Time for AGW deniers/doubters/skeptics to get real

I've seen that page before (in fact, I have it bookmarked because a certain someone plagiarised parts of it in a 'discussion' we once had).
On the face of it, I'm not sure I agree with some of his conclusions, but I haven't really gone through it in depth to pick it to pieces, if you know what I mean?

 

Having said that,and bearing in mind that I'm an environmental chemist, so my approach is probably different.

He is routinely critical of the leaving out of water from the calculations, on the basis that water is a better GHG bla bla bla.

But, on the surface of that, it appears to me to be another example of a false thesis.

Consider this:

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Another graph showing much the same thing:

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And another:

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It indicates that in most of the bands that H[sub]2[/sub]O absorbs NIR, it's absorption already approaches 100%, so increasing the amount of water vapour in the atmosphere isn't neccesarily going to have a huge addon effect to the warming, purely because the water is already absorbing most of what it can.

This was the source of much of the debate between 1930, and 1950, was that the majority opinion was that water was already absorbing most of the radiation, and the bands overlapped, so there could be no warming. What changed, thanks to the cold war, was improved spectroscopes that confirmed the presence of the fine structure in the spectra (meaning that the overlap was not total, and there was more IR for the CO[sub]2[/sub] to absorb than had been previously budgeted.

 

Something else that page seems to be ignoring.

The logic appears to be, that because CO[sub]2[/sub] is present in insignificant quantities, and human contributions are insignificant, therefore human contributions to global warming are insignificant.

But such logic ignores some basic points.
Natural contributions are (at least as I understand it) approximately constant.
Human contributions are increasing.
The rate at which human contributions are increasing, is also increasing.

Consequently, everything else being equal (or accepted) we must, at some stage in the future reach a point where the two contributions become equal (naively when we reach 576ppm), after which point human contributions will dawrf natural ones.

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/

 

Something else that page seems to be ignoring.

The logic appears to be, that because CO[sub]2[/sub] is present in insignificant quantities, and human contributions are insignificant, therefore human contributions to global warming are insignificant.

But such logic ignores some basic points.
Natural contributions are (at least as I understand it) approximately constant.
Human contributions are increasing.
The rate at which human contributions are increasing, is also increasing.

Consequently, everything else being equal (or accepted) we must, at some stage in the future reach a point where the two contributions become equal (naively when we reach 576ppm), after which point human contributions will dawrf natural ones.

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/

 

Something else to consider.
The alleged lag that CO[sub]2[/sub], according to some sources, shows in relation to temperature, may in fact be, quite simply, an 'artifact'.

The air in ice pores remains 'in contact with the atmosphere' to some times quite substantial depths, until the point at which the bubble seals. How long the firn takes to get buried to that depth depends upon a number of factors. In the case of the vostok ice core (AFAI can tell, the most commonly cited ice core showing this), it's between 4000 and 6000 years, depending on climactic conditions. So if the first figure is the correct figure, then the snow that fell at the vostok station at the time that the ancestors of the Latins arrived in Italy, glass started making its appearance, horses were domesticated, and stone henge was completed, is still in contact with the atmosphere

Myth Busted?

 

Only you have yet to show even the slightest hint of mens rea.

 

It means I haven't worke dthrough the figures in any great detail yet. These are, shall we say, my first impressions.

It's a natural consequence of a rising ppCO[sub]2[/sub]

Actually, yes. As I said, it's a natural consequence of a rising ppCO[sub]2[/sub].

The ocean is one of the earths largest carbon sinks, also one of the slowest to respond to changes. The change in pH is as a direct result of one of the dynamic equilibria that remove CO[sub]2[/sub] from the atmosphere.

 

One thing that stands out to me about that article is the person that wrote it didn't check what was in the 6th data set (the one at the pub, 500km away). I mention this as being potentially important for two main reasons.

The first one being that the article quotes the method used, which involves comparing it to five other neighbouring stations, but there are only 5 stations in darwin, so a sixth one is required for the comparison to be done properly.

Second reason I mention it is that the climate models all use a 5°x5° grid. At the equator, 1° of latitude is somethign like 110 or 111km, so a station 500km away would/could be in the same grid square, and considered 'neighbouring'.

 

The size of the grid cells isn't about making stations that are 500km apart 'neighbouring' it's about the complexity of the models.

As I understand it, a global model crunching a 5 by 5 grid takes something like 90 hrs, nearly 4 days. Doubling the size of the grid increases the computing time by a factor of about 8, so a 2.5x2.5 grid would take about 30 days to compute. The course grid (and such) is about limitations in technology, and limitations in funding - hence the question I asked BuffaloRoam at one stage if he was willing to pay additional taxes to fund better models and more research - I'm sure climatologists would love to receive funding for 720 hours of time on a super computer.

Neighbouring is a relative term - if they're in adjacent cells, or the same cell, they're neighbouring.

Earth and Mars are how many millions of km apart at any given time? And they're neighbouring planets because they're adjacent.

If you live in the middle of nowhere, and the nearest house is several km away they're still your neighbours. The concept of neighbour isn't just about physical proximity, it's also about adjacency.

 

Quite, however this from Meehl, G.A., W.M. Washington, C.A. Ammann, J.M. Arblaster, T.M.L. Wigleym and C. Tebaldi (2004). "Combinations of Natural and Anthropogenic Forcings in Twentieth-Century Climate". Journal of Climate 17: 3721-3727

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(Courtosey of Wiki)

 

Only if you buy into some of the Anti-AGW rhetoric that suggests that AGW proponents only consider GHG's, which is the point of posting the graph in the first place, it demonstrates that the models used in this paper can correctly account for the cooling observed between 1945 and 1975 even though CO[sub]2[/sub] grows rapidly during this time frame.

If you listen to, to pick on a specific example, BuffaloRoam, he will assert that AGW proponents only consider GHG forcings and ignore solar forcings, however, this graph trivially disproves that assertion by making that prediction (which was apparently due to the fact that during this period sulfate forcing exceeded GHG forcing, and the growth rate of sulfate forcing exceeded the growth rate of GHG forcing.

In fact, and rather ironically if you ask me, the models predict a more pronounced cooling trend than was actually observed during this period.