The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate 11

[Maui]

These "small" volcanic eruptions are being viewed by some scientists as potentially having a greater influence on earth's climate than was previously believed:

http://www.rdmag.com/news/2015/01/s...?et_cid=4359172&et_rid=407330416&location=top

Please do not allow the vitriolic verbal pyrotechnics of your fellow contributors overshadow the points that you are attempting to make in your replies.

Maui

 

[cranky108]

" fake Apollo guys", you mean the guys that landed in area 51? This is a good example of people who despite proof don't believe the other side.

I agree that education maybe the answer, but with a dropout rate in some places near 50%, how do you propose that? There are many social nets that can support someone who won't accept an education.
Look at some of the Amish communities who are likely the most carbon neutral, and only have a 6th grade education. Everyone else has a higher level of education, yet because of the modern world are much less carbon neutral. So one could argue that education is not the answer.

The issue with the green energy, is many times there are so many people who want those options that they are sold out. But these things are not really all green. When the wind dosen't blow, at night, is it really green? Do there lights not work? But if these things include hydro power, they might really be green. There is no green energy storage.

If DSM really worked, would we see energy usage decrease? Until recently the load growth over whelmed the amount of DSM, so it did make since. But if load wasen't growing would it really make since for a utility to pay people to not use it's product? It's a plan to cut the rise in usage, not cut usage. There's a difference.

Are there any car companies who will pay me to not drive there cars? Any oil companies who will pay me to not buy there gas?

"some gigantic conspiracy" yes, some political types want me to pay more taxes, and they don't care what excuse they use. So Climate change could qualify as a gigantic conspiracy, no matter which way the science falls. That's the reason I disagree with it no matter the science. Also why I want to see alternitives offered to the taxes just to disprove that taxes are the only answer.

 

[IRstuff]

"So Climate change could qualify as a gigantic conspiracy, no matter which way the science falls. That's the reason I disagree with it no matter the science."

If the science is correct, then there is no conspiracy; it's just business as usual for the politicos. My only disagreement with your statement is the "some" political types. I think it's all types; it's just the way that the taxation occurs that's different.

TTFN
faq731-376

Need help writing a question or understanding a reply? forum1529


Of course I can. I can do anything. I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!
There is a homework forum hosted by engineering.com:

http://www.engineering.com/AskForum/aff/32.aspx

 

[GTTofAK]

It does not follow that if catastrophic AGW theory is correct that the science was good science. You may think something is true. It might be true. But if you cheat to provd it, it being true does not make the cheating right.

Just because someone gets the right answer does not mean that they didn't cheat.

 

[IRstuff]

and if everyone else gets the right answer, did they all cheat, or were you just wrong?

TTFN
faq731-376

Need help writing a question or understanding a reply? forum1529


Of course I can. I can do anything. I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!
There is a homework forum hosted by engineering.com:

http://www.engineering.com/AskForum/aff/32.aspx

 

[rb1957]

geeze guys, c'mon. it's not black or white, truth or lies; it's a whole bunch of grey ... there's truth and (IMHO) fabrication on both sides. Fifty years from now I expect that both sides will be claiming victory ... believers will be saying "I told you so" and non-believers will be saying "of course the climate has changed, but not for the reasons you said (50 years ago)".

I believe it is impossible to reduce the global CO2 emissions to anything like the level of 1990. I expect that whatever gains (ie reductions) are made in the NA and Europe will be swamped by increases in the developing countries (India, China, Brazil).

If we were truly serious about reducing CO2 emissions we'd be ...
1) investing in the electric economy, pointing the developing world towards this greener approach; though, no doubt, batteries will have their own non-green side effects,
2) investing in nukes,
3) investing in fusion reactors and power generation,
4) increasing the price of FFs.

Wind turbines are IMHO cosmetic at best.

another day in paradise, or is paradise one day closer ?

 

[GTTofAK]

If the are all copying each other. Climate models aren't exactly independent.

 

[2dye4]

What would the standard of proof look like.

Many have brought up the complexity of modeling the Earth and I am convinced to an extent that is may not be possible
to predict just what is going to happen.

But surely if the climate became 'different enough' one day we might conclude the one time only experiment complete and the
results in place that CO2 can alter the climate sufficiently to create economic damage far exceeding the costs associated
with alternatives and efficiency to reduces fossil fuels.

