A version of the article linked here now appears on Mises.org front page.
Fascinating article here: “By the late 1990′s, lots of jobs depended on the idea that carbon emissions caused global warming. Many of them were bureaucratic, but there were a lot of science jobs created too. I was on that gravy train, making a high wage in a science job that would not have existed if we didn’t believe carbon emissions caused global warming. And so were lots of people around me; and there were international conferences full of such people. And we had political support, the ear of government, big budgets, and we felt fairly important and useful (well, I did anyway). It was great. We were working to save the planet! But starting in about 2000, the… evidence…fell away or reversed.”
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David
“civilization exists by geologic consent,subject to change without notice”
historian Will Durrant
A very good article. Are you aware of the studies of Zbigniew Jaworoski, Phd? you can find his articles at http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com
He explains how that until 1985, the published CO2 readings from air bubbles in pre-industrial ice ranged from 160 to 700 ppmv and occasionally even up to 2450 ppmv. After 1985 the high readings disappeared from the publications. Obviously to fit the theory of anthropogenic global warming, all high CO2 values had to be thrown out. He also describes how unreliable ice core date is. He and his colleagues at the website, discuss this and many other issues.
Another very interesting study is being conducted by Robert Felix, http://www.iceagenow.com
The oceans are getting warmer, because of the explosion of submarine volcanic activity. he explains that throughout geologic history, every ice age is preceeded by a buildup of heat in the oceans from this activity, which expels more water vapor into the atmosphere along with more methane from hydrates (frozen methane at extreme depths). The extra water vapor when returned to the earth as prescipitation during the winter is what causes the extra build up of ice and snow which over a very short period of time triggers an iceage. Many paleo climatologist say it is cold enough now for an ice age, but there is not enough moisture.
It is now gettng colder in Antartica and other areas, and despite the few glaciers that are melting as advertised in Inconvenient Truth, hundreds of more throughout the world are growing.
The earth is at the end of an 11,500 year interglacial ice age. Ice ages are cyclical and are brought on by our solar system’s movement through out the galaxy. Our solar system is moving closer to the glactic gravitational plane of our Milky Way galaxy. This is causing a decrease in the strength of our magnetiic field, which really has decreased substantially over the last hundred or so years. Some times our magnetic field will reverse, which has always caused a devastating effect upon the planet. I urged you to research the information at these two sites.
Rick Taylor
re. ice cored data,
You may also be interested to read this by Zbigniew Jaworowski, over at -21stcenturysciencetech.
http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/2006_articles/IceCoreSprg97.pdf
the article states “the sun’s magnetic field, which shields us from cosmic rays” — I think it is the EARTH’s magnetic field that generates the Van Allen belts which protect the Earth from solar particles. As far as I know, nothing protects us against cosmic rays except for lots of lead.
the srticle states “Some theories held by science authorities have turned out to be spectacularly wrong: heavier-than-air flight is impossible, the sun orbits the earth . . . “. Which “science authorities” held that the sun orbits the Earth? Would that be Jerry Falwell?
Good day gentleman, as I was reading this thread I just had to toss in my 2 Cents worth.
From what I can gather, of the roughly 2500 IPCC “Scientists” only approx 110 have degrees in anything related to “Science” the rest have Ph D’s in various fields including “Literature”, “Psychology” and “English”. Of the 110 remaining “Scientist” only some 11 are Climate related Ph D’s, and they are all from various government institutions that follow the “GW” hypotheses.
Also, more and more climate scientists, including ones that worked for the IPCC initially, have recently denounced the IPCC as purposely distorting the scientific facts to suit the agenda(don’t have the posts handy) but if your interested in what “real” climatologists have stated check out the links below, they’re an interesting read!
http://www.junkscience.com/
http://www.climateaudit.org/
http://www.nrsp.com/
http://www.friendsofscience.org/index.php
Possibly the wierdest discussion in the history of weirdness or discussions. Like jousting with sausages.
A strange addiction to responding to even the most miniscule thing said and making silly arguments is actually the least annoying thing about this thread.
Looks like indulgence, if you ask me. None of the main contributors here come off as credible…
What I find interesting is GW alarmists don’t seem to have a place to point to that summarizes their principal claims definitively and comprehensively. Lots of papers published it seems but outside of arcance debates in the specialized climate science field, the following questions (at the very least) need to be answered clearly and comprehensively by GW theorizers:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/chernikov/chernikov46.html
dennis> The overwhelming source of funding is from governments or supranational governmental organizations, and government activity is the very opposite of market activity.
Well it shares some characteristics with the compost market.
For those of you who would like to see some references proving the points that Evans makes, please feel free to review Avery and Singer’s Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1500 Years. The book has HUNDREDS of references to various studies that do NOT support Al Gore’s position.
In fact, right now you can get that book along with the one about the cosmic rays together at Amazon! http://www.amazon.com/Unstoppable-Global-Warming-Every-Years/dp/0742551172
The fact that Evans is not a climatologist is completely immaterial. Neither is Al Gore! Yet Gore is WORSHIPPED as a “prophet” simply because he is a liberal and those who support his cause are rewarded with research dollars. Plain and simple.
I think everyone is missing an interesting point here. With global warming and carbon credits as one solution, all the trees and other C4 plants, become owned by some one or entity. Much the same as all minerals, energy resources and of course water. Its only a matter of time before the atmosphere is also owned, as in the weather too. Junk science is the name and control is the game. Google HAARP
Interesting point, MerLynn, but tell me – does Austrian economics say that public goods can NOT be owned, but must forever remain open to all, and free to be exploited without charge by all? Or does it permit private or cooperative ownership of such resources, in order to avoid a destructive tragedy of the commons?
No one is going to own the atmosphere, of course; rather, governments are talking about levying users’ fees on fossil fuels.
Not much different than paying a fee for a toll road.
“Possibly the wierdest discussion in the history of weirdness or discussions. Like jousting with sausages.”
Yes, sprachethiklich, and did you come without a sausage or is it simply to small to discern?
Hardly a productive conversation, but it seems that the intended purpose was simply to get a little web traffic by taking advantage of a brave climate better’s new-found fame among the denialist lobby as a climate change expert and apostate to the global warming religion.
Too bad he’s neither, and is betting that the climate will continue to warm for the next tweenty years.
