Tim Blair writes: Heat Down
Less heat is evidence of a continuing hotness trend:
2006 is set to be the sixth warmest year on record, continuing the trend of global warming and extreme weather conditions worldwide, the UN's weather agency said.
As Andrew Bolt observes: "Only the sixth ?"
Tim,
These clowns in my view are a waste of space and time. Here in western Europe we have just had the warmest year on record and by quite a margin. July was the warmest ever month (let alone July) in Holland, and autumn was also quite significantly the warmest. I have experimental plots outside with wild cabbage plants and there are caterpillars and green peach aphids feeding on them - in mid-December! We have not had a proper frost yet and no nights with temperatures below freezing.
Moreover, the NASA web site has this year at about 0.64 C (through November) above the 1951-1980 average, with only two years (2005, 1998) well above that at 0.77 and 0.71 C above the long term average respectively. This year is tucked in close to the next three. What Blair, Bolt and their ilk are doing by downplaying the year's temperature data in my opinion is a blatant abuse of science.
1) UK Met Office Summer 2006,
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2006/pr20061016.html
"The mean temperature of 16.2 °C for the period was 2 °C warmer than the average for 1961-1990."
2) UK Met Office Preliminary 2006:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2006/pr20061214.html
"Met Office climate scientist David Parker said, "2006 has been quite extraordinary in terms of the UK temperature, with several records being broken. The figures support recent research from Prof David Karoly of the University of Oklahoma and Dr Peter Stott at the Met Office which showed links between human behaviour and the warming trend"."
CET Top 5 (deg C): 2006 (to 12 Dec) 10.84, 1999 10.63, 1990 10.63, 1949 10.62 +1.15, 2002 10.60.
3) Graph of annually averaged CET available here:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/hadleycentre/obsdata/cet.html
It runs from 1772, those who feel that the presence of 1949 in the top 5 might want to check out the wider picture before they post.
4) WMO Press Release here: http://www.wmo.ch/news/news.html
"Autumn 2006 (September-November) was exceptional in large parts of Europe at more than 3°C warmer than the climatological normal from the north side of the Alps to southern Norway. In many countries it was the warmest autumn since official measurements began: records in central England go back to 1659 (1706 in The Netherlands and 1768 in Denmark)."
A Straw Man wouldn't fare well in a Hurricane.
Bolt even claimed surface temperatures had flat-lined and provided a link to two graphs, assuming no one would look at them. Strange.
Bloody hell, I can't believe some of the commentators on Bolt's piece. Someone actually brought up Khilyuk and Chilingar (2006)!!!
This puts me in a cooking mood-
How to cook Tim Blair, Andrew Bolt, and Patrick Michaels:
http://backseatdriving.blogspot.com/2006/12/how-to-cook-tim-blair-andre…
There are lies, damned lies, and the Met Office.
1. Show the "anomalies" from the average from 1772 to 2006 and they become the handle/upright of a hockey stick without a blade.
2. Talking hockey, Whatever happened to the MBH hockey stick? - they showed a straight line handle to 1850 and blade since then; the Met shows no handle to 1850.
3. What the Met does show is a hot period latterly and a cold period early on. It is too early to say that the hot period will continue indefinitely or keep getting hotter, or start getting cold again.
4. The correlation between the continuously rising anthropomorphic CO2 since 1750 and the wide temperature fluctuations since then is not good. R2 anyone?
I thought you Aussies had gotten over the bit about England being the entire globe? The CET (Central England Temperature) series is just that. It is not a global measure, just parts of England.
Eli: Not yet I haven't, especially as it has the longest continuous measured temperatures, and if North Americans played cricket perhaps they would be better at statistics.
I understand that the USA'ians have Baseball for all their sporting statistical needs, and in that respect (although it is merely a form of rounders, and thus not a serious game at all) they are as bad as English cricket.
Tim Curtin,
I know, they could like, build models that include all known factors, GHG's, solar forcings, aerosols, feedbacks, etc., and then they could call them climatology models.
Tim Curtin,
A plot of UK temperatures will be underlikely to be the same as plot of global temperatures, in pretty much the same way that a plot of UK GDP will be different from a plot of global production.
In addition that the hockey stick model produced a hockey stick was not the issue. The issue was whether it was statistically significant, as has been pointed out numerous times. (Why am I feeding this troll?)
Sort of, there is an interruption in the CET in the early 18th century (I forget the details) which was filled in by using data from de Bilt in the Netherlands.
