A picture is worth a thousand words

After Matt Drudge linked this Christopher Booker column in London's Daily Telegraph, the usual dupes are declaring global warming a myth. Booker claims:

the latest US satellite figures showing temperatures having fallen since 1998, declining in 2007 to a 1983 level - not to mention the newly revised figures for US surface temperatures showing that the 1930s had four of the 10 warmest years of the past century, with the hottest year of all being not 1998, as was previously claimed, but 1934.

A quick look at a graph of the satellite-measured temperatures exposes Booker's cherry picking:

i-d2f39b393e711b8df76d390195c71723-sc_Rss_compare_TS_channel_tlt.png

Temperatures have been rising steadily at 0.178 degrees per decade, but with fluctuations above and below the trend line. If you study the graph closely, you'll see that there was one month in 1983 (during an El Nino event) which was warmer than a couple of months in 2007. Comparing a couple of months instead of looking at all of them is deceitful, but seems to be the usual practice at the Telegraph.

The second part of his sentence is misleading as well, since NASA never claimed that 1998 was the warmest year in the US.

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You gullible pro-warming fundamentalists. Show me the satellite figures from the 1930s, only then will I believe you have enough scientific proof to support your "theory".

:p

I wonder if we can get the Steve McIntyre crowd over here for a little audit of the Telegraph figures.

I dunno, guys, that graph looks like it's plateauing to me. Any reason why a linear fit is the best one for the entire time period?

I dunno, guys, that graph looks like it's plateauing to me. Any reason why a linear fit is the best one for the entire time period? Any idea where I can get the raw data for that plot above?

"Plateauing" still isn't the same as "dropping," so the criticism of the article stands regardless. It doesn't look to me like you can say it's plateauing now, though; it _might_ be if you take the last few years in isolation, but there are other stretches on the graph where you could take comparable lengths out and it would appear to be roughly flat. But when it isn't taken in isolation, well, it isn't.

From what I can tell, if you click on the graph, the web site it links to has links to the raw data. I haven't explored that to see the format -- I'm late for work as it is.

Your rebuttal to cherry picking is to pick your own cherries. Curious that you chose to pick the portion of the last century that gives the steepest linear fit possible.

Lance,

Read comment #1.

God, you're an idiot!

By luminous beauty (not verified) on 27 Nov 2007 #permalink

Lance, what the fuck - that was EXACTLY the period that Booker chose to focus on. What more do you want?

As to whether the graph is "plateauing" - can't you see the noise? Why try to extract minute trends like that from this sort of data? A linear trend is appropriate because it's the MINIMAL hypothesis requiring the least number of parameters for fitting.

@Lance:
Know the source of the data being cited and since how long that source exists before yapping about cherry picking.

The satellites measuring the troposphere temperature have only been up since 1978. Kind of hard to acuse people of cherry picking data when at most one year of available data is missing (and even that is debatable seeing that not all the satellites were launched at once).

By Who Cares (not verified) on 27 Nov 2007 #permalink

Lance, please ignore the unfortunate criticism and continue posting here at Deltoid. I need people like you to help me feel smart.

Well, at least Lance can write a readable post, unlike our other idiot trolls JC and TimC.

Give him credit for making it easy for us to understand just how idiotic he is, OK?

You can pick any number of time periods within the last 30 years where the temperatures appeared to "plateau."

Never mind plateauing, the temperature clearly dropped between 1980 and 1985. Global warming stopped in 1980!

By Mark Hadfield (not verified) on 27 Nov 2007 #permalink

Another trick of the vusualization: the lack of grid lines on the graph makes the shortterm change of slope look like an acual decrease. If horizontal lines were present it would visually appear to be leveling off, not going down.

But these sorts will always find something to cherry pick. There is a sufficiently large demographic that chooses to be fooled in this way.

One has to have a serious sight impediment not to see the trend in the data...

looks like it's plateauing to me. :)

Saaaaay...I wonder why the Cheer Squad bots aren't flooding the comments today...

Best,

D

Thanks for the link, N. Johnson, but that data is not very useful for someone who isn't familiar with it already. I just want the x/y data used to make the plot shown here, and nothing more.

Anyone know where that can be found?

Also, why is the lower stratosphere cooling, and why doesn't that show that we're experiencing "global cooling"? To whomever responds, thanks in advance for the elementary lesson about the atmosphere.

Also, why is the lower stratosphere cooling, and why doesn't that show that we're experiencing "global cooling"?

The atm is stratified at the tropopause, magnetopause, etc and the strata don't mix very well. As far as stratosphere cooling, there are a few related reasons and a good short explanation is here, mostly human-related.

Best,

D

ben, who thinks he's too good to click on links, asks:

Anyone know where [the zonally averaged monthly TLT land and sea anomalies for 70S to 82.5N lat in text format] can be found?

Yup.

Plots of satellite derived temperatures (as seasonally adjusted from Scripps) and carbon dioxide increases over the last 10 years are given at http://icecap.us/images/uploads/GLOBAL.doc. There is absolutely NO CORRELATION

I guess you can fool people with graphics if the database used is in error. This is certainly the case of the famous Mann hockeystick where Mann's manipulation of the statistics has since been discredited. His graph has been left out of the IPCC's fourth report but not before many millions of people had been convinced that the world is overheating. Now a new study has found that Mann's math was wrong as well as some of his data. Dr Craig Loehle has checked other proxy data - not the tree ring studies he considers unreliable, and has produced a very different graph. See this and comments at http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2380

Impressive IanP. So lower tropospheric temperature is not simply linearly related to carbon dioxide concentration? Amazing work. Your PhD is surely in the bag. Congrats etc.

The Hockey Stick was not left out of AR4. The conclusion that the temperature of the last few decades is warmer than any comparable recent period has been extended back 1300 years, 300 years further than in the TAR. They give that conclusion a probability of "likely" which is equivalent to that from the National Academy of Sciences.

"Where we speak of 'less confidence,' we're more into level of sort of 2 to 1 odds, which IPCC, they interpreted 'likely' as that level, roughly two to one odds or better." Peter Bloomfield.

Re: "manipulation."

"I have no cause to think that there was anything inappropriate, professionally." Gerald North

"I certainly saw nothing that spoke to me of any manipulation or anything other than an honest attempt to construct a data analysis procedure." Peter Bloomfield

http://video.nationalacademies.org/ramgen/news/isbn/0309102561.rm

Also, why is the lower stratosphere cooling

Dano's link is very good. The super short answer is that when the greenhouse effect is increased, the result is that heat is trapped closer to the surface because it cannot escape as easily through the molecular pinball machine of GHGs.

Plots of satellite derived temperatures (as seasonally adjusted from Scripps) and carbon dioxide increases over the last 10 years are given at http://icecap.us/images/uploads/GLOBAL.doc. There is absolutely NO CORRELATION

A correlation of r^2=0.07 actually.

Any idiot knows that as you reduce the period over which the correlation between a linear signal and a linear signal with white noise is calculated, the lower the correlation (and statistical significance) will be. A bit like trying to show that there is global warming with just a couple of years' data. You just can't do it because the signal to noise ratio is too low. Why don't you try calculating correlation for at least the last thirty years? To think these people call themselves sceptics. More like credulous ignoramuses.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 28 Nov 2007 #permalink

Dr Craig Loehle has checked other proxy data - not the tree ring studies he considers unreliable, and has produced a very different graph. See this and comments at

Nature, GRL, Science, all these sources have published Loehle's work discrediting...

HAHAhahaha!

Thank you. Thank you very much. I just flew in from Canberra and boy, are my...

Ahhh...I enjoy what the denialists have to do to prop up their story.

Best,

D

IanP said: "Now a new study has found that Mann's math was wrong as well as some of his data. Dr Craig Loehle has checked other proxy data - not the tree ring studies he considers unreliable, and has produced a very different graph".

WOW, another blockbuster from Energy and Environment.

By Ian Forrester (not verified) on 28 Nov 2007 #permalink

Nature, GRL, Science, all these sources have published Loehle's work discrediting...

HAHAhahaha!

But, but, but ... Climate Audit is the new venue of choice! Who'd want to publish in Nature or Science if, instead, you can get CA to reference your work!

Lance said "Your rebuttal to cherry picking is to pick your own cherries. Curious that you chose to pick the portion of the last century that gives the steepest linear fit possible."

That statement would not even be true if satellites had been around since the beginning of the 20th century.

The portion of the last century that would give the steepest linear fit is undoubtedly the rising edge of one of the El Nino periods.

I'm not sure which El Nino would give the absolute steepest ascent, but the one from 1997 to 1998 is certainly a top candidate.

But, but, but ... Climate Audit is the new venue of choice! Who'd want to publish in Nature or Science if, instead, you can get CA to reference your work!

I offered them a taste of my consulting services fo' free: the name of their journal where they can publish the blockbuster results obtained via comment thread and Talented Scientist Posts:

Galileo: the CA Journal of NewScience

This would give them relevance and may even get their findings in Staff Briefings for decision-makers.

Alas, I've yet to see it on the shelves or stacks.

Best,

D

@IanP:
You do realize that E&E is worthless when it comes to global warming? The editor is on record saying that she dislikes consensus and because of that will publish anything that contradicts said consensus, regardless of the quality of the research.

At least this research has a source listing included which is better then most of the other papers you denialists grab from E&E to disprove AGW.
But seeing the methodology used I can understand why no one else wanted to publish the paper. Loehle should at least have explained why he'd used this one. Then he should have explained why his methodology is better then the ones normally used.
And finally the parts of the conclusion that deal with the modern age are all "I believe". You can put that kind of language in a paper but it won't score you points.

By Who Cares (not verified) on 28 Nov 2007 #permalink

You guys are the nicest bunch of people. I feel so welcome here.

While satellites were not recording temps before the 1970's there were these devices called thermometers, perhaps you've even seen one. Plenty of data exists that could be plotted in selected time sequences that would not give the nice upward line that Tim put in his post. I'll skip plotting ones that would rightly be criticized as my own cherry picking.

The fact is that data from the last ten years, while certainly not a decisive trend, does not support the idea that increases in atmospheric CO2 induce higher temperatures to the degree predicted by GCM's.

Is it a brief respite due to a return of those wily particulates that were claimed to have overwhelmed the warming in the decades preceding Tim's graph, or some other unknown factor at play? Time will tell.

Now observe that while I did spice a bit of sarcasm into my post I refrained from calling anyone a name or insulting anyone's mental faculties. Perhaps you folks could return the favor.

I do note that dhogaza actually complimented ny clear writing. Of course it was in preface to a remark calling me "idiotic" but I'll take it as progress none the less.

Seriously why must the tone of these discussions be so combative?

@Lance:
You don't get it do you?
Booker claims satellite data does not confirm AGW. This is exposed as a lie. You charge in complaining that the people here cherry picked the satellite data. When it is pointed out you are an idiot trying to claim that (because there is no earlier data available), you try to shift the goal posts to "What about thermometers?".
Guess why you get a frosty reception here with that kind of behavior.

Now to why you can't pick an interval of 10 years, starting in 1998, to claim that the world is cooling down. This is because 1998 was the second hottest year of the 20th century. Naturally any year after that, that would show an upward trend if viewed over a larger interval, will show a downward trend unless those years would form the hottest 10 years in the last century.

By Who Cares (not verified) on 28 Nov 2007 #permalink

Who Cares,

Mr. Booker correctly points out that satellite data for the last ten years indicate temperatures are not increasing over that period. Tim then presented the entire satellite record which shows an increase over a thirty year period.

Both of them chose time frames to suit their over all conclusion. To claim that ten years is not enough to show a meaningful trend but then arbitrarily claim thirty years is conclusive is illogical. Especially when the decades preceding Tim's beginning point had a downward trend or do you claim that only satellite temperature records are valid?

Neither of them, however, is "lying". Also you persist in calling me an idiot. I'm afraid this only indicates you are unwilling or unable to engage in civil dialogue. While this doesn't prove the weakness of your point it certainly impugns your motives.

Also you persist in calling me an idiot.

I don't think you're an idiot, Lance. Quite the contrary, I think you're an intelligent, dishonest liar.

I'm afraid this only indicates you are unwilling or unable to engage in civil dialogue. While this doesn't prove the weakness of your point it certainly impugns your motives.

Oh yeah, the blame the victim mentality. You continue to lie, we call you on it, and *we're* the bad people.

Booker didn't say that temperatures were "not increasing," he said they had fallen. Using any temperature series you like (NASA, Hadley, UAH, or RSS), none of these show a negative trend since 1998. The only way that you get a temperature decrease is if you compare 1998 directly to the years since, and all that will tell you is that there hasn't been a strong El Nino since 1998. Of all of these, NASA is the only one that includes the poles, and not surprisingly, it shows the strongest warming. NASA calculates 2005 to be the warmest year, and 2007 will be probably be second, in front of 1998.

Fact: Lance got called on an idiotic statement and instead of just admitting it he tried (but, alas, failed miserably) to shift the conversation to "why is everyone beating up on me?"

There is absolutely no wiggle room for Lance, since Booker's own claims were based on the satellite temperatures and Tim Lambert showed the entire period for the satellite data to prove him wrong.

Satellite in my eyes...

Although I have concerns about concern-trollism, Lance's pitiful wailing about his treatment (none similar dished out at CA, surely) leads me to think that if we dismiss denailists outright, we should have a standard short statement why they are being dismissed.

For example: "you are being ridiculed for your ridiculous statements that were addressed and refuted years ago, hundreds of times in fora such as this". We can abbreviate too if we wish.

Best,

D

Lance dear, temperatures tend to be taken by thermometers on teh surface. You might want to check where the satellites measure microwave emission from which is then turned into a temperature.

Neither of them, however, is "lying". Also you persist in calling me an idiot. I'm afraid this only indicates you are unwilling or unable to engage in civil dialogue.

Lance, If you wish other people to engage in civil discourse with you, you must do likewise. You made an accusation of intellectual dishonesty in the form of "cherry picking," which specifically refers to selecting a subset out of the context of a larger dataset to convey an impression that is not supported by the complete dataset. When you were informed that the dataset graphed was in fact the complete satellite dataset, the civil response would have been to retract the accusation and apologize. You could then, if you wished, have initiated a new discussion as to whether older data, collected with very different methodology, could somehow be normalized or adjusted so that it could be merged with the satellite data to provide a longer time base, and if so, whether the conclusions would be altered. This would have met with a far more civil reaction than a contemptuous response like

there were these devices called thermometers, perhaps you've even seen one

which carries the implication that failure to merge different kinds data constitutes some sort of stupidity or deceptive intent.

@Lance:
Let me see.
Booker picks the second hottest year in the last 100 years, then looks at the next 9 years and concludes because they are not hotter AGW is not happening. But this is not cherry picking.
When we point out he's wrong if you look at the longer term we are both cherry picking and not using enough data.
This line of arguing is also known as hypocrisy. And you are the hypocrite because this is your line of argument.
The sad thing is that your argument is self defeating since Booker uses a subset of the data used by the people pointing out he's wrong. If the people pointing out he's wrong are not using enough data Booker is not using enough data.
It does matter what interval you pick, there are some quite interesting papers on interval selection available. What also matters is how you select the start point. Your precious Booker cherry picked the second hottest year in the last 100 years so he could 'prove' that AGW is a myth. By looking at the graph of the satellite data available shows that 1998 is an anomaly and because of that 1998 cannot be used as a start (or end).

By Who Cares (not verified) on 28 Nov 2007 #permalink

I concede that my use of the words "cherry picking" were subjective and not a very effective rebuttal of Tim's post. It was a short remark made on the fly. I didn't think it would deal a death blow to AGW theory nor was it meant to identify Tim as being mendacious.

In any regard I once again concede that Tim makes a good point by, as I have already stated, displaying the entire satellite record. I still think that a thirty year data record is not conclusive evidence of a meaningful trend in a history that extends back billions of years. Tim is well aware that temperatures in the decades before the satellite record had been in decline.

However, I never called Tim a "liar" or an "idiot" or any of the other ill-intentioned behavior displayed in the responses to my post. That my pointing out such remarks is portrayed as "whining" only serves to continue the abuse.

Dano is attempting to issue the ultimate eco-fatwa by declaring me a "denialist" and thus ending all future dialogue.

How about we all agree to treat each other with civility and see if we can't engage each other in an honest discussion of a very important and emotionally charged issue. A little sarcasm is fine with me. I rather enjoy a good sarcastic barb once in a while. If the intention is a gentle jab then I think it can illustrate a point quite nicely. The key is to make sure it isn't openly mean spirited.

I'm up for it. How 'bout you fellas (apologies to any ladies in attendance)?

I'll begin.

Yes Tim, Booker's use of the last ten years of satellite data is not a very convincing argument that there is not a larger, if oscillatory, underlying temperature signal in play.

You could all take a lesson from the weather. It pays no attention to criticism.

Seriously, the CO2 graph shows a steady increase over time during the last... I don't now how many decades. The temperatures show lots of ups and downs and overall a slight increase over the last hundred years or so. Sure there is a weak correlation but this is not necessarily causation.

My hair is slowly greying and this certainly correlates closely with rising atmosphere CO2 levels over the last 10 years. Does this mean that I should avoid all electrical appliances so that my hair returns to it's brown tones?

trrll,

I believe I have addressed your points in my most recent post. I only note that you seem to be choosing whom to apply your standards to quite selectively. Openly vile remarks of an entire magnitude greater than mine seem to have gone uncriticized by your gentile sensibilities.

I'm sure you will chastize these miscreants post haste.

While satellites were not recording temps before the 1970's there were these devices called thermometers, perhaps you've even seen one. Plenty of data exists that could be plotted in selected time sequences that would not give the nice upward line that Tim put in his post. I'll skip plotting ones that would rightly be criticized as my own cherry picking.

i am very curious about this one.
please do us a favor and plot some global temperature graph up till a recent year, that is NOT moving upward.

Dr Craig Loehle has checked other proxy data - not the tree ring studies he considers unreliable, and has produced a very different graph.

it was only a matter of time, for this to show up, eh?

a quick review:
good points first: the idea is ok. using proxys from published studies and avoiding tree rings. the method is simple and the paper is short. it is worth reading:
http://www.ncasi.org/publications/Detail.aspx?id=3025

on a closer look, it is a pretty bad paper. no surprise that only E&E published it.
the paper is giving basically no information about the proxies used. number of data points, location, start and end date, problems, etc all MIA.
the methodology is simplicistic. but still explained in a way, that a significant part of the readers misunderstood it. (smoothing single data points into 30 year intervals without further explanation)
but the main problem is the obvious political ambition of the paper: it is making wild claims about the end of the 20th century (and dismisisses the hockey stick), while few of the proxies reach the end of the 20th century.

