Is global warming even real?

[zgmc]

When you click "reply" a reply box is opened with quoted text from the post you are replying to. That's where the text I replied to came from.

The text is in milkweeds post. Somehow my name was attributed when you replied.

 

[billvon]

The text is in milkweeds post. Somehow my name was attributed when you replied.

Ah, sorry about that.

 

[zgmc]

Ah, sorry about that.

My tablet does funny things when I try to quote multiple posts sometimes. I knew it was an honest mistake.

 

[zgmc]

Did anyone else notice the headlines:

The fiddling with temperature data is the biggest science scandal ever"
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ear...data-is-the-biggest-science-scandal-ever.html

It looks like an amateur investigator named Paul Homewood has caused quite a stir over the past few days in the denialist camp. I'm not sure how the reasons for making the adjustments can be explained to someone who is convinced that there is some kind of conspiracy going on.

 

[iceaura]

Problem is its your godzilla, not mine.
co2 from the burning of fossil fuels = fire breathing monster heating up atmosphere via dinosaurs.

My godzilla is verifiably present in physical reality. A minor detail in the world of the JoNova acolyte, I know, but still - - -

Except I DID take the 20 minutes to find out the answer. WTF is Joules. You just dont like the answer because it does not match your expectations of CCC. 6/100ths of a degree in 2000 meters of ocean in 50+ years....

Apparently you still don't understand why they reported their results in joules, so maybe it takes you more than 20 minutes. You should do it anyway.

And your probably a bit embarrassed that you missed my (oh so obvious) math mistake being as it was simply a 10s based math.

I didn't read any of your calculations. I still haven't - for all I know you never made any arithmetic errors at all.

You are someone who thinks that an average of .06 C of warming in the upper 2000 meters of ocean over fifty years is insignificant, apparently because .06 strikes you as a tiny number. That kind of thinking has a long tradition in the climate denialist world - a few years back the bandwidths were full of people mocking the alarmists for worrying about a gas that was less than .04% of the atmosphere, apparently because they thought that four hundredths of one percent was a tiny number. A little later the alarmists were subjected to mockery because they predicted a 2C rise in global temperatures over the next couple of centuries (since revised upward), apparently because the denialists considered 2 to be a small number of degrees. These people's problem is not their arithmetic.

 

[Ophiolite]

I'm not sure how the reasons for making the adjustments can be explained to someone who is convinced that there is some kind of conspiracy going on.

Well, they are easily explained. It's convincing them of the explanation that is the tricky part.

What really gets me is this: I would not be at all surprised to learn that we got it wrong. That the warming is not as great as feared, that most of it is not anthropogenic and that the consequences are minimal. My lack of surprise would be based on the fact that we have got things quite dramatically wrong before. Such could be the case here, though I largely doubt it.

However, what if we do nothing based on that possibility? Result: disaster.

Now, what if we do something, but it turns out to be unnecessary? Result: a world that progresses much as it would have anyway, with a marginal deferral of economic growth, significantly less that that caused by a bunch of wankers, sorry bankers.

This is a simple risk/reward scenario. Unless you are morally opposed to insurance then working on the possibility of AGW, even if you don't believe in it, is the only mature, responsible, rational, intelligent, caring thing to do. The corollary to that is an insight into the nature of the denialists.

 

[wellwisher]

The way the global warming magic trick works is connected to the mixing apple and orange data. The data for the global warming scare is connected to modern data that has been generated directly with scientific equipment, such as thermometers and now satellites.

The data this is older than this range, which comparisons are being made as this being a unique time, are inference data from indirect measurements in nature. An analogy, the older data tells the weather from tree rings, while the new data uses modern science instruments. The new data is direct while tree ring data will needs assumptions. Depending on the assumptions you make, the tree ring data can lower or higher to suit the political needs.

I would like to see a pledge of accountability. If in the future global warming fears turn out to be false, then all who benefitted have to pay it back, including the political leaders, though asset seizure and jail time. If they are convinced they will pledge. If they are scamming, they fight all accountability.

 

[zgmc]

The way the global warming magic trick works is connected to the mixing apple and orange data. The data for the global warming scare is connected to modern data that has been generated directly with scientific equipment, such as thermometers and now satellites.

The data this is older than this range, which comparisons are being made as this being a unique time, are inference data from indirect measurements in nature. An analogy, the older data tells the weather from tree rings, while the new data uses modern science instruments. The new data is direct while tree ring data will needs assumptions. Depending on the assumptions you make, the tree ring data can lower or higher to suit the political needs.

I would like to see a pledge of accountability. If in the future global warming fears turn out to be false, then all who benefitted have to pay it back, including the political leaders, though asset seizure and jail time. If they are convinced they will pledge. If they are scamming, they fight all accountability.