Still no snow in Slovenia. I hear the weather forecast called Monday to be THE day.
Statistics in cricket? Please- it's great fun, but when conditions are the dominant factor generally and you can have someone gor for a duck or 400 not out, it seems variation renders a lot of stats useless. Of course over a longer time-frame we can tell who is good and who is crap, but when there are only 9-10 teams that play and outside of Australia, 2-7 can all beat each other on any given day...it is hard to say what is what.
PP: you are right, and maybe same applies to GW. If "global" means anything, and given that the CO2 rises globaly, then CET is a valid proxy for global temps. But should it be, perish the thought, that Siberia, Mongolia, and the northern region of North America actually benefit from warming, then folks there will have to be compensated (bribed) for doing anything about CO2 emissions - Russia was to get it to ratify Kyoto but I see no moves to reward the EU for even its minimal efforts to slow down on CO2.
"I see no moves to reward the EU for even its minimal efforts to slow down on CO2"
Having been to a book launch in London the week before last where several speakers talked about the future of carbon trading, the perceived EU strategy as far as reward is concerned seems to be about having a longer transition time into the inevitable carbon market, developing expertise which can then be exported, and making sure their GHG trading markets make them lots of money by being the first and largest in the world.
Meyrick: trouble with "them climatology models" is that them is all wrong, as IPCC FAR will apparently admit.
Tom: if you sell me a Coke, you won't drink it but I will; Same with the EU's trading scehme: you reduce your CO2 and sell your credit to me and I then use it to emit with a gladsome heart. Zero change in CO2 first time around, although the price I have paid may if high enough encourage me to find a method of production that emits less CO2, but that could be difficult for many industries including especially power stations and alumina smelters etc. The former will be able pass on their higher costs to you and me, but the inflationary effects will not be negligible and will lead to higher interest rates. The EU has been printing permits (including for new coal fired power stations) like Mugabe prints dollars, hence rock bottom prices for both.
Well, I certainly didn't mean to be right about that, nor do I grant you your point.
I will say that statistics do allow us to predict on almost any occasion a thumping Australian demolition of anyone and anything dressed in a sad athletic sweater and wielding a piece of wood. Thanks for no drama whatsoever, England.
Tim Curtin,
Well, at least we aren't making any sweeping statements without evidence.
IPCC FAR? Don't you mean TAR?
Ah, I see, Fourth AR
Eli, Philip Eden's your man on the history of the CET. See his website at http://www.climate-uk.com/
Tim Curtin wrote, "But should it be, perish the thought, that Siberia, Mongolia, and the northern region of North America actually benefit from warming".
What is going to benefit? How will soils adapt to the change? Soil biota? Above-ground biota? These systems have not experienced such warming in millions of years, and certainly never such a change in the time frame we are talking about. Given that higher latitudes are warming much faster than lower latitudes, AGW is likely to cause a mass local extinction amongst species assemblaes in boreal ecosystems. The entire interconnected above and below ground system cannot withstand the kinds of changes that are predicted in the time frame we are discussing.
For their part, those who understand little (if anyting) about ecosystems and their functioning wave their magic little mental wands, invoke the tooth fairy, and believe that rapid warming in polar regions will miraculously result in bountiful forests teeming with life, forgetting the little matter of soils with physical and chemical properties not adapted to temperate climates and ecological communities made up of species with genomes adapted to long winters and short growing seasons. Because the system is interconnected, rapid warming will - not might, but will - kick start a massive local extinction spasm that will reverberate through the entire system. It will collapse. So much for TimC's frankly ludicrous scenario of benefits. But of course! He is talking about reduced winter heating costs and longer growing seasons! The little matter of ackonwledging the fact that boreal and tundra soils and the ecological communities of these biomes are not adapted to temperate conditions is immaterial. Bring out that magic wand!
TimC's is the same old refrain of people who don't have a clue about the link between the environment and human welfare. In fact, they don't appear to have much of a clue about anything, aside from their belief that humans are exempt from the laws of nature. Rapid warming of Arctic and semi-Arctic ecosystems will be catastrophic for those systems and the species and populations that make them up. This is a fact. The global consequences of such a change in one or two human generations might be incalculable. But in spite of this, the anthropocentric crowd insulated in their air-conditioned offices dismiss the inconvenient facts that don't fit in with their pre-determined world views.
Garbage in, garbage out.
