235 comments on The Global Energy Crisis and its Role in the Pending Collapse of the Global Economy
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235 comments on The Global Energy Crisis and its Role in the Pending Collapse of the Global Economy
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Doctor Bob
I go with your useful comments.
Regarding climate science, the early stage of a hypothesised trend brings inevitable uncertainty over signal to noise ratios. Scientific accuracy of 'observed' signals for world temperatures is less certain for the deeper past, but regarding climate trends in the last decade (with probable relevance for future decades) I refer to recent paper, http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2008/09/02/0805721105.abstract
reported thus:
Phil,
This kind of statement, and very many others like it from from the likes of Mann, is the kind which loses the IPCC much credibility in my eyes and in the eyes of 10,000s other scientists.
My view of the real world is that the climate of the second millennium was dominated by the Little Ice Age (LIA). We have seen a plunge into colder temperatures and then emergence to warmer temperatures - which I will happily concede may have been influenced at margin by GHG factors et al. It is an automatic consequence of these natural phenomena that the today's climate is warmer than during the previous 1000 years.
This rather excellent graphic is from Henrik Svensmark (sorry I don't have a link) shows that Mann et al do not share this view of second millennium climate which leads him to make and get away with statements like the one you posted.
The other data on this graphic which I find very persuasive is the relationship between the cosmogenic isotopes 10Be and 14C and paleo temperature history. The formation of cosmogenic isotopes in the Earth's atmosphere is moderated by the incidence of galactic cosmic rays, the magnetic field of the Sun and the magnetic field of the Earth. There is a well-established link here to sunspot activity - which is a measure of the Sun's geomagnetic activity (which is quite separate to Solar irradiance which is the main parameter considered by the IPCC). Why Earth's climate seems linked to cosmic ray activity in this way is uncertain but several quite reasonable hypotheses have been put forward but which require considerable amounts of further research.
The geomagnetic activity of the Sun has recently become reduced and very quiet. Sunspot cycle 24 is really struggling to get underway and these are solar conditions that may resemble those that eventually led to the LIA. Personally I find these circumstances quite worrying given the latitude where I stay.
It is fair to say that those who live in cities that have been built unwisely in deserts seem to be more concerned about global warming and drought while those of us who live about 3000 ft below the periglacial climatic zone worry more about a return to colder conditions.
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/mdi_igr/512/
http://sidc.oma.be/
Euan
Like you I have always been impressed by our being 3000 feet below the arctic - the difference between a world record wheat yield (Haddington, E Lothian) and no arable farming is less than ~1000 ft in our part of Europe.
Thanks for the charts. To me they reinforce the message of just how sensitive climate is to persistent relatively very small forcing. We know that already of course, because of cycling between glacial and interglacial. I have also long been interested in biological reinforcement of these climate cycles - the advance or retreat of boreal forests affect on northern hemisphere albedo being a case in point. It seems reasonable to me prima facie to separate out from (e.g. Mann et al) and compare the study of temperature series represented by biological proxies with other signals of past temperature. The variation then seen in your charts is very interesting, and indicates boundaries of uncertainty. (It does occur to me that biological proxies might cycle for unknown reasons with cosmic background.)
Although arctic summer sea ice retreated a record amount as recently as 2007 (comparison with 2008 at http://www.nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/ ) I would agree that it is too early to tell whether the trend to extreme summer melt will be maintained over the next decade or so.
Phil
The historical record shows that the climate is not stable or predictable over timescales of a few human lifetimes - do we have adequate policies that can cope with any climate change?
I don't think so, no change there, it has always been so, and it is not sensible to plan on the basis that our current aand potential politicians are up to the task.
What I find most interesting is what sort of temps we will record in the next couple of years with a slow down in the world economy.
I'm sure most of you are familiar with the concept of global dimming.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_dimming
Is it possible that the stabilizing of the temperature since '98 could be proportionate to the amount of increased particulate from rising Chindia? Does a global economic collapse heat things up?
I guess we'll find out.
Too bad we only have one test subject.
Little darling, I feel that ice is slowly melting
Little darling, it seems like years since it's been clear
Here comes the sun, here comes the sun,
and I say it's all right
It's all right
Is there any REAL scientific explanation why the decrease in solar MAGNETIC flux as shown by a period of minimal sunspot activity would caused the Ice Age? (The earth is warmed by very regular radiative heat transfer not magnetism or cosmic rays.)
