Answer to the global warming skeptics/denier

[Max™]

You made projections from on a starting assumption that's based on eyeballing the paleoclimate record from ice core data?

No, I made projections based on what I've gathered about the subject over the years it has been something of a hobby interest.

Let me tell you something about human error, we pick out trends that are most appealing to our intuitive sense of how a process works, not based on how it actually does. I'm guilty of it too, which is why I use computers to help select relevant data and remove unacceptable data. Or I use statistical methods alone in determining what is significant, and what is noise. You absolutely must do that, which is why current warming is called "anomalous" it's highly (95%) unlikely that this warming is natural.

The current warming could still be anomalous, and natural, could it not?

So you think stored energy, not stored as heat, but released as heat, went into fighting loss of incoming radiation? I dont know of any method the earth uses to store energy for long periods of time not as heat, I mean I guess life could store energy not as heat? Even the oceans store energy as heat.

No no, the stored energy from water being in different states, different concentrations of atmospheric gases effect the energy budget, the very motion of the currents stores up energy, as well as heat.

Heat is not temperature, remember.

In any event, it also shouldn't rebound dramatically the way it is today, because the stored energy would only be enough to balance the energy budget to where it was before the maunder minimum, not enough to trigger positive feedback loops that weren't triggered before.

Assuming the solar activity went back to the level prior to the maunder minimum, this is true.

You're proposing either an unknown forcing, or an unknown source of energy.

I'm proposing that the sun has been becoming more and more active, forcing the climate to adjust as we've observed.

For option one, if you're proposing that a opposite direction feedback loop exists that was rapidly triggered by cooling, and was more powerful than the forcings that caused it, regardless of the balance of the energy budget, that flies right in the face of the theory of ice ages, especially during an interglacial. Did ice melt due to some unknown forcing that only happened once, because it got cooler? This just doesn't make sense atall. If these forcings were sensitive enough to be triggered like this, then why the delay before rapid warming? For option 2, maybe theoretical physicists can get away with proposing dark energy and not explaining it, but you can't do that with climate. Maybe this is the source of our disagreements, i don't think your thought process is suited to explaining climate.

Oh, I recalled the other main "undiscussed factor", cosmic rays and their effects on cloud formation, I kept assuming I had mentioned it, but I did not.

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/m...7-_443941a.gif

It isn't proven, but it isn't falsified yet as far as I know of, and could provide an alternative explanation for this missing factor, which is, unlike dark energy, well documented.

The idea that if we didn't contribute any CO2 the earth would be only a little bit cooler just isn't supported by any data at all. You cannot invent a forcing and not say what it is. Otherwise you're just guessing, not forming a hypothesis based on natural laws. Your mysterious climate inertial energy phenomenon either doesn't exist, or you're not stating what it is.

The climate inertia is just an aspect of the system being so vast, it takes significant time and energy to alter it's behavior.

The forcing that I am talking about is actually related to the solar activity in an indirect sort of manner, as the sunspot activity increases, the suns magnetic field fluctuates, as a sunspot is simply a region where the field lines have inhibited convection. As the magnetic field increases, it should also reduce the number of cosmic rays striking the earth, causing a reduction of cloud formation, as Cern is apparently testing:

http://cloud.web.cern.ch/cloud/docum...d_proposal.pdf

Now, charts like this are cited as showing that the solar activity can't be the cause of the warming, because it doesn't match up, in particular the period during the 60's showed a dip in sunspots, which in THIS chart is accompanied by a much smaller dip in the temperature than other sources:

http://solar-center.stanford.edu/sun...ot-co2.svg.png
Such as the ones offered on the same site Sath posted: http://www.drroyspencer.com/research...ural-response/

Ironically, you're not treating clouds right either. Clouds trap IR radiation as well as reflect it, so your assumption doesn't hold water (haha, get it?).

Hah, hilarious!

I know clouds trap heat as well, high thin clouds do little to block IR, contributing to warming mostly, high thick clouds contribute to cooling mostly.

