Answer to the global warming skeptics/denier

[Tristam]

Water vapor cools the local climate by evaporative cooling, if it didn't the earth would be much much hotter. I would assume that removing water vapor from the atmosphere would reduce IR energy trapped within the atmosphere, and also since it provides a vehicle for dissolved CO2/methane/etc. to return to the earth, it would accelerate the loss of other greenhouse gases. I'm guessing you don't think models take these phenomena into account, but that's incorrect. Rates of removal of these gases have been measured, and are taken into account. They're not figured prominently into the models because the models must take into account stable or accelerated levels of greenhouse gas, which overwhelm the negative feedbacks due to water vapor/rain, that's just a fact, if you want to artificially inflate those negative feedbacks, you're welcome to get the code yourself and try, but I bet your model will fail to accurately hindcast data. But your original mistake was your statement that H2O/CO2 didn't have any negative feedbacks, which is flat on its face false. If I'm making some major mistake here, feel free to correct it, but I'd be even more impressed if you could clearly and concisely state your issues and questions instead of wandering all over the place, as is your habit.

The cooling issue takes some time to respond to, but demonstrates a huge flaw in your skepticism, which I've pointed out before, but then again intellectual dishonesty is par for the course for denialists, so I'm not really surprised. There are two main human-induced phenomena that can influence climate at measureable levels. One is increasing the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The physics of this are very well understood and the effect on climate has been used in predictive models for over a century that have been largely successful. The other is particulate aerosols, which have an albedo-related cooling effect. This magnitude of this effect was not well understood in the 60s and 70s, and scientists were trying to understand how strong the forcing effect was, and whether or not it would eventually overwhelm the greenhouse induced warming. This science is touched upon briefly in Carl Sagan's book Broca's Brain, which presents a profoundly different summary than the Newsweek article (more on that later). But the bottom line is that as they increasingly understood aerosol induced cooling, it was conclusively demonstrated (to the point that science can prove anything) that the cooling effect from particulate aerosols was profoundly weaker than greenhouse warming. Why don't the deniers have anything to say about that scientific consensus I wonder?

As for the newsweek article itself, you really didn't have to dig around to find it, although your story is adorably quaint. It's an article that pops up on just about every denialist website out there. The thing that jumps out immediately is that the cooling trend that the article mentions doesn't exist, or at least isn't found in any historical record. I'm not sure why we should even continue to discuss it. The article makes other silly errors (lots of snow in one winter does not indicate anything about climate, as washington area residents are of course aware by now). And furthermore it misrepresents the state of climate science at that point. Fourier analysis by that time had been used to dissect out major and minor climate cycles, and I was under the impression that orbital cycles had been understood and proposed as major mechanisms for glaciation by the late 70's, but perhaps my timeline is wrong. (search of sciencemag.org confirms that milankovitch theory had been experimentally upheld as early as 1968, although it seems major reviews weren't published until the early 80s, and at least one major model for glaciation cycles was proposed in 1980.)

But here's my problem as it applies to your skepticism, you clearly are not skeptical when it comes to the portrayal of a debate by a popular media article from 1975, yet you reserve skepticism for a field which, according to the NAS, has shown that anthropogenic induced climate change is a theory with evidence supporting it comparable to the theory of evolution, the theory of gravitation, the theory of relativity, and the theory of the origins of the earth/universe. That's high praise coming from the best and brightest of American science, and denialists have done nothing to propose alternative explanations for climate change. I've said it before, but the likelihood that the current warming trend is NOT based on natural climate cycles understood by direct temperature records and multiple paleolcimate proxy data reconstructions is valid to 95%, which is about as close to statistical certainty as there can be. The most accurate model to describe this data is the AGW model. There may be two sides to this argument, but one side is intellectually flaccid and scientifically worthless. Until you provide some data that's statistically valid and has some predictive capability, there's no reason to listen to you.

[aru]

Paint roofs white, use more hydroelectricity, increase average fuel economy.

PROBLEM SOLVED? PROBLEM SOLVED.

