Sceptic agrees global warming real.

[Billy T]

A few points.

1) Why did the earth ever leave the last Ice Age?

2) Why was there a report out the other day stating that Antarctica had palm trees on it 50 million years ago? http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...rn-return.html

3) Who said warming was bad? Apparently it means an increase in crop yields (figures state approx. 20%) which surely is a good thing, considering the population of the planet is still rising? It also means much more land, currently unusable for farming (too cold) can be used to grow crops??

4) Why, whenever the subject of MMGW is raised, does it involve money, politics, and poor people from Africa? The problem in Africa is corruption, not MMGW.

5) What is with this small coincidence that if we don't stop using oil by 2050 or so, we will run out of the stuff anyway? Why is it that to save the earth from MMGW we have to stop using oil and pay lots in taxes? Since when did making the rich even richer, do anything useful?

6) Forget cause/effect - answer me why the warming is always sharp when it occurs, and the cooling relatively gentle?? What caused all the other peaks in the temperature record?? Man wasn't always around to burn oil...

7) As for runaway MMGW - only when the Sun becomes a Red Dwarf. Arguments that Venus is an example of runaway global warming is just a load of BS, and the scientists that ever spouted that trash should look for a new line of work. There is small detail that it is some 4 million miles closer to the Sun than we are. I'm sure we'd be pretty hot if we were that close.

There is a simple experiment you can try with a hot plate, but I won't write it in case some idiot tries it, burns themselves, and tries to sue me.

8) In the temperature data, why does the temperature signal become noisy in the last 150,000 years or so??

1) Most likely "snowball earth," with high albedo, melts with volcanic gas release. - That caused "the little ice age" of a few hundred years ago when it snowed in NYC in June, etc. To warm Earth instead, the volcanic activity must last longer and make the atmosphere "IR opaque" for many decades.

2) Probably two reasons (but too lazy to check): (a)that land mass was not at the South Pole then. (b) Climate was warmer than now.

3) Adaptation has costs.

4) Africa has many problems. IMHO one important one, seldom mentioned, is that the low cost of food production in the US´s industralized agriculture in the fertile mid west makes imported food cheaper than food produced in Africa. - African farmers cannot compete for local markets, so the normal progression, like US had, from an agriculture based society to a more modern one cannot occur. - Only* the exploitive export of their natural wealth does; and that concentrates wealth in the hands of a few, usually very corrupt, self centered, people who will not spend much on education for the masses.

5) I agree that making the very rich (top few percent), richer is destructive of social well being; but oil energy will become more expensive regardless of current use rates - What is the optimum use rate to allow time for development of other resources, is too complex to discuss here - start a thread on that if you like.

6) GW is self accelerating with increased release of naturally stored (in soil, mainly but perma-frost and CO2 hydrates some) GHG. But cooling is not.

7) No one was around so we can not be sure, there is evidence both for and against a climate switch. Planets large enough to hold atmospheres, do have two stable states, one with lower temperate and IR thin atmosphere and second with IR thick atmosphere and much hotter. Venus is in the second stable state with surface temperature above the melting point of lead (could have "lead lakes.") If in the lower temperature stable state it would be hotter than earth if both were with no atmosphere but possibly have had hot H2O lakes once, if not still.

8) more detailed data with less distance into the past, probably why.

welcome to Sciforums. Next question?

* There are some promising, at least partial, exceptions mainly at the latitude extremes.

[origin]

A few points.

1) Why did the earth ever leave the last Ice Age?

.

The climate got warmer or dryer (probably both). Why do you ask?

2) Why was there a report out the other day stating that Antarctica had palm trees on it 50 million years ago? http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...rn-return.html

Probably because 50 million years ago Antarctica had palm trees. More than likely that had both climate and position aspects. What is your point?[/QUOTE]

3) Who said warming was bad? Apparently it means an increase in crop yields (figures state approx. 20%) which surely is a good thing, considering the population of the planet is still rising? It also means much more land, currently unusable for farming (too cold) can be used to grow crops??

It is very difficult to predict what the effect global warmin will have on local climates - some places will benefit and some places will suffer, seem like a rather risky gamble to me. The people who live in costal cities will not be impressed that northern areas can grow soybeans though.

4) Why, whenever the subject of MMGW is raised, does it involve money, politics, and poor people from Africa? The problem in Africa is corruption, not MMGW.

Well, I don't recall ever hearing that poor people in Africa is the big concern of global warming.

5) What is with this small coincidence that if we don't stop using oil by 2050 or so, we will run out of the stuff anyway? Why is it that to save the earth from MMGW we have to stop using oil and pay lots in taxes? Since when did making the rich even richer, do anything useful?

?? The point is to decrease greenhouse gasses you seem to be bringing in alot of other stuff.

Forget cause/effect - answer me why the warming is always sharp when it occurs, and the cooling relatively gentle?? What caused all the other peaks in the temperature record?? Man wasn't always around to burn oil...

Don't know.