"they [baseball] are as bad as English cricket"
I have never actually witnessed a line graph being used in the presentation of a baseball came to describe the action as it was happening.
I have seen this in cricket. While I will not get into the whole baseball cricket argument, I am 'bi' on that subject, for sheer enthusiasm, I would have to give the edge to cricket. For subtlety of analysis, I am not sure.
"R2 anyone?"
High frequency noise? Big deal.
Interesting that none of you respond to Lobos original post. Tells me a lot about you guys. Bash Blair and Bolt over style, completely ignore the substance of Lubos Moti's original post.
High frequency noise is a big deal, since temperature proxies cannot capture it, due to diffusion between layers, etc. Therefore, making claims about temperature peaks based on proxies is utterly bogus, since such data has been irretrievably lost.
Somebody here respond to Moti. That would be interesting. It might actually demonstrate some actual technical understanding of the subject on you guys part.
Ice sheet getting thicker in Greenland? Local phenomenon. Ice sheet getting thicker in Antarctica? Local phenomenon. Record high temp in the midlands of the UK? "Global doom!"
In the words of Rosanne Rosanna Dana, never mind, I assumed you were talking about this post by Blair,
Year of Coldness
http://timblair.net/ee/index.php/weblog/year_of_coldness/
which referred to this post by Moti.
http://motls.blogspot.com/2006/12/2006-probably-coldest-year-in-last.ht…
moptop- you claim to know stuff, yet manage to avoid the point about changes in climate and local effects, such that thicker ice sheets is due to changes in precipitation, and dont make much difference if the ice is moving faster to the sea. In the case of the Arctic, the sea ice has been decreasing year on year. In the Antarctic, they seem to have lost some big ice shelves.
As for Lubos, I have found his posts to be generally mince.
His "posts are generally mince". Ok, there is a trenchant takedown if ever I saw one.
Why not demonstrate that the post I referred to is "mince"?
Local temperature records are just that. I don't hear a lot of hulabaloo about the warm period we had here in North America in the '30s. It was called the dust bowl. It was warmer here then than it is today. Local effect.
In this season, mince is a festive curse, but to the substance, calling it the fourth assessment report shows you have not been paying attention. For reasons that appealed to someone or other, it is going to be called AR4.
Honest questions to which I do not know the answer:
How does the greenhouse effect heat the ocean?
What I do know, as sea ice expands and contracts, the albiedo of the Earth changes. This effect, being at the Arctic, where the Sun's rays are much attenuated, is small, but not zero.
I am probably under a misconception here but anyway, I thought that if, for example's sake, you put a thermometer in a bowl chosen to not conduct heat well, say a wooden bowl. Then cover it with water. Then blew on the water with a hair dryer, that the water would evaporate before the temperature went up. Aside from the heat leaking in from the sides of the bowl, which since it has no phase barrier to overcome, can heat the water some. Can air heat the water by conduction through the surface?
Doesn't the ocean store an equivalent amount of energy as the atmosphere above it in the first meter or so? What effect can minor changes in atmospheric temperature have on the ocean as a whole?
Isn't some of the warming to come based on committed warming of the past few centuries that have more to do with coming out of the little ice age than fossil fuels? Is it honest argumentation to conflate them?
Like I said, I really don't know the answer. I am sure that one of you climate experts can set me right immediately.
Sorry, what I meant by committed warming, was warming stored in the oceans.
Moptop:
Simplistic explanations:
1. Albedo--though ice has a high albedo, a water surface with an acute incident light angle is probably just as reflective. Elevated albedo from ice is a positive feedback for cooling when covering a land surface, but would not be a factor when associated with water at the poles.
2. Ocean heating--let's assume the only radient energy is visible light spectrum, the atmosphere is clean, and we have a world completely covered by water. Most if not all light will be absorbed by the ocean water, and converted to other forms of energy. Transmission to air will be either by evaporation and conduction (lets not consider convection since this is mechanical)--rates of transfer that will be lessened when either the partial pressure of water in the air approaches 100%, or that the termperature of the two fluids approach each other. So, if a greenhouse gas increases the residence time of energy in the atmosphere, this will likely result in an increase in air temperature, reducing the rate of energy transfer from the water via conduction, increasing evaporation until humidity is at saturation--therefore the energy has no place to go, so it accentuates molecular motion resulting in higher water temperature.
Mike
"Elevated albedo from ice is a positive feedback for cooling when covering a land surface, but would not be a factor when associated with water at the poles."