With the exception of the Finnish lake, which remains on Steve's hard drive, I've looked at the date estimated for the last data point for each proxy.

sapply(proxy,function(b)max(b$year[!is.na(b$t)])))

GRIP 1996
conroy 1968
chesapeake 1995
sargasso 1985
caribbean 1950
shihua 1985
yang 1990
holmgren 1996
demonocal 1862
farmer 1950
calvo 1947
stott1 1936
stott2 1810
viau 1950
ge 1995
kim 1940
mangini 1935

Half of the series don't have any data after 1950.
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2382#comment-162999

My hair is slowly greying and this certainly correlates closely with rising atmosphere CO2 levels over the last 10 years. Does this mean that I should avoid all electrical appliances so that my hair returns to it's brown tones?

If there were a strong theoretical basis for expecting a causal relationship, and if the correlation were in the same direction as predicted by theory, and other studies showed that the correlation was statistically robust and greater than would be expected from normal aging, then it certainly would be prudent to do so. Of course, grey hair can be dealt with rather cheaply by dye, so given the inconvenience of avoiding electrical appliances, you might well choose to take your chances--given the likely consequences of global warming, a more reasonable comparison might be to something like cancer.

I believe I have addressed your points in my most recent post. I only note that you seem to be choosing whom to apply your standards to quite selectively. Openly vile remarks of an entire magnitude greater than mine seem to have gone uncriticized by your gentile sensibilities.

I think rather that you fail to understand the gravity of an accusation of "cherry picking," which is inherently an accusation of intellectual dishonesty. To a scientist, this comes about as close as you can get to a mortal insult. Frankly, I thought that the reaction was rather mild given the provocation. To toss off such an accusation casually, and then to fail to retract or apologize when proved wrong, invites responses in language that would probably not be permitted even on this blog.

I still think that a thirty year data record is not conclusive evidence of a meaningful trend in a history that extends back billions of years.

And Tim never said it was. Tim merely said it demonstrates that Booker was cherry-picking, a deceitful thing to do.

And you, sir, have just erected and knocked down a strawman, another deceitful thing to do.

Lance,

I apologize for calling you an idiot.

You certainly can bloviate like a champ. The cadence of your prose does credibly affect the demeanor of a reasonable person who is, somehow nonetheless, mysteriously impervious to reason. That obviously requires a certain degree of intelligence and wit. Perhaps half that required for reflecting a reasonable comprehension and understanding of the subject of discussion.

So, no, you're not a complete idiot.

By luminous beauty (not verified) on 28 Nov 2007 #permalink

TRRL said

... "If there were a strong theoretical basis for expecting a causal relationship"...
there is one with CO2vstemperature - if atmospheric temperatures increase then CO2 solubility in warming sea water decreases and more CO2 is released into the atmosphere - basic chemistry.

...."and if the correlation were in the same direction as predicted by theory"
50:50 chance of anything!!

...."and other studies showed that the correlation was statistically robust and greater than would be expected"
Many studies show that the correlation is NOT statistically robust!!

...."Of course, grey hair can be dealt with rather cheaply by dye"
And global warming cannot be altered by anything humankind can do but it can be understood by proper scientific study and not histeria and political scaremongery.

I will choose to take my chances with well reasoned science.

Christ! dhogaza I already apologized for saying Tim was "cherry picking" now you are trying to parse my rather bland, and completely true, statement that the satellite record, by virtue of its brief length, may not delineate a decisive trend, as being "deceitful".

Do you suppose your head would explode if you just acknowledged the faint possibility that I might just be a reasonable person that has a different view of the issue than yourself, and not a pathological liar or Exxon shill?

You just don't want to play nice do you?

LB,

Well I'll have to consider be called an "incomplete" idiot as the nicest thing anyone has said to me all day.

he he

Do you suppose your head would explode if you just acknowledged the faint possibility that I might just be a reasonable person that has a different view of the issue than yourself, and not a pathological liar...

When you start submitting posts that support this faint hope, why then, yes, of course I will.

And global warming cannot be altered by anything humankind can do...

I will choose to take my chances with well reasoned science.

I don't suppose you see the contradiction here, unfortunately.

IanP,

"if atmospheric temperatures increase then CO2 solubility in warming sea water decreases and more CO2 is released into the atmosphere - basic chemistry.

Of course. Then please explain why ocean CO2 concentration is increasing while at the same time atmospheric CO2 concentration is increasing?

Awaiting a well reasoned response.

By luminous beauty (not verified) on 28 Nov 2007 #permalink

...."and if the correlation were in the same direction as predicted by theory"
50:50 chance of anything!!

So you are saying that if you measure any two parameters, there is a 50:50 chance that they will be significantly correlated--i.e. there is zero probability that any two measures will be uncorrelated? This is sometimes known as "the fallacy of the excluded middle."

Many studies show that the correlation is NOT statistically robust!!

On the contrary, the same correlation shows up in many different measures, so it is quite robust. The validity of the correlation was recently reviewed by the National Academy of Sciences, who concluded "It can be said with a high level of confidence that global mean surface temperature was higher during the last few decades of the 20th century than during any comparable period during the preceding four centuries. This statement is justified by the consistency of the evidence from a wide variety of geographically diverse proxies."

And global warming cannot be altered by anything humankind can do but it can be understood by proper scientific study and not histeria and political scaremongery.

This seems to be an article of faith that is founded on wishful thinking rather than any kind of science. Physical models provide every reason to believe that human activity can affect global warming, and the available data is consistent with that conclusion.

IanP:

CO2 has been known for 150 years to absorb infrared radiation.

The effects of existing atmospheric CO2 and doubling of the CO2 on Earth's temperature were estimated about 100 years ago. Since then, the estimated effects have been made more precise but have not changed substantially.

An increase in the level of atmospheric CO2 has been well-documented since the 1960s.

Evidence from isotope studies and estimates of consumption are in accord that most, if not all, of this increase is from anthropogenic sources, especially from the burning of fossil fuels.

There is no evidence of any mechanism massive enough to counteract the effect of this increasing CO2.
Therefore global temperatures are expected to increase.
There are, in addition, increases in some of the other greenhouse gasses.

IanP, as you seem to believe that global temperatures are not increasing and are not expected to increase, perhaps you could identify which of the above statements you take issue with so we could have a clearer idea of where you are coming from.

By Richard Simons (not verified) on 28 Nov 2007 #permalink

Dear Mr Simons, I'm not sure you read my note #46 with much concentration. "The temperatures show lots of ups and downs and overall a slight increase over the last hundred years or so. Sure there is a weak correlation but this is not necessarily causation" How do you get from this that I "seem to believe that global temperatures are not increasing and are not expected to increase"???

If CO2 is a very important climate driver then you would expect to see its effect on all timescales; and for example when you look at the last 500 million years, or the last 10,000 years, the correlation between changes in CO2 and climate are very poor.

Hmm,

If we assume that the data indicate global warming (i.e., the planet is getting warmer), shouldn't a more complex cause-effect analysis be involved (e.g., pathway analysis) to indicate why its happening? Does this data, for example, correlate with changes in electricity consumption, sun output, carbon emission, etc. during the same time period?

By Tony Jeremiah (not verified) on 28 Nov 2007 #permalink

Good point Tony (#64) Primary causes of climate cycles measured over the last half million years include cyclical eccentricities in earth's rotation and orbit, as well as variations in the sun's energy output. Secondary greenhouse effects stemming from changes in the ability of a warming atmosphere to support greater concentrations of gases like water vapour, methane and carbon dioxide play a significant but minor role. Of all of earth's greenhouse gases, water vapour is by far the dominant player.

Of all of earth's greenhouse gases, water vapour is by far the dominant player.

This is exactly what I mean when we ridicule denialists. How many hundreds of thousands of times has this old saw been refuted?

We ought to be able to say something like: "that's ridiculous, because #16".

I like it LB.

Maybe we can type something like:

Of all of earth's greenhouse gases, water vapour is by far the dominant player.

Pshaw! #SS-22 [/ignore]

Does anyone make a motion to adopt this format as the standard response to denialists?

Best,

D

I'm also still waiting for IanP's well reasoned scientific answer to my question from comment #69.

By luminous beauty (not verified) on 28 Nov 2007 #permalink

er...kaff-kaff...#60

By luminous beauty (not verified) on 28 Nov 2007 #permalink

Dana and Luminous Beauty I bow to your depth and understanding of the scientific issues of climate change. If you agree that the sites that you have chosen to put forward are balanced and in-depth reviews of climate change science then you are sadly mislead. If you do not consider water vapour/clouds and the sun play a dominant role in our changing climate then I am in awe.

See the closed tag. Be the closed tag. Repeating the reply:

Pshaw! #SS-22 [/ignore]

Best,

D

What can I say LB? You may have read above my comment in post #63. "If CO2 is a very important climate driver then you would expect to see its effect on all timescales; and for example when you look at the last 500 million years, or the last 10,000 years, the correlation between changes in CO2 and climate are very poor."

There are many studies which show that the current CO2 concentration in the atmosphere has been many times the current level of about 385ppm. I am not sure how you can explain this if you assume the same processess were operating then. Maybe you could shed some light on this for us?

LB "er...kaff-kaff...#60" I'm not sure what you mean by this. Do you want me to "explain why ocean CO2 concentration is increasing" I think that you should consult some elementary texts on the solubility of CO2 in water.

As carbon dioxide dissolves in sea water, an EQUILIBRIUM is established involving the carbonate ion, CO32¯. The carbonate anion interacts with cations in seawater. According to the solubility rules, "all carbonates are insoluble except those of ammonium and Group IA elements." Therefore, the carbonate ions cause the precipitation of certain ions. For example, Ca2+ and Mg2+ ions precipitate from large bodies of water as carbonates. For CaCO3, the value of Ksp is 5 à 10¯9, and for MgCO3, Ksp is 2 à 10¯3. Extensive deposits of limestone (CaCO3) and dolomite (mixed CaCO3 and MgCO3) have been formed this way.

The key word here is EQUILIBRIUM ... as CO2 atmosphere increases so does water CO2 levels.

IanP

Seriously, the CO2 graph shows a steady increase over time during the last... I don't now how many decades. The temperatures show lots of ups and downs and overall a slight increase over the last hundred years or so. Sure there is a weak correlation

Have you actually calculated the correlation over more than just the last ten years? Until you do I will presume you don't know what you are talking about (refer to #29).

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 28 Nov 2007 #permalink

Mr O'Neill (#76). No I haven't "calculated the correlation over more than just the last ten years" and I'm sure that you are much better qualified than I am to do this. But is there any point in determining the exact correlation number when the causation is doubtfull? Have you tried calculating the correlation between atmospheric CO2 and temperature over the last 500 million years? I think you would find that it is less than positive. If this is the case then why didn't we have a much hotter planet when atmosphere CO2 levels were around 2,000ppm?

Ian P

#55 if atmospheric temperatures increase then CO2 solubility in warming sea water decreases and more CO2 is released into the atmosphere - basic chemistry.

#75: The key word here is EQUILIBRIUM ... as CO2 atmosphere increases so does water CO2 levels.

So increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are caused by carbon dioxide from the oceans being released into the atmosphere and a portion of that carbon dioxide is then being reabsorbed by the oceans leading to an increase in the total amount of carbon dioxide dissolved in the oceans.

I can't help thinking there's a subtle flaw in this reasoning.

By Ian Gould (not verified) on 28 Nov 2007 #permalink

Ian Gould #78

Ya think?

IanP. Ain't nobody making any claim that the sun and H2O aren't important factors in climate. CO2 isn't the biggest natural feedback, but not inconsequential, either. It's very slow to catch up, but it lingers for a very long time. It's just that when one species on the planet decides to pump a whole lot of it into the atmosphere by burning fossil carbon sequestered over those two hundred million years about which you speak with such uncritical certainty, it rather quickly becomes much more of a big deal.

By luminous beauty (not verified) on 28 Nov 2007 #permalink

I'm a novice with climate research, so bare with me if my questions and corresponding analogy seem basic and just plain odd:

Are there other indicators of global warming (or more generally, global health) besides temperature? As examples, can it be shown that in the same 1983-2007 time period, that there's been an increase in extreme weather events such as hurricanes, tornadoes, and earthquakes; that various oceanic species that might be negatively impacted by earth's temp are decreasing; that the sea levels are showing a change consistent with the temp; that the polar ice caps have been consistently shrinking within that time period; and other such things?

The reason for the question concerns a possible analogy to what happens when we catch the cold or influenza. Usually the body will heat up to make it uncomfortable for the offending bacteria to survive. In line with James Lovelock's controversial idea that the earth is a living organism, here's a couple of crackpot ideas: (a) perhaps the earth is heating to deal with whatever we might be doing (different from the notion that we are directly causing the heating); and (b) if it turns out that any of the additional measures above correspond with the suggested temperature changes, it might be possible to consider these changes as symptoms of a cold and/or flu.

I can't help but also note what seems to be a consistent low peak temp every 3-4 years in the graph. In particular, you can see this at 1979, 1982, 1985, 1989, 1993, and 1997. It looks like this 3-4 year cycle remains at 1997, 2000, and 2004. However, these last few temps appear to be approaching the indicated mean line as if to suggest reaching an asymptotic (and rising) value.

Is it just me, or would there be some theoretical reason for that consistent low peak temp every 3-4 years?

By Tony Jeremiah (not verified) on 28 Nov 2007 #permalink

IanP:

No I haven't "calculated the correlation over more than just the last ten years" and I'm sure that you are much better qualified than I am to do this. But is there any point in determining the exact correlation number

You tell me. You seemed to think so when you wrote:

"Plots of satellite derived temperatures (as seasonally adjusted from Scripps) and carbon dioxide increases over the last 10 years are given at http://icecap.us/images/uploads/GLOBAL.doc. There is absolutely NO CORRELATION"

when the causation is doubtfull?

Sure if you say it is.

Have you tried calculating the correlation between atmospheric CO2 and temperature over the last 500 million years?

No but you seemed to think that the correlation over the past 10 years had some particular significance. Since you seem not to have bothered reading what I wrote in #29, I'll repeat it here:

"Any idiot knows that as you reduce the period over which the correlation between a linear signal and a linear signal with white noise is calculated, the lower the correlation (and statistical significance) will be. A bit like trying to show that there is global warming with just a couple of years' data. You just can't do it because the signal to noise ratio is too low. Why don't you try calculating correlation for at least the last thirty years? To think these people call themselves sceptics. More like credulous ignoramuses."

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 28 Nov 2007 #permalink

IanP,

How many times must you shoot yourself in the foot? Can you still walk by now?

You write: "I will choose to take my chances with well reasoned science".

For God's sake man! Do you read peer-reviewed journals? (Your obvious answer is no). Have you considered for a millisecond that all of the IPCC reports are the most thoroughly peer-reviewed documents in scientific history? (Your obvious answer is no). That the documents were authored by a large number of experts in climate science, and that no really extreme position was allowed to dominate the final draft because even some sceptics contributed? (Your obvious answer is no). Have you considered the positions of just about every National Academy of Science in every country on Earth with respect to the causes and possible consequences of climate change? (Your obvious answer is no).

What you are doing, IanP, is suggesting that thousands of scientists who have worked in their respective fields for decades and who have strong scientific pedigrees don't know how clouds function nor the roles of the sun or humans in forcing climate. Your 'well-reasoned science' is anything but: it's a case of burying your head firmly in the sand and ignoring a huge mass of empirical literature that you don't appear to like or understand.

A colleague of mine recently said that everybody thinks they are an expert in climate science and in ecology because the issues are so often in the media. I have been a population ecologist for 15 years and yet on a recent thread I had to stomach comments from writers who clearly couldn't tell a mole cricket from a giraffe suggesting that Polar Bears can and will adapt to the complete loss of Arctic ice as a result of climate change over the next century. The notion is so outrageous that to even suggest it as a possibility is wholly absurd, but the usual suspects were writing in answering in the affirmative.

I can tell you this: as a senior scientist in another discipline I defer to the IPCC and to the bulk of climate scientists who are in pretty strong agreement that the current warming episode is driven primarily by the human combustion of fossil fuels. Sure, there are a few outliers, but many of them are the same motley bunch who were in denial a decade ago. If you claim to want to take your chances with 'well-reasoned science', then wake up and take the opinions of the vast majority of the scientific community a little more seriously.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 29 Nov 2007 #permalink

"Are there other indicators of global warming (or more generally, global health) besides temperature? As examples, can it be shown that in the same 1983-2007 time period, that there's been an increase in extreme weather events such as hurricanes, tornadoes, and earthquakes; that various oceanic species that might be negatively impacted by earth's temp are decreasing; that the sea levels are showing a change consistent with the temp; that the polar ice caps have been consistently shrinking within that time period; and other such things?"

The simple answer is "yes".

A couple of examples:

The level of arctic sea-ice in recent summers is the lowest on record.

First frosts are appearing later in autumn and thaws are occurring earlier in spring.

The northern-most and southern-most reported occurences of frost-senstive plants are shifting.

Glaciers are melting. (There are a handful of exceptions to that in areas where increased precipitation has offset the effects of warming. These exceptions account for only a few percent of the total.)

By Ian Gould (not verified) on 29 Nov 2007 #permalink

A couple of examples:

I'm a plant guy, but I'll mention the animal range changes: robins in the Arctic, butterflies in England, pikas moving uphill, in addition to permafrost extent...

There are, literally, dozens of indicators of what they call Global Change (and have started a journal to discuss these changes) .

Best,

D

The other point (which IanP keeps dodging) is that the theoretical basis for global warming is pretty solid.

We know that carbon dioxide absorbs infrared radiation at specific wavelengths.

We know that the Earth absorbs IR radiation at the sun and re-emits it at certain frequencies, some of which overlap with the absorption spectrum of carbon dioxide.

We know the carbon dioxide level of atmosphere is increasing.

We know that the current level of carbon dioxide is not sufficient to absorb all the IR radiation emitted by the Earth at the relevant wavelengths.

Therefore more carbon dioxide means more heat absorbed.