As for runaway MMGW - only when the Sun becomes a Red Dwarf. Arguments that Venus is an example of runaway global warming is just a load of BS, and the scientists that ever spouted that trash should look for a new line of work. There is small detail that it is some 4 million miles closer to the Sun than we are. I'm sure we'd be pretty hot if we were that close.

Venus is more like 25 million miles closer to the sun. Do you know how hot it is on the surface of Venus - It clearly has a greenhouse affect going on.

In the temperature data, why does the temperature signal become noisy in the last 150,000 years or so??

Because the temperatures are more accurate for shorter lengths of time - less averaging so it is more noisy.

edit add - Crap! I didn't see there was a page 6. Well that was useless.....

[Trippy]

A few points.

1) Why did the earth ever leave the last Ice Age?

It hasn't, we're still in it. We just happen to be in a warmer 'interglacial period'. We've been in an interglacial period for 11,000 years and depending on who you talk to, we should expect it to last either 12,000 or 28,000 years (in total).

Past iceages have been ended by a combination of factors that basically amount to either orbital forcing (the milankovich cycles), changes in oceanic circulation, or changes in atmospheric chemistry (which can have a number of causes).

2) Why was there a report out the other day stating that Antarctica had palm trees on it 50 million years ago? http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...rn-return.html

The obvious answer to this question is because the climate was warmer at that time. Antarctic glaciation didn't begin until 44.5 MYA and began to accelerate after 34 MYA as CO2 levels approached a tipping point. Carbondioxide levels had dropped from a few thousand ppm to 760ppm. One of the other reasons I have seen suggested for the accelerated glaciation of Antarctica is the opening of the drake passage. Essentially the opening of the drake passage allowed the circumpolar current to form, which in turn changed the amount of heat reaching antarctica.

3) Who said warming was bad? Apparently it means an increase in crop yields (figures state approx. 20%) which surely is a good thing, considering the population of the planet is still rising? It also means much more land, currently unusable for farming (too cold) can be used to grow crops??

Nobody said warming was all bad. Arrhenius thought the warming would be good when he first calculated the numbers back in the 1890's, but Arrhenius also anticipated the warming taking place over longer time scales. Rapid change is problematic, the fossil record proves that. Whenever there has been rapid warming or cooling in the fossil record, it's been associated with mass extinctions.

4) Why, whenever the subject of MMGW is raised, does it involve money, politics, and poor people from Africa? The problem in Africa is corruption, not MMGW.

The issue was politicized in the US by Carter in 1969 (IIRC). It was bought to the politicians attention after 70 years of research and investigation and through most of that time the idea of anthropogenic global warming was regarded as being almost in the realm of fringe science. Many of the arguments we see presented by so called skeptics were examined during this period and dismissed. I don't recall off the top of my head

5) What is with this small coincidence that if we don't stop using oil by 2050 or so, we will run out of the stuff anyway?

The predictions of anthropogenic global warming are reliant on more than just some 'small coincidence'. They draw from things like the Beer-Lambert law, Simple Harmonic Motion, and Blackbody Radiation.

Why is it that to save the earth from MMGW we have to stop using oil and pay lots in taxes? Since when did making the rich even richer, do anything useful?

My understanding of ETS and such (or maybe this is just my personal opinion on what they should do) is that by affecting the bottom line of companies that are big emitters, it forces those companies to take steps to mitigate their emissions that they might not otherwise take.

Forget cause/effect - answer me why the warming is always sharp when it occurs, and the cooling relatively gentle?? What caused all the other peaks in the temperature record?? Man wasn't always around to burn oil...

Changes in atmospheric chemistry, from things like large volcanic eruptions and bolide impacts. Even episodes of mountain building can cause (for example) cooling. I've seen it estimated that the erosion of the Colarado and Tibetan plateus alone is sufficient to account for the cooling trend over the last eleven million years. Changes in albedo cause changes in temperature, forests absorb light differently from bare rock, oceans at high latitudes reflect light well but oceans at low latitudes are good absorbers of light. Continental configurations can cause ice ages. Ice ages like to happen when there is a land locked sea or a continent at one of the poles - currently we have one each of these. They also like to happen when the majority of the landmass is distributed near the equator. Most of this has to do with the way heat is distributed between the equator and the poles. On top of that there is orbital forcing. Additionally, orbital forcing can act in concert with the way the albedo is distributed across the surface of the earth. The short answer is that there is not neccessarily any single answer, but none of this changes the predictions made by the basic physics.

As for runaway MMGW - only when the Sun becomes a Red Dwarf.

The sun will never become a red dwarf. If it ever did, it would result in a snowball earth, not a runaway greenhouse effect.

Arguments that Venus is an example of runaway global warming is just a load of BS, and the scientists that ever spouted that trash should look for a new line of work.

Venus is an example of a runaway greenhouse effect, it's just not neccessarily a great one to point at when discussing the fate of the Earth. In the case of Venus, the runaway greenhouse effect had natural causes that appear to relate to things such as the lack of plate tectonics.