That's wrong regarding open water, even for somewhat low-angle sunlight (and most sunlight radiation isn't at low angle).
While I think that the conditions mentioned in your last sentence are extremely rare. I can see your point. The air does not heat the water. The water cools less rapidly.
I see a phenomenon on the lake I live on, which is near 45 degrees North lattitude. When it is very cold, around zero farenheit, and the lake is relatively warm, around 40 or so, there is a close fog on the surface of the lake, even if the air is clear. I assume that this is the cold air absorbing heat from the lake in the form of evaporation. And the rate is higher due to the wide difference in temperature, even though the dry air should absorb the fog quickly.
I am still bugged by the conflation of committed warming of the oceans with greenhouse effects caused by fossil fuels.
Sorry, my last post was addressed to Mike, I also wanted to thank him for the thoughtful answer.
Brian, He was specifically talking about solar radiation at the poles. Chasing down heretics is good sport, but you have to hold fire until you are sure. ;)
One other question, has the warming effect on the ocean been quantified in terms of Watts per square meter?
Moptop:
My point was that the ocean in contact with a warmer atmosphere can only cool slower, or if it cannot cool will warm. What you may be missing is scale--the amount of energy lost to the troposphere that would normally warm the ocean is probably negligible as far as the ocean temperature is altered, but it is not negligible as far as warming the atmosphere.
Brian--I agree, and, what was needed was to also point out that open water is a far better black box than land:).
Mike
You could set that guy on fire, and he would still ask for a parka.
That is exactly what I was thinking. The scale of "warming", or rather lack of cooling, on the ocean is probably negligable, yet I see claims that rises is ocean temperatures of .1 degrees in a year can be somehow attributed to greenhouse gases. And cause devastating Hurricanes, like Katrina.
We get scare stories like this one:
http://www.southcoasttoday.com/daily/12-06/12-14-06/10local.htm
I just don't see how the warming of the ocean due to atmospheric greenhouse effects can create these effects.
These are the reasons that I remain skeptical.
Baratos,
Did you have a question?
Moptop, don't forget that your experiment focuses on evaporation resulting from air movement (i.e. air blowing across water). But the mechanism for convective heat transfer is a temperature differential between two bodies. Air movement will increase the heat transfer coefficient (and therefore the rate of heat transfer), but evaporation will cool the liquid. You would need to work out which is the dominant factor to determine which has the greater effect. Don't forget that air has been moving across the ocean for millions of years - we can simplify the analysis by focusing on the changes that have occurred. Unless average air velocity has increased over time, this can be ignored as a relevant variable, and air temperature probably remains as the only real variable of relevance.
So, by my reckoning, if the air above the oceans gets warmer (due to increased CO2 concentration), heat will transfer to the ocean at an increased rate, thus the ocean temperature will rise. The temperature rise of the air may be trivial, but there are huge volumes of it, so the energy stored would be massive.
Your analogy with the bowl and hairdrier probably wouldn't pass a similarity test, IMHO. I'm not even sure about your assumption that the water would evaporate before it heated up.
I would comment on Lubos' post, but either you are refering to a post on a different thread, or it has been deleted. This happens sometimes. Lubos has a history with this website. Sometimes his comments make sense, sometimes they dont. You'll be fine as long as you keep being sensible, i.e. asking reasonable questions in a reasonable fashion.
"I don't hear a lot of hulabaloo about the warm period we had here in North America in the '30s. It was called the dust bowl. It was warmer here then than it is today."
Pity he didn't check this graph of US National Temperature before making the above assertion. The 1930s were not wamer than now, even just in the contiguous US which hasn't warmed as much as the rest of North America over the 20th century.
Considering moptop's disregard for the facts, I think it's safe to assume he's nothing more than a denialist troll.
Of course, if the dust bowl WERE due to higher temperatures, itd rather tend to undercut the whole "global warming is unlikely to cause major problems" line of propaganda.
Uh, Chris, I looked at your graph, and while certainly 1998 was as warm, or slightly warmer than any year in the thirties, it had a couple of rivals then. I am sure you are looking at the red line which is a rolling average. But before you call me a liar, too late, you already did, why not actually look at the graph? It supports my statement. I never said anything about rolling averages, there were years in the '30s in North America that were warmer than now, not 1998, but now. Remember the discussion of high frequency events? That was one recorded by thermometers that the precious proxies of the hockey stick could never catch.