Benefited how? You mean by having less air pollution? Or perhaps fewer oil spills, and pipeline ruptures? Or the advancement of non fossil fuel energy production?

 

[zgmc]

Someone said this to me, ”all it took was a retired accountant to prove global warming false.” What gives people such a low regard for the professional scientists who are doing the real work?

 

[Billy T]

Start of the great "mega-drought" in US's SW is predicted by Jason Smerdon, a climate scientist at Columbia University in New York and one of the authors of the report just published in the journal Science Advances.

Photo taken at San Jose, CA. reservoir which is at 5% of capacity, a record low. Below are a few quotes, taken from Bloomberg's review of the report, found at:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...years-in-u-s-due-to-global-warming?cmpid=yhoo

"The U.S. is facing the worst drought in 1,000 years, “driven primarily” by man-made climate change. By the end of this century, researchers are predicting years-long dry spells exacerbated by higher temperatures, creating conditions worse than so-called "mega-droughts" that have been linked to the decline of American Indian cultures in the U.S. Southwest."

"Human activity is having profound, harmful and long-lasting impacts on the planet, and will continue to threaten the environment even if carbon emissions are significantly curtailed."

Probably most reding here are not old enough to have been a fan of Pogo, the sage of the swap, who said:
"We have met the enemy and he is us."

"The bad news is, these past mega-droughts -- and we don’t use ‘mega-’ lightly -- when we compare the characteristics of those to the projections from future models, the future is worse”

More text and another CA reservoir photo from: http://news.yahoo.com/scientists-warn-mega-drought-risk-western-us-224005257.html

But don't worry. You can trust the many AGW deniers, when they tell you all these photos are just well done by "photo-shop."

Quotes below from link above 2nd photo.
" I was honestly surprised at just how dry the future is likely to be," said co-author Toby Ault, an assistant professor in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Cornell University. I look at these future mega-droughts like a slow moving natural disaster. We have to put mega-droughts into the same category as other natural disasters that can be dealt with through risk management. The risks and dangers are worse today because of the larger population and greater dependence on water resources, scientists warned."

{Billy T inserts comment here: "We can manage the risk" is exactly what the Chief of the Cliff Dwellers and chiefs of other now vanished SW Indians said too.}

" {The scientists} projected a continued rise in emissions of the greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming, and looked at a scenario in which actions were taken to cut back on greenhouse gases resulting in lower emissions. Both approaches raised concern for the future.

"The results... are extremely unfavorable for the continuation of agricultural* and water resource management as they are currently practiced in the Great Plains and southwestern United States," said David Stahle, professor in the Department of Geosciences at the University of Arkansas who was not involved in the study."

See the full "photo gallery" at the link where another photo at this link has this caption:
"Water levels in Lake Success remain desperately low as the drought worsens on February 11, 2015"

And now a personally known fact:
On my drive back to university after summer job at LASL, in 1966, I stopped at "Mesa Verde" the famous ruins of the "Cliff Dwellers." The pretty Nat. Park Service, guide explained that the Cliff Dwellers, and all the Indians living in the WS died out in about a decade during the 13th century drought as their crops (mainly corn without rain) failed and the animals they hunted soon were just skin an bones drying in the sun. The Cliff Dwellers, sought shelter from the heat in underground chambers, (called "kivas" as I recall) where to ease hunger pains, worship, and pray (for rain, no doubt) to their gods, etc. as they smoked peyote during the days. The hallucigentic smoke inside the kivas became so thick that there was little need for some (children?) to smoke any to hallucinate.

I tell these facts as that death causing mega-drought was explained to me long before "Global Warming" or AGW appeared in any newspaper.
Wide spread death, caused by climate change is not some "invention" of those, like me, who fear it will soon repeat.
Man is making the next mega-drought, the worse ever as never before has CO2 release rate been so great that CH4 is entering air faster than it is destroyed.*

In an earlier post, I noted that two satellites, in same low earth orbit but a kilometer or two apart are very sensitive to local mass variations below their mid points. That is how we now know how much water has been "mined" in the South West of US. Results show California is already getting half of its water consumption by well extractions - unsustainable and some smaller private wells have already gone dry as the water table falls.

Most of this extracted water is used for agriculture, but it is becoming too expensive for growing some crops. The ENTIRE US depends on this "soon to be exhausted" water for 1/3 of its food. Much higher food prices are coming soon, and the 1 in 6 American now on food assistance programs may find their plates increasingly empty with Republicans in control of the House of Representatives where funding for all programs must originate.