There is small detail that it is some 4 million miles closer to the Sun than we are. I'm sure we'd be pretty hot if we were that close.

Venus has a semi-major axis of 108.2 million km. Earth has a semi-major axis of 152 million km, so it's more like 44 million km. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, and assume this was a typo.

In the temperature data, why does the temperature signal become noisy in the last 150,000 years or so??

Probably something to do with the resolution of the data. Having said that, there is an outstanding problem with regards to the Milankovich cycles. The milankovich cycles are the name given to the forcing of earths climate by cyclic variations in its orbital parameters. At some point, I don't recall when off the top of my head, Earths climate switched from having a 100,000 year periodicity to a 41,000 year periodicty. I also seem to recall that there appear to be extra cycles and missing cycles superimposed on what we expect to find.

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1) Most likely "snowball earth," with high albedo, melts with volcanic gas release. - That caused "the little ice age" of a few hundred years ago when it snowed in NYC in June, etc. To warm Earth instead, the volcanic activity must last longer and make the atmosphere "IR opaque" for many decades.

The little ice age has a number of controversial aspects, so it's probably not your best example.

2) Probably two reasons (but too lazy to check): (a)that land mass was not at the South Pole then. (b) Climate was warmer than now.

The climate was already cooling by this point, and glaciation had started - see above for more details.

4) Africa has many problems. IMHO one important one, seldom mentioned, is that the low cost of food production in the US´s industralized agriculture in the fertile mid west makes imported food cheaper than food produced in Africa. - African farmers cannot compete for local markets, so the normal progression, like US had, from an agriculture based society to a more modern one cannot occur. - Only* the exploitive export of their natural wealth does; and that concentrates wealth in the hands of a few, usually very corrupt, self centered, people who will not spend much on education for the masses.

This is not an appropriate platform for that particular discussion.

5) I agree that making the very rich (top few percent), richer is destructive of social well being; but oil energy will become more expensive regardless of current use rates - What is the optimum use rate to allow time for development of other resources, is too complex to discuss here - start a thread on that if you like.

Have you thought through what the goals of carbon taxes actually are, and what needs to happen?

6) GW is self accelerating with increased release of naturally stored (in soil, mainly but perma-frost and CO2 hydrates some) GHG. But cooling is not.

Cooling is perfectly spontaeous. There is even the hypothesis that we're priming ourselves for an iceage. I've discussed it elsewhere, but the hypothesis essentially states that warming at the equator occurs faster than at the poles and once the temperature difference reaches a certain level, there is a net transport of moisture to the poles. Once that tipping point is reached, warming slows or stops as icecaps begin to grow, and once the reach a certain size cooling begins. Once cooling begins the glaciation accelerates, because now the poles are cooling faster than the equator which is sufficient to maintain the temperature difference. In extreme cases, this can lead to a runaway cooling effect and the so called 'snowball earth' scenario. Look into the Cryogenian glaciation for more info.

7) No one was around so we can not be sure, there is evidence both for and against a climate switch.

I'm sorry, but these strike me as being weasel words. The currently accepted hypothesis, as far as I recall is that climatic problems on venus began when plate tectonics failed to take hold. This is important, because it is only by plate tectonics that carbon sequestered at the surface gets recycled into the interior. When you loose (or lack) plate tectonics and outgassing contiues, carbon stays in the atmosphere and on the surface, and when you loose the surface water it just stays in the atmosphere.

Planets large enough to hold atmospheres, do have two stable states, one with lower temperate and IR thin atmosphere and second with IR thick atmosphere and much hotter.

You seem to be implying here that Venus is the Earth's other stable state, when this isn't neccessarily the case. Plate tectonics is as important in determining earths climate as nearly any other factor. Earth typically fluctuates between warm states and cool states. Currently the earth is in a cool configuration and we are in an interglacial period during an ice age that has lasted most of the cenozoic.

Venus is in the second stable state with surface temperature above the melting point of lead (could have "lead lakes.") If in the lower temperature stable state it would be hotter than earth if both were with no atmosphere but possibly have had hot H2O lakes once, if not still.

I don't recall if venus is in a warm state or a cool state. I do remember the literature I saw in this regard related it back to cloud cover - the difference being a clear atmosphere versus the current cloudy one, but I don't recall if the clouded state was high temperature or low temperature.

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?? The point is to decrease greenhouse gasses you seem to be bringing in alot of other stuff.

By making cleaning up your act cheaper than doing nothing.

[GlobalSkeptic]

welcome to Sciforums. Next question?

Thank you.

Carbondioxide levels had dropped from a few thousand ppm to 760ppm.

Currently the average is about 350 ppm.

One of the other reasons I have seen suggested for the accelerated glaciation of Antarctica is the opening of the drake passage. Essentially the opening of the drake passage allowed the circumpolar current to form, which in turn changed the amount of heat reaching antarctica.

Progress. Never seen this mentioned anywhere before.

Whenever there has been rapid warming or cooling in the fossil record, it's been associated with mass extinctions.