I've seen people mentioning white roofs a few times and I just want to make note that this isn't something that is universal. Yes, installing a white roof in areas that experience more cooling degree days than heating degree days (southern, hot climates) will be beneficial to reduce energy usage. However, the reverse is also true that installing a dark roof in areas that experience more heating degree days than cooling degree days (northern, cold climates) will be beneficial as well. Of course, other roofing systems like photo-voltaic and vegetative would be better (albeit more expensive) solutions.

[Max™]

But here's my problem as it applies to your skepticism, you clearly are not skeptical when it comes to the portrayal of a debate by a popular media article from 1975, yet you reserve skepticism for a field which, according to the NAS, has shown that anthropogenic induced climate change is a theory with evidence supporting it comparable to the theory of evolution, the theory of gravitation, the theory of relativity, and the theory of the origins of the earth/universe.

Uh, psst, I said I was skeptical of the shit back then, does that kinda fuck up the rest of this block of text?

I'm skeptical of everything which can't be axiomatically proven, technically, that's just the proper way to exist in my opinion.

[lilfoo]

97.4% of climate scientists answered yes to "Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?".

Homogeneous nucleation (water condensing on itself) occurs at ~-40 deg C. When you drive your car to work you release billions of tiny particles. When these particles get higher in the atmosphere they become Cloud Condensation Nuclei (CCN). This allows for water to to condense as early as ~20 deg C and most commonly ~14 deg C. This causes clouds to form where they would otherwise not. Clouds constitute for the largest of solar albedo outside the atmosphere itself. This causes a net cooling effect. You drive your car to work and cause a cooling of the atmosphere. Hurah!


Not trolling, there are 2 sides to that coin.

[kareface]

Trista, your post was quite awesome. I recently attended a lecture series that was dedicated to green energy at the UW. We were fortunate enough to have some great speakers like David J.C. MacKay, Steven Aumeier and Stephen Mayfield, not to mention some great professors at the school. I don't know if you've had the time to read any of Stephen Mayfield's work, but he works specifically with micro-algae for the production of biofuels, and other products.

I've seen people mentioning white roofs a few times and I just want to make note that this isn't something that is universal. Yes, installing a white roof in areas that experience more cooling degree days than heating degree days (southern, hot climates) will be beneficial to reduce energy usage. However, the reverse is also true that installing a dark roof in areas that experience more heating degree days than cooling degree days (northern, cold climates) will be beneficial as well. Of course, other roofing systems like photo-voltaic and vegetative would be better (albeit more expensive) solutions.

The power usage is a factor. The reason why people were told to paint them was simply to reflect more infrared heat back into space. It's the same reason they are proposing more light colored roads.

I would like to take this time to tell you that just because a theory is the most accepted one, doesn't automatically make it right. There's several examples of well-accepted theories that's been proven wrong, and a lot of theories a lot of people oppose that's later been proven right.

See below.

Anyways, Kare, love how you pointed out that the 97.4% of climate scientists was 75 of 77 responders out of the 3k/10k responding/invited.

I'm confused, is that a point of contention? They didn't invite 10k climate scientists, they invited 10k different scientists. It happened that 77 of them were climate scientists who are currently preforming research. If you think 77 is not that many scientists for that field your a idiot. That isn't a huge field, only a select handful of public institutions have facilities that allow for PHD level research to be conducted on the subject. It's not like biology where you could go just about anywhere to study it. Secondly, getting 97% of any scientists in any field to agree on even elementary aspects of their field is uncommon. It would be akin to getting 77 Ferrari enthusiasts to agree on which is the best Ferrari and having 75 of them agree on one. On top of that for years now there haven't been any creditable, national or international scientific bodies that reject the fundamental science of human driven climate change. Lots of people don't prove the truth of a prospect. However, when you get such a broad consensus like there is on climate change the likelihood that you'll see the theory replaced is next to 0. It's much more likely that the field will continue to be refined, but never replaced in whole cloth. We are heating the earth, period. The problem is how fast and can we slow the process.