So where might we have to be to get say 97% ... no scratch that lets say 95% of the general public accepting the theory.
What type of weather manifestations would convince ?

What will we say to ourselves if the climate goes totally whacko and the suffering is great.

All this risk to avoid curtailing luxury consumption of fossil fuels. I will remember the position I took and if I am around
in 30 yrs will unhesitatingly reveal it. I hope those with emotional baggage drawing them toward skepticism will be honest
enough to do the same.

 

[rb1957]

as I understand it, different models include different processes depending on the lead scientist's ideas. personally, I'd've expected more difference between the models.

another day in paradise, or is paradise one day closer ?

 

[IRstuff]

"as I understand it, different models include different processes depending on the lead scientist's ideas. personally, I'd've expected more difference between the models."

Only up to a point. Since the purpose of the climate model is to predict future behavior, the model must be capable of correctly modeling past behavior, within reasonable error bounds. Since past behavior is known, to some degree, the models have to be able capture the predictable portions of the behavior, and only in the future can the differences in the models cause divergences.

TTFN
faq731-376

Need help writing a question or understanding a reply? forum1529


Of course I can. I can do anything. I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!
There is a homework forum hosted by engineering.com:

http://www.engineering.com/AskForum/aff/32.aspx

 

[cranky108]

It truly is complex and I would not expect anyone to believe any model that is overly simple. But on the other hand would anyone understand a very complex model?

I think it might be important to model things in singularty to see how much of an effect each has. CO2 is only one thing. CH4 is another. photo reflectivity, solar output, man made heat generation (not CO2 based), forest growth rates in respect to CO2, and solar output. cloud formation, percipitation, and evaporation rates. etc.

After all, if it were hotter, then the evaporation rate would go up. So where does the water go? More clouds, or more humidity, or more percipitation?

If there is more CO2, you would expect to see forest growth rates increase.

I have no doubt it is difficult to model. But I also don't believe some of the answers we are seeing, because they don't seem to give complete answers. I don't see more storms, I see less. And maybe that is people with an agenda blowing CO2. So for me to believe I need to see the removal of the hot air that is being presented. Al Gore is not helping you. The politics leaves a very bad after taste.

I do agree that CO2 is a problem in the short term, but I am not so sure nature won't solve this without man made fixes.

 

[beej67]

If I were a carbon Nazi, I'd change targets.

The 'shades of grey' truth is that mankind is probably only responsible for about 60% of the warming we see, and carbon is probably only responsible for around half of that. Two thirds at most. Which means completely eliminating carbon emissions (which is impossible) would still only reduce the sea level rise over the next century from around 9 inches to around 4 or 5 inches. And since complete elimination is impossible, all the effort in the world over the next century will probably only mean about 3 inches difference in sea level.

Ocean acidification, however, is a very serious deal that nobody's paying much attention to. Something like half the coral reef area in the world is gone due to the oceans slowly turning to carbonic acid. That's huge. And if the pH level crosses a certain threshold, every diatom in the ocean will die because it won't be able to make a shell. No more aqueous calcium.

That'd be a crisis that would make Deepwater Horizon look like a bird fart. Seriously.

And ocean acidification aught to be a much easier thing to model than mean surface temperature. There's no hydrologic cycle to speak of, cloud cover doesn't matter, volcanic eruptions (the thread) are pointless, etc.

Hey rconnor, have there been any studies to project what ppm CO2 concentration in the *ocean* would mean a collapse of the diatom link in the food chain?


Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East -

http://www.campbellcivil.com

 

[rconnor]

I think it might be important to model things in singularty to see how much of an effect each has. CO2 is only one thing. CH4 is another. photo reflectivity, solar output, man made heat generation (not CO2 based), forest growth rates in respect to CO2, and solar output. cloud formation, percipitation, and evaporation rates. etc.

You can do this to an extent. And to that extent it has already been done. The issue is that a change in one aspect has a multiplicity of changes to other aspects. For example, the green house effect of CO2 can be easily tested in a lab (and recently it has been done in the field). However, what the lab measurements don’t take into account is the feedbacks that the initial events will cause. Which you correctly point out in your next sentence.

After all, if it were hotter, then the evaporation rate would go up. So where does the water go? More clouds, or more humidity, or more precipitation

You’re correct, it goes into all three. Now, next time someone says, “The impact of CO2 is predicted to be so much larger than in the lab, how can that be?”, you can say this to them – feedbacks matter. Regarding cloud feedbacks, I’d point you to the conversation between beej67 and myself earlier in this thread.