Question is: how rapid is rapid, over what total time scale, and the killer question is what state was the planet in when the "bad" warming started?

Currently the earth is in a cool configuration and we are in an interglacial period during an ice age that has lasted most of the cenozoic.

"interglacial" - I take that to mean that we are between ice ages. Where are we relative to the peak warming before the fall off towards global winter? Excuse my being a bit simplistic a this point - I want to cut through the crap and get to the meat and potatoes of the current situation.

The sun will never become a red dwarf. If it ever did, it would result in a snowball earth, not a runaway greenhouse effect.

My bad - I meant Red Giant. It will eventually become a White Dwarf sometime after. It is estimated that the surface of the Sun will expand to the Earth's present orbit. Far from the planet becoming a snowball, it will cease to exist.

You seem to be implying here that Venus is the Earth's other stable state, when this isn't necessarily the case.

Agreed. There is the small matter of it being much closer to the Sun, and thus warmer before adding anything else. Inverse square-law of energy density, etc...

I don't recall if venus is in a warm state or a cool state. I do remember the literature I saw in this regard related it back to cloud cover - the difference being a clear atmosphere versus the current cloudy one, but I don't recall if the clouded state was high temperature or low temperature.

If the pro MMGW camp are to be believed, cloud cover is a "greenhouse gas" and thus warms. How ironic however that temperatures rise on clear days. Granted however, that cloudy nights are warmer.

5) What is with this small coincidence that if we don't stop using oil by 2050 or so, we will run out of the stuff anyway? Why is it that to save the earth from MMGW we have to stop using oil and pay lots in taxes? Since when did making the rich even richer, do anything useful?

?? The point is to decrease greenhouse gasses you seem to be bringing in alot of other stuff.

Not at all. See, the point I'm trying to get at here is this: where is the basic evidence that CO2 causes warming? Plenty of data shows that CO2 rise lags significant warming, by about 800 years.

It seems to me, that the discussion of future climate has been hijacked by politicians and others in the name of higher taxes and BS, in order to get people to stop using oil. THIS IS MY #1 CRITICISM OF THE WAY CLIMATE SCIENCE HAS BEEN ABUSED IN THE MEDIA FOR AT LEAST THE LAST DECADE. Scientific analysis has been hijacked for other reasons. Plenty of sources on that so I won't bore you.

I'm very interested in planetary science in general, and a keen amateur astronomer, but the abuses that have been going on regarding our own climate science is sickening. I've been researching the research for the last few years regarding CO2 and "global warming" or "climate change", and I constantly find contradictions. The only science anyone seems to support is the idea that the bit of CO2 we humans chuck out will somehow cause climate armageddon, but at exactly the same time, we can't possibly put out as much CO2 as is claimed, because resources will expire before then.

The reason I dragged oil into this is because if you look at present reserves vs. present rates of consumption, by total coincidence, oil will run out by about 2050.

At the same time, we are told we must reduce our CO2 output to practically nothing, coincidentally, by 2050, otherwise we all die, etc.. (not my insinuation).

Another point overlooked is that the warming effect of CO2 is logarithmic. A little bit from nothing has a large warming effect, but you have to keep doubling the quantity to get the same rise (e.g. if 500 ppm means 2 deg. C rise, then you need 1000 ppm to get another 2 deg. C rise, and after that, 2000 ppm to get another 2 deg. C rise). This is something I have never heard mainstream scientists discuss, yet it is a fundamental fact of the behavior of CO2 and its warming effect.

On top of that, the satellite temperature records disagree with the ground based data (the ground based data having been "corrected", whilst the satellite data not, yet...), and if that is not bad enough, the source temperature records have been lost! We are left with IMHO tampered data, and told to trust it, it's accurate, etc. etc. when this is not the case.

I also have a problem with the terminology. To me, surface temperature is literally the temperature of the surface of the planet, NOT the temperature of the air even 1 ft above the ground, yet it seems to me that whenever "surafce temperature" is mentioned, they really mean air temperature, which is by far not the same thing. Again, mis-use of science to confuse those less alert.

The latest fallacy regarding the temperature data was the release of a report recently that was claimed to be entirely impartial, the re-examined this tampered data to look for warming, and surprise, they said the data showed warming. Well duh... it will, because that is exactly what the tampered data was modified to show. It was the original temperature records that needed to be examined, but they are lost forever.

The final nail in the coffin of all of this, is the fact that the IPCC seem to think that temperature lags CO2 rise (made famous by Al Gore), yet the scientists doing the actual studies of the ice cores in Antarctica clearly show that CO2 rise lags temperature rise.

With all of the above being the case, why is it that climate science seem besotted with CO2?? We can't even predict whether it will rain 5 minutes from now (refer to NASA and weather predictions for Shuttle launches) when we are looking at the clouds, so trying to do research based on pre-determined conclusions is surely an bass-ackwards way of doing climate research, and completely counter to scientific method?

Maybe I need to start a new thread on this, but at the moment, climate science has zero credibility, and it is very sad.