* Well at least not ever in prior 800,0000 years:

In first decade after release, CH4 does more GHG warming than 100 times its mass in CO2. Soon that will be 150 times more as the half-life of CH4 in air is now increasing at 0.3 years every year! CH4 is now cleaning the air of the OH- radical in reaction that kills two OH- for every CH4 molecule destroyed, not the other way around as it was when abundant OH- held CH4 levels very low. Sun's harsh UV limits the production rate of OH- and it is now well below the CH4 release rate. Probably ALL warm blooded creatures that perspire to remove their metabolic heat (~100 W for human sitting in a chair) will be extinct by 2200.
Only tiny mice, that live in burrows during the day and have much larger surface to volume ratios will survive. Except for owls, they safely eat seeds at night.

The Bible predicts: "The meek shall inherit the earth. In the end, mice will have shown themselves as the most intelligent of Mother Nature's creations.

Most reading this post are probably too young to have been a fan of Pogo, the sage of the swamp, who famously said:
"We have met the enemy, and he is us."

 

[milkweed]

Severe Ancient Droughts: A Warning to California

By WILLIAM K. STEVENS
Published: July 19, 1994

The findings suggest, in fact, that relatively wet periods like the 20th century have been the exception rather than the rule in California for at least the last 3,500 years, and that mega-droughts are likely to recur....

There appears to be little doubt that the epic dry spells of the past did occur, he said, adding that "what has happened can happen."

http://www.nytimes.com/1994/07/19/science/severe-ancient-droughts-a-warning-to-california.html

The above link also ties in S. American megadroughts to basically the same time period.

The characteristics and likely causes of the Medieval megadroughts in North America
Richard Seager, Celine Herweijer and Ed Cook
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University

*posted sometime in 2011

http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/div/ocp/drought/medieval.shtml

Megadroughts have historically led to the mass migration of humans away from drought affected lands, resulting in a significant population decline from pre-drought levels. They are suspected of playing a primary role in the collapse of several pre-industrial civilizations, including the Anasazi of the North American Southwest,[2] the Khmer Empire of Cambodia,[3] the Mayan of Mesoamerica,[4] the Tiwanaku of Bolivia,[5] and the Yuan Dynasty of China.[6] The African Sahel region in particular has suffered multiple megadroughts throughout history, with the most recent lasting from approximately 1400 AD to 1750 AD.[7] North America experienced at least four megadroughts during the Medieval Warm Period

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megadrought

 

[zgmc]

Did you guys listen to science Friday today?


Here is a link to the discussion on mega-droughts.


http://www.sciencefriday.com/#path/...decades-long-megadroughts-on-the-horizon.html

 

[Billy T]

Wallst quotes the study's conclusion. Here is the end of it:

We use an empirical drought reconstruction and three soil moisture metrics from 17 state-of-the-art general circulation models to show that these models project significantly drier conditions in the later half of the 21st century compared to the 20th century and earlier paleoclimatic intervals. This desiccation is consistent across most of the models and moisture balance variables, indicating a coherent and robust drying response to warming despite the diversity of models and metrics analyzed. Notably, future drought risk will likely exceed even the driest centuries of the Medieval Climate Anomaly (1100–1300 CE) in both moderate (RCP 4.5) and high (RCP 8.5) future emissions scenarios, leading to unprecedented drought conditions during the last millennium.

And/or hear thevideo of post332 at:http://www.sciencefriday.com/segment/02/13/2015/are-decades-long-megadroughts-on-the-horizon.html
BTW that video states that you can read the "Science Advances" report in full on line.

The graphs of post 330 are interesting and informative. My "take away" is that mega-dorughts naturally occur. The on predicted and already four year of its dcades, old in Calfornia, is expected to be the worst ever, due man's "boosting" of the natural causes with AGW. Lets hope that is "only" a boost in intensity and not a switch to a "new normal" lasting thousands of years.

 

[Ophiolite]

Someone said this to me, ”all it took was a retired accountant to prove global warming false.” What gives people such a low regard for the professional scientists who are doing the real work?

Low IQs.

 

[sculptor]

Low IQs.

you're generalizing to a fantasy

 

[Billy T]

The following partially quoted NATURE GEOSCIENCE paper's authors are from:
Jet Propulsion Lab., California Institute of Technology, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, MS 233-300, Pasadena, CA 91109, USA,
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08540, USA,
NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory, Boulder, Colorado 80305, USA,
Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), University of Colorado 80305, Boulder, USA,
Air Quality Research Group, Dept. of Chemical & Environmental Engineering, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogota,
School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA,
Science and Technology Corporation, Boulder, Colorado 80305, USA. *e-mail: Eric.A.Kort@jpl.nasa.gov.