Before we start hypothesizing about other possible causes of global warming (be they solar radiation; changes in the Earth's orbit or Gaea's revenge) we need to explain why raising carbon dioxide levels won't result in warming.

In other words, we need to invent some new never-before-observed phenomenon to cancel out the warming we expect to observe as a result of GHG build-up then we need to invent a second never-before-observed phenomenon to explain the warming we are observing.

Personally that's more work than I'm prepared to do unless there's a pay cheque in it.

By Ian Gould (not verified) on 29 Nov 2007 #permalink

Gouldiechops tells the questioner:

"Therefore more carbon dioxide means more heat absorbed."

what Gouldiechops left out.

Yea from 280 parts to mill to 370 PPM's over the past 100 years possibly producing all of .7 Degs increase in temp.

And on a CBA, even using Stern's gloomy report it's certainly not worth acting on as we would be be wasting our money. Showing that action is even more senseless we could reduce emissions and be better off by simply removing government subsidies+regulations such as height restrictions in cities, reforrestion programs and not zealously stopping the introduction of GM foods as we have in Australia and the EU for the past 10 years that would acreage use.

UUUUUUmmmm... reduce acreage use...

Jeff Harvey,

I guess I am the writer whose remarks about polar bears you had to "stomach". I don't claim to be a qualified population ecologist but I think I could probably "tell a mole cricket from a giraffe". I can also read peer reviewed papers that conclusively show that the arctic ocean has experienced extended periods of ice free summers in the holocene.

Ursus maritimus obviously survived these periods in the past so why do you insist that the idea that it could do so again is "absurd".

There is very little pressure in the extreme higher latitudes from man made influences, other than hunting, that would differentiate the current era from the conditions during the past periods of ice free arctic summers.

Hunting is not correlated to CO2, although I wouldn't put it past some inane researcher to try to show that it was. It seems there is no end to the scare stories linking global warming to everthing from the end of baseball to Bulgarian Hooker Shortages.

If CO2 is a very important climate driver then you would expect to see its effect on all timescales; and for example when you look at the last 500 million years, or the last 10,000 years, the correlation between changes in CO2 and climate are very poor

This is a ridiculous straw man. "Important" does not mean "only." When you look for correlations over geologic time, you have to take into account other drivers, such as solar output and the earth's orbit, which have not changed appreciably during the period of satellite measurements. Current models do not consider only CO2, but the sum total of factors affecting climate.

IanP said: "I think you would find that it is less than positive. If this is the case then why didn't we have a much hotter planet when atmosphere CO2 levels were around 2,000ppm?"

Never bothered to check did you? Were you just being lazy or where you deliberately trying to mislead people?

For your information the average global temperature in the Upper Cretaceous was about 25C when CO2 was much higher than now.

Here is the link for some information in case you are either too lazy or too incompetent to look it up for your self:
[link](http://www.bbm.me.uk/portsdown/PH_130_Envmnt.htm)

(note: there should be an underscore preceding and following "130").

By Ian Forrester (not verified) on 29 Nov 2007 #permalink

I'm not a climatologist, but I have run a regression or two. If you download the data (thanks for the link) and run a simple linear regression of the -70/82.5 data on the date, the above trendline is reproducible. There is also a very large durbin-watson statistic, indicating a large (0.76) first order-correlation. If you collapse the data to yearly data, you'll eliminate the autocorrelation and get about the same slope, which is about the same for robust (M and LTS) and nonparametric (Sen) linear regressions. So, under a linear model, there is a fairly clear increasing trend in these data.

However, if you relax the assumptions from strict linearity to monotone (PAV or mspline) or simply smooth (Proc GAM, using defaults), the story is somewhat different. All those suggest something that's flat/slightly decreasing until the mid-80's, increases thru about 2000 and is flat thereafter. None of these show any substantial drop after 2000.

So the simple story fits these data, but its rather dependent on the model. There is no evidence of a drop.

Lance, it is absurd because of what I said in my earlier posts (that you clearly didn't bother to read). I wasn't actually referring to you but to JC, but if you believe this nonsense too, then join the club. The fact is that the Arctic was almost certainly NOT entirely ice-free at any period during the Holocene. What the bears are likely facing now is unprecedented in their evolutionary history. Moreover, the change from ice-cover to ice-free is occurring in a time frame that is so ridiculously short (e.g. perhaps less than a century), that the species would not have the time to adapt. These bears can't change from a stealth hunter mostly adapted to capturing seals to a more active hunter on land pursuing prey such as caribou without the ability of altering their genetically programmed behaviour patterns. Sure, there ill be some phenotypic plasticity, but such a shift? Forget it. Moreover, the bears will have to adapt to a more terrestrial/boreal lifestyle, meaning that they will encroach on the habitats of other top-level predators such as grizzly bears and arctic (grey) wolves. These animals require enormous landscapes in which to exist, like all organisms at the terminal end of the food chain. This may explain why most of the planet's major ecosystems usually harbour one or at most two top level predators (the African savannahs being one exception, and even here only there or four co-exist, and occupy very different niches).

If you really believe that the bears can adapt, why have thousands of other species not adapted to much more modest changes (e.g. reductions) in their habitat? Even the most intelligent mammals have their limitations. Do you think that Mountain Gorillas will pack up and leave their highland forest habitats if the forests there disappear? Or Orangutans will alter their lifestyles as their tropical forests habitat shrink? We've seen that passenger pigeons could not survive when their numbers dipped below about 10,000 birds, even though by that time there were significant efforts made to protect them. Red-Cockaded woodpeckers habitually nest in loblolly pine and other pine forests in the US southeast; as these were cut the birds declined precipitously and only strong conservation efforts are enabling them to persist now. Why didn't the woodpeckers just start using deciduous trees that were present in the adjacent habitat, as species such as the numerous Pileated and Red-Bellied Woodpeckers do?

Lance, the denial lobby are continually conjuring up con tricks to suggest that the current warming will either not harm nature or will even have net benefits. These people don't have a clue what they are talking about. Ask almost any population ecologist, the people who do the research (like me) and who at least have spent their careers trying to understand how nature works, and they will primarily disagree. Let me say this again: if the Arctic ice disappears as fast as it is projected to, the polar bears are history. Toast. Finito. They may only be able to persist for awhile in zoos, and even there in genetically depleted numbers. In nature, they may hang on in declining numbers for a century, but much beyond that, no.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 29 Nov 2007 #permalink

Lance, recent research (by honest scientists, not the AGW denier variety) have shown that the Arctic has not been ice free for approximately 50 million years. Recent analysis of cores taken in the sediment under the North Pole ice indicate no evidence of melting since then.

Reading sediment cores is a bit like reading tree rings and is is very obvious when there ice is, or there is not, ice above the sampling stations.

Go and check the results from the Arctic Coring Expedition (ACEX). A summary of their findings can be found at:

http://tinyurl.com/2ewsz7

and

http://www.eso.ecord.org/expeditions/302/302.htm

By Ian Forrester (not verified) on 29 Nov 2007 #permalink

Lance,

Even if Holocene max temperatures in the arctic exceeded those of the 1990's, that is their greatest extent. Polar bears are only stressed right now. Polar bear populations were probably stressed then, too. What we're looking at is a climate regime that raises temperatures an additional several degrees centigrade over the next century.

It's a new ballgame. It's the Anthrocene.

By luminous beauty (not verified) on 29 Nov 2007 #permalink

Polar bears will survive.

I am sure of it. I am a physicist. We know such things. In fact, we know everything (in my humble opinion).

All we need to do is paint them brown -- and watch how quickly they change their behavior from eating seals to eating garbage at the dump.

Ask almost any population ecologist, the people who do the research (like me) and who at least have spent their careers trying to understand how nature works, and they will primarily disagree.

I guess my specialty is urban ecology (or green infrastructure, either way), and I can say that all of us with hort/botany/ecol degrees say the same thing.

Pretty much anyone with a couple of classes in the natural sciences agrees too. It's merely the folks with no education in the sciences that yap on about net positive impacts like the few here do.

Best,

D

Even if Holocene max temperatures in the arctic exceeded those of the 1990's, that is their greatest extent. Polar bears are only stressed right now. Polar bear populations were probably stressed then, too.

50K years ago, habitats weren't stressed by fragmentation, roads, drilling platforms, concrete, strip mines nitrification or depleted fisheries either.

Best,

D

Anyone who does not believe that bears can adapt and thrive in a future man-made world need only rent the DVD "Over the Hedge".

Vincent is living proof.

I mean, to think that bears will go extinct with so much great food at their disposal is just ridiculous.

JB: Save the paint. Polar bears have already figured out garbage dumps. They are a problem at camps above the Arctic circle. There are just not that many dumps in their current range (yet).

It must be time for one of Mr. Lambert's sock puppet hunts.

Sorry that I stepped out for a while guys so did not get to respond to many of your useful and lucid comments on my contributions. I certainly defer to your greater knowledge of science.

Just one last question which you may be able to draw on your deep knowledge to comment on. I am interested that there appears to be only scant references to geological processes in the debate over the acceleration of Arctic ice melting. Sure there are recorded rising air temperatures in the northern hemisphere and there appears to be an increase in Arctic ice melt accompanying these rising temperatures (as several of you outline).
Beneath the Arctic sea-ice, not far south of the North Pole are the Lomonosov and Gakkel ridges, both massive volcanic features, several thousands of kilometres long. The Gakkel Ridge (and probably Lomonosov) show a high rate of volcanism. These are seafloor volcanic centres which contain regions where geothermal gradients are very high, undoubtedly heating nearby seawater and almost certainly from time to time erupting lava onto the seafloor. Volcanic activity along these features is unlikely to be continuous and is probably intermittent and patchy. Nevertheless, I suspect that the warming effects of high heat flow areas will be significant on both ice melt rate and ocean currents. Water warming in the area will relate to periods of most active volcanic activity along these ridges. Are we in one of these periods now? I cannot find any reference to volcanic activity along these ridges in the IPCC reports but this could be just my incompetence. Any comment from anyone? (in the former not the latter please).
Cheers, IanP

"I can also read peer reviewed papers that conclusively show that the arctic ocean has experienced extended periods of ice free summers in the holocene."

Then why don;t you cite/link to such peer-reviewed papers rather than to a guest entry on roger Pielke's blog?

"There is very little pressure in the extreme higher latitudes from man made influences, other than hunting, that would differentiate the current era from the conditions during the past periods of ice free arctic summers."

So you don't think industrial fishing has had any signficant effect on seal stocks?

Presumably you're also sanguine about levels of organophosphates and mercury in the local livestock that mean pregnant Inuit women can no longer eat a traditional diet.

"Hunting is not correlated to CO2, although I wouldn't put it past some inane researcher to try to show that it was."

It doesn't matter whether any of the human impacts on polar bear numbers and health are "correlated to CO2" or not.

My father died after a car accident. He had emphysema. The emphysema wasn't "correlated" to the accident but if he'd had better lung capacity he might have survived.

By Ian Gould (not verified) on 29 Nov 2007 #permalink

Polar bears evolved as a separate species only within the last 1-200,000 years.

They evolved from brown bears and polar/brown bear hybrids exist in nature and are interfertile with both species.

If polar bears are forced to adopt a primarily terrestrial lifestyle (especially while brown bears are migrating into their range due to higher temperatures) the rate of hybridisation is likely to increase and the unique metabolic and behavioural traits which permitted the polar bear to survive in the extreme conditions of the arctic are likely to be lost.

By Ian Gould (not verified) on 29 Nov 2007 #permalink

bill r said: "Save the paint. Polar bears have already figured out garbage dumps. They are a problem at camps above the Arctic circle. There are just not that many dumps in their current range (yet)."

Floating garbage dumps, painted white to look like ice flows. Yes, I believe that is the answer. Perhaps I can still return my 100,000 cans of brown paint and exchange it for white. I think i still have the receipt (I hope).

We'll have these polar bears living the lifestyle of the average American in no time. (PS: I'm an American).

Yea from 280 parts to mill to 370 PPM's over the past 100 years possibly producing all of .7 Degs increase in temp.

Damn. There's no SS# for this one.

JB, you're a genius! Those "floating garbage dumps, painted white" will also increase the albedo. Not to mention all that garbage diverted from landfills where it would otherwise be producing methane. Course we might have to make an adjustment for the increasing flatulence in the bears, but still...

If polar bears are forced to adopt a primarily terrestrial lifestyle (especially while brown bears are migrating into their range due to higher temperatures) the rate of hybridisation is likely to increase and the unique metabolic and behavioural traits which permitted the polar bear to survive in the extreme conditions of the arctic are likely to be lost.

For someone who dislikes creationists, Gouldster, you sure are behaving like one. Ever thought that this entire process is really just part of the evolutionary model we live in?

Polar bears will survive.
I am sure of it. I am a physicist. We know such things. In fact, we know everything (in my humble opinion).
All we need to do is paint them brown -- and watch how quickly they change their behavior from eating seals to eating garbage at the dump.

Well I think we ought to do the opposite which i have mentioned before. Capture the all the bears terrorizing New Jersey and Philly neigbourhoods spray pain them a nice brillant white color and dump in the cold climes. Greenpeace wouldn't know the difference.

I'm still waiting on any comments by knowledgable folk on my post #101.

Just an observation but it seems that there is a small debate over ice melting less in Antarctic than in the Arctic polar cap. There have also been suggestions that it could be getting a little colder there - bucking the general trend!. Is this correct? If so why would this be if the atmospheric CO2 is the same at both ends of the globe?

Can someone help explain to an ignoramus like me why we don't see relatively similar warming trends over all of the earth rather than the selectivity we seem to be seeing. Also, if there is some link to sea floor volcanic activity under the ice in the Arctic and the receding ice pattern that the polar bears are experiencing there, it would be a long bow to draw to consider the same volcanic activity affected ice in the antarctic.

Maybe the idea of sea floor volcano assisted Arctic ice melting is not so crazy after all!!

If so why would this be if the atmospheric CO2 is the same at both ends of the globe?

Quiz: why do the 40s roar in the southern hemisphere, while they're downright pleasant in much of the northern?

Look at a map of the earth. Then look up the word "asymmetric".

Then ask yourself ... why would you expect both hemispheres to change in a symmetric way?

There have also been suggestions that it could be getting a little colder there

Not all suggestions are true.

Thanks dhogaza but your quiz doesnt help me much - why does the assymetry of the earth affect the distribution of CO2? are you suggesting CO2 is distributed by the wind?

Any comments on my other queries???

"Maybe the idea of sea floor volcano assisted Arctic ice melting is not so crazy after all!!"

Considering you have no evidence, eh what?. There was an eruption on the Gakkel Ridge in 1999. No corresponding sea ice anomaly.

Maybe it's time to get fitted for that straight-jacket.

By luminous beauty (not verified) on 29 Nov 2007 #permalink

Thanks Luminous Beauty - "there was an erruption on the Gakkel Ridge in 1999". I think there were some signs of Arctic ice decreasing about then. Also, I have been unable to find more than a couple of cursory scientific studies of these sea floor volcanic mountain chains. Similar sea floor spreading centres like the huge Gakkel system errupt frequently so I expect your 1999 erruption may have been one of many. The heat generated from these sea-floor erruptions can be considerable and I expect it would have some influence on the surrounding water temperatures.

I'm not sure I understand your reference to a straight-jacket.

Rabbet

Do the meters also measure the crap that's being spewed/seeping out?

IanP,

N/S asymmetry affects the comparable climates of the hemispheres, not CO2 distribution. Take a look at the globe. What is the most obvious difference between the northern and southern hemispheres? You might want to read up on specific heat for saline solutions of H2O, air and common rocks. It's basic chemistry.

By luminous beauty (not verified) on 29 Nov 2007 #permalink

Thanks Eli, Ive read about them and I have looked into it a little. There has been considerable seismic activity recorded along the Gakkel ridge and this could correspond with numerous significant sea floor eruptions. Unfortunately the seismic activity associated with sea floor spreading centres is generally very weak as thier respective magma chambers are only at shallow depths in the crust. Because of the location of the Gakkel Mountain chain it is almost impossible to get seismometers close enough for reliable readings to locate the epicentres or to determine if the earthquakes are indicative of magmatic eruptions.

Can someone help explain to an ignoramus like me why we don't see relatively similar warming trends over all of the earth rather than the selectivity we seem to be seeing.
Several pertinent facts:
1. Heat is transported within the ocean and atmosphere.
2. The rotation of the earth is tilted with respect to the solar plane, so solar heating is not uniformly applied.
3. Water bodies warm up differently to land bodies, and the southern hemisphere is mostly water.

Also, the northern Arctic sea ice is not the same thing as the Antarctic ice mass. It should not be surprising to learn they behave differently.

Thanks Luminous Beauty - I wasn't aware that "N/S asymmetry affects the comparable climates of the hemispheres" Does this explain why temperatures are not warming in the south as much as they are in the north? I'll do some study on "specific heat for saline solutions of H2O, air and common rocks" as you suggest.

Thanks MarkG -
I suppose that heat is also 'transported' through rock/landmass as well as the ocean and atmosphere. It doesn't leave much that heat is not transported through. I'm not sure why the rotation of the earth has a lot of significance. Your pertinent fact three is certainly spot on but I'm unsure why this would cause the southern hemisphere to get cooler relative to the north - the land /sea ratio has been like that for quite some time!

So what you are saying is that the observed differences in polar temperature changes are not due to rising CO2 but rather the relative ratios of landmass to water and transported heat through oceans and atmosphere?

Nice graph Luminous Beauty - I think that you would agree that there seems to be a decided reduction in the amount of ice starting about 1999. Why couldn't this represent the start of some significant volcanic activity?

I'm not sure what you mean by 'persistent summer ice'. The melting, if partly volcanic related, is going to be from bottom up - not the other way so there may not be much evidence at the surface of the ice sheet.

IanP,

"Nice graph Luminous Beauty - I think that you would agree that there seems to be a decided reduction in the amount of ice starting about 1999."

No, I wouldn't.

By luminous beauty (not verified) on 29 Nov 2007 #permalink

IanP,

You are the Black Knight.

By luminous beauty (not verified) on 29 Nov 2007 #permalink

"I'm not sure what you mean by 'persistent summer ice'. The melting, if partly volcanic related, is going to be from bottom up - not the other way so there may not be much evidence at the surface of the ice sheet."