Does anyone have source data for CO2 rise preceding temperature rise that doesn't come from anyone to do with the IPCC, UN, or that disgrace of an institution, Hadley/CRU?

There is also the matter of president. The world has been much warmer in the past, has had much higher levels of CO2 in the past, yet the "bad effects" (e.g. "runaway global warming") just haven't occurred. How is it that with lower temperatures, and much lower CO2 levels, we humans can suddenly do something with much less, that hasn't occurred in the past with much more? Doesn't add up.

[Trippy]

Currently the average is about 350 ppm.

Right, but I was discussing the palm trees you mentioned, remember?

Progress. Never seen this mentioned anywhere before.

Then you've been looking in the wrong places, or talking to the wrong people.

Question is: how rapid is rapid, over what total time scale, and the killer question is what state was the planet in when the "bad" warming started?

I do wish people would refrain from using language such as this, it's un-neccessary, and often inflammatory, especially with the inclusion of scare quotes.

Warming is not inherently bad. Arrehnius thought the warming would be a good thing, but he also thought it would take longer than we're seeing, because he simply could not imagine the escalation in fossil fuel consumption that has taken place since then.

I may have spoken hastily here, I was originally thinking of the Eocene-Oligocene extinction event, but it seems that happened at a time of cooling rather than warming. Either way, my argument and my point remain the same. It's not the temperature so much that's important, although that alone can cause problems. It's the rate of change, whether it be up or down that causes extinctions. Basically, think of it this way - a species can only migrate poleward or equatorward at a relatively fixed and finite rate. If the rate at which their clime migrates is faster than the rate at which they migrate, they will either adapt to a new clime, or die out. Same applies if they happen to be in an isolated niche, or if there is a barrier that must be traversed.

"interglacial" - I take that to mean that we are between ice ages. Where are we relative to the peak warming before the fall off towards global winter?

An ice age is a long term pattern of climate. An ice age is defined by the presence of extensive ice sheets in both the Northern and Southern hemispheres. In the case of the modern world, we have the Greenland Ice sheet in the Northern hemisphere, and the Antarctic ice sheet in the southern hemisphere. The presence of those means we are in an ice age, one which began 2.6 million years ago.

Within an individual ice age there are pulses of cooler than average temperatures which are referred to glacials or glaciations, which are what most people think of when they hear the term 'ice age' and there are periods of warmer than average temperatures which are referred to as interglacials. We are currently in the Holocene interglacial period of the Quaternary ice age.

To confuse things further, during the last glacial period, their were breif periods of milder climate called interstadials.

Before the last glacial, there was the Eemian interglacial, which is also sometimes called the Eemian climate optimum. That ended when the last glaciation began.

Excuse my being a bit simplistic a this point - I want to cut through the crap and get to the meat and potatoes of the current situation.

I'm happy to answer questions where I can, or show you where to look if I can't. I have no objection to dealing in meat and potatoes, but, I do get cranky quickly when I think people are being dishonest.

My bad - I meant Red Giant. It will eventually become a White Dwarf sometime after. It is estimated that the surface of the Sun will expand to the Earth's present orbit. Far from the planet becoming a snowball, it will cease to exist.

Remember - I only said the planet would be a snowball if the sun became a red dwarf, not a red giant.

Whether or not the earth will continue to exist beyond the suns red giant phase is a matter of some debate. It depends on how the sun looses mass, and how much it actually looses in the build up to this. As the sun looses mass, the earths orbit will take it further from the sun, so if the sun looses sufficient mass between now and then, the earth will move far enough from its current orbit that it might survive. The earth is right at the edge - mercury and venus will be consumed, mars will survive, but earth you'd better put a dollar each way.

Agreed. There is the small matter of it being much closer to the Sun, and thus warmer before adding anything else. Inverse square-law of energy density, etc...

Yes, however, Venus is not sufficiently close to the sun to account for the observed temperature, Additionally, using the same information you just cited predicts that the earth should be something like 20C cooler than we observe it to be. The only way to account for the difference is to take into account the IR opacity of Earth's atmosphere, and take into account the additional heat absorbed by it.

If the pro MMGW camp are to be believed, cloud cover is a "greenhouse gas" and thus warms. How ironic however that temperatures rise on clear days. Granted however, that cloudy nights are warmer.

No. This is simply wrong. The "pro MMGW camp" claims that the effects of clouds are complex. The "pro MMGW camp" predicts that whether a cloud has a positive or negative forcing is dependent on its altitude, latitude, composition and the albedo of the underlying surface.

Not at all. See, the point I'm trying to get at here is this: where is the basic evidence that CO2 causes warming? Plenty of data shows that CO2 rise lags significant warming, by about 800 years.