Michael, carbon markets can be meaningless, particularly if there’s no real bite in terms of a reduction in total emissions under a cap. That’s the story with Kyoto, where the Europeans have shown a reluctance to incur costs while the US, China and others remain outside the regime.
But emissions markets have shown that they work well on smaller scales, such as SO2 in California and banking provisions for CFCs under the Montreal accord. Theoretical they are similar to selling/granting transferrable fishing permits.
They are of course subject to any number of difficulties. Bill Nordhaus has a good piece here on them: http://nordhaus.econ.yale.edu/kyoto_long_2005.pdf
But yes, markets do react to pricing signals.
Dennis, I refuse to talk further with you about problems with the reliability of climate science, since you refuse to ever acknowledge when you might be wrong, and ignore my comments or morph them into another. Your long history of evasion shows that what you are engaged in is not a search for understanding, but simply a defense of an established world view.
Good luck with it.
Tom
PS: Okay, if the science is all so bad, can you show me one company that buys and funds a different view? What does Exxon have to say for example? Does Exxon have climate scientists? Do they approve the IPCC summaries of science? And is Exxon investing heavily in carbon-lite energy technologies? Are all of the corporations that support efforts on climate change simply lying through their teeth, or have been hoodwinked by a global conspiracy?
Glen, thanks for supporting my point that there is market pressure on New Scientist to be accurate. They are also competing for readers and advertiser $$, and which might create other incentives as you discuss, but they are hardly an organ of evil government or a mouthpiece of the alarmists trying to “steamroller their vicious programs over the rest of us”.
A look at their website – perhaps a difficult thing for someone afraid of “the tyranny of the mainstream” – will certainly show that they post articles at odds with the prevailing wisdom (such as “Look, no carbon footprint! Can you really cleanse your carbon sins by paying for a few faraway trees or solar panels?” and “Carbon offset cash-in questioned”).
But let me not stand in the way of you completely inoculating yourself from actually reviewing New Scientist’s explanations of various climate skeptic FAQs.
David Evans: I wonder if you have any thoughts on how seriously we should take self-made amateur experts like Zbigniew Jaworoski and Robert Felix, and their supporter, Lyndon LaRouche, whose website promotes them?
There are just so many out here, looking for the REAL science to believe in. Can you give us all some guidance? In particular, it would be nice to find a few credible skeptic scientists who agree with rather than detesting each other.
A prominent scientist like you, who once was on the payroll of the global-warming industry but has now abandoned the religious cult of global warming hysteria – and spoken out to oppose Al Gore, the United Nations, and the media driven “consensus” on man-made global warming – surely ought to be able to provide some guidance.
By the way, I wonder if you can explain more about why you were once a “warming alarmist” and how you managed to escape. What were its ties to the media driven “consensus”, and was it BOTH a cult AND an evil business? Did you and your colleagues “receive large incentives for peddling the global warming line” and face “severe penalties and risks for compiling any analysis or opinion piece that differs from the ‘man made global warming’ narrative”? Just how did you manage to get away from all of this and deprogram yourself?
Your admiring fans here want to know all about your heroic struggles. Don’t disappoint them by betting that the climate will CONTINUE to warm, and by saying things like:
• “There is a warming effect due to the extra carbon we humans have put into the atmosphere.”
• “There are other causes for the global temperature to change, including human aerosols and maybe cosmic rays.”
• “I think it likely that … the warming due to the extra carbon will continue (since we keep increasing the extra carbon).”
• “The increase in extra carbon would put an upward bias on the natural temperature variability, an upward-sloping channel on a graph of global temperature. We might want to curb carbon emissions some day.”
TT
PS: David, none of the snark is intended towards you.
David, more seriously, in understand that your chief concern is what you consider to be a lack of observational evidence to back up the science and modelling relating to AGW (which to be fair address other human-influenced forcings, such as albedo changes, particulates and other gasses).
You have said:
“Historically, science has not progressed by calculations and models, but by repeatable observations. … The laboratory experiments proved that carbon dioxide had a calculable greenhouse effect in a laboratory. There is no observational evidence for the amount of global warming due to the extra carbon dioxide that we have emitted into the atmosphere.
“If there was such observational evidence, repeatable by independent parties, then we would all have great confidence that the effect was occurring and what its size was. And I wouldn’t be a skeptic.”
http://backseatdriving.blogspot.com/2007/04/climate-skeptics-guest-post-why-david.html.
1. Well, I think your history of science is wrong. Often, someone just gets a brilliant IDEA – like Gallileo, Darwin and Einstein – and many years are needed to accumulate the evidence and conduct experiments that prove them right, in the face of the opposition of more senior scientists seeking to defend their own established views and reputations. It is for this reason for the old saw that scientific progress is made one death at a time. Who are the old codgers in this fight?
2. Yes, the proof is ultimately in the pudding – and proving conclusively for the satisfaction of all may be very difficult indeed, especially with respect to something as complex as the climate, as those changes may involve very many factors and it is difficult for us to personally sense climate change. It’s actually easier to keep our minds closed – as Gallileo, Newton, Darwin, Alfred Wegener and Einstein all experienced.
3. Clearly there is global observational evidence that the Earth is warming. But is there no observational evidence that human forcings are playing a role?
- even without the effect of additional GHGs and anthropomorphic albedo changes, scientists can see the greenhouse effect and albedo effects in action at Venues, Mars and other places, and no one denies that GHGs are important in heloing to keep the Earth warm.
- the latest IPCC reports are based on observational data:
“The latest IPCC chapter is the first to use observations of the Earth’s climate rather than predictions of possible future scenarios to conclude that climate change is real,” says Saleem Huq, of the International Institute for Environment and Development and one of the chapter’s lead authors.
“Ten years ago, we said there was a detectable effect of climate change,†said Martin Parry of the UK’s MetOffice. He chaired the group of 441 scientists who synthesised five years of research into the chapter.
“Five years ago, we said we could detect a regional impact of climate change,†he continued. “Now, we have reviewed 29,000 data sets, and 90% of them show that changes happening worldwide are due to climate change.â€
“These changes include early flowering seasons, changes in agricultural productivity and changes in insect migrations, but also the intensity of heat waves and storms. … [T]aken together, the increase in frequency and intensity of such events during the last decade of the 20th century provides strong evidence that climate change is already occurring and is no longer a problem of the future.”"