There's no physical mechanism for such GW denier type nonsense.
The explanation is generally that volcanic activity caused it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age
The Maunder Minimum and Little Ice Age is just a coincidence.
Out of curiousity what are your qualifications for commenting so authoritatively on this field of research? From my vantage point you come across as being more like a practitioner of a faith based belief system than someone who is driven by rationality and the scientific method. Having grown up in Scotland I have always found Mann's Hockey Stick less than convincing because as a child I could see evidence for marked natural climate change based on centuries old run rig field patterns at elevations where arable farming isn't attempted in the modern day despite all the advances in fertilisers etc. The recent downplaying of the Little Ice Age, which was very much part of the oral history that I heard growing up is what strikes me as the real exercise in revisionism. The explanation for how solar magnetic flux can affect climate is usually based on the role of cosmic rays on cloud formation and hence on the Earth's albedo. Recent research by Henrik Svensmark and Nir Shaviv is noteworthy in that regard.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrik_Svensmark
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nir_Shaviv
Absolutely.
I do subscribe completely to the 'faith-based' laws of thermodynamic and heat transfer.
My mind is skeptical toward novel explanations which imply that the earth has been microwaved by sunspots or cooled by the lack of sunspots.
45% of the radiation from the sun is visible light and about 37% is from infrared range radiation plus there are x-rays, etc.
The amount of radiant energy directed toward the earth is about 1100 W/m^2. The greenhouse gas effect is around 155 W/m^2.
Solar and microwave flux interferes with radio communication.
Solar flux units are measured in 10^-22 W/m^2 and typical sun activity is under 1000 solar flux units. Also the amount of energy that can be transmitted by individual radio or microwaves is tiny.
So I find the idea that sunspots and solar flux are controlling our weather to be a bit far-fetched.
Please show me the error of my faith-based ways!
Don't let me languish in ignorance and superstition!
My concern with Prof. Svensmark is that he doesn't mind being part of heavily AGW skeptical documentaries before his results and theory have been assimilated and cross-checked by the scientific community. Mistakes do happen and it takes time to find them:
http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/PDF_Papers/DamonLaut20...
Svensmark trotted out his cosmic ray theory a decade ago.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7092655.stm
He's a loon/denier.
Again I have to ask what are your qualifications for using that kind of language? Do you have an in depth knowledge of this field? As someone who makes a living as a scientist I can tell you that this sort of behaviour is not how science is normally conducted. Theories stand and fall based on the available data and ad hominen attacks are very much avoided. You say that you are suspicious of new theories. Well, as recently as the early 1970s plate tectonics still fitted into that sort of category. Science is far from settled in many fields. People should bear in mind that the main greenhouse gas is actually H2O rather than CO2. From what I have been able to piece together the role of clouds is still very poorly understood in current global climate model. It is far from inconceivable that some mechanism relating to cloud formation has a bigger impact than is currently generally realised. As Euan Mearns points out it will be interesting to see what happens with the experiments that CERN conducting to test Svensmark's theories.
http://public.web.cern.ch/PUBLIC/en/Research/CLOUD-en.html
If it requires specialist qualifications to attack someone, it requires specialist qualifications to defend them.
So if he has to be silent, then you do, too.
Presumably you do not wish to be silent, so you cannot expect him to be, and ought to contend with the actual evidence and papers he linked to, rather than crying about "that kind of language."
Of course, deniers of climate change and peak oil don't like contending with evidence.
"It is far from inconceivable that some mechanism relating to cloud formation has a bigger impact than is currently generally realised."
It is far from inconceivable that aliens from Xeta Bootis V are manipulating our climate as a giant test tube. But until you present evidence to that end, we will naturally remain sceptical.
You have missed the point. I have no problem at all with people believing in and posting about AGW. It is a very plausible theory, which may well prove to be correct. What I object to is his use of terms like "deniers" and "loons". That sort of behaviour is more akin to a medieval inquisition hunting down heretics who have challenged a faith based belief system than to the application of the scientific method. It is actually a sign of weakness rather than strength, in my opinion, that people so often seem to resort to that sort of behaviour where AGW is concerned.
Once again, you address the tone of a post without contending with its content. We must then take it that the content is unassailable.
We thank you for your graciously allowing us to "believe" in the "theory" of AGW.
