I’ll obviously have a lot more to say about this in the coming days, but it’s going to be a major battle of one “settled” science versus another:
The big consequences of a major solar calm spell…would be climatic. The next few generations of humanity might not find themselves trying to cope with global warming but rather with a significant cooling. This could overturn decades of received wisdom on such things as CO2 emissions, and lead to radical shifts in government policy worldwide.
We won’t just be firing up the SUVs. We’ll be burning fossil fuels for everything we’re worth, and not just for electricity–for heat. But unlike the watermelons who have been waging war against carbon, I don’t propose any massive government solutions, other than to get the hell out of the way, and let the market work. Oh, and I think I’d be shorting carbon-trading schemes. I wonder if Algore is?
Two things: (1) You can easily look up what the consumption of petroleum, natural gas, and coal is worldwide. Do the stoichiometry. You will find that the total amount of carbon dioxide produced by the burning of fossil fuels is the right magnitude to account for the increase in the atmospheric concentration.
Gah. Pure numerology, unworthy of comment. But I quote it just to prove I read it.
But more importantly, (2) fossil fuels have a different isotopic composition that “baseline” atmospheric CO2. Folks have actually measured the isotopic abundances in atmospheric CO2 and it has been shifting by just the right amount for the excess CO2 to be due to the burning of fossil fuels.
Interesting. I’d appreciate a link to an original source. But color me generally unimpressed. I believe there are already substantial seasonal variations in isotopic abundance, depending on the origin of the stuff, e.g. photosynthesis or weathering or desorption from the sea. I imagine any archaic source — volcanoes, transport from the deep ocean, exposuire of carbonates — would have an “old” isotopic abundance, just like fossil fuels. I don’t see how any change in atmospheric CO2, from whatever cause, natural or anthropogeic (and it’s a known fact that there are natural source of variation) won’t change the isotopic composition. How could it not? Clearly you are shifting the origins of some components of the mix, adding (say) more photosynthesis product, or more volcanic outgassing, et cetera. When you change your whiskey blend, the color changes.
I don’t see how you can make your argument without nailing down every component of the carbon cycle, and that, of course, is totally begging the question.
Because if we knew the carbon cycle of the planet, we wouldn’t be having any of these arguments. We’d know how to interpret the atmospheric CO2 numbers, and know what will happen with (as you point out) a very well characterized injection of CO2 from combustion.
Delingpole has given us 10 good reasons to celebrate the coming Ice Age.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100092280/10-reasons-to-be-cheerful-about-the-coming-new-ice-age/
Here are a few:
2. People will no longer merely be mildly irritated at the way their landscape has been disfigured by bat-chomping eco-crucifixes for rent-seeking toffs (aka wind farms) in the name of saving us from “global warming.” They will be incandescent. Lynch-mob incandescent.
7. Monbiot the Musical (libretto: James Delingpole; music: James MacMillan) – a light-hearted celebration of one of the late 20th century’s great comic figures – opens simultaneously on Broadway and in the West End to enormous acclaim.
9. Britain now stands a reasonable chance of cleaning up in the medals at the 2022 Winter Olympics. As, unfortunately, do Jamaica, Bora Bora, Egypt and, of course, the 2022 Olympics’ host nation, Dubai.
Here’s the first thing that has always jumped out at me … CO2 comprises 0.038% of the atmosphere … yet somehow this 0.038% is supposed the driving factor of the other 99.962% of the atmosphere to retain massive amounts of heat. Just don’t see it.
It has to do with how each component of the atmosphere affects its opacity at various IR wavelengths. There are some compounds that have an even stronger effect, per mole, than CO2, due to their absorption bands being in otherwise virgin territory of the spectrum. Some of them have effects at ppb levels.
Carl: thinking that fossil fuel combustion isn’t driving the current CO2 increase is Lyndon Larouche level thinking. You’ve basically advertised yourself as a crank. Even the oil companies don’t take this line of argument, it’s so manifestly ludicrous. I advise you to look up the details of the evidence (you can find them online) before you beclown yourself further.
Now, you are on firmer ground if you criticize the modeling of climate response to this CO2 increase, and on even firmer ground if you criticize the economics of CO2 limitation.
