Arctic Warming - Is The Science Really Settled?

[chucky2]

Actually it's worse than that. Not only did they sleep at a Holiday Inn last night, with the heater upping the room temp to 78 or the air cooling it to 65, they flew into a destination for non-emergency purposes wearing clothes they didn't really need to buy, eating food they didn't need to eat, watching TV and playing with a new cell phone they didn't need, etc. etc.

In short: They're Eco-Hypocrites.

Given the literally worldwide calamity they believe in for all Mankind, one would think they'd be taking steps to completely negate any non-essential usage of services and materials that weren't crucial to minimum life sustainment...you know, like they actually Believed the Science they so claim to buy into.

Unfortunately, it is the opposite...

 

[Jaskalas]

In short: They're Eco-Hypocrites.

Given the literally worldwide calamity they believe in for all Mankind, one would think they'd be taking steps to...

This is a logical fallacy I commonly see used.

That advocates for change must restrict themselves before others. While a noble gesture... is it practical? Even if the entire United States ceased to exist tomorrow, CO2 emissions would still be rising. All their worst fears would still come to pass.

It is not possible to make a personal sacrifice large enough to matter. Not unless the entirety of the human race follows through with it. IMO, the only way forward is with a technological revolution in cleaner energy. Today it's natural gas, to halve energy plant emission... tomorrow it needs to be nuclear energy. Before the end of the century it needs to be widespread solar energy. Then next century, hopefully dreams are realized and fusion ends our dilemma.

Until then however, what can we do? Any harm we inflict on our economy would only reduce public funding to science and stifle our forward progress. It's going to take time holding together our civilization in the hope that it can progress. The answer is slow and steady, and we'll get there.

Global Warming is not something that can be solved by fear and alarmism, but that alarm can help spur our response and ensure that we place enough value into energy development.

 

[OverVolt]

Where are those superb records of ice volume and ocean heat content?

No where. What a laugh.

You can't even calculate ice volume or ocean temperature today to any degree of scientific certainty much less have a record long enough to reach any conclusion.

Likewise for ocean temperature.

The Argo floats exists for less than a decade and its 3000 buoys in the entire ocean, moving with waves.

Do you think anyone knows what is the average temperature of the oceans surface today? Or at 700m? Or 2000m?

And that they can actually detect 0.001*C changes?

Do you also think anyone can measure the energy that the earth release to space?

You can measure the energy the earth gets from the sun because you can reduce the sun to a spot, but you can't do the same for earth.

More, the energy imbalance talked about is smaller than the actual error bar of the satellite equipment. It is like saying you are 0.01g heavier today using a scale that has grams as the smallest division.

Are any of you engineers?

Thanks for this, truly. Its been irking me and I haven't been able to put it in such a way that they understood what I was saying. Then they take those 0.001*C changes and plug them into a bajillion variable equation and compound the measurement errors. Ugh. Its got to be nothing more than GIGO with the accuracy of their measurements all ploped into a model with as many assumptions as it has measurements larger than their error bars....multiplied together!

GIGO.

I remember not being sure I was able to really know the volume of 10ml of water down to that many decimal places and the climate scientists are like we did it with the ocean, yea brah.

 

[xBiffx]

Are any of you engineers?

Yes but I'm afraid I need no convincing. You are spot on.

I will throw out a term that comes into play (well its always in play honestly) and it relates to what you were saying: significant figures. If people don't know what that is, I suggest looking into it. I took an entire semester on that topic alone and how it relates to engineering.

 

[chucky2]

This is a logical fallacy I commonly see used.

That advocates for change must restrict themselves before others. While a noble gesture... is it practical? Even if the entire United States ceased to exist tomorrow, CO2 emissions would still be rising. All their worst fears would still come to pass.