Likewise, because I'm such a fine chap, I will express my contentment at your expression of belief in a purely biological origin for oil, the round Earth going around the Sun, at the theory of gravity, of relativity, quantum uncertainty, evolution, plate tectonics, that smoking causes lung cancer and HIV is responsible for AIDS, and the Big Bang theory.
All of these have their "sceptics", all of these have people with letters after their name who speak against them.
And they are all speaking bollocks. The abuse comes not because they raise doubts, but because the doubts are shown to be groundless due to reams of evidence, and ignoring all that they make the same comments again and again and again and again.
Repetition and wilful ignorance, deliberate obtuseness and blind obstinacy, these are things which, amazingly enough, really annoy people.
Let us have a supporter of the idea of abiotic oil come and post again and again to threads on TOD, ignoring all evidence posted against his ideas, and see how politely he gets treated. Or we could send a Creationist to a geology forum, or an AIDS denier to a medical forum, and see what they say.
In the end, if a person insists on being a horse's arse, he has to expect to be whipped.
Are you a scientist who is active in the field of climate science? If not, why do you even feel qualified to be so strident with your opinions on this subject? Do you think a scientific body like CERN normally waste their time and resources on the ideas of a "loon"? His ideas are being tested out because highly qualified people in Henrik Svensmark's field of research take them seriously and see a need to apply the standard scientific process of conducting controlled experiments to collect data in order to test the validity of the theory. It will be interesting to see what happens with that. As a scientist I have an open mind and will wait for the data before making my mind up.
Well, I am not a scientist but I know a loon/denier when I hear one.
Back in the distant recesses of time there was a scientist who made the most meticulous observations imaginable but he was also a loon/denier.
He couldn't stand a certain simple theory which challenged his
position in his universe so he evolved an alternate which also preserved his values system. He then hired a mathematician to
'validate' his conception scientifically, who (unfortunately) turned out to be honest.
The scientist didn't go about challenging the rival theory in a 'objective' way; his observations were only to be used to prove HIS model and to disprove the others.
Even today I would say that he is in many respects a model scientist.
He is also the archetype of the loon/denier.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tycho_Brahe
OTOH,
There was another scientist who proved in a very simple way the
truth of the heliocentric orbit of the earth by direct observation of the phases of Venus.
He was wrong about a number of things but on this particular idea he was mind-bogglingly correct.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_Galilei
IMO, it is a mere coincidence that Svensmark and Tycho are both Danes.
I don't have qualifications in the field of climate science, however unlike you (Exiled Scot) in your post above, I don't claim that you need specialist qualifications to speak intelligently about a subject. If we did, then our conversations would be rather limited. We'd have to be professional football players to talk about football, schoolteachers to talk about schools, oncologists to talk about palliative care for terminally ill patients, chefs to talk about food, and so and so forth. That is obviously absurd.
We don't need specialist qualifications in a subject to talk intelligently about it. But we do need to make an effort to learn about it, and if during discussions people point us to new sources of information, we should look at them.
Climate change deniers, like peak oil deniers, HIV/AIDS connection deniers, evolution deniers and so on, these are people who refuse to look at evidence presented by anyone except them. Whereas those who accept the mainstream theories will look at any evidence; they look at that presented by the deniers, deal with it and move on. But the deniers battle on obliviously, showing up in place after place with the same debunked ideas.
The denier refuses to look at any information but his own, but expects the mainstream to look again and again at his own information.
That is deliberately obtuse, wilfully ignorant, and is why people get annoyed and start tossing around such vicious unbearable insults as "loon".
Then I invite you to look into abiotic oil, into those denying the connection between HIV and AIDS, into Creationist geology, into the Flat Earth theory, Intelligent Design in biology, orgone theory, Lysenko's genetics, and... well, there are others, but that ought to keep you busy for a while.
You should keep your mind open, but not so open that the wind whistles through it emptily.
Kiashu, please Stop the nonsense already.
1. Euan posted this for discussion.
2. Euan, and anyone else, can post comments - regardless of qualifications.
3. We the readers already know the level of Euan's expertise - he did NOT pretend to be an expert. So there is certainly NOTHIING wrong with anyone requesting the Same Courtesy from a very "assertive," anonymous, respondent who disagrees.