I advise you to look up the details of the evidence (you can find them online) before you beclown yourself further.
Read: You can find the evidence yourself, but then the only evidence that supports Paul’s belief is what you should find. If you find anything that doesn’t support his belief, he’ll call you a crank again. Fear being called a crank!
Mankind has removed 50% of the forests during the past 200 years. Called the lungs of the Earth, I am made to wonder how well any creature would function with half of their lungs removed?
Reasoning by extremely crappy analogy is now part of the scientific method? Nice. Let’s do some “science,” boys and girls:
“Commerce is the lifeblood of society? Global warming regulations will drain our lifeblood. Leaches! We’ll all die!”
Never mind the fact that you cannot prove your claim that forestation is currently at only 50% of the level it was in 1810.
Carl Pham: Pure numerology, unworthy of comment.
Excuse me? It’s called chemistry. It’s, umm, a pretty well established, you might even say “consensus”, branch of science. Where the heck do you think the CO2 from combustion goes?
How deep does your denial go? Do you believe the atomic theory of chemistry? If you burn 1 kg of gasoline in excess air, do you believe that the amount of CO2 produced is calculable?
If you want to learn more about CO2 isotopic abundance, try starting with http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/outreach/isotopes/mixing.html. It’s very accessible, although the bit about Dr. Seuss is just annoying glurge. Then click at the link at the bottom of the page and look at the actual data. Or go find the papers published off this data. It’s not hard.
bbbeard Says:
June 15th, 2011 at 8:04 pm
“Bottom line is that it is no longer in doubt that the increase is due to fossil fuel use.”
Rubbish. See the second part of my post above at June 15th, 2011 at 2:46 pm.
bbbeard Says:
June 16th, 2011 at 7:59 am
“If you want to learn more about CO2 isotopic abundance…”
… start here.
I have additional qualms about the effect of nuclear weapons testing on C14 abundance. It is claimed that this effect is accounted for, but it is such a large input that the error bars must be enormous, too.
Since this is all being blamed on our evil cars, has anyone noticed the basic physics of aerodynamic trends in automobiles?
As fuel prices increase and technology advances, we build more streamlined cars that have less drag. As aerodynamicists know, decreasing their drag will increase their speed. It’s just basic physics. So we will have faster average highway speeds.
Indeed, a plot of highway speeds from the 1970’s to today shows a distinct hockey-stick shape, with speeds increasing by 15 mph in 20 years, supporting the theory that the switch to higher-pressure tires (which decreases drad) and more efficient aerodynamic shapes (which decrease drag) made cars go faster. You can even look at data going back to the 1920’s, when cars weren’t remotely streamlined and speeds were consequently very low, and see the same trend.
Based on this, sophisticated computer models predict that by 2050 people will be driving at 90 mph (low estimate) to 105 mph, and by 2100 speeds could reach 200 mph, with people driving 80 mph in residential neighborhoods and often hitting 50 mph in their driveways.
Unless of course there is some kind of strong negative feedback the regulates how fast people drive, kind of like how water feedback controls the climate, but to date I don’t think any such mechanism for has been published in the established scientific automotive literature.
Sure, I could produce all kinds of charts and graphs that show you how our grand children are all going to die in fiery 200 mph crashes, and you denialists would futily try to punch holes in the theory, but you’d be arguing against basic physics and aerodynamics. The data is clear and unequivocal. Streamlining cars makes them go faster, and is the chief driver of highways and thus fatality rates.
Now I just need a couple billion in government grants to convince the public of the danger and the urgent need to attach parachutes, sails, or other high-drag devices to cars to prevent a planet-wide highway apocalypse.
I mean, what does this mean? They say:
Yet, the plot of the SH clearly shows the ratio has not gone down to the pre-atomic testing levels there, and the data are portentously missing prior to 1955 in the NH.
George Turner Says:
June 16th, 2011 at 9:06 am
I think you should submit this for a grant. LOL.
George, are you saying that we must act now to stave off carmageddon?