Here's an excerpt from a discussion I have had elsehwere on tis forum 'discussing' this very issue:

1. The sun emits electromagnetic radiation as a black body.
2. The inverse square law attenuates this radiation.
3. The Earth intercepts some of this radiation.
4. Some of the radiation the earth intercepts is reflected by the earth, the remainder is absorbed as thermal energy.
5. The Earth re-emits the radiation as a black body.
6. Because of its low surface temperature, the earth emits its radiation at long wavelengths.
7. Hooke's Law predicts that carbon dioxide, water, methane and every other greenhouse gas absorb long wavelength infra-red radiation and that they all have absorption features in the region were the Earth emits.
8. The energy absorbed by gasses is stored as translational, vibrational, and rotational energy, what we call heat.
9. The Beer-Lambert law predicts that as the partial pressure of CO2, so does the amount of IR radiation it absorbs.

All of these nine points have been experimentally verified.

When we perform the calculations based on 1 to 4, we find that the we predict the earth should be colder than we observe it to be.
It is on the basis of 5 to 9 that we conclude that the atmosphere makes up the difference in temperatures. It is also on the basis of 5 to 9 that we predict that increasing the amount of greenhouse gasses, we increase the temperature of the planet.

None of the above is reliant on the observation of a correlation between atmospheric CO2 and temperature.

And an excerpt from a PM discussion I had with someone on this forum, during which I outlined the history of climate change predictions:

Joseph Fourier is credited with discovering the greenhouse effect. He calculated in 1820 that the Earth was warmer than it should be if it was warmed by the sun alone, and hypothesized that the atmosphere might have a contributing effect.

The first predictions were made by Svante Arrhenius, who was inspired by Fourier. In 1896 he used Infra-red observations made of the moon by Very and Langley to calculate infra-red absorption by water and carbondioxide in the atmosphere. From that using the Stefan-Boltzman law he hypothesized that "if the quantity of carbonic acid increases in geometric progression, the augmentation of the temperature will increase nearly in arithmetic progression."

Arrhenius was criticised by Angstrom in 1901 for the strong carbondioxide absorption values he used. There was a bit of to-ing and fro-ing, but in "Worlds in the making" published in english in 1908 Arrhenius said:
"On the other hand, any doubling of the percentage of carbon dioxide in the air would raise the temperature of the earth's surface by 4�..."
"Although the sea, by absorbing carbonic acid, acts as a regulator of huge capacity, which takes up about five-sixths of the produced carbonic acid, we yet recognize that the slight percentage of carbonic acid in the atmosphere may by the advances of industry be changed to a noticeable degree in the course of a few centuries."
"The enormous combustion of coal by our industrial establishments suffices to increase the percentage of carbon dioxide in the air to a perceptible degree."
"By the influence of the increasing percentage of carbonic acid in the atmosphere, we may hope to enjoy ages with more equable and better climates, especially as regards the colder regions of the earth, ages when the earth will bring forth much more abundant crops than at present, for the benefit of rapidly propagating mankind."

I understand he also published in 1906 that a doubliing would lead to a 2.1K rise, including water feedback, but I don't recall if I've ever been able to verify that through primary sources.

Between 1900 and 1950, Arrhenius' work was either ignored or disputed by all but a handful of scientists. The scientific consensus at the time being that the oceans would absorb any excess CO2, and that the absorption in that part of the spectrum was saturated by water anyway. Although it remained something of a scientific curiosity during this period, there were a handfull of important papers published. I think I've detailed some of them in posts I've made here on sciforums (searching all of my posts for the term Arrhenius should catch them).

Between 1950 and 1960, the theory began to gain traction. This was for a bunch of reasons, advancments in our understanding of quantum mechanics, improved atmospheric spectroscopy as a result of the cold war. Scientists began to come increasingly to the conclusion that it was more than just a curiosity, and somethign that needed to be taken seriously. Spectroscopy showed us that there was less overlap than previously thought, and no water vapor in the upper atmosphere. Isotopic chemistry showed us that carbondioxide wasn't absorbed into the oceans as quickly as we thought, and by 1959 people were predicting rises of 25% by 2000 with potentially radical effects on the environment.

Between 1960 and 1970 advances in technology improved the accuracy of our models. The first computer model to take convection into account was in 1967 and predicted that a doubling from 300ppm to 600ppm would cause a 2.4K rise in temperature.

By 1969 enough people were concerned about it that it was bought to the attention of Jimmy Carter who politicised the issue.

I'm very interested in planetary science in general, and a keen amateur astronomer, but the abuses that have been going on regarding our own climate science is sickening. I've been researching the research for the last few years regarding CO2 and "global warming" or "climate change", and I constantly find contradictions. The only science anyone seems to support is the idea that the bit of CO2 we humans chuck out will somehow cause climate armageddon, but at exactly the same time, we can't possibly put out as much CO2 as is claimed, because resources will expire before then.

Part of the 'problem' with atmospheric CO₂ is how long it takes - in human terms at least - to be scrubbed out of the atmosphere, so it has longer term consequences than just what we burn now.

Another point overlooked is that the warming effect of CO2 is logarithmic. A little bit from nothing has a large warming effect, but you have to keep doubling the quantity to get the same rise (e.g. if 500 ppm means 2 deg. C rise, then you need 1000 ppm to get another 2 deg. C rise, and after that, 2000 ppm to get another 2 deg. C rise). This is something I have never heard mainstream scientists discuss, yet it is a fundamental fact of the behavior of CO2 and its warming effect.