Finally, whether we like it or not the study of Climate Change is still in it's infancy. The Climate System is just as complex - if not more so - than the mechanics/processes of evolution.
And That grand theory is still being refined and expanded upon today, afer 150 years of debate.
Also, it is absurd to compare the "creationism vs evolution, flatearthers, etc " debates with questions about the mechanisms involved in climate change, and how each mechanism interacts with the others.
I'm glad you agree. But don't tell me, tell Exiled Scot, who says that if you're not qualified in that specialist area, you can't comment.
Or rather, he says that an unqualified person (Mearns) can doubt the consensus of mainstream science, but an unqualified person (me) can't defend the consensus of mainstream science. So qualifications matter when you disagree with Exiled Scot, but are unimportant when you agree with him.
For my part, I say that qualifications are unimportant for intelligent discussion of issues of public affairs - whatever your opinions are. What matters is to learn as much as you can before expressing an opinion, and to consider seriously any evidence placed before you afterwards - but hey, once each for each bit of evidence is enough, it gets tedious hashing over the same stuff for years.
Unfortunately, this tends not to be the way human minds work. Rather than collecting evidence and then forming an opinion, we often form an opinion and then look for evidence to support it. That is fair enough - so long as we don't deliberately ignore anything against our opinion.
For my part, I've responded to many climate change denier points in this discussion. "No warming since 1998" I've debunked. The bizarre "thirty year cycle" I've knocked down. Of course I've not had a response to this.
Yes and no. On the one hand, he hasn't fluffed up his resume or anything like that. On the other hand, he presented a big old slideshow and an article on TOD presenting what he considers to be The Truth. So he's presenting himself as an expert, making an "argument from authority" as himself.
But I don't think that's a big problem. The problem is not whether he's an expert on climate change, but that he's wrong about climate change.
But even being wrong is not the true problem. The true problem is deliberately ignoring anything presented to him to show he's wrong. This is why deniers always seize on the tone of critiques and quibble with details - so they can avoid the actual point, the evidence that shows their ideas are a nonsense.
Absolutely. But while the details of evolution are still argued about, the general trends of it are not - except among the deliberately obtuse deniers. There's a general consensus on many areas of it. Likewise, while the precise details of climate change are argued about, the general trends of it are not - except among the deliberately obtuse deniers.
That humans are the single biggest cause of global warming in our time is not in doubt.
It's rather the way that medical professionals may argue over whether (say) a pack a day will knock 5 years off your life, or 10 years - but none argue that it does on average reduce your lifetime. Well, no-one except cigarette companies and their flunkies, anyway.
Again, you're confusing the general trends with the details. Scientists argue over the details of everything. If they didn't, they'd have no profession, after all. The scientific method is a long process of hypothesising, testing, measuring, analysing, arguing and then starting again.
But there exists a general consensus on many and various things. One of those things is that humans are the single biggest cause of global warming in our time. And there exist many deliberately obtuse people who deny this.
In this, the issue of climate change is exactly like those of peak oil, evolution, the round Earth and so on.
If people wish, I could write an article supporting the theory of abiotic oil. After all, Mearns has already told us that it's good to be "deliberately controversial". When people critique my article, I could focus on the tone of their posts, ignore any evidence brought before me or quibble with its details, and so on.
Of course, such nonsense wouldn't get a hearing on TOD - and rightly so. Nonsensical climate change denials are welcomed, nonsensical peak oil denials are not. I think the ideal is that nonsense is in general should be rejected here.
Bull. No area of scientific inquiry that has achieved a 99% certainty level can be said to be in its infancy. This is your agenda talking, not the facts.
It's intellectually dishonest.
Cheers
And the Dalton Minimum? And the Sporer Minimum? And the Oort Minimum? And the V century Minimum? And the III century Minimum? Coincidences also?
Show us the data.
*with* error bars(!)
And the references to where this data came from?
Svensmark H., Cosmic Rays and Earth's Climate, Space Science Reviews, Volume 93, Numbers 1-2, 2000 , pp. 175-185(11)
Usoskin,I., Solanki,S. K., Schüssler,M., Mursula,K., Alanko,K. Millenium-scale sunspot number reconstruction: Evidence for an unusually active Sun since the 1940s, Physical Review Letters, Vol. 91, nº 21, 2003.