It is not possible to make a personal sacrifice large enough to matter. Not unless the entirety of the human race follows through with it. IMO, the only way forward is with a technological revolution in cleaner energy. Today it's natural gas, to halve energy plant emission... tomorrow it needs to be nuclear energy. Before the end of the century it needs to be widespread solar energy. Then next century, hopefully dreams are realized and fusion ends our dilemma.

Until then however, what can we do? Any harm we inflict on our economy would only reduce public funding to science and stifle our forward progress. It's going to take time holding together our civilization in the hope that it can progress. The answer is slow and steady, and we'll get there.

Global Warming is not something that can be solved by fear and alarmism, but that alarm can help spur our response and ensure that we place enough value into energy development.

I'm sorry, but it's not illogical at all. Consuming energy and goods is, for Believers who Believe in the Science, what is causing the planet to warm unnaturally. And it is this unnatural impact to the climate that is a code red Doomgate situation they want everyone to accept - the Science is settled after all.

While the dirty stupid non-Believers may continue to consume energy and buy goods (that require energy and pollution to be created) at selfish rates, there is no reason why 10's/100's of Millions of Believers, hey, maybe even Billions of Believers, can actually believe in what they feel is settled science and take the next logical step, which is drastically (and, it must be drastic given the global magnitude of the impact and the global scope of the impact, coupled with those filthy non-cooperating non-Believers) paring back their energy and goods consumption. Their cumulative efforts at this will go major, maybe even all the way, in hitting the emissions targets that need to happen to turn back mans impact on climate change.

There is no need to wait decades on treaties (that will be signed but not adhered to, meaning, not enough impact on emissions to matter), they can literally start right now. And, that starting should be absolutely no problem given their professed Belief in the Science. The only logical fallacy here is someone who professes to Believe in the Settled Science not drastically limiting their energy and goods consumption. That would be one seriously hypocritical person...

 

[NeoV]

jesus Gai - sea ice may have covered more square footage, but it's a very temporary condition, and it's much thinner that it has been historically.

Talking about sea ice coverage at a single point in time is like saying 'well it's snowing here today, there is no global warming.

Just like talking about a 'pause' in warming, when, in nearly every one of those bullet points, the starting point is 1998, which oh by the way was the hottest year ever..

How about the ice loss on Greenland and Antarctica - you know - the ice that really matters in this discussion?

This isn't rocket science folks. yes, we may not have a 100% foolproof model that predicts every last factor in a very complex climate, but the fact remains that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and we produce a shit-ton of it.

If we want to argue about what can and/or should be done, great, we are getting somewhere. If all these armchair scientists (aka older white men, for some odd reason nearly 100% GOP leaning) want to argue about the science behind it all - well it's just ridiculous.

 

[dphantom]

This isn't rocket science folks.

Actually it is a very complex topic. Distilling it down to CO2 goes up therefore temps go up is so simplistic as to border on the absurd. I can make a good argument that oceans regularly trap heat and then release heat thereby causing global temperatures to fall or rise.

And if you want to cherry pick starting points, let's look at 1979, the usual starting point for measuring ice volume and extent. The end of a 20 year cooling period when ice mass was probably at its greatest.

We simply do not have sufficient data to make your simplistic conclusion true. It may be, but until we know much, much more, I choose to remain on the side of "we need more research" before coming to any conclusions.

 

[Paratus]

Where are those superb records of ice volume and ocean heat content?

No where. What a laugh.

You can't even calculate ice volume or ocean temperature today to any degree of scientific certainty much less have a record long enough to reach any conclusion.

Likewise for ocean temperature.

The Argo floats exists for less than a decade and its 3000 buoys in the entire ocean, moving with waves.

Do you think anyone knows what is the average temperature of the oceans surface today? Or at 700m? Or 2000m?

And that they can actually detect 0.001*C changes?

Do you also think anyone can measure the energy that the earth release to space?

You can measure the energy the earth gets from the sun because you can reduce the sun to a spot, but you can't do the same for earth.

More, the energy imbalance talked about is smaller than the actual error bar of the satellite equipment. It is like saying you are 0.01g heavier today using a scale that has grams as the smallest division.

