The “hockey stick” theory is now discredited: How fanaticism substitutes for science

Not sure of your point with all of that was. Do you have anything to suggest that CO2 levels were in equilibrium?

 

as I said, atmospheric CO2 has been held down because nature buries a lot of carbon. It has been roughly in balance for a long time if you allow for the Milankovitch cycles. However runaway feedback is possible and it could make life impossible for humans.

8% is enough to tip the balance when something is already finely balanced.

Normally, CO2 is absorbed by plants and the oceans, and as I say buried. The oceans cant absorb as much as they are warming, the forests are being chopped down, deserts are increasing in size, and buried carbon is being released in massive quantities. Buried carbon that took millions of years to form is released in 150 years.

 

Actually you said CO2 was in "equilibrium"

 

Good catch, dixon76710.

 

Please provide examples of events that would lead to "runaway feedback" of CO2 levels in our atmosphere.

The only ones I can think of are random events that are each nature-based and not human-based.

Are you aware third-world countries add as much harmful greenhouse gas to the atmosphere as Europe and America? These third world nations require millions of farm animals and millions of hectares of rice crops to feed their people. These animals and their cultivated rice paddies add copious amounts of methane gas to the earth's atmosphere. This problem will increase as their populations continue to grow at an exponential rate.

By the way, methane is 25 times more effective as a greenhouse gas in increasing the earth’s temperature than is the CO2 produces by our fossil fuels.

 

already answered this point. Only for a brief period about 2 billion years ago was the sun's warmth ideal for life. When life first began the sun was 25% colder than it is now. But life modified the atmosphere and it became suitable for higher forms of life. Life evolved, the planet evolved, the atmosphere and oceans all evolved together as a tightly knit system. The increase in sun's heat is equivalent to 20 deg C, but temp has not risen to that degree because life has created habitable conditions by modifying the atmosphere.

Man made global warming could lead to runaway feedback. Warming causes more warming. We have increased CO2 very rapidly by a whopping 35%. The natural carbon cycle cant cope with that. Well maybe it can but if it takes thousand of years and kills off humans its not much use to us is it? As the tundra melts and the sea warms, methane will be released as well as CO2 and methane is a much worse greenhouse gas. Also, if the ice caps start to melt you get more sun reaching the planet instead of being reflected.

and the population of America and Europe is about 1/7 th of the worlds population, so we are using 7 times more than the rest of the world.

Population growth is caused by poverty. The west keeps the third world poor.

Methane did not increase from 1990 to 2010. However it is on the rise and has risen a lot since 1850. Much of it comes from wetlands in America, Canada and Russia.

"A study published last week in Science magazine suggests that at least part of this increase is coming from the vast wetlands in Canada, Russia and the Arctic. The methane in wetlands comes from naturally occurring bacteria. But study author Paul Palmer at the University of Edinburgh says the bacteria are producing more methane because the temperature is rising.

"The higher the temperature, the more efficient they are at producing methane," he says. So global warming is causing these wetlands to produce more methane. And the methane is causing more global warming.

Global warming is causing these wetlands to produce more methane. And the methane is causing more global warming.
- Paul Palmer, University of Edinburgh
"This really does demonstrate the fact that we are having this vicious cycle in the climate system. And we're seeing it now."

It's not yet to the stage where it's a runaway warming effect, Palmer says. But climate scientists are worried that we could hit that tipping point."

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122638800

Rice is quite a serious one, especially Asian rice, so it needs looking into. Rice causes about 3 to 6% of man made global warming. Meanwhile America, with just 4% of the worlds population, produces 25% of CO2 emissions.

Get away!

 

Again, daft punk, you are very wrong.

When it comes to the global environment, nature always comes up with a convenient means of self-correction. If what you say is true, why didn't we have "runaway feedback" where warming causes more warming during the Medieval Warm Period?

Note nature self-corrected at the conclusion of this period in 1500 CE and entered a long cooling trend. What caused it to do this? (I know, but do you know?)