I really don't mind the honoriffic of "troll". Trolls in mythology have traditionally been creatures who asked questions difficult to answer. Which seems clearly the case here.
Mr Burrows, Mike's explanation was pretty good, and comports with my understanding of the physics, well "Earth Science", of the situation. The bowl experiment was an effort to draw somebody out on the whole heating the ocean by conduction from the atmospher thing. I suggest you read his answer carefully.
Heating the ocean by conduction sounds reasonable enough, but it is wrong. Maybe you can send an email to Tim Lambert to get him to explain it to you. He has always been reasonably patient with me, and has brought my level of understanding of the issue up a bit.
I am not a "troll" in the web sense of the word, however, I am agnostic, somewhat skeptical, but have an open mind. If I didn't have an open mind, I would just stop by, ridicule your arguments, then go away with a smug feeling that "I showed them." Not my game. If the AGW crowd has truth on your side, it will become apparent to me soon enough, and I will change my habits accordingly. Now, as you can see, I have some unanswered questions that nobody here can seem to help me with.
Ian, I agree with you. High temperatures would be devastating for the US. China, however, during ancient warm times that you guys deny existed, was a land of forests and lakes where now there are deserts.
The Sahara is contracting. North America, however, has never enjoyed the kind of long term climate stability that other continents have. I have a pet theory, more a speculation, that no great civilizations ever formed here, I am talking Mayan, Inca, Greek, Egyption, China great, because the 400 year droughts that the continent has been prone to over the centuries.
One other thing, then I will shut up for a while.
Seeking truth is so much more interesting than carrying water for one side or the other. My current little project is to try and figure out why Plinny the Elder was able to describe the Arctic Ocean with a fair degree of accuracy. I don't have any preconception that it will pan out, but if I was on one side or the other cheerleading, or whatever, I wouldn't even be checking it out. I just enjoy reading about the ancients. Open your minds, for one thing, if it were clear that you had an open mind, you would be more persuasive.
Having a beautifully mild summer here in QLD this year. Much cooler than the last few.
I'm wondering if we're entering a new ice age.
Some comments are so asinine as not to merit a response.
While its tempting to put Dave's comment in that category, I'll pointt t the record heatwave across much of southern Australia a couple of months ago and the new high temperature record set in Birdsville. (That's in Queensland Dave but it's not in the western suburbs of Brisbane so you're probably unaware of its existence.)
At this point I've pointed to the Australian Bureau of Meteorology's climate change page so often that there's really no point in doing so again.
Have fun fiddling while Victoria burns, Dave.
>Having a beautifully mild summer here in QLD this year. Much cooler than the last few.
>
>I'm wondering if we're entering a new ice age.
Queensland's average temperature for summer thus far is +0.76C above the 1961-90 average. This makes it warmer than any summer since 1997. Just shows how humans have fickle memories and one should not scale up individual experiences to large (or global) areas.
It's not cooler in Brisbane but there's less humidity which makes it more comfortable.
So I was banned for asking questions on a science blog? Don't worry, I wont be back, but really. Why not just kick me to the curb on the science?
Skeptically yours,
--Moptop
Dear moptop,
You have not been banned. Try being a little less paranoid.
"there were years in the '30s in North America that were warmer than now, not 1998, but now"
I'm sure there were days in the 1930s that were hotter than today too but that's just another dishonest strawman. As I said, nothing more than a denialist troll.
BTW, no one has actually put up figures for North America, just the contiguous US. So far the unsupported assertion is for North America, not just the contiguous US.
Tim, there was soem sort of bug earlier that prevented me from posting. Presumably the same thing happened to Moptop.
Dear moptop, You have not been banned. Try being a little less paranoid.'
hmm, where have i seen this pattern before?
posit that you are the only one seeking truth -- by claiming that you are one of the rare breed who are 'open-minded' enough to ask the tough, probing questions
...and when it becomes clear that no one is buying what you have to sell, play the 'censorship/persecution' card.
for some reason, the libertarian types love this game.
it's entrtaining to watch the first time, but after the umpteenth time, it's just annoying... like a mosquito buzzing about the head.
Well sorry Tim, it didn't seem like you to ban me.
I test posted twice, on different threads. Got 404 even though everything else worked. Checked the "Having Problems Posting" link. It suggested that i had probably been banned. Fair enough, its your blog. I used a proxy with at different different subnet. Able to post. I guess I jumped to conclusion.