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change/mg19425993.000-editorial-nowhere-to-turn-for-climate-change-deniers.html
- A comparison of the most recent observed climate trends for CO2 concentration, global mean air temperature and global sea level to previous model projections as summarized in the IPCC’s 2001 assessment report shows that previous
projections have not overestimated likely climate changes and that the climate system, in particular sea level, may be responding more quickly than climate models indicate.
http://www.pik-potsdam.de/~stefan/Publications/Nature/rahmstorf_etal_science_2007.pdf [SCIENCE VOL 316 4 MAY 2007 709]
- A recent comparison of climate models to the CO2 proxy record over the past 420 million years concluded that a long-term equilibrium climate “sensitivity” to CO2 increases (temperature changes accompanying a doubling of CO2) of greater than 1.5 degrees C “has probably been a robust feature of the Earth’s climate system over the past 420 million years” – with a best fit of 2.8 degrees C [5.0 degrees F]. This is “broadly consistent with estimates based on short-term climate records”, and “indicate[s] that a weak radiative forcing by carbon dioxide is highly unlikely on multi-million-year timescales. We conclude that a climate sensitivity greater than 1.5 degree C [2.7 degreees F] has probably been a robust feature of the Earth’s climate system over the past 420 million years”.
http://droyer.web.wesleyan.edu/climate_sensitivity.pdf [Vol 446|29 March 2007| doi:10.1038/nature05699]
4. You say that if there was “observational evidence, repeatable by independent parties, then we would all have great confidence that the effect was occurring and what its size was.”
Is it your position that you will not accept the above evidence, simply because you cannot repeat it yourself, or that you will simply not be convinced until we are another further twenty years down the road? The problem with that, of course, is that we only have one Earth on which to continue this little science experiment, and the experiment CANNOT be repeated.
According to the IPCC, we have so far experienced about 1 degree F of the 5 degree F warming that we can expect if we manage to end our atmospheric ramp up of CO2 equivalent at mere doubling, a doubling that it would be difficult to prevent.
Are you advocating a position that we should all just simply stand around for the next twenty years, or does it make sense that we do something, both to get ready for changes that scientists say are unavoidable, and maybe even to try to avoid some of the forecasted warming?
What is your policy prescription, anyway – other than betting with Brian Schmidt that temperatures will INCREASE, but only at a rate somewhat less than what we are now experiencing (1.3 degrees C/decade vs. 1.7 degrees C per decade)?
Seriously,
Doubting Tom
TokyoTom,
While I certainly do not agree with the reasons you stated, it is fine if you no longer choose to discuss the AGW subject with me. You are entitled to use your time and resources as you see fit.
As an aside, given my strong embrace of Austrian economics, Classical Liberalism/Libertarianism, “revisionist†history, and natural law political theory, I do not believe that I generally support “established world view[s].” These movements all represent decidedly minority (some would say crackpot) viewpoints, as does strong skepticism regarding AGW. I embrace these movements because I believe they are correct and best incorporate truth.
Regarding your reference to Exxon, I would argue that Exxon, like virtually all other corporations, is overwhelmingly concerned with increasing its earnings and profitability. Given the political landscape, this company (and others) may very well have come to the conclusion that it is in its financial interests not to seriously oppose AGW. Exxon may have concluded that, whatever the correct science is regarding AGW, money can be made in alternative energy and in carbon credit trading, especially given the subsidies available in alternative energy. (Please note that I am not claiming that conventional energy production is not subsidized.) Those at Exxon and other corporations have not been “hoodwinked by a global conspiracyâ€; they are quite adept at identifying and pursuing profit opportunities. Being actively involved in molding a solution to a problem (whether or not the problem exists in the first place) puts the company in a much better position to profit from the solution.
I do not believe that this behavior by Exxon is in principle different from the behavior of the U.S. armaments industry over the past 100 or so years. This industry strongly supports a belligerent and interventionist U.S. foreign policy because to do so is in its financial interest.
Dennis, your response was as I expected.
- I agree “Those at Exxon and other corporations have not been ‘hoodwinked by a global conspiracy’; they are quite adept at identifying and pursuing profit opportunities.”
The difference between you and me is you seem to conclude that ALL of the corporate action/investment must stem from rent-seeking opportunities (that a global warming religion helps to foster), without giving any credence to the possibility that these corporations might also (or instead) be acting because they believe that the climate is changing because of huiman influence.
- But while accepting that corporations have NOT been “hoodwinked by a global conspiracyâ€and are “quite adept at identifying and pursuing profit opportunities”, you seem to take the opposite approach to scientists, politicians and everyone else except the virtuous free-thinkers here at Mises – that they are hoodwinked, gullible and fallen prey to an AGW religion – except of course that some (like all corporations as above) may be lying, simply for the vulgar purposes of taking money from our public treasury or otherwise looting common citizens and corporations. There are no true, virtuous scientists supporting the evidence for AGW who honestly think they are right – those consist only of the relatively small world of the skeptics.
- I note again your refusal to acknowledge basic facts about human responsibility for increases in CO2, or to provide any scientific support for another view: “that humans are responsible, directly and indirectly, for virtually all of the rise in CO2 levels”, “that man is responsible for a 33% increase in the levels of atmospheric CO2 since pre-industrial levels and for a doubling of methane levels. The build up has been accelerating, and annual increases are multiples of what they were in the 50s, for example. CO2 levels appear to be higher than those for any period over the past 400,000+ years, and we are headed for a doubling in this century.”
It is extremely difficult to argue policy if we cannot make any progress on a shared understanding of facts, and you have simply failed to make any effort to meet me on them.
- On the good side, I am happy to have your support eliminating ALL energy industry subsidies, as well as your agreement that effective and enforceable property rights are absent with respect to the atmosphere.
With that, I leave you to your solipsistic reality.
TT
TT,
You stated: “I note again your refusal to acknowledge basic facts about human responsibility for increases in CO2, or to provide any scientific support for another view: “that humans are responsible, directly and indirectly, for virtually all of the rise in CO2 levels”, “that man is responsible for a 33% increase in the levels of atmospheric CO2 since pre-industrial levels… CO2 levels appear to be higher than those for any period over the past 400,000+ years, and we are headed for a doubling in this century.”