Uh, psst, I said I was skeptical of the shit back then, does that kinda fuck up the rest of this block of text?

No, because much of his point isn't related to you being skeptical of that subject.

Evolution Theory and earth-around-sun are just the most popular ones.

I just wanted to address this. Both of those were driven by religion. It wasn't faith that led people to believe that the earth was warming, it was the data.

[Max™]

Water vapor cools the local climate by evaporative cooling, if it didn't the earth would be much much hotter. I would assume that removing water vapor from the atmosphere would reduce IR energy trapped within the atmosphere, and also since it provides a vehicle for dissolved CO2/methane/etc. to return to the earth, it would accelerate the loss of other greenhouse gases.

http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/resources...andclimate.htm

The ocean loses heat by evaporation (the technical term is latent heat release). Think of this as the ocean sweating. Trade winds carry the evaporated water vapor to the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone where it condenses as rain. Condensation releases the latent heat and warms the air. Warm air rises, further drawing in warm wet air, releasing more heat. Large areas of the tropical ocean get more than 3 m (115 inches) of rain each year (8 mm/day in the figure below).

1. So much heat is released by rain in the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone that it drives much of the atmospheric circulation. This circulation is called the Hadley circulation.
2. Heat released by rain in higher latitudes drives storms and winds.
3. Heat released by rain in hurricanes and thunderstorms drives these storms.

Condensation warms the atmosphere, evaporation cools it. Water Vapor itself acts to trap heat in the form of I.R. shielding.

I'm guessing you don't think models take these phenomena into account, but that's incorrect. Rates of removal of these gases have been measured, and are taken into account. They're not figured prominently into the models because the models must take into account stable or accelerated levels of greenhouse gas, which overwhelm the negative feedbacks due to water vapor/rain, that's just a fact, if you want to artificially inflate those negative feedbacks, you're welcome to get the code yourself and try, but I bet your model will fail to accurately hindcast data. But your original mistake was your statement that H2O/CO2 didn't have any negative feedbacks, which is flat on its face false. If I'm making some major mistake here, feel free to correct it, but I'd be even more impressed if you could clearly and concisely state your issues and questions instead of wandering all over the place, as is your habit.

How is warming the atmosphere due to I.R. shielding, AND warming the atmosphere due to precipitative release of latent heat a negative feedback?

If that isn't a negative feedback, how come this positive feedback doesn't induce a runaway effect?

Please, teach me, I am very confused here.

The cooling issue takes some time to respond to, but demonstrates a huge flaw in your skepticism, which I've pointed out before, but then again intellectual dishonesty is par for the course for denialists, so I'm not really surprised.

I am a skeptic, denialist is only slightly less stupid sounding than denier (which is actually a unit of fabric measurement), and I was skeptical that the cooling was a permanent change in the climate, which itself is a huge mental fuckup. Climate is a process of change, last I checked.

There are two main human-induced phenomena that can influence climate at measureable levels. One is increasing the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The physics of this are very well understood and the effect on climate has been used in predictive models for over a century that have been largely successful.

Technically the models ONLY work if there is a positive forcing effect from CO2 > Water Vapor included, you know this though.

The other is particulate aerosols, which have an albedo-related cooling effect. This magnitude of this effect was not well understood in the 60s and 70s, and scientists were trying to understand how strong the forcing effect was, and whether or not it would eventually overwhelm the greenhouse induced warming. This science is touched upon briefly in Carl Sagan's book Broca's Brain, which presents a profoundly different summary than the Newsweek article (more on that later). But the bottom line is that as they increasingly understood aerosol induced cooling, it was conclusively demonstrated (to the point that science can prove anything) that the cooling effect from particulate aerosols was profoundly weaker than greenhouse warming. Why don't the deniers have anything to say about that scientific consensus I wonder?

de·ni·er 1 (dĭ-nīˈər)
noun One that denies: a denier of harsh realities.

den·ier 2 (dən-yāˈ)
noun

1. also (dĕnˈyər) A unit of fineness for rayon, nylon, and silk fibers, based on a standard mass per length of 1 gram per 9,000 meters of yarn.
2. also (də-nîrˈ) a. A small coin of varying composition and value current in western Europe from the eighth century until the French Revolution.
   b. Archaic A small, trifling sum.