George,
I suggest you begin by getting a digital movie camera and make a movie. Take lots of video t race car tracks; but cropped so you only see a bit of road and cars whizzing by at 100+ mph. Cut that in vintage 1915 film and,for good measure, throw in the cuts of Model A’s whizzing by with Tommy Guns blasting (threat of violence always a good addition), and work your way up to the present…..
all the while show a strip chart graph of speed vs time along the lower edge.
Market the film in Europe and await your Nobel Prize. After that the billions in grants will roll in effortlessly.
Carmageddon is a bitch.
Bart: I mean, what does this mean?
What don’t you understand? A bunch of 14C was released by atmospheric testing in the ’50s and early ’60s. 14C has a long half-life compared to the time since the testing, so the decrease is not due to radioactive decay. Instead it is due to absorption of the excess by things that aren’t the atmosphere, e.g. living things, water. And that absorption is driven by the concentration gradient, so you expect to see something like the exponential tail. How else could the 14C relative abundance change? Well, fossil carbon (coal, crude oil, natural gas) has been underground long enough that the 14C is all decayed away. So if you add CO2 from fossil fuel combustion, say 1 part per million atmospheric concentration, there is a calculable decrease in the 14C relative concentration. This isn’t mysterious, this isn’t some petaflops coarse-gridded earth model with who knows how many bugs and convergence and accuracy issues, this is high school chemistry with calculations you can do on your Boost Mobile smartphone. Sheesh. This is the difference between skeptics and denialists, I guess.
the data are portentously missing prior to 1955 in the NH.
“Portentously”? What do you think that portends? That there was some Soros-funded conspiracy of mad scientists who knew that something was fishy about the 14C atmospheric concentrations so they decided not to start actually measuring the 14C until 1959? The northern hemisphere data in the chart on the page you linked are from two sources: Vermunt, Austria and Jungfraulich, Switzerland. The Vermunt data series started earlier, in February 1959. See http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/cent-verm.html and http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/graphics/cent-vegr.gif. These are not the only 14C measurements that have been made in the northern hemisphere. The point of the chart is to show the nuke spike.
I read through the “Musings from the Chiefio” post. Some of the key links are either dead or behind paywalls, so it’s hard to track back to the original research. But his main thrust is the argument from ignorance: “Gee, have they thought of this? Have they thought of this? I don’t know if they have or not, but I just can’t believe anything these days!” The effects he mentions have either been accounted for or are subsumed in other, measured, fluxes. And, come on, swamp gas? Srsly?
Look, the contribution of fossil fuel combustion to atmospheric CO2 is well-understood. That’s not where the controversy lies, and that’s all I’m going to say about it. Go wander the fever swamps by yourself. The adults are busy discussing the real issues.
bbbeard Says:
June 16th, 2011 at 10:30 am
“What don’t you understand?”
I do not understand how the decrease, which is clearly driven by the absorption of the atomic era spike, can be attributed to the minute dilution of C14 due to fossil fuel consumption. Show me the calculations.
But, I guess that is the difference between true scientists and members of the Church of AGW.
“Look, the contribution of fossil fuel combustion to atmospheric CO2 is well-understood.”
No. It isn’t. In order to have a CO2 equilibrium in the first place, you must have opposing forces maintaining it, indicating negative feedback. And, in order to maintain that equilibrium within tight limits, it has to complete a fairly wide bandwidth loop. And, with a wide bandwidth feedback, the additional 3% per year we pump into the atmosphere will be strongly regulated, and will, in the steady state, result in a 3% increase in overall concentration. The narrative, in other words, is internally inconsistent.
“Go wander the fever swamps by yourself. The adults are busy discussing the real issues.”
I hope that little bit of public unseemliness was good for you. Because that’s about all it is good for.
“The effects he mentions have either been accounted for or are subsumed in other, measured, fluxes.”
You really think so? Is this an expression of faith, or do you actually know?
Excuse me? It’s called chemistry.
I know. My PhD (from Berkeley) is in it. Also most of my published scientific work.
Rethinking your contempt yet? Here’s some advice: do not assume everyone on the Internet is a dog.
I’ll tell you a story that relates, interestingly. When I was on an interview for an appointment to the MIT faculty, some years ago, I talked to a very senior physicist and he happened to mention the issue of power lines causing cancer, which was then in the news. My immediate impulse was, of course (being young at the time), to guffaw. Ha! Fever-swamp stuff! as you might have said.