Admittedly, my previous responses did not focus on these statements per se, but instead on the just as significant consensus implication that the increased levels of CO2 are causative of global warming. As a direct response to these statements, I refer you and other readers to a May 28, 2007 LRC article:
http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn05262007.html
Evidently, the methods of identifying the sources of atmosperic CO2 are quite suspect, if not incorrect. (As a related aside, this article also sheds some light on the political mechanizations that have occurred at the UN and the IPCC.)
Interestingly, your quote above implies or even states that CO2 levels were higher some time shortly after 400,000+ years ago. Would not a reasonable person desire to understand what caused this higher level of CO2, as humans could not possibly have had any influence?
You are correct in that “it is extremely difficult to argue policy if we cannot make any progress on a shared understanding of facts.†However, this lack of a shared understanding is not the result of myself having “simply failed to make any effort to meet [you] on them.†The problem may be that you define progress on the facts as me accepting your facts, or more accurately, what can be reasonably concluded from the “facts.â€
Hopefully, I will have time in the near future to respond to your first paragraph.
Since the level of CO2 in the atmosphere is an important issue in the AGW debate, and since TokyoTom has provided estimates of increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations, the following may prove informative.
Yes, CO2 has been shown by lab experiment to be a greenhouse gas. However, these same lab experiments also show that the relationship between changes in CO2 concentration and temperature changes is logarithmic and not linear. Specifically, increasing concentrations of CO2 produce significantly smaller increases in temperature.
On an X/Y graph with CO2 concentration on the X axis and temperature on the Y axis, this logarithmic relationship produces a line that becomes increasingly horizontal, i.e., the line flattens out, its slope decreases.
Dennis, we’ve been over this before. Your citing Cockburn again for a second time, without addressing any of my criticisms, perfectly epitomizes the problem. You dismiss whatever ANY government- or industry-funded scientist has to say and then offer up, for scientific data and interpretation, political commentators.
Your world appears to be puncture proof.
Perhaps it may be constructive if you would be so kind as to demonstrate the basis for your statements that “CO2 has been shown by lab experiment to be a greenhouse gas” and that “the relationship between changes in CO2 concentration and temperature changes is logarithmic”, and to explain why you consider that evidence and sources to be unimpeachable.
TokyoTom,
Anyone who objectively reads Cockburn’s article will realize that he does address your criticisms, and I believe he offers a quite reasonable explanation as to how plant-derived CO2 increases have entered the atmosphere other than through man’s burning of fossil fuels. You dismiss Cockburn’s article because you don’t agree with it and the article obviously is damaging to the AGW hypothesis.
As I stated many months ago, a general obstacle exists in that each of us is highly skeptical of each other’s respective sources.
As a matter of logic, if not basic common sense, if a lab experiment can measure temperature increases that are caused by CO2 in the first place, than it also can measure the additional temperature increases that are caused by increasing concentrations of CO2. This type of science is easily performed in controlled lab experiments. My understanding is that the logarithmic relationship between CO2 concentrations and temperatures is just as much a lab-demonstrated fact (but nowhere near as widely disseminated) as is the greenhouse nature of CO2.
I have been reading a newly published book entitled “The Chilling Stars: A new Theory of Climate Change” by Svensmark and Calder. As mentioned in the article, Svensmark has proven that fluctuations in magnetic activity on the sun alter the influx from space to earth’s lower atmosphere of “muons”–heavy highly charged cosmic particles created from the explosions of stars.
When the sun’s magnetic activity increases in long sweeping runs, the rate of influx of muons into the lower atmosphere (under 6,000 feet)is sharply reduced. The last 100 years have featured an increase of the Sun’s magnetic activity by a factor of 2.3; this increase has reduced the infux of muons by an estimated 11-12%. Throughout history, as Svensmark demonstrates, periods of major warming or cooling correspond almost perfectly with wide swings in muon influx, which vary from peak to trough by about 40%–more than enough to explain the onset of ice ages or warming interludes. Swings in muon penetration are caused by–and correlate very well with–fluctuations in the Sun’s magnetic shield.
When muons increase, low-lying clouds increase, because–as Svensmark proved in his just-concluded lab experiment–charged particles (in this case, muons) form nuclei around which water vapor molecules form, that make up low-lying clouds. Low lying cloud cover has been proven in the Nineties to produce cooler temperatures, by refracting about 50% of solar radiation back out to space, in addition to absorbing some additional percentage.
This dramatic new breakthrough in climateology and solar science creates additional problems for the mythology of AGW, an already staggering corpse shot to smithereens with fallacies. For coventional Green myth-models cannot account for fluctuations in cloud cover; the models predict changes in cloudiness that vary by several hundred percent! Moreover, only Svensmarks’ theory explains an anomoly that has long puzzled climate people: the Antarctic Climate Anomoly, in which the Antarctic continent grows cooler or warmer in opposition to temperature trends across the rest of the planet.
Thus, while temperatures have been increasing slightly (about .6 degrees C) and irregularly (again, in perfect phase with solar cycles) over the past century, the Antarctic has been comparatively cooler, featuring the most expansive sea ice in decades in 2005. The Antarctic Climate Anomoly has been in force many thousands of years, so anthropological co2 can’t explain it. However, Svensmark’s theory explains why cloud cover tends to warm the antartic while cooling everywhere else.
Of course, none of Svensmark’s remarkable discoveries, or other scientific findings fatal to Green Mythology, will alter the furious charge of Global Warming Crusaders. For the Green Crusade is based, not on science and reason, but on twisted and primitive misanthropic ideology.
I’ve had the pleasure of an interesting exchange of emails with David Evans yesterday, who indicated that he hoped to make a follow-up comment here to clarify some of the points I raised above and by email. I look forward to it.
And I can find you a very reasonable explanation for “Intelligent Falling”, Dennis. I guess you are unable to find any scientific support for what a political commenter has to say?
And as I thought, I guess you are unwilling to explore your own epistemology by making the effort to explain why the scientists who say that the CO2 greenhouse effect (the relationship between atmospheric CO2 and temperatures) is logarithmic are unimpeachably credible.