I take offense at being called a small outdated coin!

As for the newsweek article itself, you really didn't have to dig around to find it, although your story is adorably quaint. It's an article that pops up on just about every denialist website out there.

I was saying the article was stupid, not saying it was proof of anything.

The thing that jumps out immediately is that the cooling trend that the article mentions doesn't exist, or at least isn't found in any historical record.

Uh, cognitive dissonance detected:
http://climateaudit.files.wordpress....03/hansen4.gif
There was in fact a cooling trend at that time.

I'm not sure why we should even continue to discuss it. The article makes other silly errors (lots of snow in one winter does not indicate anything about climate, as washington area residents are of course aware by now). And furthermore it misrepresents the state of climate science at that point. Fourier analysis by that time had been used to dissect out major and minor climate cycles, and I was under the impression that orbital cycles had been understood and proposed as major mechanisms for glaciation by the late 70's, but perhaps my timeline is wrong. (search of sciencemag.org confirms that milankovitch theory had been experimentally upheld as early as 1968, although it seems major reviews weren't published until the early 80s, and at least one major model for glaciation cycles was proposed in 1980.)

But here's my problem as it applies to your skepticism, you clearly are not skeptical when it comes to the portrayal of a debate by a popular media article from 1975, yet you reserve skepticism for a field which, according to the NAS, has shown that anthropogenic induced climate change is a theory with evidence supporting it comparable to the theory of evolution, the theory of gravitation, the theory of relativity, and the theory of the origins of the earth/universe. That's high praise coming from the best and brightest of American science, and denialists have done nothing to propose alternative explanations for climate change. I've said it before, but the likelihood that the current warming trend is NOT based on natural climate cycles understood by direct temperature records and multiple paleolcimate proxy data reconstructions is valid to 95%, which is about as close to statistical certainty as there can be. The most accurate model to describe this data is the AGW model. There may be two sides to this argument, but one side is intellectually flaccid and scientifically worthless. Until you provide some data that's statistically valid and has some predictive capability, there's no reason to listen to you.

I already stated that I agree with you that the cooling thing was stupid, and the climate models work fine in the past, but only manage to match the modern temperature trends when including that positive forcing feedback effect, while having major areas of uncertainty regarding the effect of water vapor at various altitudes, and the effect of clouds in general.

[kareface]

Homogeneous nucleation (water condensing on itself) occurs at ~-40 deg C. When you drive your car to work you release billions of tiny particles. When these particles get higher in the atmosphere they become Cloud Condensation Nuclei (CCN). This allows for water to to condense as early as ~20 deg C and most commonly ~14 deg C. This causes clouds to form where they would otherwise not. Clouds constitute for the largest of solar albedo outside the atmosphere itself. This causes a net cooling effect. You drive your car to work and cause a cooling of the atmosphere. Hurah!


Not trolling, there are 2 sides to that coin.

That wouldn't be a coin, it would be a cone, because one side of the issue is so much more influential to the local environment. Congratulations, you pointed out one off the many possible negative feedbacks. Once again, this isn't something that makes a substantial enough impact to warrant even mentioning.

[Max™]

I'm confused, is that a point of contention? They didn't invite 10k climate scientists, they invited 10k different scientists. It happened that 77 of them were climate scientists who are currently preforming research. If you think 77 is not that many scientists for that field your a idiot. That isn't a huge field, only a select handful of public institutions have facilities that allow for PHD level research to be conducted on the subject.

My "a idiot" notwithstanding, you stated 97.4% of climate scientists, then provide a link which pops up a 10k+ figure in the first few lines. Knowing that most people are not going to read the entire text, I find that to be just a little bit disingenuous, that's all.