Fortunately I didn’t do that. Because this guy went on to say how he was weighing the hypothesis seriously, as all scientists should. The theoretical arguments against any such link were, of course, very good. But theory is not sicence. Science is experiment and proven fact, and the ability to bemused by your theory is a sad long tradition.
In a long career I’ve had the good fortune to meet many of the very best physicists and chemists in the world, at least half a dozen before and another dozen after a Nobel Prize, and an interesting distinction has struck me: the second-raters, the wannabes, and the grad students and post-docs are often almost religiously devoted to the current dogma. Doubt is not entertained, but taken out back and shot, or at least chained in the doghouse and fed scraps.
But the very best will always entertain doubts, even about the most cherished of assumptions and conclusions. They never reply “of course!” or “you dummy!” or “geez, go get a PhD before you deign to criticize,” and they will always find proof in measurement, not in convincing theoretical arguments, since men have found convincing theoretical arguments for an astonishing array of nonsensical propositions, from phlogiston to Lysenkoism.
So what your contempt suggests to me is that you don’t have a scientific response to my challenge, which is that you cannot nail down the meaning of a change in isotopic composition without characterizing every source and sink of carbon that contributes significantly. This, too, is “high school chemistry.”
Thanks for the kiddie link, but I was hoping for a pointer to actual research work, in JCP, Geophysical Letters, JGR, or at least an annual review or something. Got any?
All this denialism of the science is politically motivated claptrap and probably wrong, the politically motivated predictions of catastrophe from AGW are also probably claptrap.
You’re using the definition of “troll” as someone who disagrees with the opinions of the blogger and the sheeple who inhabit the blog.
Bart: that is the difference between true scientists and members of the Church of AGW
If you think I’m in the “church of the AGW” then you are really clueless.
I do not understand how the decrease, which is clearly driven by the absorption of the atomic era spike, can be attributed to the minute dilution of C14 due to fossil fuel consumption. Show me the calculations.
The relative change in CO2 concentration is large, not “minute”. The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has gone up by a third in the last century. And do the calculations yourself.
Carl: I know. My PhD (from Berkeley) is in it…. the second-raters, the wannabes, and the grad students and post-docs are often almost religiously devoted to the current dogma.
Heh. I’ll see your Berkeley and raise you two MITs. Are you all in?
I’m not the one clinging to dogma. I’ve looked at the data on CO2 isotopic content, I’ve done the calculations, and I’m satisfied. (Why haven’t you?) This is in sharp contrast to the general circulation models used by the climateers. In this case I’ve looked at the data, I’ve looked at the models, and I’m not satisfied.
I have to say I don’t really understand your comment about power lines and cancer. Power lines don’t cause cancer. Are you saying they do? Or are you just saying every crank deserves their day in court? Shall we re-open the vaccine-autism link? Polywater? Spoon bending?
I’m being abusive partly because I’m an old cuss, but mostly because you keep dodging the question: where do you think the CO2 from combustion goes?
Carl: So what your contempt suggests to me is that you don’t have a scientific response to my challenge, which is that you cannot nail down the meaning of a change in isotopic composition without characterizing every source and sink of carbon that contributes significantly. This, too, is “high school chemistry.”
Oh, puh-leez. Your objection amounts to this:
C) “How do I know Bobby is in the clubhouse?”
B) “I saw Bobby walk into the clubhouse.”
C) “But how do you know he is still in the clubhouse?”
B) “When I went into the clubhouse, I saw Bobby there.”
C) “Well, how do you know that Bobby didn’t slip out the side door, and be replaced by an unknown person of unknown origin who happens to look exactly like Bobby?”
We know how much oil, natural gas, and coal we burn every year. We know how much carbon dioxide this produces. We know that the fossil fuels have practically zero 14C content and a different 13C content from the atmosphere. When you say we have to nail down all the sources and sinks before we can say anything about Bobby, what you are saying is that the CO2 from fossil fuel combustion might be absorbed by a large unknown sink, while at the same time being replaced by a large unknown source with the same isotopic composition, at the same rate. In a breezy epistemological sense, this solipsistic argument is airtight. And unfalsifiable. And unscientific. I hope you don’t think your argument convinces anyone, professor.