The conclusions reached in the references you provided (still waiting for the error bars) have been more than sufficiently debunked by;
Schiermeier, Quirin, No solar hiding place for greenhouse sceptics Nature 448, 8-9 (5 July 2007) | doi:10.1038/448008a
T Sloan et al, Testing the proposed causal link between cosmic rays and cloud cover 2008 Environ. Res. Lett. 3 024001 (6pp) doi: 10.1088/1748-9326/3/2/024001
Even Lassen and Friis-Christensen have accepted that the current warming is due to something other than the sun.
I'll also note that there was no correlation of your referenced data to global temperatures, so it's not apparent what you were trying to communicate.
My understanding is that direct measurements on The Sun go back only about 40 years and that it is indeed the case that in this micro second of Earth History, that solar iradiance has not varied significantly. We do of course need these measurements on a time scale >10,000 years to make any kind of useful statement about irradiance on a time scale suited to this debate.
Dr Henrik Svensmark, a Director of The Danish Space Institute, has proposed the theory of cosmic ray penetration of the atmosphere influencing the formation of clouds. This theory has attracted some considerable attention and a large experiment is to be conducted at CERN to test it. I'd strongly advise that you refrain from dismissing this type of important work as "GW denier type nonsense" until the results of these experiments are known.
I could provide a longer list but since my main point is to try and turn attention off CO2 and onto energy efficiency I will refrain. Do you agree with this general principal - or are do you believe that we should burn large quantities of our remaining fossil fuels to bury CO2?
I'm at pains to point out that I accept GHG contribute to climate change but am unwilling to accept the ludicrous proposition that the natural processes that have moderated climate change in the past some how just got switched off in 1980.
This is a very interesting concept - would you care to elaborate upon how volcanoes influence global average temperatures. Be warned that I am now setting a trap for those willing to accept doctrine (as I too have done in the past) without questioning it.
Could you quantify this assertion? Even given the lags in the system, most of the influence of a change in forcing is felt within a decade, so a 40 year record of solar irradiance (and SSN, for that matter) is more than sufficiently long to rule out a direct or indirect solar influence on modern climate change (Observed, thermometer record). Given this I don't understand why '10,000 years' of data is required.
The assertion that the data series given topped in 1998 and is now trending down is statistically invalid and demonstratably so. I don't understand how you could get a PhD whilst making such statements.
You don't need CERN experiments to see a potential cloud seeding effect. However, there is no stastically significant relationship between solar activity and climate, and no demonstrated shortage of CCNs as far as I am aware. So I'm not entirely sure what any experimental results would demonstrate.
Are you seriously of the position that volcanic eruptions don't affect climate??? Don't tell me.. tell it to this guy:
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2008/10/19/volcanic-lull/
My main problem witrh all this is that you give a perfectly reasonable talk on energy depletion and consequences, and throw in a slide that is, let's face it, simply incorrect and about as incongrious as a slide saying 'Oil is a limited resource - it all comes from animals buried in the Flood'. Instantly your audience is switched into 'This guy isn't to be taken seriously' mode.
Charvátová I., Can origin of the 2400-year cycle of solar activity be caused by solar inertial motion?, Annales Geophysicae, vol. 18, no4, 2000, pp. 399-405.
Damon, P. E., Solar Induced Variations of Energetic Particles at One AU, The Solar Output and its Variation, Proceedings of a Workshop, held in Boulder, Colorado, April 26-28, 1976. Edited by Oran R. White. Boulder: Colorado Associated University Press, 1977., p.429.
Suess, 1980 H.E. Suess, Radiocarbon 22 (1980), p. 200.
(not available on the web but insight here.)
L.H. Ma, J.M. Vaquero, Is the Suess cycle present in historical naked-eye observations of sunspots?, New AstronomyIn Press, Corrected Proof, , Available online 30 September 2008.
And this is relevant how??
And this is relevant how?? "
He is trying to answer you - "why is 10,000 years data needed?" you said above.
You asked "Could you quantify this assertion?," when Euan said there is a need to look back as far as 10,000 years. You insisted 40 years of data is enough.
Do you not even have ANY interest in what a longer time period might show - as in the links provided?. That is why the links are relevant.
Coal and oil are proven methods of carbon geosequestration, it's been shown that they require huge efforts to dig up. I believe the best way to sequester carbon is not to burn it in the first place.
Luckily, you do not have to accept a position which no-one has taken.