From the Cern paper:

Estimates from the Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) indicate, overall, that clouds reflect more energy than they trap, leading to a net coolingof about 28 Wm

−2 from the mean global cloud cover of 63% (Table 1) [35]. The observed absolute variation in low cloud cover of about 2% over a solar cycle (Fig. 6c) corresponds to about 7% relative variation. From Table 1, this would imply a solar maximum-to-minimum change in the Earth’s radiation budget of about 1.2 Wm−2 (0.3% of the global average incoming solar radiation). This is a significant effect—comparable to the total estimated radiative forcing of 1.5 Wm−2 from the increase in CO2 concentration during the last century.

Also, your second to last paragraph seems to be taken from a model I forgot to disqualify earlier, the idea that positive feedbacks trigger more pronounced negative feedbacks. It's a variation of the self regulating climate model, but it's very old and already experimentally falsified, and I'm too exhausted with this discussion to look up exactly which experiments disrupted that model.

So while your precipitation is happening, the oceans are still warming, and will stay warm for a very long time because like you said earlier, they're very large and it takes a long time for them to cool partially because antarctica doesn't allow mixing of the oceans to a certain degree. So by the time that happens, arctic ice is gone, snow cannot build, and you're relying entirely on antarctica, which will be largely ice-less by that time and some time into the future. This all ignores other positive feedbacks completely.

I think runaway hypotheses make perfect sense because of the paleoclimate data. Milankovitch theory demonstrates that it doesn't take a large change in the energy budget to cause ice ages/interglacials because of positive feedbacks in either direction. Changes in the energy budget are amplified by feedbacks, this is known based on historical records, that has to factor into any model that claims to be based on knowledge of what happened in the past. You can suggest that the climate is less sensitive to CO2 than we think, but that ignores actual feedback loops that are known to exist. And given the weight of the evidence, I don't think it's valid to do that, unless the unknown forcing is explicitly stated in a simple form.

I'm all over the place because there are so many unknowns you're proposing, and so little data to work with, that this is really tiresome and I just don't want to edit this post.

I can dig it, it's an incredibly complex system, and I can keep pulling possible explanations out of the woodwork all day long.


Variations in cloud cover related both to the pacific decadal oscillation, sunspot activity, the effect of the suns magnetic field on cosmic rays, as well as the earths magnetic field, and the position of the solar system relative to the disc of the milky way should have an effect on the climate as well.


The main feedback loop stated to be in favor of CO2 forcing is that CO2 based warming causes an increase in water vapor content in the atmosphere, which traps more heat accordingly, as water vapor is a powerful greenhouse gas.

http://earthguide.ucsd.edu/virtualmu...edbackLoop.jpg

Like so, but as anyone can tell you, water vapor doesn't exclusively contribute to warming, and CO2 isn't the only thing that has an effect on water vapor.

If those were both different, then the only explanation would be the AGW one, but as it stands I've yet to see the IPCC do more than say there is significant uncertainty regarding clouds, and downplay that the normal water vapor content contributes to roughly 60% of the greenhouse effect at the low end.

Oh, more stuff on the inertia crap I was talking about:
http://earthguide.ucsd.edu/virtualmu...ge1/07_2.shtml

As mentioned, the redistribution of energy across the Earth's surface is accomplished by "sensible heat flux" and as "latent heat flux." Sensible heat is the energy associated with the temperature of a body; it is greater in a warm body than a cold one. Warm water that is heated in the tropics and cooled in high latitudes brings sensible heat poleward. Warm winds carry sensible heat from one place to another. When picking up water along the way (for example from the sea surface), the winds can change some of the sensible heat into latent heat. Latent heat is the energy associated with changing the "phase" of a substance, that is, changing the state from gas to fluid or from fluid to solid, or the reverse. The enormous amounts of latent heat involved in evaporation and precipitation of water makes the hydrologic cycle a central player in the operation of the climate machine.

http://earthguide.ucsd.edu/virtualmu...W_Fig5_1_2.gif

I'll stop for now, gonna go read this site, make sure all my shit is in order.