I do agree that CO2 is a problem in the short term, but I am not so sure nature won't solve this without man made fixes.

This is a common thought. What this really translates to is that they believe climate sensitivity is very low and unable to cause large swings in temperature. However, this thought is usually maintained by the same people that say “the climate has changed [drastically] in the past”. These two thoughts are mutually exclusive. Either climate sensitivity is low, and the Earth’s temperature cannot fluctuate drastically, or climate has changed drastically in the past. The latter appears to be factually true, which would make the former false.

A way to hold both thoughts simultaneously and without contradiction would be to posit that Earth’s climate had high sensitivity back then but now has low sensitivity. This drastic and sudden (and convenient, I might add) flipping of sensitivity, without explanation of how that could be (and none currently exists in the field of science), is to posit magically qualities to Earth’s climatic system.

mankind [you mean humankind, I’m sure] is probably only responsible for about 60% of the warming we see and carbon is probably only responsible for around half of that. Two thirds at most.

Perhaps it would be best to provide a proper reference to support your claim.

Ocean acidification, however, is a very serious deal that nobody's paying much attention to

I’m in agreement that ocean acidification is likely a significant issue. However, I believe there is a great deal of attention being put into it. For example, the term “acidification” appears 5 times in the IPCC AR5 WGI Summary for Policymakers and 9 times in WGII Summary for Policymakers. In fact, in WGII, ocean acidification is one of the 10 “climate-related drivers of impacts”. Furthermore, the IPCC has an entire workshop report dedicated to ocean acidification. Note that I have chosen to focus on the IPCC reports because the IPCC is the most centralized voice for climate science. Of course you’d be also welcome to review the thousands of papers on the subject by doing a Google Scholar search. Regardless, ocean acidification is a “serious deal that nobody’s the scientific community is paying much attention to”.

geeze guys, c'mon. it's not black or white, truth or lies; it's a whole bunch of grey ... there's truth and (IMHO) fabrication on both sides.

I’m in agreement with you. Again, climate science is not about determining the exact temperature and exact dollar value of damages in 2100. It’s about setting up the probability of these risks so that we can make informed policy decisions.

If we were truly serious about reducing CO2 emissions we'd be ...

Proper education on the science is required first (note, I didn’t say “in science” as IRstuff seemed to suggest before). So long as people continue to “learn” about the science from their echo-chambers (on both sides) and not from proper, non-ideologically driven sources, we won’t get that far. While no institution is completely free from bias, places like NASA, the various national academies of science and internationally respected scientific journals are the best places for “proper, non-ideologically driven sources”. I don’t see how this is honestly controversial, especially coming from scientifically inclined people.

 

[IRstuff]

"While no institution is completely free from bias, places like NASA, the various national academies of science and internationally respected scientific journals are the best places for “proper, non-ideologically driven sources”."

But, I think there are those that consider these to be part and parcel to the conspiracy. The so-called "Climate Gate" is still being bandied about as the smoking gun by certain parties, and the fact that a bunch of government agencies concluded that there was no misconduct would add fuel to the notion that if the EPA was involved, then NASA, by virtue of guilt by association, is likewise complicit in the conspiracy.

TTFN
faq731-376

Need help writing a question or understanding a reply? forum1529


Of course I can. I can do anything. I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!
There is a homework forum hosted by engineering.com:

http://www.engineering.com/AskForum/aff/32.aspx

 

[rconnor]

And those people (who aren’t you) have never read the emails in context. They’ve seen the spliced and cherry picked sections that make a mountain out of a molehill. Even if it were important (which it certainly is not), it would be one case involving a number of scientists. But the body of evidence comes from thousands of scientists from hundreds of difference institutions. In order for it to matter, you’d firstly have to believe it was important and secondly you’d have to stretch that conclusion to the entire field (or the entirety of science, I suppose).

The size and scope of the scheme required to supposedly suppress “the truth” about climate science is truly astonishing. It requires nearly every scientist in the field, major scientific institution from around the world, head of state (both leftists and rightists, from 1st, 2nd and 3rd world countries), university and major scientific journal to be in on it (and apparently, all of them are nefariously benefitting from it…) – for decades upon decades . Call me crazy but I think the counter argument, that there is no international conspiracy but, instead, the blog post that they read is wrong, is ever so slightly more likely to be true. But, hey, that’s just me.