Chris.
Look at the graph again. There were YEARS (sorry about the all caps, but really) in the thirties that were warmer than anything this decade. The rolling average was lower. Talk about a "denialist". If you want to weasel more about definitions and geographic constrictions, fine, set the goalpost wherever you like and come to whatever conclusion you like. Quelle surprise. Still, the lower 48 is a much larger area than the midlands of the UK. Whatever. I am done with the subject. Look at the graph and decide for yourself.
I don't repeat objections that have been disproven to my satisfaction.
I stopped talking about urban heat island after being convince by a poster on another site that the objection was shaky at best, and most likely not valid.
I stopped talking about the magnitude of the warming effect as a percentage of solar flux after Mr Lambert explained to me that the two figures were not comparable in application. He did this by explaining the math in a conceptual manner that suggested that he actually understood it. Same as Mike's explanation of transfer of heat between air and water.
I never suggested that I am the only one seeking truth. Or never meant to. I only meant that prejudging the argument leads to poor thinking. If you have worked through the whole problem, which is huge, I don't understand why you can't answer my question about hurricanes.
I promise that if there is a convincing answer, I will drop it as an objection, and will move from skeptic to a "likely it's true" catagory. I am not trying to "sell" anything here. I am on a 'science' blog looking for answers to 'science' questions.
So here they are again.
How much warming (or slowed cooling) per square whatever in terms of watts is the ocean recieving due to GHG?
How long would it take that warming effect to heat the ocean by .1 degrees, a figure I have seen thrown about.
While variations in solor output are small, as has been measured over the past 22 years, don't these variations affect the ocean more than the atmosphere?
I would aslo accept a convincing reason why none of this matters.
Beyond these objections, I think the rest of my objections have more to do with styles of propaganda than anything else. Hockey Stick mainly.
This next is a rant you can skip or file under "How to talk to a skeptic about global warming".
What does "Libertarian, Republican, Democrat, Socalist" have to do with anything scientific? I will tell you why bringing up politics undermines your argument to a skeptic. Why bringing it up is only "preaching to the choir" or using it as a shiboleth to show membership in a group.
If AGW is proven and accepted, then the solution is undoubtedly state control. You can talk about credit markets, etc, but without govt enforcement of these distortions of the free market, they won't happen.
One thinks of the old saying, "When all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail."
Well, to a lot of people, the AGW believer crowd seem like people whose only tool is socialism, who have found the perfect problem that finally discredits free markets.
I agree that proven AGW would discredit free markets. I am not an ideologue, I am for what works. Probably, on first principles, the major disagreement I have with socialism is that I don't care if somebody else has more than me, as long as the poor aren't cold and hungry. The rest of my objections are practical.
/End Rant
Moptop, the interesting thing is that if (insofar as I understand it) we were in an anarcho-capitalist or an appropriate other situation (eg what we have in the USA) situation or similar, the "free market" and such would help sort out the global warming problem. THis would happen by means of lawsuits upon greenhouse gas producers, initated by those who were most directly affected.
The problem being that it would be a damn site easier to initiate and win such lawsuits when warming got bad enough to be a huge and immediate problem. The stage we are at with it just now, things are ok, but its the warming we are due in the next 50 years that will really do the damage.
"What does "Libertarian, Republican, Democrat, Socalist" have to do with anything scientific? I will tell you why bringing up politics undermines your argument to a skeptic. Why bringing it up is only "preaching to the choir" or using it as a shiboleth to show membership in a group."
So what does it say about skeptics when, for example, John Humphreys basically admits that his opposition to the AGW hypothesis is a direct result of his hostility to government or when Senator Inhofe blames it on the UN and their secret plans for One World Government?
Take a look at the peopel who actually negotiated the Kyoto Agreements - George W. Bush; John Major and Helmut Kohl.
Global warming only became a polarised left-right political issue after the election of the Bush (43) administration when all critics of the President's position were labelled as socialists motivated solely by partisan spite.
Oddly, this accusation was never leveled at Governors Pataki and Schwartzenegger or Senator McCain. I guess the assumption was that they were all either lying for political advantage or simply duped.
"I agree that proven AGW would discredit free markets."
I don't.
Unless you mean the extremist ludicrous caricature of free markets prortrayed by some libertarians.
Tell me, do you believe in a free market in the sexual services of minors?
If not does that "discredit free markets"?