The Arctic is of particular concern when considering future climate, as large reservoirs of CH4 reside both in permafrost and CH4 hydrates. Both of these reservoirs will be destabilized by a warming climate, presenting a positive feedback on global warming. Potentially important sources of CH4 from the Arctic have been reported recently, including thermokarst lakes bursts of CH4 during freezing of tundra and degradation of subsea permafrost on the eastern Siberian shelf. Isotopic analysis has highlighted the seasonal contribution of wetland emissions to Arctic CH4 Ocean surveys have found CH4 to be supersaturated in surface waters of the Arctic far removed from continental shelves and attributed this observation to aerobic CH4 production.

Other mechanisms for aerobic biological CH4 generation have long been recognized.
The potential atmospheric impact of this Arctic marine source has not been previously assessed. Atmospheric trends in CH4 arise from many sources. To assess the influence of potentially vulnerable reservoirs of Arctic CH4, we need to understand present Arctic CH4 emissions in terms of magnitude, distribution and response to global change. Here we present atmospheric observations of CH4 collected over the Arctic Ocean on five flights during the HIAPER Pole-to-Pole Observations programme (HIPPO): one conducted in January 2009, two in November 2009 and one each in March and April 2010.

We find that notable enhancements of CH4 are regular features of the remote Arctic boundary layer, providing clear evidence of strong emissions from surface water proximate to sea ice. The largest emission signals were observed in early November and April. Large areas of open water are not necessary, as fluxes of CH4 from open leads were repeatedly observed and strong emissions were observed over fractured floating ice. From our atmospheric observations alone we cannot determine the process responsible, though biological production of CH4 in the surface ocean, as discussed seems a likely candidate.
Measurements were made in situ onboard the National Science Foundation (NSF)/National Center for atmospheric Research (NCAR) Gulfstream V. CH4 and carbon monoxide (CO) were measured by direct absorption spectroscopy with the Harvard University/Aerodyne Research Quantum Cascade Laser Spectrometer with 1σ precision of 0.5 ppb. ...

Rather than add extensive comments, I have made sections of their text bold. This is not support for any "50 megaton CH4 bomb." Just notice that there is a huge amount of CH4 that can be / and is being increasingly / released in the Artic that has not yet been included in IPCC etc. forecasts and it is a self accelerating "positive feed back." Why I focus on CH4, not CO2.

 

[iceaura]

Just notice that there is a huge amount of CH4 that can be / and is being increasingly / released in the Artic that has not yet been included in IPCC etc. forecasts and it is a self accelerating "positive feed back."

If it's biological production, the "feedback" may or may not exist. It sounds like some of it may be merely the release of methane formerly trapped under ice during the winter until released in the spring, being released early, for example.

 

[Billy T]

If it's biological production, the "feedback" may or may not exist. It sounds like some of it may be merely the release of methane formerly trapped under ice during the winter until released in the spring, being released early, for example.

Since the half life of CH4 is now about 12.6 years, why would it make any significant difference to the "feed-back" if biologically produced CH4 were trapped under the ice for a year and then all released in a single day, instead of steady release all year long of the same annual total amount?

Also if natural gas is escaping from the bottom, instead of being biologically produced in the water volume, what difference would that make. - The annual release total is all that matters, an it seems to be increasing in the Arctic region.

 

[Billy T]

Who said: "Mother nature has no sense of justice?" US & EU made more than half of the problem, so get more sea level rise. (They are most distant from the huge mass of ice in Antartica, which is holding ocean levels higher near it (by gravitational attraction). Ocean levels near where it was will actually fall below the average global increase, when it melts & US and EU get more than an extra foot or so over the 11 foot average global rise rise.* See last graph.

More discussion at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...try-heres-how-the-earth-will-get-its-revenge/
The direct gravitational effect dominates, but also with huge weight lifted, the land in Antarctica will rise - move farther from mass center of the earth. That also moves ocean water northward. Then, as discussed in article, there is small effect due to increase of the earth's rotational moment of inertia. (Earth spins more slowly so the equatorial ocean level falls (if that were only thing happening) with less centrifugal force and that moves water towards the poles.)

* total rise with nearly ice free Antarctic is more than 30 feet. With all ice now sitting on land, gone, total rise is about 50 feet and as it melts, greatly lowering the albedo, melting accelerates. This processes is already "irreversible." In addition to leaving generations yet to come with unpayable debts, current generations will have destroyed most of the capital invested in cities, etc..

 

[Billy T]

Now in it’s fourth year, the drought has left California in the driest condition it has seen in 1,200 years. According to a NASA hydrologist, we only have one year of water reserves left. And while this winter has seen a decent amount of rain in some parts of the state, the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada mountains, which provides much of California’s freshwater, is at a dismal 12 percent of normal.