If you can point to a single qualified or at least well-educated person saying that natural processes "switched off in 1980", I'll be very interested to see it. In fact, people simply say that while natural processes moderate human contributions, if the human contributions are big enough they overwhelm those natural processes. This is rather like the way my liver will remove alcohol from my system, so that I can have a glass of wine an hour and not get drunk; but if I have a bottle of wine an hour then it overwhelms my body's natural processes and I get hammered.
Still, I will be interested to hear of these people saying these absurd things. If they exist. Of course, it's much easier to have a brilliant argument when you're making up the words for both sides, so that you can make the opposition sound ludicrous. It worked for Socrates, after all.
I'd like to assert at this point, that no-one in the IPCC has ever made this ludicrous proposition. I would be surprised if there is any research-active climatologist anywhere who would even remotely support this ludicrous proposition.
I have encountered climatologists who take the attitude that their models are so damn good that further acquisition of actual paleoclimate data is rather quaint from a climatology perspective, but even they are not denying that pre-industrial climate had significant variability (and in fact contemporary GCMs are becoming disturbingly good at reproducing past climates and their variability). Conversely those IPCC authors I have met are universally well-informed as to the current state of paleoclimate research.
A vast amount of effort has been expended in recent years attempting to fingerprint currently observed change in terms of expected effects of both natural and anthropogenic forcings, and this body of research has informed the most recent IPCC assessment. An AGW effect was predicted decades ago, with increasing confidence as GCMs became more powerful in the late 1980s, and after accounting for variability in natural forcings that effect has now been observed and validated with a high degree of confidence. Why do people wish for this simple thing to be so controversial?
The published literature is vast, and rich, and is only cherry-picked by any of the various pro- and anti- web sites out there. Google scholar is as good a method as any of overview:
http://scholar.google.com.au/scholar?q=global+warming+attribution+&hl=en...
"The explanation is generally that volcanic activity caused it
This is a very interesting concept - would you care to elaborate upon how volcanoes influence global average temperatures. Be warned that I am now setting a trap for those willing to accept doctrine (as I too have done in the past) without questioning it."
This explanation is easy. Sulfur dioxide emissions result in sulfate particle formation. When those sulfate particles are in the upper atmosphere, they reflect sun's radiation back out into space. For example, when Mount Pinatuba erupted June 15, 1991, millions of tons of sulfur dioxide were emitted and much of this into the upper atmosphere. For two years afterwards, the earth was cooled from this effect.
This effect has also been shown to occur due to reports of general global dimming. The smoking gun for this is that after 9/11 when passenger jets were grounded for several days and the SO2 and other particulates were no longer being emitted into the upper atmosphere, the earth warmed appreciably.
What information do you have that counters this very compelling data?
Retsel
Mt. Pinatubo eruption 1991. In addition to the obvious 2 yr cycle of high-atmospheric aerosols, which can cool atmosphere by blocking sunlight. Certainly does have dramatic effects....
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2003/0306aopin.html
Retsel - you give the text book explanation which I tended to accept myself for many years. Looking at the actual data (red line), however, I find it very difficult to see evidence for cooling associated with any of the major eruptions of the last 120 years. Using the text book logic you describe, the climate models (green) predict significant cooling associated with each of the 5 major eruptions and to be honest I can't really see evidence for cooling beyond noise in the actual temperature record with any of those, especially Pinatubo and Krakatau. Maybe others see this differently?
SO2 aerosol in the stratosphere I believe causes warming, and I have seen a chart before that shows this - can't find it now. And so you'd think you may see cooling in the lower troposphere - but as already mentioned this seems be absent in the data.
There's no doubt that weather changed as a result of these major eruptions. In Aberdeen at least it rained every day in 1992.
One final point, on the Stott et al diagram the excess warming since 1960 (displacement of red data above green model) is that which climate scientists say is due to GHG et al. In other words, we don't see the cooling caused by the volcanoes because of the warming caused by GHGs. The problem I have is that we don't seem to see the cooling caused by Krakatau either.
Well, one could not tell very much from a chart of data containing over 150 years of data... A chart of 15 years of HadCRUT data clearly shows a cooling after the eruption of Mount Pinatuba, but of course it does not confirm causality.