Ian,
What if I run a delivery service and have to buy carbon credits that are then divied out according to whoever is in political favor. That is the only way money taken by the govt gets divied out. Is there any business that would not be taxed in this way? I can't think of one. What about a blog? A server farm can take a lot of power. This is the kind of invasive intrusion into markets that belief that "the planet is doomed" can justify. It is a frightening power. Far more intrusive than policing sex crime, which is plenty intrusive, but justified on the basis of real, proven, harm.
I am not going to talk about politics anymore. It is divisive. When you are trying to convince somebody to come over to your side, divisiveness is counterproductive.
Do you think that pointing out that politicians are craven (of course not the ones on your side), that you come even the tiniest bit closer to convincing me of anything except that you think asserting your membership in a group of like-minded people, your membership to which seems more important to you than the scientific issues? I probably came up with three or four more objections just while writing the paragraph above. People's political positions are very well defended psychologically, why attack at that point?
If you want to shut up a "libertarian denialist", there is one way that will work, disprove with evidence and argument his objection. Actual peer reviewed studies are preferred. If he or she presents an objection to that, answer it honestly, not by repeating your original argument in ALL CAPS, a common mistake. Eventually, he or she will run out of ammunition, and think twice about raising that same objection. Calling them on their politics will get you nowhere. For instance, right now I am beginning to think that you don't really understand the case for AGW since you can't answer my questions.
I wish someone on this science blog would answer my questions re the science.
"I wish someone on this science blog would answer my questions re the science".
Wrong blog mate!
It's more of a he says/she says type of blog. And home of the killer debunking link. If there was a killer argument it would have been provided by now!
I guess I agree with you guys. I feel like Ms Dewey after you don't type for a while.
http://msdewey.com/
I guess my search for a believer who understande the argument continues. I had some hope for Tim Lambert, since he has disabused me of objections in the past.
The cold hard truth is that government regulations have improved air and water quality immeasureably since the 1950s. The mechanism appears to be setting standards and allowing the market to meet them. Sometimes subvension is also needed.
The other "cold hard truth" is that the kind of interventions in the market envisioned by Kyoto are extraordinary, and would dwarf any regulation up to now. You can't pretend that there is not a cost benefit trade-off, and that it neeeds to be understood before undertaking a project of this magnitude.
As I said, If you can prove it, fine. But is seems like a lot of people are "convinced" without having any idea of what they are convinced of.
--moptop
Moptop said "How much warming (or slowed cooling) per square whatever in terms of watts is the ocean recieving due to GHG?
How long would it take that warming effect to heat the ocean by .1 degrees, a figure I have seen thrown about.
While variations in solor output are small, as has been measured over the past 22 years, don't these variations affect the ocean more than the atmosphere?"
Let's take these backwards:
Variations in solar output vary around a mean. They don't usually trend directionally. The Milankovich Cycle is headed for a down turn in intercepted solar energy (in other words climate cooling back to glacial). Therefore, a sustained upward trend is unlikely, and contrary to expectation. (I should point out the modeling is nearly 20 years in place, and would exceed most sunspot cycles, if you wish to go there).
What you are asking in the first part may not be
a.) feasible--A measurement of solar energy at the roof of the atmosphere is easily performed--one measurement can be extrapolated to apply over the entire surface; at the ocean intercept, the variability is greater, and a network of measuring stations needed. Local weather events might make such a measurement inaccurate as the noise could swamp perception of a trend.
b. reasonable--what is missing in your input question is rate (and units). 1 calorie is the energy required to raise a mililiter of water 1 degree C; 1 calorie/hour is equal to one thousandth of a watt. Since what you are asking is the amount of watts needed to heat water 0.1 degree, we are getting down to units of a ten thousandth of a watt on an hourly basis. And this is to heat one cc of ocean water a tenth of a degree in an hour. Extrapolate that over the time frame that the ocean is estimated to warm by this amount (one hundred years?), and we are talking about a infinitessimal amount of energy to measure.
What is used to model global warming are global climate models that rely upon equations developed primarily from radioisonde data and fluid dynamics, and are interated over time by a supercomputer such as a Cray (I'm dating myself). These equations and their underlying assumptions may be found in any boundary layer climatology textbook (beware this is not an easy read). The reason it is done this way is precisely because of the constraints I summarized above--for such change to be measurable at the surface, the effects would already be known--a prospect antithetical to science as its purpose is to predict the future.