[Uzor]

So I can see how heat can be carried by the rain droplets and result in the repetition of the water cycle. How exactly does the rain generate heat rather than dissipate heat? I'm not a meteorologist or a physicist but I am a medical scientist and if vaporizing didn't release heat energy and dissipate then your body wouldn't cool after you sweat (which is the primary purpose of sweat - to release excess heat energy). Rather, the sweat would perpetually cause you to gain heat?

Help me understand this here. I know the heat energy doesn't magically vanish but it does transfer somewhere. I didn't fail thermodynamics, you know.

liquid water's heat capacity is 4,18 kJ/(kg*K), while the heat capacity for ice is 2,2 kJ/(kg*K). On the other hand, the energy it takes for water to condensate is 2260 kJ/(kg*K). This means that increasing the temperature of 2kg liquified water requires 8,36 kJ, while 2 kg condensated water releases 4520 kJ of energy without without having to lower its temperature by 1 degree, simply because it takes on another matter of state.

This means that water in gas form can store more energy. When this condensated water then sublimate and become liquid again, it leaks some of this energy in to the atmosphere, warming it up.

This is why sweating is such a good way to lose extra heat, as condensated water can contain roughly 540% more energy than liquid water.

Speaking of water as you seem to be talking about this right now, something a lot of people fail to consider is the following:

Ice is the most reflecting surface on earth, while water is the most absorbent. Water absorbs energy, while ice reflects it. On top of that, the colder water get, the more CO2 it can store. This means that water heating up releases more CO2 in to the atmosphere, and as such, even if the oceans temperature rises by half a degree, it can release a massive amount of CO2 in to the atmosphere. This results in more ice smelting, which means less reflective surface, which means even warmer climate, which means even more CO2 released in to the atmosphere.

The earth has a way to counter that, though, as warmer climate means more clouds (and clouds work in our favor, cooling the planet down, but on the other hand, water vapor by itself is a greenhouse gas). Warmer climate will also mean it will rain more in places where it normally does not rain as much, such Africa's inlands, which is extremely fertile but is currently covered by desert. Rain also helps removing CO2 from the atmosphere, further increasing the cooling effect.

It can also act the opposite way - more snow means more larger reflective area, which means less get absorbed, which cools the earth down, creating more ice. Too much or too little of either can cause a snowballing effect hurling it out of control, which chaos for mankind in either end, with either an ice age or a mass flood. Either way it goes, it will rubberband towards the other end automatically due to the way water works.

[Tristam]

The inertia thing is valid, but again because climate is based on an energy budget and feedbacks are real, the inertia can obviously get overwhelmed by a change in the energy budget over time. Without stabilization of CO2, climate won't stabilize, and the energy budget gets further shifted, and feedbacks keep going.

I am almost certain that CO2/H2O aren't the only considerations in the model. But they are predicted to be the most important because CO2 is the only thing altering the energy budget at the earliest levels. If you look at climategate emails the scientists actually debate about other forcings.

If your undisclosed forcing is solar ray induction of cloud cover, I don't think that's a strong forcing in one direction or the other since clouds can both trap and reflect energy. As such, they're a source of noise in most models, but they're part of the models as I understand them. So it's difficult for me to ascribe more importance to them in the context of current warming. I think it's valid to say that clouds are a source of uncertainty, because models I don't think can estimate cloud cover at different times of the day as climate warms, which is crucial to whether or not they are a positive or negative forcing. Clouds reflect less light at night, but absorb more radiation, and vice versa during the day.

edit: and yes, there is a very very slim chance that the warming is natural. But the opposite is true to the extent that science can prove anything is true. to argue otherwise is to argue the very foundations on which science can make any claims at all. There exists a formal possibility that any model, relativity, evolution, germ theory, and so on, isn't true, but it's not something we'd stake our lives on.