“If you think I’m in the “church of the AGW” then you are really clueless.”
You’ve got one foot in the door, then. You are willing to accept a part of the dogma without reflection. You have accepted Santa Claus, and are holding out that his reindeer don’t fly and he doesn’t really know if you’ve been naughty or nice.
Like I said, the narrative about CO2 concentration is internally inconsistent – you cannot have a rigidly enforced equilibrium level accompanied by a flaccid response to disturbances. Things just don’t work that way in the real world.
‘The relative change in CO2 concentration is large, not “minute”.’
We are talking about the Delta-14C measure here. I am saying that any change in this measure due to dilution by fossil fuel CO2 is minute compared to the change due to absorption and decay of the 14C from atomic testing.
And, for the delta-13C measure, I am claiming that there are many other ways in which it could decrease other than dilution by 12C rich fossil fuel emissions. We are talking minute proportions here. 13C makes up about 1% of all atmospheric CO2, and the measured change is less than 10% of that.
“…while at the same time being replaced by a large unknown source with the same isotopic composition, at the same rate.”
It does not have to have either of these. The observed increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration is roughly half of the total accumulated emissions. Fudge factors in the hypothesized models account for the discrepancy, but nobody knows if the fudge factors, or the hypothesized models, represent Truth.
How would putting giant mirrors in orbit effect the communication satellite business?
“predictions of catastrophe from AGW are also probably claptrap. “
There speaks a typical denier. Welcome to the club.
Bart,
IIRC C14 is made by cosmic rays hitting nitrogen nucleii. Change the cosmic ray intensity you will change the C14 production rate. Svensmark has something to say about the sun’s magnetic field, cosmic rays hitting the Earth and climate.
After reading E.M.Smith’s C12/C13 critique when it first was released I agree that the minute changes in C12/C13 ratios cannot be used to definitely say that human CO2 emissions cause the small observed changes. There are huge unknowns in the carbon cycle, larger than total Human Co2 emissions.
Jaworwowski had some things to say about C12/C13 ratios too.
“There are huge unknowns in the carbon cycle, larger than total Human Co2 emissions.”
It drives me crazy. The error bars are simply huge on some of these things, yet the advocates roll off factoids based on them as though they were indisputable Truth.
I am open to the argument of, well, this is how science works: by forming hypotheses, confirming them to the best of our present knowledge, and seeing where that takes us and if it holds up with additional scrutiny and information gathering.
But, that’s only OK so long as they aren’t trying to force gut-wrenching changes on society at large based on their biases and hunches.
“My PhD (from Berkeley) is in it”
“Heh. I’ll see your Berkeley and raise you two MITs.”
Heh we have these two slapping their academic “members” on the table to see which one is larger….
More importantly they cannot convince each other which is fine – debate is all part of the science deal.
But it shows, more than anything, that any political/economic/ecological major move on this is..uhh…premature.
“We’ve changed the credit accounting methods, and you no longer qualify for a PhD from RPI. You do, however, qualify for three separate Masters degrees. All in Chemical and Environmental Engineering.”
“Wait, you’re seriously going to screw me after the defense because two of my courses are no longer offered and the Professor that offered them is now deceased? Hmm. I’ll take the three degrees in Chemical Engineering … and I’ll tell this story to absolutely every single person I meet. Ever. Professionally, socially, taxicab drivers … everyone.”
…
…
“Congratulations Doctor.”
Did anyone get measurements of the CO2 emitted by massive volcanic eruptions over the last couple years? That one in Iceland that shut down European air travel last year for several days, how much Sulfur dioxide and Carbon dioxide and water vapor did it spew into the atmosphere?
Here’s a map showing currently-erupting volcanoes. Care to do the stoichiometry on the chemical soup they’re spewing?
http://www.volcanodiscovery.com/erupting_volcanoes.html
Hmm. Rand’s WP spamdog wants me to remove some of my links. I’ll just leave the first one. You can find the rest yourself by googling “volcanic CO2″….