Are any of you engineers?

So your argument seems to be I don't know so how could anybody know?

Well I'm an engineer so let me help you out. As an engineer I approached this as an energy balance problem. If the Earth was warming than more thermal energy from sun better be arriving then leaving.

You've already agreed we can measure incoming solar radiation so no need to go into that but then you wax on about how could we could possibly measure out going energy to space.

Why to do that we'd have to have some sort of satellites to look at the Earth in various wavelengths to figure out which were radiated and which were reflected.

Sort of like this:

Holy shit! Satellite images of the Earth in infrared, visible light, UV, extreme UV, X-ray, and Gamma Ray.

So you, as an engineer, now that you are aware we can measure both incoming and out going energy should agree that it's possible to do an energy balance analysis on Earth. That energy balance shows the earth to be gaining aproximatley 0.5W/m^2. However to confirm this we should try and measure the thermal energy in the air, land, and ocean since the error bars on this energy balance were enough to be possibly up to 1W/m^2 or down to even if I remember correctly.

So for that we need Argo. You've said how could anybody measure the whole ocean and @ .001C. As an engineer you should be aware that for any large project requirements are written as part of the design process. Their design process required 3000 floats that could measure precisely down to +.002C.

http://www.argo.ucsd.edu/FAQ.html

There's lots of technical information about the project so I suggest reading it if you actually want answers to your questions.

http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/hansen_16/



Anyway when performing the energy balance across the ocean, land and air. NASA came up with an energy imbalance of 0.58W/m^2 +.15 back in 2010 during the deep solar minimum we had.

Many nations began, about a decade ago, to deploy floats around the world ocean that could "yo-yo" an instrument measuring ocean temperature to a depth of 2 km. By 2006 there were about 3000 floats covering most of the world ocean. These floats allowed von Schuckmann and Le Traon (2011) to estimate that during the 6-year period 2005-2010 the upper 2 km of the world ocean gained energy at a rate 0.41 W/m2 averaged over the planet.

We used other measurements to estimate the energy going into the deeper ocean, into the continents, and into melting of ice worldwide in the period 2005-2010. We found a total Earth energy imbalance of +0.58±0.15 W/m2 divided as shown in Fig. 1.

So it looks to me like the climate scientists have all of your unknown up there well in hand.

Yes but I'm afraid I need no convincing. You are spot on.

I will throw out a term that comes into play (well its always in play honestly) and it relates to what you were saying: significant figures. If people don't know what that is, I suggest looking into it. I took an entire semester on that topic alone and how it relates to engineering.

Good news is so did the scientists who developed the requirements and the engineers who designed the tools we use to measure the environemt as you can see in a limited way above.

 

[Paratus]

Actually it is a very complex topic. Distilling it down to CO2 goes up therefore temps go up is so simplistic as to border on the absurd. I can make a good argument that oceans regularly trap heat and then release heat thereby causing global temperatures to fall or rise.

And if you want to cherry pick starting points, let's look at 1979, the usual starting point for measuring ice volume and extent. The end of a 20 year cooling period when ice mass was probably at its greatest.

We simply do not have sufficient data to make your simplistic conclusion true. It may be, but until we know much, much more, I choose to remain on the side of "we need more research" before coming to any conclusions.

Over the short term you're absolutely right. Ocean currents move heat around and warm and cool the air. The problem is the amount of thermal energy in the ocean continues to rise even when the sun went through a prolonged solar minim. CO2 does trap infrared radiation so over the long term, yes CO2 causes temperature increase. In fact the planet would be uninhabitable without it.

 

[OverVolt]

So your argument seems to be I don't know so how could anybody know?

Well I'm an engineer so let me help you out. As an engineer I approached this as an energy balance problem. If the Earth was warming than more thermal energy from sun better be arriving then leaving.