But the facts agree with the story, so to speak. For example, sulfate's impact on global temperature can be demonstrated both theoretically and imperically (although it matters if the sulfate particles are in the upper atmosphere or lower atmosphere). This is true for carbon dioxide as well. We know that carbon dioxide is a greenouse gas, this can be proven in the lab. We also know that carbon dioxide levels are increasing. Therefore, temperature levels are bound to increase. This line of thinking is so simple, but the media, lay people and even some scientists (try to?) make it complicated.
Yes carbon dioxide is a relatively weak greenhouse gas, but its concentration is relatively high. However, increases in carbon dioxide levels potentiates other changes, such as increased water vapor and methane concentrations in the atmosphere, which are both more potent greenhouse gases than carbon dioxide. These are the among the powerful forcing factors which will cause our climate to heat extensively.
I recall the global dimming piece that was aired on PBS projected a huge temperature increase based on projected increases in carbon dioxide levels (this projection was made from previous high carbon dioxide levels and the estimated average temperature that accompanied the high carbon dioxide levels). Based on future carbon dioxide levels, carbon dioxide was projected to heat the earth by 7 degrees F. If global dimming were to addressed, the earth would heat by another 7 degrees F. These two effects combined together was estimated to cause extensive methane release from tundra areas and from methane hydrates, which would cause another 7 degrees F increase in temperature. Altogether, the earth may heat up by a total of 21 degrees F - pretty scary stuff...
Climate change deserves our full attention. We must address peak oil through means that will, at the same time, decrease carbon dioxide (and other greenhouse gas) concentrations.
Retsel
Retsel, I tend to disagree about these priorities for peak oil remedies and decreasing CO2 levels.
I don't think we have time left to place those kinds of restrictons on peak oil remedies
Ask a third-worlder what are his priorites? THAT is the level of desperation that is likely to become common place in many regions of most industrial countries over the next 5 years.
As the world economic collapse gets worse, people will do what ever is necessary to keep warm and to eat.
They will ignore any restrictions the Global Village, Nation, State etc try to put on their ability to stay warm and eat.
If you insist on your CO2 restrictions for staying warm and eating, I think individual homes will be forced to burn coal as the Fuel of First Resort as the availability of Fire Wood, fuel oil and NG will be too costly, or too unreliable (intermittant availability).
Many older homes in my area still have coal-shoot doors in their foundations next to their driveways... Burning coal in an old woodstove in the basement will work just fine when you cannot possibly Afford a more efficient, less polluting modern wood/coal stove.
This is NOT what I want. This is Not my "agenda."
I just think we have reached a turning point in which Worrying about CO2 Emmissions is going to be something only the wealthy have the Luxury to do.
It's not an issue of being "GW denier type nonsense," but of not being very good science.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/03/cosmoclimatology-t...
I say again: show me ONE piece of work that withstands critique and clearly casts doubt on AGW.
You can't do it. Just as you discuss the old Mann work while ignoring the new....
Cheers
First - There is little change in your 'cosmic ray' graph from 1750 to present, suprising given the drastic tempertature changes. The graphs also conviently ends before the present day with temperatures going even higher. I also don't understand why you prefer Northern Hemisphere tempoeratures (Moberg 2005) to Global ones.. or just use a more recent temperature reconstruction. Mann 1998 is quite out of date now.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/moberg2005/moberg2005.html
Second - You may find data 'persuasive' but I'd like to see the statistical analysis. Is this a significant relationship? Sun-climate influence hypotheses have a long history of slipping away when rigorous analysis is applied, unfortunately.
Third - Why are the 10Be ratios different in the North and South poles? Anything to do with fractionation of isotopes due to precipitation differences (a well established effect)? Isotope ratios track climate patterns as well, making such reconstructions trecherous.
Fourth - Are you saying that CO2 levels have no influence on climate? If so, there is a HUGE amount of paleoclimatology that needs re-writing..
Now, this is a test. Can you engage on the above points and respond in a civilised manner, or will you ignore them or respond with abuse (accusations of following the herd, being some sort of ideologue, etc.)?