Hi–
Have you read that girl’s report? Kirsten was it? Anyway, she may be an honor student, BUT how do we know her resources are true? Eh? Eh? What does SHE not want us to know? I have never seen and Inconvient Truth, and have no opinion. A am ashamed of HER! Honestly, scientists have proven it well, I’ll say. Oil usage has gone up and we must clear our atmosphere. WHY, WHY and more WHY would they lie to us over something as serious as this, in Who Killed the Electric Car, I was told that lung cancer/disease in California had gone up because of carbon emmissions,and how can SHE explain this rapid growth in climate change? I personally dislike this Kirsten person, why should she be tooling in something as serious as this? THE WORLD IS AT STAKE!!!
Angry, angry, angry,
Mob
Hi–
Have you read that girl’s report? Kirsten was it? Anyway, she may be an honor student, BUT how do we know her resources are true? Eh? Eh? What does SHE not want us to know? I have never seen and Inconvient Truth, and have no opinion. A am ashamed of HER! Honestly, scientists have proven it well, I’ll say. Oil usage has gone up and we must clear our atmosphere. WHY, WHY and more WHY would they lie to us over something as serious as this, in Who Killed the Electric Car, I was told that lung cancer/disease in California had gone up because of carbon emmissions,and how can SHE explain this rapid growth in climate change? I personally dislike this Kirsten person, why should she be tooling in something as serious as this? THE WORLD IS AT STAKE!!!
Angry, angry, angry,
Mob
Tom,
Are you saying you don’t believe that the relationship between atmospheric CO2 concentration and temperature is logarithmic? This is well-known among climate scientists and derives from radiation theory. Even your buddies at RealClimate accept it. (See here and “>here, for example.) It’s in the IPCC report too. Do you consider these sources to be unimpeachably credible?
I would expect our resident “climate change expert” to know this. You presume to come here and educate us on climate science and yet you don’t know this? Perhaps you should go ask your RealClimate buddies for some re-education.
Or perhaps you really do know and you’re just badgering Dennis unnecessarily? Shall I call that sort of behavior what it is? I think you know the word.
Odd…the second Real Climate link got messed up somehow. Here it is….I think.
Geoff, relax. Again you are letting all of your tribal instincts run wild. If you’d read carefully, you’d see that I am asking Dennis if he is willing to clarify his own epistemology – why he considers some “facts” sufficiently credible but others not – and whether he applies it with any consistency.
He can refuse, but what, if anything, is unfair about me asking him about it? There is nothing more important in this debate than discussing how we discern and test reality. It is precisely the issue that concerns David Evans.
Regards,
The cheap skunk/badger Tom, who deserves no “regards”
“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself – and you are the easiest person to fool.”
Richard Feynman
“We see the world as ‘we’ are, not as ‘it’ is; because it is the “I” behind the ‘eye’ that does the seeing.” – Anais Nin
My “tribal instincts”?
That’s rich. Pot calling the alleged kettle black is it?
Very well. Your incessant trolling amuses me. Carry on.
“Science is the organized skepticism in the reliability of expert opinion.” – Richard Feynman
Thanks, Geoff. Just be careful not to let my sly efforts to amuse cause you to forget how thoroughly dangerous I am – being on a spy mission from Gaia and all!
That “uneasy rider” (note reference to ancient Charlie Daniels song)
Tom
TT emailed me and seems anxious that I make some further comments.
First, I found the discussion about my qualifications hilarious. My resume is on my site so anyone interested can simply see for themselves. However the qualifications that are most relevant to my article are simply that I saw the interaction of science and politics first hand, and that I was on the global warming gravy train.
Second, the article makes a point that those new to the debate rarely notice: The supporting evidence for blaming carbon emissions used to be rather strong, but has since fallen away. If you only joined the debate in the last couple of years, you would not appreciate that the old ice-core data seemed to point pretty strongly to carbon emissions as the cause of global warming. With the new ice core data available since about 2003, all that has changed — there is now no reason to blame carbon emissions other than models (which extrapolate from lab measurements of the greenhouse effect of CO2).
This is a little appreciated point too: at the moment there is no evidence, independent of models, that really strongly supports or denies the idea that carbon emissions are the main cause of global warming. Atmospheric temperature data that tried to directly measure the greenhouse warming failed to find it, and until recently seemed to deny it is possible (and still does, in the tropics): en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_temperature_measurements
So how much do you believe in models? The models I have heard about don’t deal with cloud cover, or only poorly, none of the models dealt with global dimming until a few years ago (because we didn’t know about it), and I have never heard of them dealing with cosmic rays. As a fellow modeler, I’d much prefer to see independent physical evidence.
Third, carbon emissions might be the main cause of global warming. It is possible. I used to believe they were, and it is easy enough to interpret everything as pointing in that direction if you believe that in the first place. (Been there, done that, moved on.) However in my opinion now, carbon emissions probably are not the *main* cause of global warming. So let’s do more research, and take cheap measures to curb carbon emissions.
The point that there is almost no physical evidence for or against carbon emissions as the cause of global warming independent of models is not widely known.
Science is a method for getting knowledge. It has evolved as our best way of acquiring reliable knowledge. In the scientific method, you start with a falsifiable proposition. If anyone makes observations that falsify it (ie observe something that contradicts the proposition) then it’s not true. If over time we make lots of observations that support the proposition then we accept it as true (bearing in mind that a single falsifying observation will prove it false). The observations have to be independent and repeatable.
Science is a better method of truth-finding than superstition, political edict, etc. Repeated observations means an observer does not have to believe or understand some theory or rather — just observe! People lie, cheat, bow to public opinion, have vested interests, are mistaken, etc — the scientific method developed to get around these problems.
Here is a relevant proposition: Carbon emissions are the main cause of the current global warming.
And here are 101 more (x is a whole number from 0 to 100): Carbon emissions cause x% of the current global warming.
On the other hand, models are an extended calculation. They are purely theoretical. They are equations performed by a computer, a mechanism whose rules are the knowledge we program into them. They are *not* observations.
Now I have asked lots of people, including climate scientists, for *any* physical evidence that supports or denies the propositions above. I repeat the call now — will anyone with any evidence please let me know. Now just to be clear, such evidence must include:
1. Who made the observations?
2. When were they made?
3. What did they observe? (In general terms, I don’t have to see the raw data.)
4. An explanation of how the observations prove (or even support, like the old ice core data) the above propositions.
Evidence that will not suffice includes:
1. Evidence that global warming is occurring. (Already assumed by the above propositions.)
2. Observations confirming some model. So what? They don’t prove the model is correct or will predict correctly in future. And if you find observations that disagree with your model, then you adjust the model anyway (hey, I’m a modeler). If enough monkeys bang away on typewriters long enough then eventually one of them will type the complete works of Shakespeare — same with models.