Persistent summer ice is that ice that doesn't melt in the summer. It is right over your volcanoes.

Heat rises. From the bottom up.

By luminous beauty (not verified) on 29 Nov 2007 #permalink

That's odd Luminous Beauty - on the graph you found there appears to be a steady decline in the volume of ice from about then and only a very slow decline before 1999. I would have thought that if you take into account measurement 'noise', the heating effect of magma flowing onto the sea floor and the time delay to observe significant ice melt changes then this graph could fit fairly well.
Am I missing something?

Thanks Luminous Beauty - I wasn't aware that "N/S asymmetry affects the comparable climates of the hemispheres" Does this explain why temperatures are not warming in the south as much as they are in the north?

That's the point, bozo.

If it didn't, then the complacent 40s of the Northern Hemisphere would have a climate (and weather) like the Roaring 40s of the Southern.

Rather than come here and ask stupid questions, why don't you start reading some basic 1+1=2 for dummies type material on basic science?

It's so annoying when someone comes by saying "I don't know nothing, but here is what I believe ..." when the "I don't know nothing" clause can be easily cured without expecting unknown posters on the internet to lead you down the path to knowledge.

Luminous Beauty I'm sure that the surface air temperatures in that part of the world would still be sub zero and 'persistent summer ice' would be present irrespective of what was happening on the seafloor under many hundreds of metres of insulation by ice and water. Sea floor spreading ridge volcanoes commonly have magma flows covering tens of kilometers - they do not erupt explosively (like Mt Pinotubo) - they are more like the Hawaiian volcanoes. A single lava flow can produce a considerable amount of liquid magma which will chill rapidly as it comes into contact with sea water producing a large volume of steam heated water. There are unlikely to be any observable effects on top of the overlying icesheet.

What is a Black Knight??

Sorry I annoyed you dhogaza #127. Do you have any thoughts on the contribution of sea floor lava flows to arctic ice melt? You seem to be very knowledgable about basic science.

The graph decreases gradually until about 2003-2004. Nothing special about 1999.

If volcanic seismic activity could not be detected without sensors so close to the epicenters, then the 1999 eruption never would have been detected.

Funny that.

" A single lava flow can produce a considerable amount of liquid magma which will chill rapidly as it comes into contact with sea water producing a large volume of steam heated water. There are unlikely to be any observable effects on top of the overlying icesheet."

Heat rises in a fluid. The firstest and the mostest ice to melt is going to be nearly directly over the heat source. Certainly not everywhere but over the heat source.

"What is a Black Knight??"

The Black Knight

By luminous beauty (not verified) on 29 Nov 2007 #permalink

Post #130 is not mine. Are you trying to comment for me Luminous Beauty?

I understand that the USS Hawkbill passed directly over the earthquake epicentre so it was a bit of a coincidence. In any event, there was a sizeable eruption with molten magma flowing onto the sea floor and this would have likely covered many tens of square kilometres. The heat transfer from this magma to the water underlying the ice must have been huge.

It is possible there have been other eruptions of similar type and magnitude in the Gakkel spreading centre which have gone undetected!

The Hawkbill had nothing to do with detecting the '99 event.

Tolstoy happened to discover the Gakkel eruptions in the summer of 1999 when she was looking at Arctic seismic data for a hydroacoustic monitoring project.

"As I looked through the historic data, I saw the early 1999 swarms and thought that if ever we were to see volcanism on an ultraslow-spreading ridge, this is what it would look like. The volcanism we see in the Pacific is much shorter lived with lower magnitude events, but with the cold brittle crust at an ultraslow-spreading ridge, you might expect it to take a lot more work (and hence larger eruption) to break through it.

"Having convinced myself that it was probably an eruption, I started looking around for other data that might confirm this. The USS Hawkbill just happened to be in the area, and in fact they didn't even know the swarm had occurred until many months after they had returned. It was just luck that they had gone over the right area at the right time."

The emboldened phrase is intended to high-light the fact that these kinds of eruptions are, apparently, very rare.

So to answer your question (or is it an exclamation?), no. Not very likely.

Certainly not enough to melt ice hundreds and thousands of kilometers away from the point source and mysteriously not melt any of the ice directly above it.

By luminous beauty (not verified) on 29 Nov 2007 #permalink

IanP: Heat is conducted through rocks and the ground and transported by fluids.
As to these other questions, they are easily answered, authoritatively by introductory texts on the subject. For much of what's discussed here (satellites and atmospheric radiation), I suggest Liou's 'An Introduction to Atmospheric Radiation' (ISBN: 0124514510). It's introductory graduate level material.

"For someone who dislikes creationists, Gouldster, you sure are behaving like one. Ever thought that this entire process is really just part of the evolutionary model we live in?"

Firstly, the current rate of species extinction is around 100 times the background rate we see in the fossil record.

Secondly, besides being cool to look at and making the world a more interesting (if slightly more dangerous) place, polar bears have some interesting metabolic tricks which we could probably get practical use out of.

By Ian Gould (not verified) on 29 Nov 2007 #permalink

In addition to what Markg said at 118, warming in the northern hemisphere exposes soil (which is darker than ice and absorbs more heat) and lets forests (also darker than ice) grow further north.

This creates a positive feedback.

The equivalent areas in the southern hemisphere are mostly water - which has a similar albedo to ice.

Hence no feedback.

By Ian Gould (not verified) on 29 Nov 2007 #permalink

"It's so annoying when someone comes by saying "I don't know nothing, but here is what I believe ..." when the "I don't know nothing" clause can be easily cured without expecting unknown posters on the internet to lead you down the path to knowledge."

Everyone is entitled to express their opinion.

This includes my entitlement to express my opinion that the opinions of others are foolish or illogical.

By Ian Gould (not verified) on 29 Nov 2007 #permalink

JC, you wrote, "Polar bears will survive. I am sure of it. I am a physicist. We know such things".

You've got to be kidding right? Given the stuff you write about the political economy, I suppose that you can't be much worse when discussing evolutionary ecology. But the fact is, if the Arctic ice goes, so do the bears. They will be history. We can dismiss your 'physicists intuition' on this one. Given the time frame involved, and, as Dano said, the hugely anthropogenically-changed conditions of the planet at present, the bears won't stand a chance. But this sums up the human predicament: denial and wishful thinking. Polar bears are just one symptom of it. Given we are almost certainly into the sixth great mass extinction in the planet's history (and the first to be driven by one of it's evolved inhabitants), the loss of Polar Bears will be nothing unusual. It's just that they will stand out as a pretty strong symbol of human destruction.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 29 Nov 2007 #permalink

Umm Jeff that was someone called JB not JC and I'm pretty sure he was taking the piss.

By Ian Gould (not verified) on 29 Nov 2007 #permalink

Ian,

Yeh, you're right. Apologies to JB and JC on this one.

I do like JBs joke of painting the bears brown though; perhaps we could ship several thousand cartridges of the stuff to Churchill, Manitoba for immediate distribution amongst the bear population.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 29 Nov 2007 #permalink

Firstly, the current rate of species extinction is around 100 times the background rate we see in the fossil record.Secondly, besides being cool to look at and making the world a more interesting (if slightly more dangerous) place, polar bears have some interesting metabolic tricks which we could probably get practical use out of.

And how much would you spend trying to make sure they can live at the top of the world and rather than just the edge. Give us the hard numbers here gouldster you big spender you. $1 Trillion, $2 trillion.?

JC,

First of all, background extinction rates for well studied groups like birds are running at 100-1,000 times the natural background rate. And remember that birds and other vertebrates often receive extra special attention for conservation purposes. This suggests that extinction rates for less well-studied organisms, or those deemed unworthy of conservation for solely aesthetic reasons (e.g. ignoring the role they play in influencing ecosystem functions) are much higher, certainly in the range of 1,000 times higher than natural rates.

Lomborg is out-and-out wrong in his estimation of extinction rates. This could be because he has no formal training in related subjects. I don't have the time here begin to show here where he hashes up the subject. Let's just say that his ridiculously low estimate is based on one out of 12 models posited by an Australian ecologist (using rough estimations of extinction rates for British insects). It is also based on 'knowns' - extinctions recorded and documented. But what worries ecologists are the vast number of 'unknowns'. Because we've only probably formally identifed 5% of extant species (or less), there is little doubt that species and genetically distinct populations are disappearing before they were ever formally identified. I have had enough experience with the anti-environmental mob to know how they twist this information to suit their own agenda. That is, if there is not 100% unequivocol proof of a phenomenon, then the problem does not exist. This trick is being used to deny the causes and effects of acid rain, loss of biodiversity, climate change and other environmental problems of anthropogenic origin.

Lomborg also misinterprets area-extinction models (based on the original exponential decay models postulated by Terborgh and Soule). The examples he puts forward in his book - avian extinctions in North American and Puerto Rican birds, and extinction rates in coastal Brazilian fauna - are all misinterpreted by him. This could be because he uses a chapter by business economists Julian Simon and Aaron Wildavsky as his 'source', while ignoring correctives published in Nature and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 1997 and 1995 respectively. These studies categorically show that the exticntion rate of endemic eastern North American forest birds actually are slightly higher than predicted by habitat/species loss model, and that the number of critically endangered species in coastal Brazil fit the model predictions very well. The flawed Peurto Rican example is also corrected.

Lomborg suggests that the number of species classified as extinct in coastal Brazil are 'very small'. But this obfuscates the facts. First of all, a species is not officially classified as extinct by the IUCN until it has not been recorded for 50 years; many of the species listed as critically endangered in Brazil have not been seen since the 1960's and are almost certainly extinct. Second, extinctions do not occur instantaneously, but exhibit temporal 'lags', as the populations decrease towards either a new lower equilibrium or extinction. Much of the habitat loss in coastal Brazilian forests occurrd during the 1950's; thus many of the now-rare species are declining and will almost certainly disappear very soon. The lag can take up to several centuries to manifest itself in ewcological communities. Similarly, Lomborg states that there are more birds in Puerto Rico now than before; however, many of these are invasive species and habitat generalists such as House Sparrows that were introduced by humans. The loss of native island endemics very closely fit the model predictions.

Lomborg also ignores the fact that a species loses its ecological value long before it goes extinct. Once the populations drop below a certainb threshold, the ability of the species to contribute to viable ecosystem processes is lost.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 30 Nov 2007 #permalink

As has been said, if volcanic heating were a significant contributor, the ice would melt from the bottom. Also, there is no place where the ice extends down to the bottom in the Arctic (otherwise where would the nuclear subs go), so to first approximation the temperature is ~0C allowing for collegative freezing point depression in salt water and some small pressure effects.

Just to join in the fun and point out some basic geology.
IanP commented
"I suppose that heat is also 'transported' through rock/landmass as well as the ocean and atmosphere."
To which I reply, yes, but so slowly that its not of any real importance. For example, large volumes of magma injected into the crust take millenia to cool because of their huge size and the insulating capabilities of rock. There is a huge thermal mass in rock that has to be heated up. Think how dense rock is. Therefore, worrying about heat transfer through rock and climate change is pretty pointless.

Also, yes, they have considered how much energy is released through the crust from the centre of the earth, and IIRC it is on the average of around 0.1 watts per square metre. This is opposed to the 1,366 watts hitting the top of the atmosphere. Some of that gets deflected, but much else goes down through the atmosphere and is absorbed, radiated etc etc. By contrast, the human caused radiative forcing is estimated at around 1.5 watts per square metre.

The difference in melting between the North and South poles is simple: there is a fucking continent at the South pole. This has a huge effect. Ocean currents matter. They carry tremendous amounts of energy and can much more easily break up and heat ice through their action than if there is a fucking continent in the way.

As to Antarctica getting cooler - no. Parts of Antarctica are getting more snow deposits, but this is because it's warmer - previously it was too damn cold to snow that much.

Can someone help explain to an ignoramus like me why we don't see relatively similar warming trends over all of the earth rather than the selectivity we seem to be seeing.

The earth is not a uniform water bath in thermal equilibrium. Air, moisture, and heat are constantly circulating in complex ways. An increase in CO2 levels results in an increase in average temperature. One aspect of this is pumping more thermal energy into weather, changing weather patterns, so you could easily have localized cooling.

Look at it this way: Your refrigerator, on average, is really a heater.

Ian Gould,

The Pielke article I linked to has nine citations. Did you want me to link to all nine? Also are you trying to smear Pielke as a "denialist" now?

Jeff Harvey,

The references you have made to other organisms that have specific adaptations to their eco-systems that make them unable to adapt to changes in their environments are not evidence that the polar bear will not be able to adapt to ice free Arctic Ocean summers.

These are ad hoc appeals to analogy. I am mot a population ecologist but I could easily reference many organisms that have adapted quite nicely to man made changes in their environment. For example whitetail deer have adapted perhaps too well, causing pressures on other species.

As you are no doubt aware this is how evolution works. One species gain is often another species loss. Our enormous success as a species was bound to have effects on the other organisms in our ecosystem. To put us outside of nature is more the purview of creationists than natural scientists.

As has been pointed out by another poster, Ursus maritimus is closely related to the brown bear. These creatures are notoriously adaptive omnivores. This is probably what enabled polar bears to survive during past ice free summers.

The fact is there is ample evidence that the Arctic Ocean was ice free in the Holocene and the polar bears obviously survived. That you and others cling to these apocalyptic predictions of extinction in the face of evidence that shows polar bear populations have increased over tha last few decades is curious indeed.

Of course this whole discussion is superfluous if the arctic isn't going to become ice free in the next century. There is ample evidence that the arctic sea ice undergoes cyclical changes in extent. The most recent low extent event was more a cause of wind and water current anomalies than increased air temperatures.

A recent NASA press release documented the reason the ice extent was so low.

A team led by Son Nghiem of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., studied trends in Arctic perennial ice cover by combining data from NASA's Quick Scatterometer (QuikScat) satellite with a computing model based on observations of sea ice drift from the International Arctic Buoy Programme. QuikScat can identify and map different classes of sea ice, including older, thicker perennial ice and younger, thinner seasonal ice.

"Unusual atmospheric conditions set up wind patterns that compressed the sea ice, loaded it into the Transpolar Drift Stream and then sped its flow out of the Arctic," said Son Nghiem of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and leader of the study. When that sea ice reached lower latitudes, it rapidly melted in the warmer waters.

In simpler terms, polar wind patterns changed and blew sea ice further south to warmer waters than it normally would. Sea ice can easily be wind driven.

The truth is the polar bear makes a nice global warming "poster child". The sad animated polar bear in AIT struggling to gain a foothold on ever shrinking ice floes is a powerful tool to get the public's emotions on the side of environmental activists.

If there is no threat to the polar bear a powerful icon of AGW is lost. As usual in this debate political motives cannot be ignored.

Jeff you seem like a thoughtful and interesting guy. You obviously put a great deal of effort and knowledge into your sincere and well written posts, which I assure you I do read carefully.

I'm sure if we met in person to discuss these matters, maybe over a couple of beers, it would be a forthright and respectful exchange. I hope we can continue to discuss this complex and emotionally charged issue in a friendly and respectful way.

A fellow scientist,

Lance

Lance wrote: "Also are you trying to smear Pielke as a "denialist" now?"

You're insinuating that Pielke is "smeared" when people note his tendencies toward contrarian nonsense. Maybe Pielke is perfectly happy when people take notice of his gadfly tendencies....

Lance, keep typing away you beautiful retard!

Lance ignoramused:

For example whitetail deer have adapted perhaps too well, causing pressures on other species.

As you are no doubt aware this is how evolution works. One species gain is often another species loss.

No.

Two words: "synanthropic species".

You don't see wolves, wildebeest, snow leopards eating foxgloves out of grandma's garden.

I'm sure this won't change an ignoramus's mind, I merely post this for the curious.

Best,

D

Thom,

This is what you consider a worthwile reply? To call me a retard?

I believe the last time someone called me a retard I was in sixth grade and that person was telling me how great it was to sniff model airplane glue.

Sniff away Thom.

Lance,

Your comments are, to be frank, embarrassingly simple. I want to be civil, but when I read some of your ideas, well, I find it hard to hold back. But I will try and be polite!

White tailed deer are habitat generalists. To compare them with polar bears is utter absurdity. This reveals the limitations in what you know in ecology - fair enough. Most importantly, no qualified ecologist would cite such a poor example. Polar bears are at the terminal end of the food chain, occupying the third and fourth trophic levels. White tailed deer are quite generalized browsing herbivores, in the second trophic level. Like other top-level predators, polar bears require huge areas in which to forage, and any loss in their primary habitat would likely be catastrophic for them. Most examples of species that did adapt to rapid changes concern habitat generalists. There are plenty of examples with phylogenetically unrelated groups. Species I cited yesterday like the Polar Bear, the Red Cockaded Woodpecker, The Mountain Gorilla etc. require quite specialized habitat. When this goes, so do they.

Furthermore, for polar bears to adapt to a more terrestrial habitat they would have to very rapidly evolve darker coats in summer. White animals would stand out like a sore thumb against a dark background, and any potential prey would see them a long way away. When conditions warmed up in the Holocene the bears had plenty of time to adapt. Those changes took place over several millenia, not in less than a century. But let me reiterate as have other posters - there was still ice in the Arctic in the Holocene. It was not ice-free as you suggest. It has been perhaps millions of years since this was the case.

Finally, the only hope for the bears wopuld be to hybridize with their grizzly bear cousins. This would lead to genetic dilution of the species and perhaps its irreversible loss anyway, as is happening in Europe as the native White-Headed Duck is hybridizing with the introduced American Ruddy Duck (both are closely related congeners) . The genetic integrity of the White-Headed Duck is being severely lost and it is possible that the species will disappear within the next century, unless efforts are made to successfully eradicate the Ruddy Duck.

I like to think of myself as a 'thoughtful guy' as you put it, but my views are based on the empirical evidence. I speak as a scientist who has spent the better part of the past 20 years in the study of population and evolutionary ecology. I would like my correspondence with you to be civil, but I believe that whatever I or other qualified scientists in my field say to you will not change your mind. Basically, the crux of the matter is this. Humans are conducting a huge, non-replicatable experiment on systems of unimaginable complexity whose functioning we barely understand and upon which we depend for our survival. Many very qualified scientists are warning that the likely outcome of this global experiment is likely to be an impoverished future for humanity. Do you, as a fellow scientist, believe that, given what we know about past cataclysms that the biosphere experienced, it is prudent to continue on our current course?

