and sea-floor cored data (although the claim is that ice core data doesn't have anything to do with global data and the sea temperature is completely divorced from global temperature), so where did that line come from? Not many weather stations 22,000 years ago. Oh yeah, that like was invented from whole cloth by computer models. Gotta say, I'm not buying it.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

Law is the common force organized to act as an obstacle of injustice Frédéric Bastiat

 

[rconnor]

There was no issue with the abstract, it accurately represents the study. The issue was with your misinterpretation of it.

First you blamed me for your misinterpretation and ignorance of the study, now you’ve blamed the author for your misinterpretation and ignorance of their own study. That’s impressive!

 

[zdas04]

Glad you're impressed. I just read the abstract again and I fail to see any hint of the conclusions you've presented. Either the conclusions you've reached are outside the author's actual scope or the abstract does not reflect the contents of the paper. I don't see a third option.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

Law is the common force organized to act as an obstacle of injustice Frédéric Bastiat

 

[rconnor]

temperature is correlated with and generally lags CO2

Our results indicate that CO2 probably leads global warming over the course of the deglaciation… An important exception is the onset of deglaciation, which features about 0.3 C of global warming before the initial increase in CO2

- Analyzing the graph we see that the “increase in CO2” occurs at ~17 kyr, when global temperatures (blue) are at ~-3.2. This is 0.3 C warmer than the start of the deglaciation phase, exactly as stated by the author.
- CO2 leads the global temperature trend over the remainder of the period, ending with a temperature of 0 C, an increase of 3.2 since the “increase in CO2”.
- 3.2/3.5=91%
- Therefore:

A paper by Shakun et al, 2012 found that 90% of the warming during the last glacial-interglacial transition (~20,000 years ago) occurred after the CO2 increase

Might I suggest a third option: you misinterpreted the abstract, the graph, my comment or all three.

(I’m leaning toward option three)