3. Something equivalent to “There are no other candidates, so it has to be the one I’m thinking of.” Illogical. In an effectively infinite universe, you cannot rule out all other possibilities.
4. Someone else said so (such as proof by authority or political edict). Independent repeatable observations only please, otherwise it’s not science.
5. Lab experiments. Too inaccurate when extrapolated to the atmosphere, and they omit too many factors (especially feedbacks). Lab experiments make good supporting evidence, showing how it could happen in principle and suggesting the extent. Lab experiments include measuring the greenhouse effect of CO2, water vapor, methane, etc, or forming clouds using cosmic rays.
For example, I’m sometimes offered something like
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/environment/danger_point.html
From that article: “From a combination of climate models, satellite data, and paleoclimate records the scientists conclude…” or “Based on climate model studies and the history of the Earth the authors conclude that…” See those references to models? Not good enough. “A computer model developed by the Goddard Institute was used to simulate climate from 1880 through today. The model included a more comprehensive set of natural and human-made climate forcings than previous studies, including changes in solar radiation, volcanic particles, human-made greenhouse gases, fine particles such as soot, the effect of the particles on clouds and land use.” Hmmm, wonder what the models left out — cosmic rays maybe? Again, this is modeling, not evidence.
Another issue is the public availability of the models upon which our blame of carbon emissions is based.
I’ve half-heartedly been trying to get hold of a working climate model that is used to make the “scenarios” — to examine its assumptions, omissions, sensitivities to input data, and the lower and upper bounds on global temperatures. What factors does it take into account, and what does it omit?
I haven’t looked too hard, so maybe I missed them. If someone knows of a publicly available model, perhaps you could email me please?
It seems to me if that if the climate modelers were acting in the true scientific spirit (and perhaps they are; I am not suggesting they are not because I don’t know if the models are available), then they would make their models publicly available. Working code, with documentation on what it all means. Enough so that a potential critic like me could run it on my computer, and understand what it is doing.
I also have a little background in the issue of public availability of controversial models.
The model I made for the Australian Greenhouse Office, FullCAM, is
pretty controversial in Australia — because it’s results are
politically significant (does Australia meet its Kyoto targets?) and
business sensitive (farmers get actual dollar payouts based on its
results, and carbon credits are calculated using it). FullCAM is a world
leader, and I’ve heard that it is being exported (eg China, NZ, several third world, maybe the US), so it will only get more controversial.
FullCAM is partly publicly available. The executable is available, and you can download spreadsheets that show the workings of some component parts. I urged the managers to make the source code available too, but they always baulked at that. However I did get someone to write a spec from the code (yes, it was that way around), and that document is publicly available I think. So you can see I’ve at least thought about the possibility of having my model and code picked over by a bunch of lawyers!
David, thanks for coming back to us.
I would like to comment further but fortunately for everyone am pressed for time. In short:
- in considering climate change we have both an evidentiary issue and an issue of what action, if any, that government should take in response. I note that you have agreed that temperatures are rising, anthropogenic CO2 is rising, that CO2 is likely a forcing factor and that other human forcings appear to be underway, in addition to whatever so far unexplained natural forcings may be a play in our rising temperatures.
- You have not discussed the rising effects of climate change, but based on this you still advocate – while we wait some unspecified period of time for evidence of a significant human influence on climate sufficient to satisfy you (even as evidence not only of changes but CO2 levels continue to rise) – that “Meanwhile let’s do more research, and take cheap measures to curb
carbon emissions!”
- the question of policy conceptually remains a separate issue from whatever our current state of knowledge is, but you still seem to think that a blance of evidence and risk merits some action.
- I do not believe you have made a case that the evidence for AGW has weakened. There is plenty of evidence that points in the other direction, and not merely the IPCC literature surveys, but also the conversions of prominent skeptics/libertarians like Michael Schermer and Ron Bailey who have their reputations on the line and the sea of corporations that are already changing their behavior.
- I was hoping that you would explain a little more about some OTHER points that you clarifed with me by email, but you took this opportunity instead to repeat your remarks about what you consdier the absence of “real world” evidence. Let me note some of these other points – quoting you:
“As you’ve gathered, I’m hardly a prominent scientist. (Although I suppose I am a scientist, and Morano’s postings have made me more prominent — but not for scientific achievements. My maths research may be valuable so I may be slightly prominent one day, but not yet.) No, I hadn’t noticed Morano had referred to me as “a prominent scientist”. It never occurred to me that he could be referring to me!
I found the discussion on the mises site about my qualification hilarious. My resume is on my site so anyone interested can see for themselves, so there doesn’t seem to be anything more to add — except perhaps something along the lines of “keep it in proportion, don’t go overboard”. Look guys, my only relevant qualification in this debate is that I saw the interaction of science and politics first hand, and that I was on the global warming gravy train (thus proving it exists).”
“I think Al Gore, the United Nations, and the media driven “consensus” on man-made global warming are overdoing it and may be wrong, but then again I think there is a smaller chance they are right, as I pointed out in my post on Brian’s blog. The case is not closed, so both (all?) sides need to be kept in mind until some definitive physical evidence comes along.”
“So yes, Morano is exaggerating both my prominence and agenda, and assuming my motivations for his own ends. A typical political approach, if I might point out.
I emailed Steven Hayward at Planet Gore to correct that, but he didn’t and I received no reply.”
- When I suggested that the climate models are not top secret and are available, and gave you suggestions about researching them you said “Not sure I can afford the time.” Doesn’t sound to me as if you have really tried to find what you say you are looking for.
You also said: “It is important not to let discussion boards become too one sided, as usually happens.”
I can concur, but isn’t the fact that a discussion board is one-sided evidence that one-side is right, and the minority wrong?
Thanks again for the dicussion, David.