[Max™]

Well, it is much more likely that the warming is both a result of natural processes and our acitivites, than strictly one or the other, at least according to our current understanding, claiming that it is absolutely one thing causing most/almost all of the observed changes seems foolhardy.

UNLESS you are seeking to enact changes through political action, at which point it is something I could understand people doing, if they wanted politicians to act in a certain way, at least.


This site is pretty cool btw, for anyone interested in getting more info on the subject, it isn't a denialist site either.

http://earthguide.ucsd.edu/virtualmu...syllabus.shtml

Just online course info on the subject.

[Amiricle]

Well, it is much more likely that the warming is both a result of natural processes and our acitivites, than strictly one or the other, at least according to our current understanding, claiming that it is absolutely one thing causing most/almost all of the observed changes seems foolhardy.

UNLESS you are seeking to enact changes through political action, at which point it is something I could understand people doing, if they wanted politicians to act in a certain way, at least.


This site is pretty cool btw, for anyone interested in getting more info on the subject, it isn't a denialist site either.

http://earthguide.ucsd.edu/virtualmu...syllabus.shtml

Just online course info on the subject.

That is exactly what I was trying to convey earlier. Im just not as well spoken as Max or willing to post all that data lol.

[Max™]

Hah, me, well spoken? That's rich!

[Mikelee0351]

I believe that you're all overlooking the obvious answer to all our problems here...

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p...7/futurama.jpg

[Amiricle]

Hah, me, well spoken? That's rich!

Well you convey your point and present your argument well and in a readable form, so I'd say yea lol. Better than me in any case.

To add, those you're debating/arguing here with (Tristam, Kareface) are quite well spoken as well, which makes this thread an interesting read for me even if I've chosen to abstain from it.

[Max™]

Eh, I try, but I kinda babble when I get off on tangents due to thoughtful counter arguments such as Tristam provides, it's a nice change from the "wtf Max, it's obvious that it's warming, why you gotta be contrary?" type shit.

[kareface]

Wow, gone a couple days and the thread is twice as long.

[Lonewind]

has anyone considered the impact of the meat industry? Trust me, I'm just as much of a meat lover as the next guy, but I've recently tried really hard to stay on a vegetarian diet (I know around three months is nothing, but I'm trying...).

The gas (as subtly as I could put it) animal farts which mostly consists of methane, is 23 (72) times more damaging than CO2 (depends on different calculation variables) on the atmosphere and its impact on climate change (global warming whichever way you like to call it)

Furthermore,
producing one pound of whole grain bread uses 139 gallons of water
producing one pound of beef uses 2500 gallons of water

most of the land capable of agriculture are used up by meat farmers, eating one burger equals wiping out 7 square meters of rain forest

most of the food we have we used to feed these farm animals, forcing 1 billion people being left to die from hunger, 10,000 square meters of land can produce approximately 10,000 kilograms of potato, producing food for farm animals can produce 75 kilograms of beef.

producing 1 liter of milk uses up 990 liters of water; the meat farmers uses up 50% of drinkable water of the globe, not to mention the water pollution from these.

In South America alone, 4 million square kilometers of land are used to produce soy to feed the farm animals, while 250k square kilometers of soy can feed the whole world.

I know these are not exact numbers, but you get the idea.

in 2009 there are 1.02 billion people living in hunger, an average of 3.7 seconds a child die from hunger, the amount of grain used by the meat industry can feed 2 billion people.

Like I said, I'm not trying to convert anyone to be vegetarian, but maybe just one meal out of the week from everyone can make a huge difference.

[Caiti]

has anyone considered the impact of the meat industry? Trust me, I'm just as much of a meat lover as the next guy, but I've recently tried really hard to stay on a vegetarian diet (I know around three months is nothing, but I'm trying...).