It's not like biology where you could go just about anywhere to study it. Secondly, getting 97% of any scientists in any field to agree on even elementary aspects of their field is uncommon. It would be akin to getting 77 Ferrari enthusiasts to agree on which is the best Ferrari and having 75 of them agree on one.

Hell, I can't even agree on one, my favorite right now is the 599 GTO, cause it's literally sex on wheels, but THE Ferrari expert, Enzo Ferrari himself, didn't like the road cars. They were just a necessary evil to fund his racing team.


Oh, btw, you're implying that asking 77 Ferrari enthusiasts which of MANY cars is the best and getting 75/77 agreeing, is the same as asking 77 people a yes or no question and getting 75/77 yes answers.

Asking 77 Ferrari enthusiasts if they agree with the AGW hypothesis, now THAT is a question I'd like to see.

On top of that for years now there haven't been any creditable, national or international scientific bodies that reject the fundamental science of human driven climate change. Lots of people don't prove the truth of a prospect. However, when you get such a broad consensus like there is on climate change the likelihood that you'll see the theory replaced is next to 0. It's much more likely that the field will continue to be refined, but never replaced in whole cloth. We are heating the earth, period. The problem is how fast and can we slow the process.

Until the last two sentences, this was fine, the last bit is tainted with politics, and misrepresentation of data. We are causing the earth to retain heat differently, the sun is heating the earth. Yes, it's just quibbling over details, but it's kind of a big detail... a huge, fusion burning, massive one.

No, because much of his point isn't related to you being skeptical of that subject.

Oh good, glad he didn't waste his time.

[kareface]

My "a idiot" notwithstanding, you stated 97.4% of climate scientists, then provide a link which pops up a 10k+ figure in the first few lines. Knowing that most people are not going to read the entire text, I find that to be just a little bit disingenuous, that's all.

Holy assumptions batman. Nothing I said portrayed anything out of context. You would have to be an idiot to assume there are over 10k climatologists to begin with.

Until the last two sentences, this was fine, the last bit is tainted with politics, and misrepresentation of data. We are causing the earth to retain heat differently, the sun is heating the earth. Yes, it's just quibbling over details, but it's kind of a big detail... a huge, fusion burning, massive one.

The sun is at it's deep solar minimum right now. We SHOULD be seeing a cooling trend. I can't believe people can still make this argument and know nothing about the subject. Last time we saw sunspot activity this low was the maunder minimum which resulted in what was known as the little ice age. The problem is the deviation in heat can be completely eroded by 7 years of current CO2 growth rates, this is coming from nasa:
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20100121/

The problem is the solar irradiance will recover. When it does we are in for a greater heating cycle of the earth. We should be seeing a cooling and we are currently breaking temperature records for most of the world.

Edit:
http://science.nasa.gov/media/medial...ct_l_strip.gif

[Gadritan]

You would have to be an idiot to assume there are over 10k climatologists to begin with.

As of November 10, 2006 we know that there is a minimum (no official count of foreign climatologists is available) of 20,000 working climatologists worldwide

...he wants to know how many climate scientists there are. The answer in the US is 13,746.

AGU has a directory of members sorted by primary area of interest the numbers are

* 1956 Atomspheric
* 1564 Biogeochemistry
* 334 Cryosphere
* 751 Global climate change
* 4736 Hydrology
* 2326 Ocean sciences
* 634 Paleoclimate
* 2004 Volcanology (you can argue here if you want)

Internetz is hard.

[kareface]

Internetz is hard.

This study was done almost exclusively in the US? We aren't talking world wide. Also that doesn't relate to climatologists exclusively. Nor to ones who are actively publishing. Which I clearly did mention. No one cares what a climate scientist who hasn't been published in 10 years thinks.

[Gadritan]

Oh, ok. That's why there were scientists from 22 other nations involved.

20,000 climatologists sounds like they're talking about climatologists.

[Max™]

This study was done almost exclusively in the US? We aren't talking world wide. Also that doesn't relate to climatologists exclusively. Nor to ones who are actively publishing. Which I clearly did mention.

...he wants to know how many climate scientists there are. The answer in the US is 13,746.