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 30 Nov 2007 #permalink

Lance, have you read the paper you linked too and its references? If you had done so you will see that Pielke and his "fellow scientist" are clutching at straws when they are trying to claim that there was recent ice-free conditions in the Arctic. I have not read all of the references but have read enough to convince me that the paper you linked to is in the same category as most AGW denier "papers".

For you information, the results in the quoted papers were from measurements made in the southern Barents Sea. It is almost impossible to get further from the North Pole and still be in the Arctic than the southern Barents Sea.

Most of the author's data (linked paper) are on temperatures not actual measurement of ice or no ice.

He is clutching at straws and is doing a disservice to the authors he quotes when he tries to imply that they support an ice-free Arctic.

As I mentioned in a previous post check out the work of ACEX.

I do hope that you take your own research more seriously.

By Ian Forrester (not verified) on 30 Nov 2007 #permalink

polar bears have some interesting metabolic tricks which we could probably get practical use out of.

Yeah, like they live pretty much exclusively on meat, unlike griz and black bears. Gives me strange ideas regarding getting some use out of JC's sorry ass ...

Pielke no longer allows refutation (or any other comment) on his own page. Google to find them elsewhere, as he does himself (note how fast he pops up at Stoat). Peculiar tactic.

By Hank Roberts (not verified) on 30 Nov 2007 #permalink

Jeff Harvey,
yes, I was indeed joking...mostly.

I am actually educated as a physicist (though I have spent the last decade and half doing computer programming).

One thing that I have noticed over the years is that many physicists seem to have a very high opinion of their knowledge of areas outside their area of expertise -- an opinion that in most cases is largely at odds with their actual knowledge of the area in question (eg, polar bear biology).

It is a most curious disease, this "knowitallenza".

It seems to strike physicists preferentially over every other type of scientist.

And the results can be devastating. It makes otherwise intelligent people say utterly idiotic things and behave like complete morons.

Ian Gould,

You have misrepresented the evidence stated in the studies cited by Pielke. Several of the papers specifically state that their research indicates ice free periods in the arctic during the Holocene.

I am reviewing your linked ACEX study.

As for my research I have had to take employment with an engineering firm as recent economic developments have forced me to postpone the completion of my doctoral studies. I continue to teach part time at the university and hope to resume my studies in the near future.

However, your sincere concern for the state of my research was touching.

Jeff,

The insulting tone of your last post is disappointing, especially in light of the fact that it came in response to what I considered a good faith gesture on my part. To be honest I am growing weary of trying to conduct discussions with people that would rather score cheap shot taunts than engage in civil discourse.

I believe you "cut to the chase" at the end of your last post when you asked "Do you, as a fellow scientist, believe that, given what we know about past cataclysms that the biosphere experienced, it is prudent to continue on our current course?"

Well if by "our current course" you mean continued use of fossil fuels I would say that there is no reason to expect that current levels of coal and petroleum consumption are likely to decrease to any significant extent in the next few decades. In fact it is quite likely that with increasing usage by rapidly industrializing countries such as China and India fossil fuel usage is likely to increase.

The question is whether, as you and others suggest, we face catastrophic climate change from the CO2 produced by the burning of these fossil fuels. On this point we obviously diverge. You find the evidence for anthropogenic CO2 causing massive and irreversible ecological damage to be convincing. I do not.

Perhaps your greater understanding of biological ecosystems gives you insights that I do not posses. Though it has been mocked and disparaged by some in this discussion my training as a physicist, although not yet complete, gives me the ability to understand physical systems, evaluate data and then decide if the proposed hypothesis is supported by that data.

I have not yet seen evidence that conclusively supports the hypothesis that anthropgenic CO2 is likely to cause a disastrous change in climate over the next century.
As a scientist I remain open to the idea that such evidence may yet be presented. That is why I engage in these discussions despite the uncivil nature of many of the participants.

Lance said: "I have not yet seen evidence that conclusively supports the hypothesis that anthropogenic CO2 is likely to cause a disastrous change in climate over the next century".

Open your eyes, laddie and read the peer reviewed scientific literature not the drivel in the anti-AGW websites.

The southern Barents Sea is not the North Pole. A few pieces of driftwood appearing on beaches (on land no less, again very far from the North Pole), offers NO proof of an ice free Arctic.

And it was I, not Ian Gould who you should be addressing. If you can't even keep those simple things straight, why on earth are you getting immersed in some thing as complicated as AGW?

By Ian Forrester (not verified) on 30 Nov 2007 #permalink

I have not yet seen evidence that conclusively supports the hypothesis that anthropgenic CO2 is likely to cause a disastrous change in climate over the next century.

you are placing the bar pretty high.

"I have not yet seen evidence that conclusively supports the hypothesis that your current drinking, smoking and eating habit is likely to cause a disastrous change in your life over the next decade! CHEERS!"

Lance said: "Though it has been mocked and disparaged by some in this discussion my training as a physicist,..."

Oh, Lance, did you think I was referring to you?

I had no idea you were a physicist.

I never would have guessed based on your comments...

... "If there were a strong theoretical basis for expecting a causal relationship"... there is one with CO2vstemperature - if atmospheric temperatures increase then CO2 solubility in warming sea water decreases and more CO2 is released into the atmosphere - basic chemistry.

Then let's look at the paleoclimate record.

Through the last few ice ages, where we have ice cores and therefore climate records of a very fine temporal resolution, we find exactly what IanP expects: the climate changes first, and the CO2 follows suit. Glacials and interglacials are clearly caused by the MilankoviÄ cycles.

However, there are a few cases in the fossil record where greenhouse gas concentrations changed first and the climate followed suit. The best-known example is the PETM (Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum); click on the first link in comment 93 to learn more (release of methane clathrates from the seafloor making the temperature jump up). Another seems to be part of the mass extinction event at the Permian-Triassic boundary (same thing apparently). Another happened close to but not at the end of the Cretaceous (flood basalt eruptions in India pumping huge amounts of CO2 into the air, causing the global average temperature to rise by 3 °C 65.8 million years ago; when it was over 65.6 Ma ago, temperatures came back to normal). Another made the "Snowball Earth" episodes in the late Precambrian possible (newly exposed silicate lava weathering and taking CO2 out of the air), and yet another made the recent series of ice ages possible (Tibet being lifted above the treeline and starting weathering).

Who wants the citations? :-)

Also, note that a change of 0.7 °C in the global average annual temperature is a lot. That's because higher temperatures cause more evaporation and stronger winds, which carry more heat toward the poles; the temperature of the tropics never changes much, but the poles have (not in a straight line) gone from subtropical-plus-polar-night to year-round freezing in the last 50 million years.

Lance, recent research (by honest scientists, not the AGW denier variety) have shown that the Arctic has not been ice free for approximately 50 million years. Recent analysis of cores taken in the sediment under the North Pole ice indicate no evidence of melting since then.

I can't find that in your sources, and it would be very surprising because the Arctic stayed very warm through the rest of the Eocene, and Greenland only got its inland ice in the Pliocene or so -- in the exceptional interglacial 400,000 years ago it was even ice-free.

Beneath the Arctic sea-ice, not far south of the North Pole are the Lomonosov and Gakkel ridges, both massive volcanic features, several thousands of kilometres long. The Gakkel Ridge (and probably Lomonosov) show a high rate of volcanism.

The Gakkel Ridge is the site of the slowest seafloor spreading in the world, and the Lomonosov Ridge is AFAIK dead.

More to the point, both are two thousand meters under the ice. You're making yourself ridiculous.

Ever thought that this entire process is really just part of the evolutionary model we live in?

Naturalistic fallacy.

By David MarjanoviÄ (not verified) on 30 Nov 2007 #permalink

Apologies to both Ians. Yes it is proof of my incompetence as a scientist that I confused insult laced posts from multiple Ians.

sod,

If the doctor asked me to stop eating the only cheap and easily available foods I could find I would require some very solid evidence to comply with his request. I wouldn't, as some here seem to, look at his diploma and say "OK you're an authority so I'll restructure my whole life without verifiable evidence."

JB,

You are a sarcastic prick, but so am I, so I kind'a like you. It would figure you also trained as a physicist. Perhaps we should discount your opinions on that basis as well?

sod, If the doctor asked me to stop eating the only cheap and easily available foods I could find I would require some very solid evidence to comply with his request. I wouldn't, as some here seem to, look at his diploma and say "OK you're an authority so I'll restructure my whole life without verifiable evidence."

you did not understand what i said. i told you that you are raising the bar pretty high.

so you will not use the brakes of your car, before you have "conclusive evidence" that not slowing down will cause a disastrous change in your life over and extended period?

have fun driving this winter!

@Lance:
If you claim:

Though it has been mocked and disparaged by some in this discussion my training as a physicist, although not yet complete, gives me the ability to understand physical systems, evaluate data and then decide if the proposed hypothesis is supported by that data.

Then why didn't you notice deficiencies in the E&E paper you quoted or understand what is wrong with the approach used by Booker?
Getting a doctorate requires that you are capable of understanding the quality of other research since the quality of your thesis (partially) depends on the research you cite.
The next is serious advice (that is if you are not prevaricating): Do not waste the money on the study and keep the job that you have now, you are not fit to do the original research required for a doctoral study.

By Who Cares (not verified) on 30 Nov 2007 #permalink

hm, again:

you did not understand what i said. i told you that you are raising the bar pretty high.

so you will not use the brakes of your car, before you have "conclusive evidence" that not slowing down will cause a disastrous change in your life?

have fun driving this winter!

sod,

Hitting the brakes when driving costs very little and I can easily reacelerate when I see that the road is clear.

Restructuring the world's energy economy is a bit more expensive.

Restructuring the world's energy economy is a bit more expensive.

this is not what we have been talking about.

but anyway:
what kind of action DO you support, until you have seen conclusive evidence?!?

and what sort of thing (beyond agreement of basically all scientists in the field world wide is "conclusive evidence" for you?

and what is a "disastrous change to climate"?

Lance, I actually felt that the most appropriate descriptor was 'tard. But using substandard English on a blog could be viewed as rude and demeaning.

Therefore, I decided that the proper form of address, "retard," was more appropriate for this venue.

Sorry for any misunderstandings.

You're still beautiful.

"You have misrepresented the evidence stated in the studies cited by Pielke. Several of the papers specifically state that their research indicates ice free periods in the arctic during the Holocene.

I am reviewing your linked ACEX study."

I think like Jeff with JC, you've mistaken me for someone else.

By Ian Gould (not verified) on 30 Nov 2007 #permalink

"Was (and I know this name is like a red rag to a bull at this site) Lomborg incorrect when he said in his book that species extninction are extremely low?"

Yes.

Firstly, a species isn't officially recognised as extinct until 50 years after the last sighting or the last captive specimen dies.

So there's a lag of up to 50 years in species being formally declared extinct. You also get "ghost" species - where there's a handful of captive specimens but they can't be used to breed back up because they're all of the same sex or they're too old or they're already hopelessly inbred and their offspring keep dying.

Secondly, Lomborg made a total botch of his "audit" of species extinction in the Eastern United states. He claimed the rate of extinction there was only 10% (IIRC) of what was expected, But he got that result by including in his survey species that weren't endemic to the eastern US (i.e. they also occurred elsewhere in the world). Using only species endemic to the eastern United States, the models were correct.

Thirdly, his argument is essentially the same as the Holocaust denialist who demands the name and address of every victim. Hundreds of field surveys in tropical rainforests worldwide keep turning up new species (mostly of invertebrates). Many of these species have extremely limited ranges. We may not be able to catalog every single species destroyed when rainforests are cleared but we can definitely infer that when thousands of square kilometres are destroyed evey year that we are losing species.

By Ian Gould (not verified) on 30 Nov 2007 #permalink

sod,

I would take those actions that make sense on their own virtue, such as energy conservation and investment in alternative fuels research.

Also I try to avoid gross overstatements like "...agreement of basically all scientists in the field world wide."

As for the evidence that would convince me? That is really two questions.

1) What evidence would demonstrate that anthropogenic CO2 is going to warm the atmosphere by more than 2 degrees C over the next century.

2) What evidence indicates that the consequences of that warming would be so bad as to justify the costs of mitigating the projected CO2 emissions?

Both answers are lengthy and nuanced. If you are really interested I will elaborate. If this is just an attempt to lure me out of the bushes for a quick rhetorical beating I'll pass.

The ball is in your court.

"Yeah, like they live pretty much exclusively on meat, unlike griz and black bears. Gives me strange ideas regarding getting some use out of JC's sorry ass ..."

I was thinking more about the way the females can lower their metabolic rates drastically without going into hibernation.

Studying that could help us devise ways to treat hypothermia in humans or even to induce similar studies in humans to slow their metabolic rates during surgery.

By Ian Gould (not verified) on 30 Nov 2007 #permalink

Ian Gould,

I have already apoligized for the mistake. The fact that there are three Ians get's a bit confusing.

Myth purveying:

2) What evidence indicates that the consequences of that warming would be so bad as to justify the costs of mitigating the projected CO2 emissions?

Too-high costs: hooey.

Best,

D

To JC re. the value of the polar bear.

Firstly, you obviously realise that the polar beat isn't the only species at risk and that increased extinctions aren't the only or even the principal cost likely to imposed on us by global warming.

If we take a cost of $1 trillion to reduce global warming, we need to split that cost between the millions of species at risk, which reduces the cost for any individual species to around $1,000,000.

Considering how much we already spend to protect and study polar bears that strikes me as a reasonable defensive investment to protect our sunk costs.

What do you think is the capitalised value of the annual expenditure on polar bear hunting, zoo visits; tourism to the arctic to see bears and zoo visits.

I should mention hear that valuations of national parks and individual species was one of my specialities while working for the EPA. I can debate this issue in quite grotesque detail if necessary.

By Ian Gould (not verified) on 30 Nov 2007 #permalink

David MarjanoviÄ said: "I can't find that in your sources, and it would be very surprising because the Arctic stayed very warm through the rest of the Eocene".

David my comment was based on this quote "We find evidence for the first occurrence of ice-rafted debris in the middle Eocene epoch (approx45 Myr ago), some 35 Myr earlier than previously thought; fresh surface waters were present at approx49 Myr ago, before the onset of ice-rafted debris", taken from the abstract of their Nature paper.

However, looking at Figure 3 in this paper

http://tinyurl.com/2gcp6o

would suggest that the last ice free time was approx. 19 Mya.

In either case it was much longer ago than when the polar bear became a separate species.

By Ian Forrester (not verified) on 30 Nov 2007 #permalink

"If the doctor asked me to stop eating the only cheap and easily available foods I could find I would require some very solid evidence to comply with his request."

At the risk of having this thread blow out to several thousand comments, let me say Lance that you have now shifted from the debate over the physcial evidence that climate change is occurring to "what action if any should we take?"

As an economist (non-practising) you're moving into my real area of expertise.

First a couple of general observations:

The debate over global warming actually consists of a series of sub-debates:

1. is global warming occurring? (This one has been largely settled in the affirmative despite the occasional hold-out)

2. Are humans responsible for most of the warming? (this thread is largely taken up with this debate. Your comments about claims of past arctic warming fall here.)

3. What, if anything, should we do about it?

The first two arguments are logically linked - if the world isn't warming there's no point in debating alternative theories of causation.

The third isn't - or shouldn't be.

Almost without exception, people who dispute that warming is man-made or likely to have extremely serious effects also believe that the costs of addressing it will be extremely high.

You'll find very few people saying "I don't think humans are causing global warming but if they are so what? Human innovation and new technology will fix it."

This is curious because these people TEND to be on the mainstream right of western politics and when other environmental issues arise they're the ones most likely to argue for technological fixes.

(THey're also the people most likely to reject the idea that "natural is good". Even if global warming is not human-induced (an absolutely massive if), if the likely costs are high and we have the technology to reduce it at a lower cost we should do so.

"Global warming is a natural phenomena."

"Yes, like lightning strikes, hurricanes and smallpox epidemics."

Finally, and I'm pressed for time here, the costs of fixing the problem are widely exaggerated and are used in isolation in what could be described as an argument from stupefaction.

The absolute cost, in isolation, of addressing global warming is big. So's the amount the entire planet spends every year on pet food and video games.

We are talking about a gross cost of several trillion dollars - spread over several decades in a global economy currently worth around 30 trillion dollars and growing at aroudn 5% per year.

That's before we reduce that gross cost by considering bthe offsetting benefits - how much are the lives of the 100,000 Chinese miners who die every year worth? How about the lives of the millions of African and South Asian women who die every year form lung and throat cancer caused by dung fires?

By Ian Gould (not verified) on 30 Nov 2007 #permalink

David Marjanovic (#161) wrote "The Gakkel Ridge is the site of the slowest seafloor spreading in the world, and the Lomonosov Ridge is AFAIK dead. More to the point, both are two thousand meters under the ice. You're making yourself ridiculous."

David - Irrespective of the amount of sea floor spreading and the rate that this occurs on the Gakkel ridge, the fact remains that there is an immense magma chamber at shallow crustal levels with associated high geothermal gradient. Irrespective of the amount of sea floor volcanism which has occured during the last few years, this geothermal gradient will have a heating effect on the water near the ocean floor. This may only be a part of a degree over a large volume of water but it WILL affect water currents and it WILL cause some ice to melt (much more arctic ice is in contact with water than with air).

The role this high geothermal gradient plays in the currently receding Arctic ice sheet has, to my knowledge, not been studied - or even considered. Why not?? Am I making myself ridiculous by pointing this out?

>2) What evidence indicates that the consequences of that
>warming would be so bad as to justify the costs of
>mitigating the projected CO2 emissions?

You are going to have to bear those costs one way or another Lance. The energy returned on energy invested in fossil fuel extraction will trend to zero this century. Societies will either have to be massively restructured or perish. The only real questions are whether climate change/environmental degradation or resource depletion will torpedo the status quo first. And how screwed up will the environment/climate be when that time comes. Infinite economic growth is impossible on a finite planet Lance. The more we draw down non-renewable natural capital the more impoverished our collective future will be, if we have one at all.

JM

ianP, the heat from inside the earth is negligble compared to that coming from the sun (the heat from the sun is 5000 times as much as from inside the Earth).

Tim, I am sure you are aware of the 'hot dry rocks' drilling programmes which are looking at ways to harness energy from heat at relatively shallow depths (hundreds of metres) in on land areas of high geothermal gradient. Australian companies are well advanced in research in this field.