Check this out!

 

No, you simply copied and pasted a bunch of (*)(*)(*)(*), hoping no one would notice it had nothing to do with your assertion

 

You are very correct, dixon76710.

Daft Punk does this quite often.

 

Are you stating this or paraphrasing me?

The MWP was local, not global, as far as we know. It was a small temperature increase, the causes of which could be changes in ocean circulation, volcanic activity or high solar irradiation. Your graph, which looks like the Alps, has no scale. We are talking O.2° C between the MWP and the LIA averages. The LIA was caused by slow thermohaline circulation, increased volcanism, decreased solar activity and possibly reforestation. The Northern hemisphere was 1° C cooler than in the late 1900s. It is worth noting that although regional temperatures only varied by as few degrees, the impacts in terms of climate were quite big, and had a lot of effect on people's lives. The MWP is probably very minor, and is only really noticeable because it was followed by the LIA.


graph from NOAA

Oh, do tell. And next time, try a graph with a scale that doesnt miss out the massive spike at the end.

Now, if you want to be taken seriously, avoid the unsubstantiated stupid accusations. I am not gonna bother with threads of people who are not serious.

Now, lets deal with this runaway vs equilibrium bit. You both seem confused. First thing to get your head around is that the earth is billions of years old, and life has existed for billions of years. But humans have only existed in their modern form for a few hundred thousand years, literally a drop in the ocean.



Look at the diagram. Even the 'first humans' two million years ago appear as 'midnight' if you think of it as a clock. You will note there are three snowball earths labelled. The atmosphere became oxygen rich at about half way though the plant's history. Why did it turn the planet into a snowball? Well, the life was creating oxygen in the atmosphere, but too much built up and it may have wiped out much of the anaerobic life. The atmospheric oxygen reacted with methane and triggered global glaciation. This ice age lasted 300 million years, and of course there was a mass extinction event. The earth had cooled because a greenhouse gas had been taken out. Despite the catastrophe, life did in fact blossom after the event, as oxygen reached better levels. This event changed not only life, but the very geology itself.

Since then, oxygen has fluctuated between 15 and 30%. It did peak again in the Carboniferous, with massive amounts of plant life, raging fires and massive creatures. This was when our coal was buried. At these levels of O2, fires rage uncontrollably.

Now, these events include both feedbacks and things which counter them,leading ultimately to equilibrium. Both contradicting forces are at play at the same time. For instance, as glaciation starts, we see the albedo effect (sunlight reflected off the ice), causing more cooling. This is a cooling feedback. In a warming period the reverse happens, ice melts, less sunlight is reflected, and more warming occurs.

But note that all these major events usually happen over millions and hundreds of millions of years. Yes the earth has recovered from three snowball events, but not overnight.

One long term process is the weathering of silicate rocks. This reaction sucks CO2 out of the atmosphere. So imagine a scenario. Two continental plates collide, causing the Himalayas to splurge up. The silicate rock of these mountains is exposed and naturally gets a lot of weathering. This process slowly reduces CO2 in the atmosphere. How slowly do you think that happens? Not in 150 years. Maybe a few million. They are quite young mountains, formed about 70 mya. Weathering of them contributed to the current ice age.

CO2 was high about 200 mya.


This was caused by volcanic activity, but was also mitigated by the volcanic activity, as volcanoes produce aerosols (dust) which causes cooling. Up to half of marine animal genera were wiped out in these events, plus the big animals, ie most of the dinosaurs.

In the P-Tr extinction, almost all life was made extinct. CO2 was excessively high. Over the next 30 million years life recovered (new species).

Regarding 'equilibrium', what I said was "The planet is a finely tuned almost homeostatic gaia-like equilibrium, and an 8% increase as a forcing by man will undoubtedly have knock on feedbacks and so will spiral out of control."