TT
TT,
As Geoffrey has pointed out, the logarithmic relationship between increasing concentrations of CO2 and increasing temperatures is widely accepted by individuals on the various sides of the AGW issue. And if you do not believe that this can be demonstrated by controlled lab experiment then I really do not know what else I can say to you.
And I believe my previous comment is on solid epistemological grounds and is logically correct:
“As a matter of logic, if not basic common sense, if a lab experiment can measure temperature increases that are caused by CO2 in the first place, than it also can measure the additional temperature increases that are caused by increasing concentrations of CO2. This type of science is easily performed in controlled lab experiments. My understanding is that the logarithmic relationship between CO2 concentrations and temperatures is just as much a lab-demonstrated fact (but nowhere near as widely disseminated) as is the greenhouse nature of CO2.”
In effect, what you are saying is that initial temperature increases can be measured in a controlled lab experiment, i.e. CO2 is a greenhouse gas, but additional temperature increases due to increasing concentrations of CO2 somehow can not be measured. Given the nature of the lab experiment, I find this logically erroneous.
Mark,
Thank you for mentioning and summarizing the climate change theory presented in the Svensmark and Calder book. The book is important, and hopefully it receives a wide reading.
For those who may be interested, the book was reviewed in March 2007 on LRC:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/miller/miller21.html
Comments on TokyoTom’s response to David Evans:
“the question of policy conceptually remains a separate issue from whatever our current state of knowledge is, but you still seem to think that a blance of evidence and risk merits some action.”
Here and elsewhere you appear to be invoking the precautionary principle. I don’t think anyone here accepts that principle.
“I do not believe you have made a case that the evidence for AGW has weakened. There is plenty of evidence that points in the other direction, and not merely the IPCC literature surveys, but also the conversions of prominent skeptics/libertarians like Michael Schermer and Ron Bailey who have their reputations on the line and the sea of corporations that are already changing their behavior.”
1) Any evidence that fits his description of evidence?
2) Conversions of a few prominent skeptics is not evidence. In any case, there have been equally significant conversions in the other direction as well.
3) Corporations jumping on the bandwagon is not evidence. Many, if not most, of them are doing it for pragmatic reasons. They want to help shape the policies that will affect them, instead of having policies they had no say in imposed on them. Some feel they can reap profits by exploiting the green fervor. Some are no doubt rent-seeking, setting themselves up to reap profits by shaping the carbon credit market in their favor. You can’t simply assume they actually believe wholeheartedly in AGW and that it will be catastrophic.
“When I suggested that the climate models are not top secret and are available, and gave you suggestions about researching them you said “Not sure I can afford the time.” Doesn’t sound to me as if you have really tried to find what you say you are looking for.”
Other people have tried to get data and models from prominent climate scientists, in order to try to replicate their results, and faced obstruction. Michael Mann is one prime example of such obstructionism. See all the posts here, and here, and this post, and this,
and this, and this, and this.
Obstacles such as these are why he can’t afford the time. If you have easy access to such data and models, perhaps in the interest of science you could get some of them for David Evans and Steve McIntyre.
“Science is the organized skepticism in the reliability of expert opinion.” – Richard Feynman
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed – and hence clamorous to be led to safety – by menacing it with a series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” – H.L. Mencken
Tokyo Tom,
Whose payroll on you on?
One of the most interesting ideas presented in “The Chilling Stars: A New Theory of Climate Change” by Henrik Svensmark and Neil Calder has to do with the Antarctic climatic anomoly. This anomoly has been demonstrated in numerous studies going back at least 90,000 years (some studies reveal evidence of the anomoly millions of years ago). The anomoly consists of disparate climatic conditions in the Antartic continent, as contrasted with conditions on the rest of the planet. When temperatures rise around the globe, including Greenland and the Arctic, temperatures almost immediately get cooler in Antarctica. Such cooling manifests as either an absolute fall in temperatures in the Antarctic, or sometimes in a comparative drop compared with conditions elsewhere. But in either case, the disparity is real, as revealaed in ice core studies. Most recently, sea ice concentrations in Antartica exceed anything witnessed over the past 50 or 60 years. In 2002, for example, ships were unable to break through the ice to get supplies to weather observatories based on the continent.
One reason for the anomoly is a continuous and powerful vortex of wind that climatically isolates Antarctica from the rest of the world. Svensmark explains (and provides evidence that)this wind vortex isolates and preserves cooling or warming effects of big changes in cloudiness over Anarctica. Interestingly, only Svensmark’s theory of solar-centered fluctuations in cosmic rays in our lower atmosphere provides a credible and simple (in deference to the principle of Ocam’s Razor) explanation of this anomoly.
As Svensmark explains, the snowfields of the Antarctic are the whitest and brightest on earth–much larger and whiter than the Greenland and Arctic snowcaps. (I’m not sure why Anarctica’s snow fields are whiter, but I do not think this claim is controversial; it may have to do with the nearness of summertime Anarctica to the sun, due to the earth’s axial tilt).
Because the Antarctic snowfields are whiter and brighter than the cloud tops that sometimes float above them, clouds tend to warm the Antarctic, in contrast to their cooling effects on the rest of the planet. For duller cloud tops absorb solar radiation from above, and refracted radiation from below; as contrasted with bright white snowfields that reflect solar radiation back to the sky. So low-lying cloudiness tends to trap and direct downward warmth from the sun, more than it cools by blocking sunlight. The same phenomena occurs over the Arctic snowcap, except the duller and much smaller snowfields of that area favor cooling over warming dynamics.
Here is an observation that contradicts and falsifies the hypothesis of anthropological global warming. For co2 concentrations are rapidly dispersed around the globe with temperature effects that are supposed to be immediate. Moreover, according to Green models, temperature increases from higher co2 conentrations will show up most dramatically over the poles!
Of course, Greens will assert that other of man’s “unnatural” productive activites might account for this anomoly. For example, flurocarbon production is said to deplete ozone; ozone depletion could possibly account for leakage of co2 over the South Pole. But this is purely speculatiuon. Moreover, such misanthropic hypothesising can’t account for the persistence of the Antarctic climatic anomoly over thousands and millions of years of history. But Svensmark’s theory can explain all of this, simply and directly.
I’m sure we can all look forward to reading about this finding, as well as other science that contradicts Green Faith, in “Science”, or “National Geographic”, or the “Skeptical Inquirier”, or the “New York Times” soon.