Shallow magma chambers such as those feeding the Gakkel ridge are not dissimilar to these areas but they have even higher geothermal gradients with much warmer rocks which are much closer to and extruding onto the sea floor. (we cant harness this energy because it is beneath many hundreds of metres of water and ice). If you have been to Rotorua in NZ then this would be similar to the geothermal gradient at Gakkel, although Rotorua is very much smaller than most spreading ridges.

Gakkel has large volumes of shallow magma close to the sea floor and new molten crust has been shown to be recently forming there at/or close to the seawater interface - this is fact!

There is good reasoning to suggest that warming of cold arctic waters will occur - not unlike a small candle beneath a large pot of cold water and ice - after some time the water and ice in it will melt. The ratio of candle power to water volume can be very small and still show a very significant warming. This has nothing much to do with the sun.

"You can pick any number of time periods within the last 30 years where the temperatures appeared to "plateau."
Posted by: cce | November 27, 2007 2:19 PM
#14Never mind plateauing, the temperature clearly dropped between 1980 and 1985. Global warming stopped in 1980!
Posted by: Mark Hadfield | November 27, 2007 2:45 PM "

Indeed. It appears global warming can't be much of a problem, since it has obviously stopped numerous times, every few years.

"Also, why is the lower stratosphere cooling, and why doesn't that show that we're experiencing "global cooling"? "

Simply, what stays down doesn't go up; if the heat is being trapped near the surface, then it's cooler further up. Similarly to the observation that, if your hot water heater has better insulation, then the outside is cooler.

"Plots of satellite derived temperatures (as seasonally adjusted from Scripps) and carbon dioxide increases over the last 10 years are given at http://icecap.us/images/uploads/GLOBAL.doc. There is absolutely NO CORRELATION "

As we've been told repeatedly by those debunkers who "discovered" the great truth and with to enlighten us, it's relatively obvious that each increment of CO2 is going to bring about diminishing returns, and the relationship will be logarithmic. As the IPCC pointed out in its first report.

" If this is the case then why didn't we have a much hotter planet when atmosphere CO2 levels were around 2,000ppm?"

You mean like at the beginning of the Carboniferous era, when the mean temp was like 10 degrees fahrenheit warmer than it was at the end, when the CO2 level was down to 300 and the temperature was about what it is now??

Why do I always end up wondering why the people debating greenhouse effect are living on the same planet as I am?

While I'm on the subject of am I on the wrong planet, is it not the case that the famous "debunking" of the famous "hockey stick" actually applies only to the analysis that shows a statistically significant change in slope at the corner, and not the data behind the graph itself? In which case, I am still free to look at the graph and marvel at how it obviously kicks up at the end, even if it has not been demonstrated that we are "forced to reject the null hypothesis"? I thought that it was pretty much universally understood that that did not mean that we were forced to accept the null hypothesis. Am I really on the wrong planet with this?

Lance:

1) What evidence would demonstrate that anthropogenic CO2 is going to warm the atmosphere by more than 2 degrees C over the next century.

From observations, the sensitivity is most likely 3 deg C/doubling of CO2. So if the CO2 is increased to 560ppm (it has already been increased from 280ppm to 384ppm) then the warming will most probably be 3 deg C. This ignores the other greenhouse gases and other forcings.

I would have thought someone who's spent a significant amount of time arguing about global warming would be familiar with facts like this but perhaps he's just disingenuous.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 30 Nov 2007 #permalink

"Have you considered for a millisecond that all of the IPCC reports are the most thoroughly peer-reviewed documents in scientific history?"

Other than the McKitrick and Michaels economic signal radians to degrees paper, of course.

"The difference in melting between the North and South poles is simple: there is a fucking continent at the South pole. This has a huge effect. "

And also: the North Pole is warmer than the South Pole, thus is going to melt first even if there weren't a differential in heating due to ocean currents.

after some time the water and ice in it will melt...

After arguing for some time that subsea eruptions might be responsible for the observed artic sea ice melting, IanP retreats to saying "after some time ..."

But without giving up his claim that "after some time" was really "some time ago".

"then the warming will most probably be 3 deg C"

BTW, in case it's not obvious, this refers to total ultimate warming from a doubling of CO2. The transient warming over the 21st century, besides being dependent on the actual CO2 level reached, also depends on the inertia in the climate system. Bear in mind that the warming rate at the moment (14 year average) is about 2 deg C/century.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 30 Nov 2007 #permalink

Good point dhogaza! Indeed the graph kindly supplied by Luminous Beauty (#120) shows a time lag. Volcanoes were erupting lava onto the seafloor in 1999 and it took several years before a significant change in the melt of the arctic ice was noticed. By 2004 melting had alarmingly accelerated.

Other than the McKitrick and Michaels economic signal radians to degrees paper, of course.

Odd, isn't it, that they don't tout the value of peer-review "auditing", when it comes to one of their gaffs?

Good point dhogaza! Indeed the graph kindly supplied by Luminous Beauty (#120) shows a time lag. Volcanoes were erupting lava onto the seafloor in 1999 and it took several years before a significant change in the melt of the arctic ice was noticed. By 2004 melting had alarmingly accelerated.

Dude - correlation does not prove causation.

Restate this in the following sentence: "non-correlation does not prove..."

"Restructuring the world's energy economy is a bit more expensive."

Ah yes, if we could only get past this global warming bugaboo, fossil fuels offer the promise of unlimited safe, clean power forever, and at ever-declining prices due to the unlimited supply, gladly provided by the cheerful little brown people who realize that their only purpose on earth is to provide the superior white people's culture lowcost access to their one and only natural resource. It would be too expensive to spend less on energy.

"1) What evidence would demonstrate that anthropogenic CO2 is going to warm the atmosphere by more than 2 degrees C over the next century.
2) What evidence indicates that the consequences of that warming would be so bad as to justify the costs of mitigating the projected CO2 emissions?
Both answers are lengthy and nuanced. If you are really interested I will elaborate. If this is just an attempt to lure me out of the bushes for a quick rhetorical beating I'll pass."

No no no! In all seriousness, whenever I see the hoary cliche "global warming is unproved, evidence is insufficient" etc. I always point out that post hoc decisions regarding proof are not acceptable, a priori specification of what evidence will be considered convincing is the way to go, and ask them what evidence would they consider conclusive, but reply never comes. But that's always the obviously mindless parrots, and it is clear that you got more on the ball, so I for one would be more than happy to see an answer (to question #1, at least. As everybody points out, question #2 gets into some bigger issues, but that would be OK too).

I would take those actions that make sense on their own virtue, such as energy conservation and investment in alternative fuels research.

that is what is being done. you must be a staunch supporter of the Kyoto protocol!

Also I try to avoid gross overstatements like "...agreement of basically all scientists in the field world wide."

you have doubts about the consensus of the IPCC you do not believe in the consensus among national panels.
so my simple question again:

what would convince you?

1) What evidence would demonstrate that anthropogenic CO2 is going to warm the atmosphere by more than 2 degrees C over the next century.

and again, you are raising the bar! so 2°C is basically not a significant increase? you might want to discuss this subject with people, who are stretched by lack of water and drought/heat even without that increase!

2) What evidence indicates that the consequences of that warming would be so bad as to justify the costs of mitigating the projected CO2 emissions?

let me repeat my question again:

what is a "disastrous change to climate"?
you brought it up. you surely know what you were speaking about?

Both answers are lengthy and nuanced. If you are really interested I will elaborate. If this is just an attempt to lure me out of the bushes for a quick rhetorical beating I'll pass. The ball is in your court.

and i will pass on lengthy explanations on stuff that i am not interested in. here is what started our discussion:

I have not yet seen evidence that conclusively supports the hypothesis that anthropgenic CO2 is likely to cause a disastrous change in climate over the next century.

please explain what you were trying to say, and don t constantly bring up new stuff!

Lance, OK, let us be civil. But as I said yesterday, nothing I say, nor the huge volumes of empirical evidence that has accrued showing that humanity and nature are on a collision course, appear to register with you. Dano, JB, Ian Gould, Sod, DHogaza, Chris O'Neill, Eli, etc. have written some pretty outstanding posts on the causes and consequences of climate change. I have added that humans are altering and simplifying natural systems in a myriad of other ways. There will be (and are already) consequences. Increased incidences of extreme weather events are one. The loss of critical ecosystem services is another. We know that extinction rates are probably higher now than in 65 million years. Fish populations in the productive (green) seas are down by 90% in only a few decades. Humans are influencing largely deterministic cycles of carbon, nitrogen etc. Our species is depleting deep, rich agricultural soils in decades whereas they take thousands of years to accumulate. Again, there are volumes of empirical evidence for these examples. We are spending natural capital like there is no tomorrow. What you are saying is that we should not change anything yet. In essence, your conservative strategy is to sit and wait until the engine of humanity goes over the cliff. I say that this is the sprint of folly; utterly fatuous. When the Union of Concerned Scientists published the 'World Scientists Warning to Humanity' in 1992, essentially pointing out what I have written here, they were not joking. The document was authorized by most of the National Academies of Science in the world, as well being signed by 70% of the living Nobel Laureates (at the time). It makes pretty heavy reading. My view is that we should be doing as much as possible to avoid the collision course human activities are threatening to bring about.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 01 Dec 2007 #permalink

But as I said yesterday, nothing I say, nor the huge volumes of empirical evidence that has accrued showing that humanity and nature are on a collision course, appear to register with you

Well, look, Lance is a physics PhD dropout, and therefore well-qualified to point out that the entire body of work by conservation biologists, population ecologists, climate scientists, etc is wrong, wrong, wrong!

Such genius is only found perhaps once every few centuries. Loser scientists like yourself, with only 20 years experience in your field, should bow down and acknowledge lance's superior knowledge and abilities.

Science as we know it has been overturned. Deal!

As to those things lance hasn't personally disproven, well, we have a bunch of people who know how to use digital cameras. They'll overturn what's left of our pathetic commie-based leftist science before you can say "cheese!"

Lance said: "I have not yet seen evidence that conclusively supports the hypothesis that anthropogenic CO2 is likely to cause a disastrous change in climate over the next century".

Given that such a "hypothesis" [sic] is not falsifiable, since "disastrous" is a subjective term, it has no scientific value.

dhogaza,

If Lance is a Ph.D. dropout, then judging solely on his apparent grasp of physical principles and mathematical reasoning, it's because our unacknowledged budding genius hasn't completed an associate degree in Physics.

I would infer the financial excuse is a bit of face-saving rationalization.

By luminous beauty (not verified) on 01 Dec 2007 #permalink

Dropping out of a Ph.D. program in physics is generally considered a sign of intelligence by those of us who have completed them. Eli may have to reconsider.

Actually, Eli, the smartest ones are those who have steered clear of physics as a profession in the first place.

By and large, two types of people* are attracted to physics: genius wannabes and Jesus wannabes.

*We won't count the actual geniuses (Einstein, Feynman, Bethe, Newton) because they make up an exceedingly small percentage.

IanP #75 said: "As carbon dioxide dissolves in sea water, an EQUILIBRIUM is established involving the carbonate ion, CO32¯. The carbonate anion interacts with cations in seawater. According to the solubility rules, "all carbonates are insoluble except those of ammonium and Group IA elements." Therefore, the carbonate ions cause the precipitation of certain ions. For example, Ca2+ and Mg2+ ions precipitate from large bodies of water as carbonates. For CaCO3, the value of Ksp is 5 à 10¯9, and for MgCO3, Ksp is 2 à 10¯3. Extensive deposits of limestone (CaCO3) and dolomite (mixed CaCO3 and MgCO3) have been formed this way".

I'm afraid his chemistry is wrong. As carbon dioxide dissolves in sea-water the major ion (by a large margin) is bi-carbonate, not carbonate. Calcium bi-carbonate is very soluble in water (approx. 16%) so the solubility limit is never reached.

The reason for the carbonate deposits (reefs etc) is through biological action, not simple chemistry.

By Ian Forrester (not verified) on 01 Dec 2007 #permalink

I would infer the financial excuse is a bit of face-saving rationalization.

Well, given that my younger friends enrolled in PhD programs in math, linguistics, or computer science all have funding ... the thought did cross my mind, too :)

OK, they do a little tutoring to help make ends meet, too, but I can't think of one person I know who's dropped out of a PhD program for financial reasons ...

Thanks Mr Forrester, I stand corrected - a typo on my part.

But back to the Gakkel volcanic activity.... It seems to me that nobody has much comment on this idea.

I believe that high geothermal gradients caused by a relatively shallow magma rising within the mantle and partly extending into the crust with some volcanic extrusion at the sea floor contributes to the decline in polar ice. If you assume that the water temperatures beneath the polar ice and in the water above this chamber are approximately 0 degrees centigrade (say 0.5-1 degrees) then a very small amount of heating (say 0.05 degrees) will heat the water plus 10% above normal. Water temperature studies over similar spreading centre volcanic systems at much lower latitudes and where average water temperatures are much higher (10-15 degrees centigrade) have detected warming water. The effects of the high geothermal gradients in these areas may not be so pronounced (commonly less than 1% increase) and in many cases they are not able to be measured accurately by current methods (water depth above these centres is often many hundreds of metres).

I have been offered the comment above that the polar ice is melting from the surface and so what happens in the water beneath the polar icecap is irrelevant. I dont accept this - but I can find no records that indicate that there is polar ice melting at the ice - water interface. Common sence would suggest that there is.
Surely the reader physics scholars among you can give me some more feedback!

But back to the Gakkel volcanic activity.... It seems to me that nobody has much comment on this idea.

How could this possibly have been responsible for the record low ice on the East Siberian Sea and the North-west Passage, McClure Strait being ice-free in particular? Is the whole of the Arctic underlain with volcanic activity?

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 01 Dec 2007 #permalink

Chris,

Don't bother. I've tried to get IanP to explain why the ice directly over the Gakkel Ridge hasn't melted, but it doesn't seem to be a problem for him.

IanP,

You want some feedback? Here goes.

Whether you want to admit it or not, your speculative hypothesis doesn't bear the least bit of scrutiny. It's pure crap. Go out. Get drunk. Get laid. Get some distance. Get your mind off this and on to something fruitful. You are becoming obsessed.

Come back when you've had a chance to think things through, rationally.

By luminous beauty (not verified) on 01 Dec 2007 #permalink

Come back when you've had a chance to think things through, rationally.

Those who push forward crankpot speculation aren't rational, so don't get your hopes up.

Not to mention CRACKPOT ones :)

Hi all

I thought E&E had no pulling power, stuffed the ole HS up did it not.....

Regards from a NON WARMING NEW ZEALAND
Peter Bickle

By Peter Bickle (not verified) on 01 Dec 2007 #permalink

Regards from a NON WARMING NEW ZEALAND

Lucky you.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 01 Dec 2007 #permalink

IanP: a further regarding your volcanic warming theory.

Pools of meltwater can be seen on top of the Greenland icecap (and elsewhere) and are large enough to be seen from orbit.

That would seem to be pretty definitive proof that they're melting from the top down not from the bottom up.

By Ian Gould (not verified) on 02 Dec 2007 #permalink

Chris O'Neill asks: "Is the whole of the Arctic underlain with volcanic activity?"

No, but if I am not mistaken, it's waste heat from the submarine nookyaler reactors that is responsible. I have calculated the total waste heat produced by the US and Russian fleets and the melting is commensurate with this.

As the ice sheet grows smaller, the problem becomes exacerbated (and worse, too), since there is a smaller area under which the subs must congregate.

I suspect that when the ice sheet is at a critical size, the whole thing will disappear in a puff of steam. I have modeled this and named the critical point the "steam puff collapse".

By my calculations, it will occur some time in the next two decades. At that point, the subs will have nowhere to hide and will have to adopt other measures -- eg. towing around huge barges painted the color of ice bergs, which would also be good for the polar bears.

IanP @ 207 says:

If you assume that the water temperatures beneath the polar ice and in the water above this chamber are approximately 0 degrees centigrade (say 0.5-1 degrees) then a very small amount of heating (say 0.05 degrees) will heat the water plus 10% above normal.

"10%"? 10% of what?
I'm really enjoying this. It's almost as good as radians versus degrees.

By Nick Barnes (not verified) on 02 Dec 2007 #permalink

Chris #208. I agree that the areas to which you refer are melting due to the warming air temperatures over the last few centuries and that this warming has lead to arctic ice melting, ice loss from Siberian sea, NW passage etc etc. What I am proposing is that the problem has been recently enhanced by increased intrusive activity along a spreading ridge, an axis of high sea floor geothermal gradients, intrusives and volcanic flows. We cannot measure the thickness, or idealy changes in thickness of the ice sheet above or in the vicinity of Gakkel so I am not clear just how much melting is also occuring from any warming effect of the Gakkel area.

Of course ice melt due to inceased air temperatures at the ice - air surface is occuring - we can see that from space as Luminous Beauty points out or from the numerous observations but I am suggesting that the dramatic decrease in ice which seems to have started early this century (see previous graph) reflects an additional heating - possibly by the process which I have outlined.

I am not obsessed or a crackpot as some of your posters seem to think. If you discuss my ideas with geophysists trained in sea floor spreading/oceanic intrusives and crust/mantle composition you will find that I have made some plausible observations.

Dano, Boris, et al. Indeed, we should do better than that, really. Maybe even macros. But in any event, make a list of answers on RealClimate, Logical Science, etc. - Open Mind, Colby Beck, DeSmog Blog. And just say, asked and answered.

Then they'll just say any and all sources are nonsensical liars.

If you stand way, way back you'll find that the targeting goes in phases - first they attacked the very notion of a consensus. Then they attacked peer review. Now, they attack data.

And if you take away data gathering, a consensus on what the data gathered means, and peer review, absolutely nothing whatsoever is left of science. And that's the big picture.

By Marion Delgado (not verified) on 02 Dec 2007 #permalink

Actually, screw all you guys. I just realized where the "greener planet" is in terms of MY BANK ACCOUNT!

I am joining the skeptics as of now. Lance, ben, etc., read this carefully. You are absolutely correct about the dishonesty of that cherrypicked thing the so-called line of best fit aka straight line approximation (how can something so crooked be called "straight"). Guess what? (And I want you to pick this up and run with it).

THE BEST FIT TO ANY DATA IS THE DATA ITSELF. To accept any less, especially from the people who gather, and hence control the data itself, is to invite abuse.