This is because CO2 has been roughly level for 10,000 years and only dipped 18tya because it was a glacial maximum. Yes there were cycles, Milankovitch/glacial ones, with CO2 as both feedback and cause. Yes CO2 was higher in the Jurassic. This is all basic stuff.

 

I'd be the first person to agree that Co2 is both associated with warming and partially caused by human activities; but there is certainly room for debate.

There in your graph, around the 1950's: Did you notice that dip in the middle of that warming increase? Look at this graph for the reason why.



The brief cooling during an increase in human Co2 production (around 1950) was a result of solar activity, or lack thereof. Solar activity preceded our industrial Co2 emissions and the warming began around that time (solar activity) not when we started using driving cars. The truth is that even if we stopped driving cars and burning fossil fuels today, solar activity could continue increasing temperature until that 'tipping point' when we go through a cooling period or mini ice-age (or full blown ice-age).

A: That's not going to happen we love cars, and,

B: The Earth goes through warming and cooling periods and we can't stop it, and,

C: Even if we could, there might be a good reason why warming and cooling cycles are useful for the planet.

I'm all for alternative energy, if it's better. I'm all for the idea that Co2 is a greenhouse gas, but it comes out of us and animals, it's not pollution. We should be doing something about real pollution, not trying to undo the inevitable. The human race is a small footnote in the historic life-cycle of this planet. We should try to have a clean safe environment until the next ice-age.

 

The dip in the 1950s and 60s was mainly caused by man's aerosols (soot, dust) emissions, before the clean air legislation. There was also one between 1880 and 1900 approx (London smog etc).

I dont think there was a dip in solar output in the 50s so much as an increase it in the first half of the century. Anyway, Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) hasnt increased for 70 years according to the Max Planck institute. Sunspot numbers havent changed either. So it certainly isnt the sun that has cause the rapid warming since the 1970s.

As for an ice age, we are already in one. We are in an interglacial period. It should be getting colder soon, but it may be be thousands of years before the next glaciation.

Cars need to be got rid of anyway, they are a poor means of 'transport' in cities. If I want to get to the city centre I have 2 choices. Get my car out, sit in traffic jams for an hour, eventually reach the city centre, spend another half hour or more trying to find a car park. Find a slot at the top of a multi-storey, walk down, pay £5 or whatever, or stay at home an extra hour and a quarter, pay £3, hop on a tram, get to the city centre in 10 minutes, get off at the spot closest to where I want to be. Guess which one I do? Do you know congestion costs British businesses £20 billion a year?

And of course oil is running out and getting very expensive.

I have written quite a bit about the warming and cooling the earth goes through. You are looking at huge events such as massive vulcanism over millions of years, the chemical reactions involved in the weathering of the Himalayas etc.

Global warming is going to kill millions of people.

 

Thanks for sharing.

 

You can make obviously false claims it all you want, but even NASA disagrees with you.

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2006/10may_longrange/

Every credible source I've Googled also agrees with me, not you. Why did you think you could get away with that claim?

From what I've notices, you don't have a problem with making obviously false claims to suit your arguments.

No, the natural warming and cooling cycles might, but cow and human farts wont be the primary cause.

Yes, someday you and everyone else will die. We don't need alarmists with obviously false claims distorting the pollution debate.

 

Which claim?
What in the link is supposed to counter what I said? It says the sun's conveyor belt has slowed which will mean low solar activity.

The Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research is a major authority on the sun.

Here is their graph of TSI

http://www.mps.mpg.de/projects/sun-climate/data/6725f12b.eps

Look at it. Is it a horizontal line or not? It covers 1978 - 2004.

also


see also here
http://www.mps.mpg.de/projects/sun-climate/data.html

also look at this




lots here

Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research

THE SUN AND THE EARTH'S CLIMATE
http://www.mps.mpg.de/projects/sun-climate/variability.html

contains a summary of the research plus links to lots of papers.