A more reasonable opinion is that of “group-think”. But this fails to recognize that you advance in academia by proving your peers wrong, not agreeing with them. Scientists are looking to be the ones to bust the consensus, not conform to it. Getting scientists to agree is a little like herding cats. Furthermore, the idea behind “group-think” implies that the thought shared by the group is inherently wrong. This is a non-sequitar.

Having said all this, I truly don’t care about any of it. I don’t care about “climategate”, I don’t care about oil-funded research, I don’t care about the Chris de Freitas issue, I don’t care about the Willie Soon conflict of interest issue, I don’t care that Fred Singer was part of the tobacco industries attempt to downplay the harmful effects of smoking. It is all a secondary circus to the actual science. I care that the science that supports anthropogenic climate change is more solid than the science that goes against it.

Let me be very clear – consensus or “group-think” on a topic implies neither that it is inherently true nor inherently false. If you think it’s group-think, you still have to prove it false. If you think there’s a consensus, you still have to prove it right. However, what we have is one group saying that all the peer-reviewed research and various forms of data are all inherently and automatically wrong because it’s either part of some giant conspiracy or a product of “group-think”. That’s just not a valid point of view. It’s utter nonsense which prevents a logical discussion from taking place.

 

[IRstuff]

Sure, but things are being painted in broad strokes, because, the supposed scientific conspiracy is being fueled by the leftist conspiracy to tax everyone to death.

TTFN
faq731-376

Need help writing a question or understanding a reply? forum1529


Of course I can. I can do anything. I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!
There is a homework forum hosted by engineering.com:

http://www.engineering.com/AskForum/aff/32.aspx

 

[rconnor]

I should add that the concept of “pal-review” requires something closer to a conspiracy (or at least a wide-spread, systemic issue) than mere group-think.

Sometimes good papers get blocked and bad papers get published due to inaccurate refereeing. Peer-review is not infallible. Of course it’s not. However, to claim that this happens repeatedly and only specifically to a certain stance requires a systemic issue far beyond mere “group-think”. In climate science, this systemic issue would have to be spread across every major scientific journal, involve thousands of different referees/reviewers and have existed for multiple decades. So, when someone claims that either (1) peer-reviewed research brought forth is inherently wrong because it’s “pal-review” (i.e. bad papers get published) or (2) the requirement for them to provide peer-reviewed research to support their views is impossible due to “pal-review” (i.e. good papers get blocked), they are suggesting a far-reaching, long-lasting, secretive systemic issue. One might call that a conspiracy theory, especially given the lack of credible evidence to support such a claim, and I would agree with that assessment.

Now, the first claim (it’s a bad paper that got through “pal-review”) can be supported by simply addressing the way the science in the paper is flawed. Here, no wide-spread systemic issue is required; it’s merely one of those bad papers that gets through a fallible peer-review system. This is sometimes done but, unfortunately, not nearly often enough.

The second claim (I can’t provide peer-reviewed research to support my stance because it’s blocked by “pal-review”) absolutely requires the wide-spread systemic issue of suppressing a particular conclusion which involves nearly every major scientific journal. What’s more, the wide-spread systemic issue is directly disproven by the existence of peer-reviewed papers that go against the “consensus” on climate change science, some of which appear in major scientific journals. Furthermore, the IPCC references these papers in their report. Heck, Nick Lewis’ low sensitivity papers had a major influence on the IPCC lowering its sensitivity range. Now I believe that the subsequent research since AR5 (Cowtan and Way 2013, Durack et al 2014, Shindell 2014, Kummer & Dessler 2014, Andrews et al 2014, etc.) demonstrates that the lowering of the range may not of been valid but, given the evidence at the time, it was the conservative thing to do. Nevertheless, this demonstrates that not only do papers skeptical of the “consensus” position get published (sometimes in major journals), they are also given careful examination within the rest of the scientific community and not simply tossed aside. No wide-spread systemic issue of suppressing a particular conclusion appears to actually exist.

So the next time someone brings up a blog post that asserts something completely opposite to the bulk of the science and claims victory, ask them why such ground-breaking research isn’t published? When they rebut with “because of pal-review”, remember that this claim requires a systemic issue centered around suppressing a particular conclusion, which involves every major scientific journal and thousands of different referees/reviewers and that this is completely unsupported. Then ask them and yourself the following:

What’s more likely - that the conclusion of that blog post is being systematically suppressed by every major scientific journal and thousands of different referees/reviewers (despite the fact there is no evidence to support that) – or – that the conclusion of that blog post is wrong?