So just memorize that. The best fit to the data IS the data itself! We can win this and defeat Globe-Al Hot Air Warming.

By Marion Delgado (not verified) on 02 Dec 2007 #permalink

Of course ice melt due to inceased air temperatures at the ice - air surface is occuring - we can see that from space as Luminous Beauty points out or from the numerous observations but I am suggesting that the dramatic decrease in ice which seems to have started early this century (see previous graph) reflects an additional heating - possibly by the process which I have outlined.

Since this is a reasonable WAG, almost*, it deserves a reply (finally). No, not heating, no, not the decrease in ice, but

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/11/071113200545.htm

some of the changes in the Arctic Ocean may be cyclical, while still influenced by AGW. a spiral rather than an upslope.

*Since there's no precipitating reason for wild-ass-guessing to begin with.

By Marion Delgado (not verified) on 02 Dec 2007 #permalink

I agree that the areas to which you refer are melting due to the warming air temperatures over the last few centuries

Agree with who? I wasn't talking about the last few centuries.

I am not obsessed or a crackpot

Gee I wonder if crackpots say they're not crackpots? Yeah that's a hard one.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 03 Dec 2007 #permalink

Many posts since my last one Friday I see,

I will try to at least answer the thoughtful ones.

Ian Forrester,

You have overstated the findings of the ACEX study. If you go past the press release and main web page to the actual study results you will find the following in the abstract,

"Initial offshore results, based on analysis of core catcher sediments, demonstrate that biogenic carbonate only occurs in the Holocene-Pleistocene interval. The upper ~170 m represents a record of the past ~15 m.y. composed of sediment with ice-rafted sediment and occasional small pebbles, suggesting that ice-covered conditions extended at least this far back in time. Details of the ice cover, timing, and characteristics (e.g., perennial vs. seasonal) await further study."

So it would appear that your claim that this study disputes ice free summer Arctic Ocean conditions in the Holocene is incorrect. (Note to others: Notice I didn't call Ian a liar or delusional nor did I impugn his motivation or intellect.)

As to my "dropout" status, I am continuing to teach evening classes and work on my research project. I am not a "traditional" student so a recent divorce means I have to pay the mortgage etc.

It is disappointing, but not surprising, that my candor regarding my educational status has been used to disparage me. Although I do find Eli and JB's remarks about physics PhD's amusing.

JB,

I agree that terms such as disastrous, dangerous and catastrophic, when used in conjunction with climate change, are subjective. However, I am not the one that has injected these emotional terms into the discussion. Such hyperbole is the currency of folks like Al Gore, Greenpeace, Environmental Defense and other climate alarmists that have driven the media frenzy on the subject.

I see little evidence that the 0.6 C warming of the last century has caused any great calamity or is beyond what might be expected from natural climate variability. The "steep linear trend" that Tim points to in the satellite record has all of a 0.178 degree C / decade signal. If extrapolated to the end of the century, and there is no reason to believe that this particular upward trend would continue, it would amount to all of 1.78 C for the entire century. Hardly the stuff of catastrophe.

The "steep linear trend" that Tim points to in the satellite record has all of a 0.178 degree C / decade signal. If extrapolated to the end of the century, and there is no reason to believe that this particular upward trend would continue, it would amount to all of 1.78 C for the entire century. Hardly the stuff of catastrophe.

Consider the end of the last ice age. Global temperatures rose by roughly 5C over 5,000 years. This is considered rapid climate change. It changed the face of the planet, and it did so at a rate of temp change of a mere 0.01C per decade. I leave it for the reader to compare the current and historic rates of change and determine just how "steep" the current trend is.

Gareth,

You are assuming that the "trend" of the last thirty years is going to continue. Need I point out that you have no idea what trajectory the next thirty years will produce. The last ten have certainly not indicated an upward trend.

Lance, you are obviously not interested in trying to really understand the science behind AGW. I find that surprising for some one who has stated that they are a graduate student in a scientific discipline. You are only showing your biases and lack of respect for honest scientists when you choose to believe the work of an unqualified (unqualified in paleo-climatology at least) scientist whose work is linked to a known anti-AGW website and published in a truly disreputable journal. But that is your decision to make.

However, if you think that some one can tell the whole history of ice cover in the Arctic Ocean by finding a few burned up branches on a beach then I think you have made the right decision in not furthering your graduate studies in the sciences, perhaps the fine arts might be more appropriate, they are always looking for people with vivid imaginations.

As for your comments about CO2 and temperature, you are even more ignorant of the science than I at first thought or you are simply lying. No-one can have studied even first or second year physics or chemistry without being aware of the IR absorption properties of compounds, especially C=O bonds.

By Ian Forrester (not verified) on 03 Dec 2007 #permalink

Jeff Harvey,

I'm glad to hear you wish to keep things civil. I actually think we don't disagree on that much when it comes to the consequences of human interaction with the biosphere. You say,

"I have added that humans are altering and simplifying natural systems in a myriad of other ways."

I have never argued about the "other ways". As I have said my main disagreement with you is whether anthropogenic CO2 is the bogey man some claim. Your reference to "an increase in extreme weather events" is not empirically demonstrable, as the two most recent historically inactive hurricane seasons can attest.

You then reference The Union of Concerned Scientists. This is a political organization. In 1998, for instance, UCS assured the public that American analysts had exaggerated North Korea's ability to produce nuclear weapons, and that the Pyongyang regime was still many years away from being able to develop such an arsenal. Needless to say they were wrong. Their statements, as to North Korea's nuclear weapons program, were clearly based more on political ideology than empirical science.

I am very uncomfortable when any group that ostensibly claims to be scientific in nature uses that mantle to advance their political agenda, even when I agree with much of that agenda. The UCS clearly falls into this category, as does Environmental Defense.

I am distressed that two people that share similar views on environmental issues could be placed in adversarial positions. I think it is a sad commentary on the divisiveness that is generated by groups and individuals that have used AGW as a wedge to further their political goals.

Ian Forrester,

I notice you completely ignored the fact that the ACEX study you claimed as evidence that the Arctic Ocean hadn't been ice free in tens of millions of years makes no such claim. This is disappointing, since I took the time to find the study that your link eventually leads to and quote from its abstract. Had you not read the paper you claimed proved your point?

Then you make a series of childish remarks about (one of the many) "peer reviewed" scientific studies that support the idea of ice free Arctic Ocean summers in the Holocene presented in Pielke's article. Apparently peer review is only to be trumpeted as the mark of sacred text when the conclusion of the paper is to your liking.

Then to top of your little harangue you attack me personally. What exactly did you expect this to accomplish?

Lance, I am not trying to accomplish anything. You are doing a very good job all by yourself. You try to tell us that you are a scientist then you show by your comments that you do not even understand some very basic principles. That to me shows that you are just on this blog as a troll, not some one who has any thing of substance to offer, or some one who knows of their limitations and is seeking information.

As I said above, if you want to believe in burnt up branches (do you also look into the entrails of dead sheep - oh sorry you are not a biologist), then that to me is not rigorous science. The branches could have been carried on top of the ice, did you never think of that possibility?

As I said earlier you would be better suited to fine arts.

By Ian Forrester (not verified) on 03 Dec 2007 #permalink

Dear IanP skeptics,

Just as an example of the effect of relatively small, recent volcanic eruptions under ice you should take a read of the account of the 1999 eruption in Iceland in the NY times ...

"In 1996, an eruption beneath the Vatnajokull ice cap, Europe's largest ice mass, led to a jokulhlaup that forced sediment, meltwater and ice out along the 12-mile stretch of the glacier's edge. The flow of water out of the glacier created a river to rival the Amazon in size..." www.nytimes.com/2006/01/17/science/17ice/.html

I would be very surprised if this water wasn't a tad warmer than the seawaters surrounding Iceland. I'd also be surprised if this event didn't lead to a significant melting and weakening of the Vatnajokulull ice cap.

This account (and many others if you care to take a look) obviously refers to an on-land eruption which is more easily observed than the volcanic eruptions and intrusive activity beneath many hundreds of metres of Arctic ice and water such as at Gakkel.

I'm off to bed. Anyone checked IanP out on the crank scale?

The last ten have certainly not indicated an upward trend.

Why, oh why, does lance cherry-pick 1998 as the start point once again when *everyone* here knows it's a cherry-pick, and *everyone* knows that cherry-picking data is dishonest.

Thanks Guthrie - sleep well! If you want some bedtime reading try this from an Iceland website promo 'Iceland on the Web'... I could give you plenty of scientific studies but I fear they may contain words that are too long for you!

http://iceland.vefur.is/iceland_nature/Glaciers-in-Iceland/vatnajokull…

This includes some nice lines e.g. ...."The study of volcanoes, especially active ones, located under glaciers, or "glacivulcanology", if not already an area of study, should become one in the future, in order to unlock more of the secrets of our planet. Undoubtedly, anything learned from the Vatnajokull incident and others like it can be applied to other fields..."

in 216, Nick points out:

------
IanP @ 207 says:

>If you assume that the water temperatures beneath the polar ice and in the water above this chamber are approximately 0 degrees centigrade (say 0.5-1 degrees) then a very small amount of heating (say 0.05 degrees) will heat the water plus 10% above normal.

"10%"? 10% of what? I'm really enjoying this. It's almost as good as radians versus degrees.
------

ummm... no wonder IanP doesn't see that there are major quantitative holes in his argument - he doesn't understand 'quantitative'.

Thanks Guthrie - sleep well! If you want some bedtime reading try this from an Iceland website promo 'Iceland on the Web'... I could give you plenty of scientific studies but I fear they may contain words that are too long for you!

Iceland is a volcanic island, therefore artic ice melt is due to sea-floor spreading that has not been measured by the scientific community.

This is your logic?

Dhogaza,

Yes, Iceland is a volcanic island and it has many active volcanoes. It is a VERY small portion of the Mid Atlantic Ridge a sea floor spreading volcanic centre not unlike the Gakkel ridge. The only reason we know the extent of the volcanic activity on this small portion of the mid Atlantic ridge is because it is ABOVE sea level and visible. The remainder of the mid Atlantic Ridge (many thousands of kilometres of volcanic activity) and ALL of the Gakkel Ridge, which is very similar to the Mid Atlantic Ridge, are under many hundreds of metres of water and ice cover. That is why we cannot measure and easily record volcanic eruptions at Gakkel.

My logic is .... there are active volcanoes spread along the Gakkel ridge which has a length of around 2,000km and which is covered by over 1,000m of water and ice. Surely significant Gakkel volcanic activity (like that on Iceland and undoubtedly along considerable lengths of these submerged active volcanic ridges) will have some consequences to the Arctic ice cap?

" "In 1996, an eruption beneath the Vatnajokull ice cap, Europe's largest ice mass, led to a jokulhlaup that forced sediment, meltwater and ice out along the 12-mile stretch of the glacier's edge. The flow of water out of the glacier created a river to rival the Amazon in size..." www.nytimes.com/2006/01/17/science/17ice/.html

I would be very surprised if this water wasn't a tad warmer than the seawaters surrounding Iceland. I'd also be surprised if this event didn't lead to a significant melting and weakening of the Vatnajokulull ice cap."

Actually Ian P in the absence of any proof that this volcanic event DID result in any significant warming of the ocean around Iceland I'd say it's an argument against, rather than in favor of your argument about the Gakkels.

Anyone want to find maps of ocean temperatures in the Atlantic in 1999?

By Ian Gould (not verified) on 03 Dec 2007 #permalink

IanP, here's why you sound like a crank: you have an idea that you push in spite of (a) lacking evidence in favor of it, and (b) being provided with evidence against it. (Providing reasons why your idea is possible is not the same as providing supporting evidence.)

A simple thought experiment: it requires much less energy to heat a given volume of air (at one atmosphere) than it does to heat the same volume of water.

If sub-ocean volcanoes are having a significant impact on climate over a radius of hundreds of kilometres, terrestrial volcanoes should be having a much greater impact on temperatures over a much larger area.

Anyone aware of any evidence that this is the case?

By Ian Gould (not verified) on 03 Dec 2007 #permalink

Gouldichops asks:

Anyone aware of any evidence that this is the case?

Didn't Mt. St Helens(?)have an effect on global temps in the 70's when it blew up?

Rabbet:

You're the gas guru and historian around these parts. You know, don't you?

Anyone want to find maps of ocean temperatures in the Atlantic in 1999?

Don't be so lazy and find out for for the rest of us as w're waiting with baited breath. And no cribbing either.

"Didn't Mt. St Helens(?)have an effect on global temps in the 70's when it blew up?"

It had a COOLING effect because of all the dust it added to the atmosphere.

By Ian Gould (not verified) on 04 Dec 2007 #permalink

So Gouldmeister, you argue it had a cooling effect. In other words the blow up actually did affect the temps around the globe. Why do you thinking seeping wouldn't have any effect in the relatively localized area like the pole if there is massive seepage? The effect in terms of the air and water is different in that volcanic gunk coming out in the water would tend to heat it.

By the way I can't remember if it was Helens or some other pimple that blew its top.

thanks Eli.

I'm not sure which one did it's thing in the 70's but a big blow up was blamed for the cooling after.

"Why do you thinking seeping wouldn't have any effect in the relatively localized area like the pole if there is massive seepage?"

First, the pole isn;t "relatively localised". second there's absolutely no evidence, so far as I know, for a localised warming effect around volcanoes because, say, 10 kilometres.

The two mechanisms (cooling by blocking sunlight and warming by direct heat transfer) are totally different. To comapre the two is like arguing because Hitler killed millions of people he should have been able to knock out Ali at his prime.)

By Ian Gould (not verified) on 04 Dec 2007 #permalink

"I'm not sure which one did it's thing in the 70's but a big blow up was blamed for the cooling after."

THat would have been Mt. Pinatubo in the Philipines.

By Ian Gould (not verified) on 04 Dec 2007 #permalink

JC,

Mt St. Helens erupted phreatically in May, 1980 (not in the 1970s). As Eli said, the blast was laternal. When Mt. Tambora, in Sumbawa erupted in 1815 (perhaps the biggest eruption in recorded history), it led to quite cold summers in the northern hemisphere the following year. The most important point is that cataclysmic eruptions, most recently like Pinatubo's in 1991, do generate cooling but only for a very short time.

Let's be honest here: don't the sceptics posting here think that the scientific community has actually considered IanPs banal point re: the hypothetical influence of rift volcanism on the declining extent of Arctic ice? Like, hey, it bemuses me how a few armchair AGW sceptics drop ideas here as if they've hit on something new that thousands of climate scientists doing research haven't considered.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 04 Dec 2007 #permalink

So,lt me get this straight. Large terrestrial volcaninc eruptions are known to have caused short-term, 1-3 year global cooling via aerosol and particulate mechanisms.

And this is evidence that mid-arctic-ocean eruption events with no observed change in their behavior over time (hell, with almost no observations, period) release sufficient direct heat (that's a lot of unobserved heat!) to cause a hypothetical and unobserved oceanic warming across the entire arctic ocean, and thus lead to declines in ice cover, except over the spreading center itself, where somehow that massive heat release somehow leaves the ice cover minimally changed.

Is that about it?

I'm enjoying this, actually. Better than Comedy Central. This is every bit as good as calculating percent temperature changes from a '0C' starting point.

Let's be honest here: don't the sceptics posting here think that the scientific community has actually considered IanPs banal point...

You might be a crank if ... you come up with an obvious idea and imagine that thousands of specialists working in the field haven't thought of it.

Well, it does seem reasonable to assume that some of those thousands of specialists will have thought of IanP's pet idea. But - and not wishing to be crank shafted here, guys - unless having thought of it, they then did a few quick calculations & concluded it was nonsensical (which may be the case), then there should be a report or a paper somewhere. Maybe a little searching would set Ian's mind at rest and allow him to move on to some other novel explanation.

gp: There would be no need for publication. This is a classic back of envelope calculation.

One needs to quantify the energy released, volume of water affected, and consider the effect of thermoclines and haloclines in the distribution of energy through the aquatic system.

Convection is more efficient that conduction, given that we are discussing eruptions 1,000 meters deep (e.g. well beneath the halocline and thermoclime), the immediate warming effect is likely limited to the volume known as artic bottom water through convection, and is unlikely to be transferred to the surface water via conduction.

Mike

Jeff H (for whose comments I have great respect) states:
"Mt St. Helens erupted phreatically in May, 1980"

Hmmm...from my reading of Francis & Oppenheimer (2004) St Helen's had a seismic, not a phreatic (steam explosion) trigger, whose underlying cause was a mass of ascending magma 2km below the surface. Or is this just another of those "the tyranny of consensus" issues?

At last I have some thought on this. Yes gp (#252), contrary to Hr Harvey (#249) and dhogoza (#251) I can find no references to "thousands of specialists" let alone any having considered this as an incremental factor to explain some of the rapid decline in Arctic ice.

Hugh (#254) makes an excellent comment in that St Helens had a magma chamber 2km below the surface. The volcanoes at Gakkel, like St Helens and Iceland have considerable sized magma chambers beneath them at shallow crustal levels. These do contribute heat to overlying crust as well as overlying water and ice in the case for Gakkel (see my comments on geothermal gradients in previous posts). As magma ascends this heating is enhanced in the crust and we can observe some effects of this with corresponding volcanic eruptions. It is not silly to assume that the water above this magma and surrounding the sea floor eruptions (which are associated with the magma rise) are causing the water to warm. To my knowledge there have been no significant studies to quantify this.

Incidentally, the cooling you refer to following subareal eruptions is mostly caused by fine ash in the atmosphere and has little comparison to sea floor eruptions which tend to be less violent in character due to water pressure and other factors.

Lance said: "I am not the one that has injected these emotional terms into the discussion."

Yes, you did and you're now trying to change the subject. The fact is, your statement (which seemed to come out of the Andromeda Galaxy or somewhere thereabouts) "I have not yet seen evidence that conclusively supports the hypothesis that anthropogenic CO2 is likely to cause a disastrous change in climate over the next century" is utterly vacuous.

Lance also said: "The last ten [years] have certainly not indicated an upward trend."

Ah, yes, the "Global warming stopped in 98" mantra.

We know it well.

Too bad it ain't so.

It turns out that even if one includes the peak year of the El Nino (in 1998), there is still a statistically significant warming trend since using either GISTEMP and HadCRU data)

Hugh--USGS has Mt St. Helens as phreatic type eruption. Whose consensus?