You've already agreed we can measure incoming solar radiation so no need to go into that but then you wax on about how could we could possibly measure out going energy to space.

Why to do that we'd have to have some sort of satellites to look at the Earth in various wavelengths to figure out which were radiated and which were reflected.

Sort of like this:

Holy shit! Satellite images of the Earth in infrared, visible light, UV, extreme UV, X-ray, and Gamma Ray.

So you, as an engineer, now that you are aware we can measure both incoming and out going energy should agree that it's possible to do an energy balance analysis on Earth. That energy balance shows the earth to be gaining aproximatley 0.5W/m^2. However to confirm this we should try and measure the thermal energy in the air, land, and ocean since the error bars on this energy balance were enough to be possibly up to 1W/m^2 or down to even if I remember correctly.

So for that we need Argo. You've said how could anybody measure the whole ocean and @ .001C. As an engineer you should be aware that for any large project requirements are written as part of the design process. Their design process required 3000 floats that could measure precisely down to +.002C.

http://www.argo.ucsd.edu/FAQ.html

There's lots of technical information about the project so I suggest reading it if you actually want answers to your questions.

http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/hansen_16/



Anyway when performing the energy balance across the ocean, land and air. NASA came up with an energy imbalance of 0.58W/m^2 +.15 back in 2010 during the deep solar minimum we had.



So it looks to me like the climate scientists have all of your unknown up there well in hand.



Good news is so did the scientists who developed the requirements and the engineers who designed the tools we use to measure the environemt as you can see in a limited way above.

You do realize all the statistics massaging it takes to eek out the measurements from those buoys then plugged into a computer model and multiplied by a bunch of other variables handled similarly and extrapolated out 100 years is GIGO right?

Bottom right is so pixelated thats probably like 200 measurements for the whole planet.

0.58W/m^2 +.15W/m^2

ISN'T THAT ACCURATE

I have no issue with any of the actual data collection or learning about the planet but thinking you can make a complex model with variables with huge errors on them and get anything meaningful is a joke. You'd predict the models to be wrong, and guess what, they're wrong.

All of the global warming gloom and doom is mostly from IPCC and their computer model. Even THEN the doom and gloom talk is 100% unsubstantiated and they are SWAGs (scientific wild ass guesses) based on an interpretation of their GIGO model.

If you wanna talk like exponential growth on a finite planet then yea sure, there is a sustainability problem no doubt. Not that climate scientists know jack shit about it.

 

[Paratus]

You do realize all the statistics massaging it takes to eek out the measurements from those buoys then plugged into a computer model and multiplied by a bunch of other variables handled similarly and extrapolated out 100 years is GIGO right?

Bottom right is so pixelated thats probably like 200 measurements for the whole planet.

0.58W/m^2 +.15W/m^2

ISN'T THAT ACCURATE

I have no issue with any of the actual data collection or learning about the planet but thinking you can make a complex model with variables with huge errors on them and get anything meaningful is a joke. You'd predict the models to be wrong, and guess what, they're wrong.

Sure the bottom right is pixelated, gamma rays are hard to capture. Good news is it's basically all high energy cosmic ray impacts that hit and reflect off the earth. They have basically nothing to do with climate. Infrared and visible light do however.

The models are wrong. Except for the ones that are right. You keep saying huge errors. Some data collection has huge error others are very accurate. I trust NASA, NOAA, et al to do there due diligence in performing correct statistical calculations and tracking sources of error.

You apparently do not and I don't understand why that is.

 

[OverVolt]

Sure the bottom right is pixelated, gamma rays are hard to capture. Good news is it's basically all high energy cosmic ray impacts that hit and reflect off the earth. They have basically nothing to do with climate. Infrared and visible light do however.

The models are wrong. Except for the ones that are right. You keep saying huge errors. Some data collection has huge error others are very accurate. I trust NASA, NOAA, et al to do there due diligence in performing correct statistical calculations and tracking sources of error.

You apparently do not and I don't understand why that is.