Actually, this has been taken into account by every prediction since Svante Arrhenius raised it in 1896. In 1896, Arrhenius has this to say on the matter:

if the quantity of carbonic acid increases in geometric progression, the augmentation of the temperature will increase nearly in arithmetic progression.

So it is fundamental to the predictions.

if the quantity of carbonic acid increases in geometric progression, the augmentation of the temperature will increase nearly in arithmetic progression.

The latest fallacy regarding the temperature data was the release of a report recently that was claimed to be entirely impartial, the re-examined this tampered data to look for warming, and surprise, they said the data showed warming. Well duh... it will, because that is exactly what the tampered data was modified to show. It was the original temperature records that needed to be examined, but they are lost forever.

Only some original records have been lost, not all of them.

The final nail in the coffin of all of this, is the fact that the IPCC seem to think that temperature lags CO2 rise (made famous by Al Gore), yet the scientists doing the actual studies of the ice cores in Antarctica clearly show that CO2 rise lags temperature rise.

What, precisely, do you think that proves? That simple harmonic motion and the beer-lambert law are wrong? That atmospheric carbondioxide can not cause warming?

There is also the matter of president. The world has been much warmer in the past, has had much higher levels of CO2 in the past, yet the "bad effects" (e.g. "runaway global warming") just haven't occurred. How is it that with lower temperatures, and much lower CO2 levels, we humans can suddenly do something with much less, that hasn't occurred in the past with much more? Doesn't add up.

Because none of these are actually claims made by AGW advocates.

[Billy T]

Note the rate of CO2 release has been and is accelerating. Definitely over 400ppm early on 8 May 13

93% of all petroleum is used by cars and trucks that could run on sugarcane ethanol more economically per mile as most cars do in Brazil and some have for 35+ years. (Ethanol as car fuel is a very well developed and tested technology.) Big trucks are already rapidly switching to natural gas. Sustainable, stored solar energy, in ethanol is slightly carbon negative (due to roots left in ground, alcohol in ocean tankers, port storage tanks, and even the fuel tanks of cars), but the enormous reduction is the oil not burned. Man needs to bend that top cuve downward ASAP and sugarcane can do that.

In a decade, probably the number of cars switched to using batteries in the western world will be the equal of or greater than the number of new gasoline cars added to the world´s fleet, as China has serious air pollution problems and is already restricting sales of gasoline powered cars as well as has strong Li-ion battery technology (as does S. Korea). It would also take about a decade to expand the sugarcane alcohol production up to the level required to supply all the world´s cars needing liquid fuel with sugarcane based ethanol (as well as to get those liquid fuel older cars still in use converted to pure alcohol fuel. (Mainly change to rubber gaskets and hoses to those that tolerate alcohol and slight timing, etc. adjustments, costing about $100/car in high volume conversion)

What many find surprising is only, at most, 1% of the world´s arable land would need to be growing sugarcane to supply alcohol fuel for all these liquid fuel cars. If modern agricultural practices and some GM seeds were used on the 99% of the world´s arable land, the production of food and fiber from that 99% could be increased by more than 10%. The consequence of not doing this may be very dire - a sterile earth in its hot stable state with an IR opaque high pressure steam atmosphere. For more details on how this MIGHT happen see: http://www.sciforums.com/showthread....=1#post3069006, and the post on methane hydrates a few post later here: http://www.sciforums.com/showthread....=1#post3069047 which quotes http://geology.com/articles/methane-hydrates/ stating that the methane hydrates probably hold more carbon than all the oil, natural gas and coal in the world!

Japan is already getting CH4 from methane hydrate on the floor of the S. China Sea. The CH4 of the hydrates will be used for fuel and that, with continued burning of oil, may release CO2 even more rapidly than now, freeing CH4 now safely stored in the hydrates faster than it can work its way up to the high atmosphere where UV can help the CH4 over the energy threshold to be destroyed by oxidation, in a greater than unity gain run-a-way thermal instability that pauses at ~100C while the oceans boil away.

[iceaura]

and some GM seeds were used on the 99% of the world´s arable land

You are now spamming, when you throw that bullshit into your posts on other topics. It has been debunked too many times to your face to be excused any more. Why do you do that? "Modern agricultural methods" is easily sufficient for your argument, and covers every benefit - if any - from all modern agricultural methods.

The world has been much warmer in the past, has had much higher levels of CO2 in the past, yet the "bad effects" (e.g. "runaway global warming") just haven't occurred. How is it that with lower temperatures, and much lower CO2 levels, we humans can suddenly do something with much less, that hasn't occurred in the past with much more?

The worst of the problems come from the rate of increase, which is apparently unprecedented. Otherwise and also, the bad effects expected are occurring, right on schedule.

[Billy T]

You are now spamming, when you throw that bullshit into your posts on other topics. It has been debunked too many times to your face to be excused any more. ...