According to this news blurb from USGS, volcanoes worldwide produce about 200 million tons of CO2 annually, compared with human fossil fuel CO2 emission of 26.8 billion tons [in 2003]. I’m not endorsing these numbers; this was the first site that popped up when I googled “volcanic CO2”.
http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/volcanowatch/2007/07_02_15.html
Discuss. Here’s another link from the first page of links: [earthisland link removed to make this less “spammy”]
I don’t have any reason to doubt these assays. The calculation seems simple enough. We know where all the volcanoes are. Send grad students to measure the outflow. Insert data into spreadsheet. Press button with the capital Sigma. If you think there’s a different, credible set of numbers out there that would boost the volcanic CO2 production rate by two orders of magnitude, go for it. “Nature” (the magazine, not the mother) awaits your input.
It was not always thus. Once upon a time, volcanoes were much more active, for example during the period when the Atlantic Rift first formed. Now we’re talking: [see the futurity.org link]
But hey, again, go look at the data. There were big eruptions recently — Pinatubo in 1991, Mount St. Helens in 1980. Did the CO2-ometer budge? Not that I can tell. You may have a more discerning eye than me:
http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/ftp/trends/co2/maunaloa.co2
Bart: You are willing to accept a part of the dogma without reflection. You have accepted Santa Claus, and are holding out that his reindeer don’t fly and he doesn’t really know if you’ve been naughty or nice.
Sigh. Go look at the flippin’ data, Bart, instead of sitting around inventing inappropriate imagery.
Gregg: Heh we have these two slapping their academic “members” on the table to see which one is larger….
Heh. Carl’s is longer but mine is more impressive. Our CV’s, that is. I’ve always heard it’s what you do with it, though….
Bbbeard, to include more links, for each link remove the “http://” and replace it with quotes (or any non-functional delineator). For example: “www.livescience.com/14591-carbon-dioxide-emissions-humans-volcanoes.html” Readers can cut and paste the link into another window of their web browser.
I think your argument would be bolstered by specific links (ones more scholarly than the one I provided), even if the links were cited in this less user-friendly format.
I had the max links set to five. I just upped it to ten. I hope it doesn’t increase spam.
Thank you Rand. In the past, your blog’s software treated postings differently if there were more than two links — two, rather than five. But I wouldn’t expect you to want to monkey with it further!
— for those casually reading who don’t want to click, here’s the summary of the above links:
http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=2827&from=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+UsgsNewsroom+(USGS+Newsroom)
“VANCOUVER, Wash. — On average, human activities put out in just three to five days, the equivalent amount of carbon dioxide that volcanoes produce globally each year. This is one of the messages detailed in a new article “Volcanic Versus Anthropogenic Carbon Dioxide” by Terrance Gerlach of the U.S. Geological Survey appearing in this week’s issue of Eos, from the American Geophysical Union.
“The most frequent question that I have gotten (and still get), in my 30 some years as a volcanic gas geochemist from the general public and from geoscientists working in fields outside of volcanology, is ‘Do volcanoes emit more CO2 than human activities?’ Research findings indicate unequivocally that the answer to this question is “No”—anthropogenic CO2 emissions dwarf global volcanic CO2 emissions,” said Gerlach.
FWIW, here’s the paper, with numbers and graphs and stuff:
http://www.agu.org/pubs/pdf/2011EO240001.pdf
Some interesting perspective from a meteorologist and climatologist with over 50 years of experience in the field.
The American Meteorological Society (AMS) was founded in 1919 as an organization dedicated to advancing scientific knowledge of weather and climate. It has been a wonderful beacon for fostering new understanding of how the atmosphere and oceans function. But this strong positive image is now becoming tarnished as a result of the AMS leadership’s capitulating to the lobby of the climate modelers and to the outside environmental and political pressure groups who wish to use the current AMS position on AGW to help justify the promotion of their own special interests. The effectiveness of the AMS as an objective scientific organization is being greatly compromised.
We AMS members have allowed a small group of AMS administrators, climate modelers, and CO2 warming sympathizers to maneuver the internal workings of our society to support AGW policies irrespective of what our rank-and-file members might think. This small organized group of AGW sympathizers has indeed hijacked our society.