(Bonus points if you actually take the time to demonstrate why it’s wrong by sourcing actual peer-reviewed literature)

 

[rconnor]

Sure, but things are being painted in broad strokes, because, the supposed scientific conspiracy is being fueled by the leftist conspiracy to tax everyone to death.

As a paid spokesmen of Greenpeace, I can assure you, and all other posters here, that once people submit their will and freedoms to us acknowledge the truth behind climate science, that the taxes on your government issued rations goods and services and labour in the involuntary, unpaid tree planting gulags income will not be significant.

Sincerely,

Al Gore
rconnor

 

[rb1957]

and still you don't like M&M's review of Mann 98 ?

and you're defending Mann not releasing his data to them ?

and you're supporting the journals for not publishing their report ?

Mann 98 was an enormously important paper, and the discovery that his data model would produce a hockey stick if it was fed noise is surely equally important ... no?

another day in paradise, or is paradise one day closer ?

 

[rconnor]

Rb1957, out of respect to you, I will answer your questions but first you need to understand something - MBH98 is 17 years old. Reconstructions of paleotemperatures have been done repeatedly, using updated techniques and data, since that point. All of subsequent papers more or less supersede MBH98 (due to using more up-to-date data) but they come to similar main conclusions than MBH98 does (see the NOAA Paleoclimate Reconstruction Network). MBH98 is not referenced once in IPCC AR5 WG1 Chapter 5 – Information from Paleoclimate Archives (nor any other chapter from what I could find). While important at the time, it’s largely irrelevant now.

Is MBH98 flawed? In some senses, yes. In it's main conclusion, no. Real Climate has a good rundown of the situation.

“and still you don't like M&M's review of Mann 98?”
I think MM05 is technically correct, in parts, but at the end of the day is unimportant to the main conclusion. Also, see Huybers 2005 and Wahl & Ammann 2007 below.

“and you're defending Mann not releasing his data to them ?”
I'm not defending Mann, I just don't care one way or another. The whole "issue" is a circus to distract from the actual science which is so completely unaffected by MBH98 nowadays.

"and you're supporting the journals for not publishing their report?"
See above. Don't care. Huybers 2005 and Wahl & Ammann 2007 suggested the MM05 had issues, so maybe the journals were correct in not publishing MM05. While Mckitrick claims the issues with MM05 are superficial, again, I don't care one way or the other. Doesn't change a thing about climate science today either way.

“Mann 98 was an enormously important paper, and the discovery that his data model would produce a hockey stick if it was fed noise is surely equally important ... no?”
Key word, "was". It no longer is. Science moved on. So should skeptics.

But you know what, you want to think Mann is morally bankrupt, you want to think that "climategate" demonstrates wrong-doing by a handful of climate scientists, go right ahead. However, thinking that doesn't mean climate science is false nor does this mean that the entire scientific community is morally bankrupt.

There's a story that demonstrates this perfectly. One scientist thought the exact same things you did about MBH98 and about "climategate", maybe even stronger. This scientist stated that because of those events, "I now have a list of people, who's paper's I won't read anymore". He was so put of by this, he questioned the entirety of climate science. So, what did he do? Well, he started his own research group to investigate the science and repeat the work in a transparent manner. What did this scientist find? Well, that the science was accurate and that "Humans are almost entirely the cause [of climate change]" (quote, written by the scientists, can be found in the reference in next sentence). He known refers to himself as a converted skeptic. Yes, it's Richard Muller.

So you want to think MBH98 is completely flawed and lacks scientific integrity. That's fine. It doesn't change a thing about the science. Hence why I simply don't care about it. It's 17 years old. It's been superseded by numerous papers (that all conclude pretty much the same thing). The science has moved on. So should you.

You bring up so many other good questions that are relevant to climate science today. We should focus our energy on those.

 

[IRstuff]

Obviously, it's again a guilt by association/conspiracy; if MM05 was flawed, then anyone who comes up with the same or similar conclusions must also have had flawed or fudged data/theory.

TTFN
faq731-376

Need help writing a question or understanding a reply? forum1529


Of course I can. I can do anything. I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!
There is a homework forum hosted by engineering.com:

http://www.engineering.com/AskForum/aff/32.aspx