No it has not. ONLY you think GM seeds reduce yields. I and all the others posting in the thread on that think based on hundreds of studies, condensed into four or five meta studies that the yield gains due to GM seeds (less insect losses etc.) typically are 10 to 20%

After some weeks of activity in that thread, you did find ONE paper reporting a loss due to GM seeds.
Not me, but one of the others, then posted: "Congratulations - You found one!"

If you insist, I go back and find who sent you that sarcastic message.

Again, I´ll ask you to explain why farmers, where the law allows, are paying more for GM seeds to reduce their yields as you claim GM seeds do?

[Billy T]

There is also the matter of president. The world has been much warmer in the past, has had much higher levels of CO2 in the past, yet the "bad effects" (e.g. "runaway global warming") just haven't occurred. How is it that with lower temperatures, and much lower CO2 levels, we humans can suddenly do something with much less, that hasn't occurred in the past with much more? Doesn't add up.

Not with a simple minded understanding of the problem, I agree; but: Here is part of the last post of a multi post exchange found here: http://www.sciforums.com/showthread....=1#post3069779

If the following does not answer your question, read the earlier parts of this exchange.
Then if still not understanding it only the unprecedented rate, not the level of CO2 that is my concern, ask specific questions.

{CH4} has a very short half-life, and thus is removed very quickly from the atmosphere. Right now CO2 plays 3 times more of a role in forcing than methane. If we significantly increase the amount of methane (say triple it from its current levels) we'd have serious problems.

The shortest estimate I remember reading is about a decade for the half life of CH4, released at the surface - it can not be destroyed near the surface due to the large activation energy required to pull an H off. Why it is only destroyed at a significant rate very high up in the atmosphere were UV can provide that activation energy. Thus the destruction rate is set by the collisional random walk diffusion up ward after altitudes where convection is not operating.

If you have a reference discussing this, I would like to read it - my "decade half life" data is quite old.

If you are saying that the ABSOLUTE amounts of methane and CO2 are what matters, then I agree.

Yes that is what I am saying and on that we agree; however, I am also noting the atmospheric concentration of {CO2 increasing and this making} CH4 increases with the rate of destruction of methane hydrates (and that is not only a thermal process now that Japan has started to extract CH4 from the sea floor hydrates).

A modest rate of this CH4 release will not make a greater than unity thermal instability run-a-way thanks to the high atmosphere destruction rate of CH4, but some rate of methane hydrates likely can send earth into it hot stable state, when one factors in that the increased CH4 concentration also make the even more effective IR blocker (water) concentrations increase also.

This is a very complex, multi-faceted, dynamic interaction problem with many important coefficients basically set just by just some “experts” guessing. - I am not say the switch to the hot, high-pressure, steam atmosphere MUST happen - only telling how it could and AFAIK no one has firmly proven that it will not with CO2 being released faster than 2ppm annually. To be safe, assuming it is not already too late, man needs to cap that CO2 concentration curve and turn it downward, IMHO. I have also told how this can be done (burn only* 7% as much oil as we do annually now by converting all cars in the world that use liquid fuel to run on ethanol from sugarcane.)

* OR burn essentially none if the 7% not used for transport is used as petro chemical feed stock of plastic and fertilizer etc. (But note N2 containing fertilizer has serious problems too - soil bacteria makes much of it into NOx. Perhaps none of the NH3, ammonia is converted into NOx - I don´t know much about bacterial conversion processes. A Nobel Prise winning soil biologest about 6 years ago pointed out this important fertilizer to NOx transform. Even saying Iowa based corn alcohol is more damaging to the enviroment than just letting the cars use gasoline! Sorry this graph is so big, but:

They must use a lot of fertilizer in Iowa to compensate for the short (compared to the tropics) growing season.

[andy1033]

I still cannot believe this rubbish is still being pushed. They have talked about this for like 20 years now, and no major changes in anyones weather, or mass migration inland because of sea level rises.

Pure rubbish science, they follow sun cycles, and exploit when the sun is at max, and pretend its because there is some sort of green house effect. The weather in uk has always been fluctuating, like everywhere else, its called natural cycles.

Sun cycles drive the earths weather, and these people said the sun has no effect, lol
That there shows you the bull they where pushing.

Our weather system and cycles are the same as they always have been. Its not down to manmade green house effect, its called the sun driving the weather systems on earth.

You watch how they always follow solar max, and when the weather gets good they call it man made global warming, no its called the sun and its cycles.

Its amazing after 20 they still try this rubbish.

If you want to see how they push rubbish on you, go and watch william cooper explain ozone layer rubbish they claimed. That con does not exist anymore, how come? It never existed in the first place, now they claim green house effect, lol. Does not exist either, they have no idea how the sun and the earth work together to drive our weather system.

[spidergoat]

Does not exist either, they have no idea how the sun and the earth work together to drive our weather system.

Natural cycles have been ruled out. What's going on is different from that. No climate scientist would say the sun has no effect, just that currently, CO² has a much greater influence.