I should ask is your approach to this matter skeptical or more to employ critical reasoning? The reason I ask is that there is a wide gulf between what is philosophical skepticism and scientific skepticism; and what is the application of critical reasoning. The former dispenses with the resolution offered by Hume, and is the basis (justification) of much post-modernistic nihilism (claptrap), while the latter evaluates its doubt against pragmatism (privileges materialism and shared observation). Critical reasoning on the other hand, places a burden on the one asking the questions as well as those being asked the questions, and it simply is, do I understand the issue well enough to where the questions I have are intelligible to those being interrogated. I have to say, that if you want a quantitative answer, you may need to re-examine the question you ask. That would well be the reason you do not see responses, not that people don't understand the issues--scientist are not populists where they must educate everyone, only those that matter. You on the other hand have the choice to either trust the experts, or if what is said smells like cant, to address it. And, yes, that is not being a troll.
Mike
Let me see, the world ended and the economy collapsed when tetraethyl lead was taken out of fuel, NOx emissions from power plants were limited, ditto for SOx, CFCs were outlawed, CAFE standards were established, taxes on gasoline were increased (to > $4/US gallon in some places). I must have missed a few there. Current world ending phenomina include getting rid of bromine based insecticides. Oh yes, the party you don't like getting elected, although we may have to make an exception for the current US one. Well, the exception proves the rule.
the idea that all (or even most) of those who believe that global warming is a rel problem that needs to be addressed are 'socialists'is just sillyiness.
in fact, there is nothing internally inconsistent about 'belief in doing something about global warming' and 'belief in capitalism'.
there is a huge amount of energy waste in the us right now which translates to a great deal of carbon dioxide (and other stuff) needlessly spewed into the air. saving energy is not only good for the environment, it is good for the bottom line.
so why isn't every business in the us trying to save as much energy as possible and/or trying to make money off solving the problem (eg, by producing more energy efficient cars, appliances, lights, etc)?
the simple fact is, there are lots of things built into the economic system here in the us (eg, subsidies to the electrical generating utilites and other disincentives to upgrade their equipment) that work against increased efficiency.
amory lovins et al have a lot to say on this subject.
http://www.rmi.org/
there is nothing inherently 'socialist' about adresssing global warming and to suggest as much shows an ignorance about science and economics.
"Look at the graph again."
Before I continue, I just want to point out that no-one has yet provided any proof for the assertion:
"I don't hear a lot of hulabaloo about the warm period we had here in North America in the '30s. It was called the dust bowl. It was warmer here then than it is today."
It contains the words "North America". Note: "North America" is NOT the same as the contiguous USA. Also note that no-one has yet provided a temperature series for North America. I have found one that goes up to 1993 here (North America is the second series). It shows 1987 as hotter than any year in the 1930s and the hottest year up to 1993. Given that generally it is now substantially warmer than the 1980s (for example Northern Hemisphere land temperature), it seems very unlikely that even the hottest year in the 1930s is warmer than any recent year. However, as I said, no-one has yet provided the figures so we don't actually know and anyone who says it is, is making an unsupported assertion.
"There were YEARS in the thirties that were warmer than anything this decade."
OK, getting a little more specific and a little less unbiased. Still not there though because we haven't yet had ten years of the 2000s. Unless you want to choose the last ten years that is.
"Still, the lower 48 is a much larger area than the midlands of the UK."
Wow, now I've learnt that the UK is part of North America.
BTW, ever heard of Canada? You might like to check this map before deciding that Canada makes a negligible difference to temperature trends in North America.
"The other "cold hard truth" is that the kind of interventions in the market envisioned by Kyoto are extraordinary, and would dwarf any regulation up to now. You can't pretend that there is not a cost benefit trade-off, and that it neeeds to be understood before undertaking a project of this magnitude."
The "cold hard truth" is that virtually every econometrist who has done a detailed study of the issue disagrees.
"In fact, there is nothing internally inconsistent about 'belief in doing something about global warming' and 'belief in capitalism'."
You know for people who keep complaining about their questions not being answered, the libertrian-denialists seem awfully quiet on this topic:
Are John Major, George w. Bush; Helmut Kohl; Arnold Scwartzenegger; John McCain and George Pataki socialists>
I'm also fascinated by the idea now being advanced that linking to other sites to provide answers is somehow dodging the question.
Presumably, the people objecting prefer the drive-by tactics used by the likes of Climate-infidel - just make a barefaced assertion with no supporting evidence.