The AMS should be acting as a facilitator for the scientific debate on the pro and con aspects of the AGW hypothesis, not to take a side in the issue. The AMS has not held the type of open and honest scientific debates on the AGW hypothesis which they should have. Why have they dodged open discussion on such an important issue? I’ve been told that the American Economic Society does not take sides on controversial economic issues but acts primarily to help in stimulating back and forth discussion. This is what the AMS should have been doing but haven’t.
James Hansen’s predictions of global warming made before the Senate in 1988 are turning out to be very much less than he had projected. He cannot explain why there has been no significant global warming over the last 10-12 years.
Many of us AMS members believe that the modest global warming we have observed is of natural origin and due to multi-decadal and multi-century changes in the globe’s deep ocean circulation resulting from salinity variations. These changes are not associated with CO2 increases. Most of the GCM modelers have little experience in practical meteorology. They do not realize that the strongly chaotic nature of the atmosphere-ocean climate system does not allow for skillful initial value numerical climate prediction. The GCM simulations are badly flawed in at least two fundamental ways:
Their upper tropospheric water vapor feedback loop is grossly wrong. They assume that increases in atmospheric CO2 will cause large upper-tropospheric water vapor increases which are very unrealistic. Most of their model warming follows from these invalid water vapor assumptions. Their handlings of rainfall processes are quite inadequate.
They lack an understanding and treatment of the fundamental role of the deep ocean circulation (i.e. Meridional Overturning Circulation – MOC) and how the changing ocean circulation (driven by salinity variations) can bring about wind, rainfall, and surface temperature changes independent of radiation and greenhouse gas changes. These ocean processes are not properly incorporated in their models. They assume the physics of global warming is entirely a product of radiation changes and radiation feedback processes. They neglect variations in global evaporation which is more related to surface wind speed and ocean minus surface and air temperature differences. These are major deficiencies.
The Modelers’ Free Ride. It is surprising that GCMs have been able to get away with their unrealistic modeling efforts for so long. One explanation is that they have received strong support from Senator/Vice President Al Gore and other politicians who for over three decades have attempted to make political capital out of increasing CO2 measurements. Another reason is the many environmental and political groups (including the mainstream media) have been eager to use the GCM climate results as justification to push their own special interests that are able to fly under the global warming banner. A third explanation is that they have not been challenged by their peer climate modeling groups who apparently have seen possibilities for similar research grant support and publicity by copying Hansen and the earlier GCM modelers.
I anticipate that we are going to experience a modest naturally-driven global cooling over the next 15-20 years. This will be similar to the weak global cooling that occurred between the early-1940s and the mid-1970s. It is to be noted that CO2 amounts were also rising during this earlier cooling period which were opposite to the expected CO2-temperature association.
An expected 15-20 year cooling will occur (in my view) because of the current strong ocean Meridional Overturning Circulation (MOC) that has now been established in the last decade and a half and ought to continue for another couple of decades. I explain most of the last century and-a-half general global warming since the mid-1800s (start of the industrial revolution) to be a result of a long multi-century slowdown in the ocean’s MOC circulation. Increases of CO2 could have contributed only a small fraction (0.1-0.2oC) of the roughly ~ 0.7oC surface warming that has been observed since 1850. Natural processes have had to have been responsible for most of the observed warming over the last century and a half.
bbbeard Says:
June 16th, 2011 at 11:31 pm
“Sigh. Go look at the flippin’ data, Bart, instead of sitting around inventing inappropriate imagery.”
Sigh… Get over yourself, already. I’ve looked at the data. But, more importantly, I’ve understood it.
Larry J: interesting perspective
Thanks for posting this. I know it really shouldn’t matter who the author is, but I was impressed that Bill Gray wrote this. I have always been impressed with Dr. Gray’s competence and professionalism. Good link to keep around.
BTW he summarizes:
Over the last few years the weight of evidence, as presented in these many blog discussions, is beginning to swing against the AGW hypothesis. As the globe fails to warm as the GCMs have predicted the American public is gradually losing its belief in the prior claims of Gore, Hansen, and the other many AGW advocates.
In other words, “it’s the models, stupid.”