Problem is that this theory is falling apart against the modern instrumental record:
Solar and heliospheric observations for recent decades compared with global
mean temperature data. (a) The international sunspot number, R, compiled by the World Data
Centre (WDC) for the Sunspot Index, Brussels, Belgium. (b) The open solar flux FS derived from
the radial component of the interplanetary magnetic field, taken from the OMNI2 composite
dataset compiled by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Centre (GSFC), USA. (c) The neutron count
rate C due to cosmic rays of rigidity of above 3 GV, recorded by the Climax neutron monitor and
distributed via WDC-A, Boulder, USA. (d ) The TSI composite compiled by the World Radiation
Centre, PMOD Davos, Switzerland. (e) The GISS analysis of the global mean surface air
temperature anomaly DT (with respect to the mean for 1951–1980), compiled by GSFC, primarily
from meteorological station data. The black lines are monthly means and in (d ) daily values are
also shown in grey. A thin horizontal line at TSI of 1365.3WmK2 has been drawn in (d) to
highlight that values in the recent solar minimum have fallen below the minima of near
1365.5WmK2 seen during both the previous two solar minima
ref: Recent oppositely directed trends in solar climate forcings and the global mean surface air temperature
Peak ion pair values produced by GCR are between 30 and 40 per cubic centimeter and occur above the extratropical tropopause. Even though GCR are high energy particles they still get focused into the geomagnetic polar caps. There are less than 10 ion pairs per cc in the upper tropical troposphere. There are less than 10 ion pairs per cc below 4 km falling to less than 1 at the surface. (Usoskin et al. have a 3D climatology of GCR.)
Cloud condensation nuclei formation from GCR ionization via water cluster ion formation has been proposed as a link between GCR and climate. CCN above the tropopause will help cirrus cloud formation which act as infrared traps and transmit visible band solar radiation so in this case GCR will increase warming. GCR below 5 km have the potential to affect low altitude cloud formation (which then could produce and albedo driven cooling) but then there are vastly more (at least an order of magnitude) CCN of other types in the lower troposphere. But CCN in the lowermost stratosphere are a different matter since the air is coming from above in the extratropics and is nearly devoid of tropospheric particulate matter. Of course it will have sulfate aerosols formed in situ from SO2 in the stratosphere and will have a component of meteorite dust and smoke particles.
So, the most likely impact of GCR on cloud formation would be in the extratropical tropopause region. Then it should be producing a warming trend via infrared trapping but the above plot shows a period of cooling during the highest GCR fluxes.
Another process by which GCR can impact the troposphere is via NOx formation from ionization. NOx in the troposphere contributes to ozone formation (unlike the stratosphere where it acts to catalytically destroy it). Ozone is a greenhouse gas. So higher GCR should be producing warming.
What the above two figures demonstrate is that correlation is not causation. In this case, it is hard to argue that the limited time period comparison between two varying timeseries is showing something other than coincidental overlap of two troughs.
Euan, please. How you manage to lose your logical underpinnings when you go off on Climate Change I will never know.
1. You are using a three year-old chart that does not take into account much more recent work, e.g. the updated work from Mann, et al. this year. Avoiding the most recent data because it disrupts your world view has no place in legitimate debate.
2. The claim is not "the last thousand years," it is at least the last thousand years.
3. The comparison is not of the avg. for the period of a thousand years, as you imply, but is of averages for any given year, so your point is meaningless.
4. It's all about trends, not specific data points. (How can you write anything that would ignore this?) E.g.: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/hadleycentre/news/warming_goes_on.html
5. These might interest you about Mann, et al.'s previous paper. (Given the 2008 paper is much improved, your position looks quite untenable.)
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/temperaturevariati...
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/myths-vs-fact-rega...
6.
Unfortunately, there is no credible work showing the short-term solar cycles have a significant effect on climate. Also, I wasn't aware it had been established the LIA was caused by solar cycles. Got a link?
Further, above you dismiss a claim because, as far as I can tell from your comments, it is too sweeping a claim. You do so while providing nothing but your opinion that Mann, et al., are wrong and can be dismissed. (Along with an appeal to authority stating tens of thousands of scientists disagree. Newsflash: there are MILLIONS of scientists on the planet. Do the math.) Yet, you give credence to solar influence over short time spans even though no credible evidence exists. Is this not just a tad dishonest?
7. The use of pejoratives - "from the likes of" - proves you are biased. (Yes, I do the same. The science demands it. There is no credible argument against AGW. None. I repeat my challenge: show me ONE credible, peer-reviewed paper that has not already been eviscerated.) I therefore did a little search on Henrik and came up with this take from RealClimate:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/03/cosmoclimatology-t...
Enough. You will soon enough regret your stance. I already do.