Anyways, are you seriously saying that all of the heat on Earth DOESN'T come from the sun?

Cause, I was saying the SUN WARMS THE EARTH, and we cause the earth to retain heat at an abnormal rate. The extent of said heat retention being a source of disagreements such as we are currently having.

I mean, it seems to me that we're not contributing as much heat as THE GIANT BALL OF NUCLEAR FUCKING FIRE IN THE SKY... but much like Frankenstein's monster, I am quite aware of it.

UNGH, SKYFIRE BAD... UNGGGHHHHHH!


Anyways, just had to get that out because it amuses me that people argue that just because the sun is not as hot as it usually is, we're clearly at fault for any change, as if there is a direct thermostat type connection between the sun and earth, neglecting how incredibly fucking complex this system of interactions really is.

[kareface]

Oh, ok. That's why there were scientists from 22 other nations involved.

20,000 climatologists sounds like they're talking about climatologists.

Please explain to me how a geologist is a climatologists, or a paleontologist for that matter. How on earth can you think there are 20k climate scientists that are currently getting published in the US. You'd need 10x the number of scientific journals on the subject than exist today to house all the articles.

[Gadritan]

MIT’s Richard Lindzen, one of the most-respected climatologists on the planet, speaks to the second annual International Conference on Climate Change in New York. Lindzen warns that scientists who embrace global warming alarmism are not necessarily good researchers. And that skeptics of global warming are not necessarily good researchers either. The point, he argues, is to stay focused on the facts as they can be determined and to follow the science, not the political debate.

[Max™]

Please explain to me how a geologist is a climatologists, or a paleontologist for that matter. How on earth can you think there are 20k climate scientists that are currently getting published in the US. You'd need 10x the number of scientific journals on the subject than exist today to house all the articles.

http://rabett.blogspot.com/2006/11/h...are-there.html

Friday, November 10, 2006



How many climate scientists are there mommy?

Jim Clarke, a rather disembling cleverer is trying to tie folk at the other place up by claiming he wants to know how many climate scientists there are. The answer in the US is 13,746. AGU has a directory of members sorted by primary area of interest the numbers are

• 1956 Atomspheric
• 1564 Biogeochemistry
• 334 Cryosphere
• 751 Global climate change
• 4736 Hydrology
• 2326 Ocean sciences
• 634 Paleoclimate
• 2004 Volcanology (you can argue here if you want)

If we look at foreign members we get a total of 19340, which in the spirit of Iraq Body Count we can take as a lower limit, but certainly within a factor of 2.

(if you ain't a member of the AGU you ain't no damn climate scientist in the US, just like the AMA)

???

Suddenly it doesn't seem so odd that I at first thought the 10k number might be climate scientists, rather than scientists in general.

[kareface]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OS-cLp1PEGQ&feature

You obviously don't know this guy. He's well known for taking the odd position on many subjects, only to turn out wrong on the issue. He's done this on and off for decades. He's a smart guy, but he just likes the attention of being against the scientific establishment.

[Gadritan]

Please explain to me how a geologist is a climatologists, or a paleontologist for that matter. How on earth can you think there are 20k climate scientists that are currently getting published in the US. You'd need 10x the number of scientific journals on the subject than exist today to house all the articles.

Well, you kept editing your post. It went from stating this wasn't "worldwide," to only those who are published, to only those that are published in the last 10 years because apparently being a climate scientist means absolutely nothing otherwise.

[kareface]

Suddenly it doesn't seem so odd that I at first thought the 10k number might be climate scientists, rather than scientists in general.

There aren't even 1/10th of them that are actively publishing. You managed to find a total that's worthless to the debate. No one cares about the opinion of a guy who hasn't researched anything in 15 years.

[Gadritan]

You obviously don't know this guy. He's well known for taking the odd position on many subjects, only to turn out wrong on the issue. He's done this on and off for decades. He's a smart guy, but he just likes the attention of being against the scientific establishment.

God damn. WATCH IT. He's not going against the grain here.