The gas (as subtly as I could put it) animal farts which mostly consists of methane, is 23 (72) times more damaging than CO2 (depends on different calculation variables) on the atmosphere and its impact on climate change (global warming whichever way you like to call it)

Furthermore,
producing one pound of whole grain bread uses 139 gallons of water
producing one pound of beef uses 2500 gallons of water

most of the land capable of agriculture are used up by meat farmers, eating one burger equals wiping out 7 square meters of rain forest

most of the food we have we used to feed these farm animals, forcing 1 billion people being left to die from hunger, 10,000 square meters of land can produce approximately 10,000 kilograms of potato, producing food for farm animals can produce 75 kilograms of beef.

producing 1 liter of milk uses up 990 liters of water; the meat farmers uses up 50% of drinkable water of the globe, not to mention the water pollution from these.

In South America alone, 4 million square kilometers of land are used to produce soy to feed the farm animals, while 250k square kilometers of soy can feed the whole world.

I know these are not exact numbers, but you get the idea.

in 2009 there are 1.02 billion people living in hunger, an average of 3.7 seconds a child die from hunger, the amount of grain used by the meat industry can feed 2 billion people.

Like I said, I'm not trying to convert anyone to be vegetarian, but maybe just one meal out of the week from everyone can make a huge difference.

Campaign less against "Global Warmists" and more against people trying to get all non-organic food and meat banned from being shipped to third world countries if you want to really help people.

What was it, Zambia? Something like that, turned down millions of tons of aid in the form of genetically enhanced grains because Greenpeace convinced the leaders it was "poison".

Fuck yeah, starving Africans.

Edit: This isn't to say your claims don't have an effect. More just that the larger problem is the fact that the world was having issues supporting a total population of 5 billion with only natural grains, vegetables, and meat. Now with the population approaching 7 billion, expecting everyone to survive on the food source that was struggling to support 2 billion less people is ridiculous. We can all eat meat 2 days a week less but it won't make a bit of difference if non-organic crops become banned from being distributed through international aid and good will programs. tl;dr Greenpeace and organic-only advocates are fucktwats.

[Uzor]

has anyone considered the impact of the meat industry? Trust me, I'm just as much of a meat lover as the next guy, but I've recently tried really hard to stay on a vegetarian diet (I know around three months is nothing, but I'm trying...).

The gas (as subtly as I could put it) animal farts which mostly consists of methane, is 23 (72) times more damaging than CO2 (depends on different calculation variables) on the atmosphere and its impact on climate change (global warming whichever way you like to call it)

Furthermore,
producing one pound of whole grain bread uses 139 gallons of water
producing one pound of beef uses 2500 gallons of water

most of the land capable of agriculture are used up by meat farmers, eating one burger equals wiping out 7 square meters of rain forest

most of the food we have we used to feed these farm animals, forcing 1 billion people being left to die from hunger, 10,000 square meters of land can produce approximately 10,000 kilograms of potato, producing food for farm animals can produce 75 kilograms of beef.

producing 1 liter of milk uses up 990 liters of water; the meat farmers uses up 50% of drinkable water of the globe, not to mention the water pollution from these.

In South America alone, 4 million square kilometers of land are used to produce soy to feed the farm animals, while 250k square kilometers of soy can feed the whole world.

I know these are not exact numbers, but you get the idea.

in 2009 there are 1.02 billion people living in hunger, an average of 3.7 seconds a child die from hunger, the amount of grain used by the meat industry can feed 2 billion people.

Like I said, I'm not trying to convert anyone to be vegetarian, but maybe just one meal out of the week from everyone can make a huge difference.

Additionally, 1 kg of meat requires 30000 liters of water to produce.

You forgot to mention, though, that Methane stays in the atmosphere a much shorter time than CO2. I did some calculations a year back on it, and if I remember right the impact cow farts have on the climate was roughly 1% of what humans do through CO2.

Like you said, 60% of all food we grow goes towards feeding our animals that we then eat, and meat is a much less effective food source. We'd be able to feed a lot more people if everyone went vegetarian. I however love meat and don't give a fuck.