I trust NASA just not IPCC and the narrative they've built up around climate change.

 

[ralfy]

Which brings up several interesting questions.

Why has satellite temperature records shown a pause over the last 18 years or so
What has changed to cause oceans to absorb energy instead of showing up as temperature increases at the rate modeled
Why has the significant increase in man emitted CO2 over the last 20 years not shown up in the temperature record when all models show that it should
What causes - the triggering mechanism - oceans to release energy
Can the ocean intake and release of energy be "the" significant factor in surface temperature changes

This is such a fascinating area of study with so much still unknown in terms of the complex interactions between variables that make up our climate.

Ave. temp goes up and down, but the trend line has been upward.

 

[Paratus]

I trust NASA just not IPCC and the narrative they've built up around climate change.

Well then I hate to break it to you but NASA is saying the same thing as the IPCC........

 

[dphantom]

Ave. temp goes up and down, but the trend line has been upward.

Indeed it has since the end of the last Ice Age.

 

[dphantom]

Over the short term you're absolutely right. Ocean currents move heat around and warm and cool the air. The problem is the amount of thermal energy in the ocean continues to rise even when the sun went through a prolonged solar minim. CO2 does trap infrared radiation so over the long term, yes CO2 causes temperature increase. In fact the planet would be uninhabitable without it.

Quite being pedantic. We all know CO2 is a greenhouse gas and in certain quantities is absolutely critical to life.

If you know anything about water, it traps heat and releases it and there is always a delay between when water begins to release energy after surface temperatures begin to cool and absorb energy when surface temperatures rise. Living next to the Great lakes, I see it every fall/winter and spring/summer.

your models simply do not prove what you believe in. The models are wrong, are slowly being corrected, and as they are corrected are showing less and less of an impact of CO2 rise on GST. CO2 forcing is not anywhere near as bad as originally guessed at even 5 years ago.

Now, with all that said, unrestrained emissions of CO2, SO2, CH4 or so forth should be managed/minimized to the extent economically feasible. There is some effect on global temperatures as man releases these gases. The extent to which is still very much an open question/debate among climate researchers.

 

[Paratus]

Quite being pedantic. We all know CO2 is a greenhouse gas and in certain quantities is absolutely critical to life.

If you know anything about water, it traps heat and releases it and there is always a delay between when water begins to release energy after surface temperatures begin to cool and absorb energy when surface temperatures rise. Living next to the Great lakes, I see it every fall/winter and spring/summer.

your models simply do not prove what you believe in. The models are wrong, are slowly being corrected, and as they are corrected are showing less and less of an impact of CO2 rise on GST. CO2 forcing is not anywhere near as bad as originally guessed at even 5 years ago.

Now, with all that said, unrestrained emissions of CO2, SO2, CH4 or so forth should be managed/minimized to the extent economically feasible. There is some effect on global temperatures as man releases these gases. The extent to which is still very much an open question/debate among climate researchers.

Thermal inertia is what you are talking about. Glad you understand it.

Now why don't you provide my some peer reviewed articles showing that CO2 forcings are way off from the what the IPCC has stated

 

[xBiffx]

Good news is so did the scientists who developed the requirements and the engineers who designed the tools we use to measure the environemt as you can see in a limited way above.

It appears not. And NASA has been caught before with its pants down when it comes to figures, especially units.

 

[dphantom]

Now why don't you provide my some peer reviewed articles showing that CO2 forcings are way off from the what the IPCC has stated

I have in another thread.

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

I have in another thread.

Agree...this was discussed at length in another thread about a month or two ago iirc.

 

[dphantom]

Agree...this was discussed at length in another thread about a month or two ago iirc.

You know what, to prevent more whining, let me just post a few peer reviewed papers.

Below find 40 peer-reviewed papers published in science journals by 120+ scientists that have low (2.0 C or less, 1.1 C median) climate sensitivity estimates (with ECS values highlighted below).