I have never once deliberately made a false claim, and 99% of the time I have checked what I say with credible sources so either you are mistaken or you are making this up. This is the sort of generalised slander statement which some people like to make on internet forums, vague accusations without referencing anything real, like an actual fact, like a specific post.

So, SUPPORT OR RETRACT.


"After 1980, however, the Earth’s temperature exhibits a remarkably steep rise, while the Sun’s irradiance displays at the most a weak secular trend. Hence the Sun cannot be the dominant source of this latest temperature increase, with man-made greenhouse gases being the likely domi- nant alternative."

Solar variability and climate change: is there a link?
Sami K Solanki presents the Harold Jeffreys Lecture on the links between our climate and the behaviour of the Sun, from the perspective of a solar physicist.

http://www.mps.mpg.de/projects/sun-climate/variability.html

 

If you have the ability to read the graph (you posted) it supports what I was referring to.

See the increase then the dip? That matches arctic temperature. It's why we got cooler post 50's during an increase in fossil fuels.

Your right, it was a "lie" that your own graphs show. Get real.

Your own sources contradict your false claims:

"I dont think there was a dip in solar output in the 50s"

"Total Solar Irradiance hasnt increased for 70 years"

"Sunspot numbers havent changed either."

 

What increase then dip? What years? To me it looks like the exact opposite, the line is going up in the post war period, with a small dip about 1980.

What about the link to NASA you supplied? What was that supposed to tell us?

What are you talking about?

My sources do not contradict what I said. The average solar iridescence is the same now as it was 70 years ago, and has been roughly flat since 1978. Sunspot numbers havent changed much since 1850. Sunspots do not cause climate change, they are proxies of solar magnetic activity. They fluctuate with a roughly 11 year cycle. They peaked in 1950. How does that support what you are saying? High sunspot activity is associated with strong solar winds and slightly higher radiation intensity – about 0.1 % higher than a sunspot minimum. As the graph shows, there was a big dip at the Maunder Minimum, which coincides with the LIA, although a link has not been proven.

According to you there should be a dip in sunspots and TSI in the 1950s and 60s, but there is not, if anything there is a peak.

So much for that then.

"Of greater concern to Hansen than global warming skeptics is the problem of global warming itself. If greenhouse gases are to blame then why did Earth’s average temperature cool from 1940-1970? And why has the rate of global warming accelerated since 1978? Hansen’s answers to these questions brought him full circle to where he began his investigation more than 40 years ago.
“I think the cooling that Earth experienced through the middle of the twentieth century was due in part to natural variability,” he said. “But there’s another factor made by humans which probably contributed, and could even be the dominant cause: aerosols.”

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/GISSTemperature/giss_temperature4.php





"Over the course of the twentieth century, Hansen and other climate scientists estimate aerosols may have offset global warming by as much as 50 percent by reducing the amount of sunlight reaching the surface. Scientists call this phenomenon “global dimming,...”"

 

Solar activity matches up more closely with arctic temperature than our Co2 usage during the 1900's. Just use your eyes to look at the data, part of which "daft punk" provided himself. Thanks for verifying that the accepted global warming model is incorrect. The data speaks for itself.



You are welcome for this lesson. Sorry that you can't read your own graphs.

 

I see what you mean. But there is a flaw in your reasoning. According to the yellow and red graph I reckon there is a peak from about 1950-1960, and then a dip at about 1975.

Global temperature is not the same as arctic temperature.

Global temperature fell from about 1945 to 1955, there was then a roughly flat period to 1975.

Total Solar Irradiance increased from 1945 to 1955, peaked around 1950-60, and fell around 1980.





I enlarged these to on my desktop and chopped them to the section 1900 to 2000, and expanded them to the same size for comparison. Here is the result.




As you can see from 1940 to 1950 temperature drops while TSI increases, if you go off the blue line which is the average. I cant seem much correlation, and I have tried to get the scales the same.

So, yeah, there may be a bit of correlation but certainly it is not a great match and clearly aerosols are likely to play a big part in the picture.