Mark Humphrey,
Just to throw out a possible explanation for Antarctica’s “whiter snow caps”: may have to do with pollution from industrialization being more prominent in the Northern Hemisphere.
“Just to throw out a possible explanation for Antarctica’s “whiter snow caps”: may have to do with pollution from industrialization being more prominent in the Northern Hemisphere.”
Hey, wait Yancey. Are you angling for a position with the Gaia Squad or something? Knock it off with the nuance; it confuses people!
Tom,
You still have not answered my question.
On whose payroll are you?
Not that I see any relevance to anything I’ve said, but no one’s, Yancey. Certainly no one with a dog in this fight has asked for my help.
Why? Have been so disturbingly unconvincing and persistent that someone MUST be paying me? I couldn’t simply CARE about resource and development issues, have a few screws loose or a crank who has found it’s darn-nigh impossible to find good company with a buch of other ranks and grumpty old dogs?
Please allow me to introduce myself; I’m not a man of wealth and fame. Can you guess my name? Nemo calls me either Prometheus or Light-Bearer. I am a lone, way-faring stranger; a mere pilgrim on a long and winding road that leads to who knows where; an uneasy rider takin’ a trip out to LA.
When I was a young whippersnapper I was briefly in the belly of the beast – on Scaife’s payroll. Now I work in Tokyo as a professional, with a fair amount of work in the oil industry. I’ll take Shell and Exxon over Putin any day.
I won’t continue the implicit ad hominem by asking you (or others) to explain who’s paying them for their blogging. Your question is perfectly fair and neither impolite nor impertinent – the astute do a public service when they flush out possible demons.
That Walkin’ Man,
Tom
Hi David,
Can you explain something to layman.
You state that:
There is now no observational evidence that global warming is caused by carbon emissions. You would think that in over 20 years of intense investigation we would have found something. For example, greenhouse warming due to carbon emissions should warm the upper atmosphere faster than the lower atmosphere — but until 2006 the data showed the opposite, and thus that the greenhouse effect was not occurring!
I have understood that GHG model has always predicted cooling upper atmosphere. Like in article in science news says:
Increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the air, which cause temperatures at Earth’s surface to warm, will turn the upper layers of the atmosphere cooler and thinner in coming decades, new research suggests. This counterintuitive phenomenon, first predicted in the late 1980s and recently inferred from satellite data, will probably lead to longer orbital lifetimes for satellites and space junk.
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-157195430.html
Or are you talking about troposphere???
curious layman from finland
This is fascinating reading! At last, some realism in a nutty world seems determined to use science to destroy science. But there is hope after all. Thank you!
One big aspect of the global warming propoganda that has irked me for years is the random and unsubstantiated claim that a warmer world will have higher sea levels, in part due to “thermal expansion of seawater.” I knew this to be untrue or at least so miniscule as to be irrelevant, but I could not find evidence to support a refutation to it. So I finally took an class in oceanography hoping to find an answer to this, plus other facts relating to the issue.
I am happy to report that I did find my answer as well as a confirmation to my supposition. While it is true that fresh (pure) water does expand slightly when heated above 39 degrees F, and when cooled toward freezing below that 39 degrees, seawater (saline ocean water) is even less expansive. Thermal-based density of seawater is dependent upon the degree of salinity in that, the more saline the solution the more dense it becomes; however, the behavior of such water is exactly the same when heated or cooled.
Fresh water expands approximately 0.3 percent when heated from 3 deg C to 20 deg C (though this expansion is not a linear progression. Seawater, on the other hand, with an average salinity of 35ppk, expands in linear fashion when heated over that same range, but only by about 0.2 percent.
I have my suspicions that climate change progagandists use this information and apply the expansion factor to the entire ocean volume which would result in a 12,000-foot deep ocean (average worldwide depth) rising 24 feet if heated almost 20 degree C, or some porportional amount for a more limited range of temperature increase. This premise is patently false, since only the Surface layer of the ocean, extending generally only down to 150 meters of depth are subject to environmentally induced temperature fluctuation.
So, in my mind at the very least, we have another hole in the climate change campaign.
The Mises Institute states as a central point on its mission statement that it is “…opposing government intervention as economically and socially destructive.”
Obviously then any opinions aired under the umbrella of the institute are likely going to find fault with any argument that is calling for government intervention – or by logical extension – international treaties, as who else would enforce international treaties between governments who must intervene locally in order to uphold such treaties?
It would then seem logical that the institute must vigorously debate against any conclusion that global warming is anthropogenic, as otherwise they would need to support or condone government action to mitigate the issue. No companies and few private individuals would voluntarily cut back on emissions unless forced to do so by law.
It then would seem that the views expressed in the name of the institute or supported by the institute will be heavily biased by the institutes mission statement and therefore are likely to be rather unscientific, often polemic and probably irrelevant to the debate.
Davids article is a good example of these forces at work.
With its mission statement the Institute has chucked its scientific relevance out of the window from the start.
As of the mid 1980s I was an utter Green radical, at a Univ of Calif campus, hanging with the Earth First crowd. Monkey Wrench Gang and Ecotopia were books I thought were really neato. Someone handed me this book – “Greenhouse: It will happen in 1997!” – by Dakota James, a Lefty NYC lawyer. I lapped it right up. I sat there imagining that, as depicted in the book, the permafrost would be melted, all the polar ice gone, and people wearing only underwear in Cali by 1997. The Great Lakes would be dried up and they would be horse racing in Antarctica. No joke, I really, truly believed it. I was on the bandwagon with Hansen et al.
What a doofus I was.
… perhaps then if the book by Dakota James would have been taken more serious by the rest of us at that time, we would not be in the position now of looking down the barrel of the gun, so to speak.
Earth’s climate is like a very heavy swing. Once pushed to one side for long enough, fast enough, it will keep on going for a long time into that direction.
Also if the predictions of the Club of Rome would have been taken more serious too, then we would perhaps not be in a position of invading oil rich countries or lament the near end of many other precious resources (New Scientist lately had nice summary of the state of affairs).
Being ahead of your time by a few decades would have been such a good thing – with hindsight.
Sadly most people opted to act like the ‘doofus’ instead – or like the ostrich with his head buried deeply in the theory of unlimited market driven growth financed by Faustian wagers on all future generations…
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