[ECS = equilibrium climate sensitivity, TCR = transient climate sensitivity]

http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v6/n6/full/ngeo1836.html
2.0 (17 scientists, 14 of them IPCC Lead Authors)
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00382-012-1375-3?LI=true
2.0
http://folk.uio.no/gunnarmy/paper/aldrin_env_2012.pdf
2.0
http://www.klimatupplysningen.se/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Bengtsson-Tellus.pdf
2.0
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304380014000404
1.99
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00382-013-1770-4
1.9
http://www.int-res.com/articles/cr2003/23/c023p001.pdf
1.9
http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~mzelinka/Forster_etal13.pdf
1.8
http://www.earth-syst-dynam-discuss.net/4/785/2013/esdd-4-785-2013.html
1.8
http://www.iac.ethz.ch/doc/publications/Chylek-Lohmann-GRL2008-comment.pdf
1.8
http://www.earth-syst-dynam.net/5/139/2014/esd-5-139-2014.html
1.8
http://file.scirp.org/Html/24283.html
1.7
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00382-014-2342-y
1.64
http://www.princeton.edu/~gkv/papers/Padilla_etal11.pdf
1.6 (TCR) [using Lewis & Curry assumption that ECS = 1.15*TCR = 1.84C]
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2011GL050226/abstract
1.55 (TCR) [using Lewis & Curry assumption that ECS = 1.15*TCR = 1.78C]
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI-D-12-00473.1
1.6
http://people.duke.edu/~ns2002/pdf/EARTH_1890.pdf
1.5
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1307.3706.pdf
1.35
http://www.earth-syst-dynam-discuss.net/5/529/2014/esdd-5-529-2014.html
1.3
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13143-014-0011-z
1.3
http://www.clim-past-discuss.net/8/4923/2012/cpd-8-4923-2012.html
1.1
http://www.pas.rochester.edu/~douglass/papers/published_E&E douglass_christy.pdf
1.1
http://multi-science.metapress.com/content/k76363u651167q65/
0.96
http://www.earth-syst-dynam-discuss.net/4/25/2013/esdd-4-25-2013.html
0.67
http://www-eaps.mit.edu/faculty/lindzen/236-Lindzen-Choi-2011.pdf
0.67
http://www.drroyspencer.com/Spencer-and-Braswell-08.pdf
0.67
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/Spencer_Misdiagnos_11.pdf
0.62
http://www.scipublish.com/journals/ACC/papers/846
0.60
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364682612001617
0.53
http://multi-science.metapress.com/content/3678681q807n8236/fulltext.pdf?page=1
0.51
http://www.iac.ethz.ch/doc/publications/Chylek-et-al-JGR2007-climate-sens.pdf
0.50
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF01592922
0.50
http://www.int-res.com/articles/cr/10//c010p069.pdf
0.40
http://www.ecd.bnl.gov/steve/pubs/HeatCapacity.pdf
0.39
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/1520-0450(1979)018<0822:QCTPIO>2.0.CO;2
0.30
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2006GL026355/abstract
0.29
http://www.klimatupplysningen.se/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/paltridgearkingpook.pdf
0.26
http://www.pas.rochester.edu/~douglass/papers/DK_reply_PLA_2012.pdf
0.21
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412008001232
0.02
http://atlatszo.hu/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/article.pdf
0.00

 

[dphantom]

fair disclosure, I have not read all of them and none of the "paid" ones. The free ones most I have either read entirely or read the abstract.

edit: And some of them are papers that conclude man is primarily responsible for GW. So enough of the denialist bull please. This is an area that needs much, much more research. The science is very far from settled.

 

[Paratus]

:thumbsup:I'll take a look.

 

[ralfy]

Indeed it has since the end of the last Ice Age.

That refers to interglacials. I'm referring to the pauses that take place across several years.

 

[ralfy]

It is irrelevant to determine whether or not the science is settled because of peak oil and environmental damage.