[miokomioko]

I need to know what Basil Marceaux dot com thinks about all this mumbo jumbo.

[Tristam]

The bigger impact of farming/agriculture is deforestation and shitty land use. It's not just a meat thing.

[Lonewind]

Additionally, 1 kg of meat requires 30000 liters of water to produce.

You forgot to mention, though, that Methane stays in the atmosphere a much shorter time than CO2. I did some calculations a year back on it, and if I remember right the impact cow farts have on the climate was roughly 1% of what humans do through CO2.

Like you said, 60% of all food we grow goes towards feeding our animals that we then eat, and meat is a much less effective food source. We'd be able to feed a lot more people if everyone went vegetarian. I however love meat and don't give a fuck.

yes methane's duration in the atmosphere is much shorter than CO2, however from what I understand is that during that short duration its damage on the atmosphere still amounts to 23 times (or 72 depends on which formula) than that of the same amount of CO2, is my understanding of it.

Yea I do love meat, just that I'm trying hard to resist it (like I said in my previous post, 3 months is hard, but I guess I can try to keep going). Not asking everyone to be vegetarians like I said in the previous post.

The bigger impact of farming/agriculture is deforestation and shitty land use. It's not just a meat thing.

Yes I do understand that, however it seems that most of the deforestation is to make more land for more meat farming or to provide more farming land to provide for the meat industry. The main point I wanted to make regarding meat farming is methane and water. Sorry if I wasn't clear on that part.

[Uzor]

yes methane's duration in the atmosphere is much shorter than CO2, however from what I understand is that during that short duration its damage on the atmosphere still amounts to 23 times (or 72 depends on which formula) than that of the same amount of CO2, is my understanding of it.

Yes - I know. The number varies with the formula.. Over 20 years its 72x, 100 years 25x, 500 years 7,6x.

Carbon Dioxide stays in the atmosphere for 50-200 years, though, while Methane Gas only stays in the atmosphere for 12 years. So while Methane Gas is a more effective Greenhouse Gas, its not as dangerous, as its not emitted in the same amount as carbon dioxide.

[Max™]

That is a misrepresentation of data.

The average molecule of CO2 doesn't stay up for 50~200 years, it's about 4 years or so, the atmosphere exchanges CO2 with the environment, the ocean, plants, etc, in a fast carbon cycle which keeps any given molecule active for roughly 50~200 years before it can be locked up into sediment or otherwise removed from the system.

[Neosutra]

I don't really buy the "a kid dies of hunger every 3 seconds" statistic.

57,000,000 people die a year.

That's 1.8 people per second.

That's 5.4 people per 3 seconds.

I find it hard to believe a 5th of all deaths are hungry kids.

[Uzor]

That is a misrepresentation of data.

The average molecule of CO2 doesn't stay up for 50~200 years, it's about 4 years or so, the atmosphere exchanges CO2 with the environment, the ocean, plants, etc, in a fast carbon cycle which keeps any given molecule active for roughly 50~200 years before it can be locked up into sediment or otherwise removed from the system.

Yes, individual molecules may be lost due to soil, water or other biological systems, reducing the background concentration, but that's the mean lifetime.

I'd say the atmospheric lifetime is misinterpreted as only a few years because that's the mean time for a single molecule to be removed by abovementioned systems, but it is the net concentration change by all sources that's 50-200 years, not just the removal process.

I suppose it depends on how you look at it, I suppose. If we suddenly stopped emitting all CO2, it wouldn't fall back to normal levels within 4 years. It would take much, much longer.

Look at it like this (extremely simplified) - the nature can't absorb an infinite amount of carbon dioxide at any one time. Like all systems, there's a cap. If a system can handle 3 or something every day, and you throw 12 at it, it would take 4 days to handle it. The mean lifetime of 1 carbon dioxide molecule is 4 years, but for the system as a whole the average lifetime is 50-200 years.