IanP--I think you do not consider the effect of the rate of heat transfer between the magma bodies, the bottom water, and the surface water upon which the ice rests in your WAG. Each zone requires conduction as the primary mechanism of heat transfer. I suspect you have conceptualized the process as catastrophic, rather than as gradualistic; and have not considered the rate of radiative heat loss.

Mike

Mike (#253) "One needs to quantify the energy released, volume of water affected, and consider the effect of thermoclines and haloclines in the distribution of energy through the aquatic system."

Yes, 'back of the envelope' calculations show that this is a valid mechanism for slight warming of the close-to-freezing water near the sea floor. This is unlikely to be an instantaneous effect but accrued over many years by the persistence of underlying magma chamber with dimensions of many tens of kilometres. Sure, there will be some amount of insulation by the overlying cold water and ice column as well as the Gakkel ocean crust. The bottom cold water may be without significant current movement to transfer the heat appreciably. Perhaps the heat gradient will also affect sea currents.

IanP said: "The bottom cold water may be without significant current movement to transfer the heat appreciably. Perhaps the heat gradient will also affect sea currents."

No sale, this is contrary to basic physical science and observation. The mechanism is convection, and it would apply in this case. Convective heat transfer would be limited to the bottom water. Ocean currents do not occur in the bottom water, but in zone above the thermocline/halocline. The ocean is stratified by density/temperature.

Let's see your back of the envelope calculation.

Mike

Mike, I'm not an expert in this field but I understand that the 'permanent thermocline' refers to the thermocline not affected by the seasonal and diurnal changes in the SURFACE forcing. It is located below the yearly maximum depth of the mixed layer and the influence of the atmosphere. The 'seasonal thermocline' is not affected by the diurnal changes in the surface forcing. In general, it is established each year by heating of the surface water in the summer, and is destroyed the following winter by cooling at the surface and wind-driven mixing. The diurnal thermocline refers to the thermocline that is generally established each day by heating of the surface water and is destroyed the following night by cooling and/or mixing.

Freezing increases the salinity under the ice and the dense water sinks to the ocean floor and leaves the arctic basins to enter the Greenland and Norwegian Seas, where it mixes with water that sinks under the influence of surface cooling. The resulting water mass has a salinity of 34.95 psu and a temperature of â0.8° to â0.9°C. It fills the Arctic Ocean at all depths below 800 m (the sill depth to the Atlantic). Water enters the Atlantic in bursts, when the passage of atmospheric depressions lifts the thermocline and allows Arctic Bottom Water to flow over the sill. Overflow events in the Denmark Strait and across the Iceland-Faeroe sill contribute some 5 Sv (5 à 106 m3sâ1) to the formation of North Atlantic Deep Water.

Heat generated by an underlying mantle plume(s) at Gakkel will warm the Arctic Bottom Water.

Aren't records of Arctic ocean temperatures kept? I'd think a trend of rise in surface water temperature that doesn't follow ocean currents, or seasonal and climatic trends would get noticed. Someone would have said "Hey, the water's got warmer and it's melting the ice" long before now - and provided temperature measurements to show this is the case. That hasn't happened.

So - I want IanP to link/reference to evidence that there has been such a rise in temperature (that is inconsistent with currents, seasons and climate trends) before I take volcanism as a significant cause of Arctic sea ice loss seriously.

Besides the usual denialist starting point of ignoring and dismissing all that is known about climate, the lack of credible sources says this is straw clutching by someone who wants AGW to not be true. Like other simple single cause alternative hypotheses, this appears sound and reasonable only to the uninformed and the real mistake was to take it to a blog like this one rather than one that promotes any and all such alternatives and don't care if there's no scientific evidence.

Good point Ken. Unfortunately the water that we are considering is under ice in a very remote and difficult work area. The surface/near surface water temperatures are not of any value in this debate and I am unaware of any database of water temperatures on or near the Arctic sea floor. Does anyone have data on this?

This is kind of 'reverse' themocline. I'm sure the effects of localised heating the bottom Arctic waters will diminish with decreasing depth and they will be unlikely to be detected in the top few hundred metres. Note that the Arctic ice cap is commonly many hundreds of metres thick.

My contention is that there could be small 'melting effects' of the icecap through this underlying heat source (s) and it may contribute in a small way to the rapid decline of Arctic ice over the last few years - by weakening the icecap through melting from below.

"Good point Ken. Unfortunately the water that we are considering is under ice in a very remote and difficult work area. The surface/near surface water temperatures are not of any value in this debate and I am unaware of any database of water temperatures on or near the Arctic sea floor. Does anyone have data on this?"

But Ian, if the heat isn't being transferred to the surface, it can;t be contributing to the warming at the surface.

By Ian Gould (not verified) on 04 Dec 2007 #permalink

Ian, The heat would not be transfered to the surface ..."I'm sure the effects of localised heating the bottom Arctic waters will diminish with decreasing depth and they will be unlikely to be detected in the top few hundred metres."

This has nothing to do with global warming just the reduction in the Arctic ice which has accelerated over the last few years.

IanP, did you just say that heat that is not transfered to the surface has something to do wit ice melting at the surface?

Ian, is this part of the mechanism whereby heating of 0.5C water by 0.05C constitutes a 10% increase in temperature?

IanP, you're missing Ian G's point. If the heat isn't being transferred to the surface, then it can't be contributing to the ice reduction. The ice is at/near the surface.

IanP - Being primarily a loss of sea ice, the loss is at or near the ocean surface. With no evidence of sea temperature changes attributable to volcanism and a definite recorded trend of increasing surface air temperature you still believe (or would like to) the former and appear to disbelieve the latter as cause of sea ice depletion. Go figure.

Vacations are nice; when one catches up with a week or two of a thread, one can see the forest and not be tempted to waste time posting. From this one, I conclude:

IanP has led many on a merry chase, achieving much wasted time.

In #101, he introduces a topic, with keywords (like gakkel) easy enough to allow anybody who cares to find a lot of information fairly quick.

In #109, he uses the "I'm not an expert, please can someone knowledgable help me?" approach.

In #260, he makes detailed scientific comments that would seem to bely "I don't know much" claim. But wait, sometimes certain people quote stuff they don't understand (in an effort to seem knowledgable) without attribution. But, surely, after Tim's detective work on the Schulte plagiarism, no one would do that in Deltoid...

Oops,they would:

First paragraph of #260 is from:
http://amsglossary.allenpress.com/glossary/search?id=thermocline1

Second paragraph is from:
http://amsglossary.allenpress.com/glossary/browse?s=a&p=68
under "Arctic Bottom Water"

Good cut-and-paste!

The last sentence of #260 has to be true, but numbers matter, as Lord Kelvin sayeth:
"...when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind..."

So, vents are hot. Does the surface notice? If I jump, the Earth has to move. Does it move enough to be interesting?

A: No, although Google: worldjumpday to see an amusing attempt at geoengineering to fix global warming.

======
As it happens, it took about 10 minutes to get:

Google: gakkel ridge ocean depth heating water temperature

One of the first-page hits was a nice, short description of finding plumes from hydrothermal vents along Gakkel,with really nice charts:

http://www.earthscape.org/r1/hea01/hea01b.html

It says:
"We can "see" the plume because the particles of minerals in it scatter more light. Our instruments can measure how a beam of light is transmitted through the water. Sometimes the hydrothermal plume has a small increase in temperature over the surrounding seawater, too. It is important to realize that the hydrothermal plume is mostly seawater, so the temperature difference is very small. The plume is about a 10,000 to 1 mixture of seawater to vent water."

and

"Notice that the peaks in the temperature profile are only about 1/100 of a degree! It is much easier to spot a plume with the light-scattering sensor. Then we know where to "zoom in" on the temperature data to look for a signal."

Put another way, at 2600m deep, the max peak effect was ~.01C, and by 2300m, the effect had disappeared, being totally dominated by the normal temperature gradient (and any effects from oscillations, inflows from Atlantic, etc). To even find any temperature signal in the noise, they need to use light-scattering.

So much for that.

===
Bottom line:

a merry chase indeed, but a well-recognizable pattern.

By John Mashey (not verified) on 04 Dec 2007 #permalink

Mike
Thanks for that.

From USGS: "The climactic eruption began at 0832 PDT on May 18, probably triggered by an earthquake of magnitude 5 that caused failure of the bulging north flank as a 2.3-cubic-kilometer rockslide-avalanche. This failure rapidly unloaded the volcanic edifice, and probably caused the water in its hydrothermal system to flash to steam, initiating a series of northward-directed hydrothermal blasts that devastated an area of 600 square kilometers."

I take your point entirely but I'm sort of aware of an ongoing debate in relation to the chicken-and-egg issue of whether it was the earthquake or a phreatic explosion that actually set the thing off. I'm not sure if that's semantics or science but I find the use of the word 'probably' twice in the posted paragraph interesting.

My experience has been the dead opposite. Physics-trained friends and associates have seemed to me both more competent in assessing the structure of scientific arguments and more humble in making the assumption that people in other fields know their stuff. The ones I found to have extreme crank knowitallness, I am sorry to say, were invariably engineers, if they had any connection to science. If not, economists, either with degrees or soi-disant.

By Marion Delgado (not verified) on 04 Dec 2007 #permalink

LOL Marian.
You're the worst offender and you're accusing others of your own failings. Talk about projection. I'm picking myself up off the floor.

Gouldiechops

Rethink your reply dude in face of what i actually said rather than what you think i said or pretended I said.

IanP@262:

Note that the Arctic ice cap is commonly many hundreds of metres thick.

Bzzt. Next contestant, please.

We are talking about Arctic sea ice. Even the thick multi-year ice is only a few metres thick. It floats on the surface waters, of which you say:

The surface/near surface water temperatures are not of any value in this debate

The ice will not be melted by the water unless the water is warm.

Oh, and:

I am unaware of any database of water temperatures on or near the Arctic sea floor. Does anyone have data on this?

But in a recent post you sounded off authoritatively about the temperature and other characteristics of the Arctic Bottom Water. Where do you think those numbers came from? Of course data is gathered on the temperature and salinity of deep waters in the Arctic Ocean, just as it is in every ocean in the world. This is one of the things that the RV Polarstern does. You know, the ice-breaker research vessel. Which steams through the "hundreds of metres thick" arctic ice every summer.

The same RV Polarstern which had a full day of rain very close to the pole this summer, and spent weeks looking for sea ice floes which were large enough and thick enough to attach research buoys.

You claim to have done research on Arctic sea ice, and yet you don't know the most basic physical facts about it. You are a troll. Welcome to my killfile.

Everyone, stop feeding the troll.

By Nick Barnes (not verified) on 05 Dec 2007 #permalink

You claim to have done research on Arctic sea ice, and yet you don't know the most basic physical facts about it. You are a troll. Welcome to my killfile.

Everyone, stop feeding the troll.

The Google: alas, still no 'wisdom' button.

Best,

D

Lance said (in #223):

It is disappointing, but not surprising, that my candor regarding my educational status has been used to disparage me. Although I do find Eli and JB's remarks about physics PhD's amusing.

This is because you are working on the internet. Everyone can claim titles (or working on getting one) without others being able to verify the truth about those claims.
The result of this is that people are less (or not) impressed by that kind of argument unless it is backed up by behavior that goes with the position.
Even worse is trying to make such a claim on a blog where there is a good chance of other people having university grade titles. Because those people do know what is required to actually get said titles.
Unfortunately for you, your posts show a lack of the skills required successfully get a doctorate. It is this lack that has people laughing about your claim you are attempting to to get.

By Who Cares (not verified) on 05 Dec 2007 #permalink

More ad hom BS from an anonymous blow hard.

Who Cares, indeed.

Tim and others: I tried clicking on the graph above to get to the data, but all I get is the monthly data, and it's in some binary format that I can't read.

Does the simple ordered pair data used to plot that exact graph above exist anywhere? I'd like to plot it for myself.

Is this the data here? If so, what does one do with a binary file of type ".dat"? Neither Excel nor Matlab can do anything with these files.

More misuse of ad hom from someone with no argument.

Ad hom: your argument is wrong because you are an idiot.

NOT ad hom: your argument is wrong because of x, y, z and by the way, you are an idiot.

Best,

D

@ben:
You might want to go up a level and then select either the netcdf or uah directory. Both contain the same data, the netcdf in a self describing format and the uah in a format that can be read using the software found at http://www.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/
@Lance:
You can insult the person at the same time you deal with that persons arguments. That is not the ad hominem fallacy. You can't even get out using the 'you have a potty mouth so I win'-defense because then you implicitly concede that you have no valid point(s) to defend. That said claiming that what I say is trash by calling me names is the ad hominem fallacy.
You brought your study into this debate as an appeal to authority. I explained why that has little chance to work on a ScienceBlogs blog.
Then I explained why people are laughing about this claim.
Lets do a recap on what you have claimed and why I concluded that you are either not doing a doctorate level study or incapable of completing said study.
Around post #157 you claim this:

Though it has been mocked and disparaged by some in this discussion my training as a physicist, although not yet complete, gives me the ability to understand physical systems, evaluate data and then decide if the proposed hypothesis is supported by that data.

I replied to that in post #164 asking you why if you are capable of that didn't you notice the deficiencies in the E&E research linked or why Booker was being dishonest.Post 200,202,203,206 pick up your appeal to authority and are sarcastic about both that and the fact that you build in an escape.Like I said we cannot verify the truth about you so all we have is how you behave and you failed at skills that you should have picked up doing your master. While requiring (some of) those skills to be able to understand why Lambert objected to the way Booker behaved and criticize Lamberts post.

By Who Cares (not verified) on 05 Dec 2007 #permalink

Lance just needs to learn the difference between the ad hom fallacy and trash talkin' personal insults.

Using ad hom is a rhetorical tactic.

The smarter folk know this and use it anyway, the others are just tools when they use it.

Best,

D

Thanks for the try, who cares, but still no luck. Isn't the data available anywhere in a simple comma delimited format for us non-climate scientists or other people not used to dealing with large data sets?

As all know, I am the soul of kindness, unlike the abrupt and dismissive and snarky Dano. But I must confess, his description of what is and is not an ad hominem argument is accurate. I can only hope his regrettable sharpness will at least reinforce the point.

This despite the fact that Matt Drudge has hinted he may be a cross-dresser.*

(*Though what Matt Drudge being a cross-dresser has to do with unsound science escapes me, I do see him quoted here a lot)

By Marion Delgado (not verified) on 05 Dec 2007 #permalink

I'll answer ben's last question because I think it's of general relevance. It's really not that sort of data. It's best suited to imaging, it's stream-bit data in some cases. It's available in 3 formats, one of which is text data with positional separation. You could open that format right up in Excel or (freeware, multi-platform) OpenOffice. Just realize it's a lot of entries.

I am installing a few packages in my R to handle data import, and am working on that data as a target. R is awesome, basically a freeware version of the stastical part of mathematica, a kind of mathematic and matlab substitute. If you have that and Euler, you're good to go with a lot of science modeling. (I would also recommend python, perl, and the 3 main sqls, mysql, postgre and sqllite. The average home computer now can be quite a good research environment.

I may post something about R-importing if I get ambitious and I'll mention it on comments.

By Marion Delgado (not verified) on 05 Dec 2007 #permalink

re: #285
Marion probably knows this, but with all due respect to Wolfram & co, really, R is an offshoot, not of Mathematica, but of Bell Labs' S (John Chambers & co), whose original version was done in the mid-1970s.

S:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S_(programming_language)

R:
http://www.r-project.org/
http://www.r-project.org/contributors

Like UNIX, C, and a bunch of other things, this is one of those useful side-effect derivatives of the "good old days" when the Bell System had a nice monopoly and funded a lot of research... :-)

By John Mashey (not verified) on 05 Dec 2007 #permalink

Who Cares and Dano,

Personal insults carry no weight in any rational discussion, other than to identify those making them as acting in bad faith or having no recourse to logical constructs.

However, it is all too clear that your real aim is personal smear not meaningful dialogue.

Personal insults carry no weight in any rational discussion, other than to identify those making them as acting in bad faith or having no recourse to logical constructs.

Really? And just how does it follow that someone who calls you an idiot has no recourse to logical arguments or is acting in bad faith.

Care to provide us an argument in formal logic for that?

Idiots exist. Calling one an idiot does not prove bad faith.

@Lance:
You are truly a riot. First you come in with post #276 which is just a personal insult directed at me when I politely explain (#275) why you don't get the recognition you think you deserve. Then you have the actual gall to state:

Personal insults carry no weight in any rational discussion, other than to identify those making them as acting in bad faith or having no recourse to logical constructs.

However, it is all too clear that your real aim is personal smear not meaningful dialogue.

Following this standard and looking on your behavior in #276 and #289 it is clear that you are acting in bad faith and have no logical constructs to counter my arguments which makes it all to clear that your real aim is personal smear not meaningful dialog.
Now that we've had the 'eye splinter beam'-moment I'm going to try and help you (again) by explaining what a good argument would have been instead of trying to insult me and/or trying to use the 'you are a potty mouth so I win'-defense.Explain why you failed to notice the deficiencies in the E&E report and why you failed to notice the cherry picking by Booker. Better make it good explanations since you should know what goes into the making of a good research paper and you should know basic statistics if you are working on a physics doctorate.

By Who Cares (not verified) on 06 Dec 2007 #permalink

Ben:
Here's the data in text format. To find it yourself:

1. click on the graph
2. Search for "Zonally Averaged Monthly Anomalies".
3. Click on the link right below that
4. That leads you to a list of files for each band for land only, ocean only, and land and ocean combined in both *.sav and *.txt formats. Unless you have IDL, dl the *.txt version.

bill r wrote:

1. click on the graph
2. Search for "Zonally Averaged Monthly Anomalies".

I thought that ben could've figured that out from my post #22. I was wrong.

Just a point about sunlight -- the Solar constant is indeed about 1366 W m^-2. But since the Earth receives it on its cross-sectional area, pi r^2, but is a sphere with surface area 4 pi r^2, it only gets about 342 W m^-2 per unit area. And since Earth has a nonzero bolometric Bond albedo (about 0.306 according to NASA), the absorbed flux is still less, about 237 W m^-2.

Of course the geothermal flux is only about 0.087 W m^-2, so sunlight still overwhelms it.

-BPL