Also note that TSI drops off around 1990-2000 whereas temp keeps rising.

 

That's because you are unable or unwilling to read graphs properly. It peeked around 1950 and declined through 1960. Arctic temperature closely followed (though not a 1:1 ratio, but very close) and therefore arctic temperature went down during a three-fold increase in human Co2. As we know from the planet Venus, a thicker atmosphere should contribute to higher temperature. But temperature went down, following sun activity down and back up again.

Your own graphs indicating sun-spot activity, which you previously denied, but now admit is true, show this data to be correct. You have confirmed that the information in this graph is correct, or refuse to refute it.



And therefore the typical models for "global warming" are wrong. Yes, Co2 and water vapor are both greenhouse gases, but your posts are nothing but alarmist garbage. You refuse to actually admit when you models are mistake and this is getting pathetic.

I'm not arguing that mankind doesn't contribute, I'm stating the fact that we aren't the primary cause of warming over the past century.

Carry on with your alarmist delusions.

 

TSI peaked in 1960, it is obvious on the yellow and red graph. Cooling started 20 years earlier! For 20 years temp was coming down while TSI peaked. I think you should look at other graphs apart from the blue and red one your sceptic blog has cobbled together.

 

If you don't mind me saying so, James, it kind of sounds to me like you're trying to avoid the real issue. I think we all know that anyone who puts their mind to it can create diversion arguments until the cows come home without too much difficulty.

It seems to me that when you get past the rhetoric, we don't actually disagree that much. I know that for me, it can be pretty difficult to take a step back and reassess how I've been viewing the positions of people I disagree with, but I have often found it to be very worthwhile. None of us want to turn society upside down. We all want a future of peace and prosperity. We may well often disagree on how exactly the best way to achieve that is, but I really believe that by working together, we will almost always be able to find a better solution then any one group just doing things their own way.

I realize that you're probably used to thinking of liberals as being opposed to sound economics and productivity. but we're really not. We're just pointing out that as important as that is to society, it's not the only thing that's important.

 

Dixon, you're misusing the concept of equilibrium. Equilibrium does not mean that a certain quantity in a system will never ever under any circumstances change. After all, since the Universe is expanding, entropy is increasing, and several physical effects extend to infinity (such as gravity), ultimately all physical systems are subject to change at some time scale. It's currently thought that baryonic matter in general is not completely stable, so in the absurdly distant future the universe will likely consist of nothing but extremely diffuse low energy radiation.

Equilibrium always includes limits to the system that it applies to. And that does mean that a particular system may be in equilibrium on some scales and not on others. For example, the O2 and N2 content of the atmosphere are generally considered to be in equilibrium, but on time scales of billions of years, they are not, if for no other reason then that Sol will eventually burn out and die.

So on a timescale of thousands of years, CO2 was in equilibrium before human activity changed things. On a timescale of tens of thousands of years, CO2 was not in equilibrium due to the ice age cycle. On timescales of hundreds of thousands of years, the ice age cycle fluctuations become cyclic and average out, so CO2 is again in equilibrium.

The real point is that the increase in CO2 we've seen in the last two centuries is very clearly caused by humans and not a part of the ice age cycle.

 

you are very correct, JSP.

Especially when you say, "Solar activity matches up more closely with arctic temperature than our CO2 usage during the 1900's. Just use your eyes to look at the data, part of which "daft punk" provided himself. Thanks for verifying that the accepted global warming model is incorrect. The data speaks for itself."

 

Kessy_Athena, I believe you are mistaken.

Take for example the concept of "chemical equilibrium". Chemical equilibrium does not mean chemical reactions in an isolated system are no longer taking place. What it means is the chemical reactions that occur are proceeding at equal rates in both directions.

It is the concentrations of the products and reactants that then remain constant and in equilibrium , not the fact that the reactions no longer take place in solution or in a closed atmospheric system.