Open thread for climate comments
An experiment. Anything climate-related is fair game. An adjacent post is for non climate-related comments. If you prefer just one open thread, say so. If you prefer none, then silence speaks volumes.
Sunday, June 17, 2012
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83 comments:
Does Eli believe human CO2 is the cause of global warming?
Hardy Cross
Haven't read the blog much, have you, Hardy?
Of course human CO2 emissions are the primary cause of global warming. (Other emissions aren't helping, especially fine particulate carbon.)
This isn't a doubtful issue, just like it's not even vaguely doubtful that we've got to stop using fossil carbon for anything at all if we want to avoid being part of the anthropogenic mass extinction. (Plus a few other bad habits like like tossing bioaccumulating toxins at the landscape.)
It's a question of whether or not one has the basic moral courage to face up to the facts involved or not. It's beyond scientific question and has been for some time.
Hardy: another kabuki performance, or bunraku?
Graydon: Given that fossil fuels will be around for awhile, when should we expect mass extinction? And why does Eli have a rabbit motif on this blog? Everything is rabbit this, rabbit that. Bunny this, bunny that.
Hardy Cross
"when should we expect mass extinction?"
When climate change disrupts industrial scale agriculture to the point that it can no longer feed 7 (or more) billion people.
Hardy --
We're getting a mass extinction right now.
The question is whether or not it includes people. (And it doesn't have to involve climate change for that; the famine associated with managing to kill off all the pollinators with pesticides that bioaccumulate, for example, might well do it.)
If you study some history, you'll find that periods of erratic weather are associated with famine; there were some very bad ones in Western Europe around the end of the 10th century, for example.
The relatively minor weird weather swings we're getting now are doing things like, again for example and not comprehensively, taking out at least a third of the Ontario apple crop (early blossoming due to summer in March; then regular temperatures with freezing nighttime temperatures). There's miniscule excess food production capacity. It really doesn't take much of that kind of weather swing to cause a real problem.
Hardy, it's a feature
> Does Eli believe human CO2 is the cause of global warming?
I don't think Eli believes in believing things. He studies.
@Hardy.
I. at least, love Eli's "bunny"-ism. It is very original, particularly the "DROPPINGS ALONG THE BUNNY TRAIL". I appreciate it a lot. I don't understand the problem you have with that.
A not-so-original-sheep
Does Eli believe in the Hockey Stick graph?
On a non-bunny Web Site they have awful things to say about that graph.
Hardy Cross
Doeas Hardy Cross have a point, or are they just going to keep asking questions for ever and ever?
At what point will they take part in a sensible discussion? Or are they a waste of space troll?
Groundhog Day.
Which Hockey Stick graph, Hardy, there are multitudes of them?
And they all— tree rings cores, ice cores, sediment cores, boreholes temperatures, spelieothem sections — show the same warming.
You don't need to go back to 10th C Europe, Graydon, just to the 1870s and 1890s monsoon failures that, combined with global free market ideology and incompetence, killed upwards of 50 million.
Jim Eager: Does Eli believe in the Mann Hockey Stick graph? The one without the middle warm period. The one with the sharply rising temperatures after 1950. "The" Hockey Stick graph. The one in Al Gore's movie. I would like to hear the bunnyist view of that graph.
Hardy Cross
@Hardy.
Do you believe that there is an unknown negative feedback cycle that will compensate CO2's radiative forcing? Which one is it? I ask because I am sure that you can inform us of its existence (stupid people we are....).
A not-so-original-sheep
Oh hell, I don't know which open thread to post this in.
So the Eli Bunny has been over at Tamino's Borrow to rustle up some fellow bunnys to try and talk some sense into the comments sections at WUWT - apparently some of them are capable of listening. Apparently.
I've tried previously. It doesn't work.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think I am, but WUWT is where you go when you don't want to listen. It's where you go when you want cotton wool to fill your ears.
So I'm interested: given all the places where you can go communicate, do folks think WUWT is worth the bother?
Hardy would look better in all-caps. The crazy is almost persuasive; just a few tweaks would add a topping flair of the absurd.
Hardy, up-lock and tell what's on your mind. You're not offering enough advance the plot.
Besides Golf, there is thermodynamics which has a climate change implication.
I have been working on a basic thermo model for the atmospheric effect using more fixed base references, the freezing point of water, salt and fresh with its enthalpy of fusion and sea level for its stable pressure range. It provides very stable and interesting thermodynamic frame of reference for the global climate system.
As my former professor that retired from Bell Labs used to say, "Simplicity is Elegance."
So here is a link to the definition of that frame of reference, the Moisture Boundary Layer".
http://redneckphysics.blogspot.com/2012/06/defining-moisture-boundary-layer.html
Those of you willing to wade through my less than stellar prose and typos, might find it interesting.
Does Hardy Cross believe in empirical evidence or merely ideological purity?
Does Hardy Cross believe in making a substantive point, or merely in being an annoying little turd?
A not-so-original-sheep:
It doesn't matter what Hardy thinks (third person to fit in here). In the bunny-centric Eli blog world, the coming climate apocalypse is sorta trivialized by the parallel bunny motif.
So I was wondering; (a.) whether Eli believes human CO2 is the cause of global warming, and now, (b.) if Eli believes in the Hockey Stick graph.
Hardy Cross
C'mmon Hardy.
You can get the answer to a) above reading 90% the posts by our little bunny through the last "five" (or above) years. You already know that.
Anyway, in case you couldn't get the answer to your question from some reading, take your time, don't despair. Read all of those posts again, I bet you will finally overcome and realize whether our bunny believes whether CO2 emitted by humans has something to do with observed global warming.
After you finish reading them all, come again with a sensible question.
Bye, Hardy, no need to feed trolls today, I have interesting things to do, and I am already tired and bored. Have a nice day.
The not-so-original-sheep goes by.... and says bye.
So I was wondering...
Hardy, why do you so urgently require stimulus to perform your movement? Clearly you've got an uncomfortable need to expel something so why not just get on with it?
So go ahead and fill your diaper but don't expect somebody else to try and clean up your mess, let alone treat it as though it's something uniquely of worth. Constantly wiping the backsides of adults becomes boring and tiresome; why not do everybody a favor by just dumping your load and moving on?
On the other hand if you obtain some kind of strange satisfaction by being mocked and humiliated perhaps you can depend on the kindness of strangers to have your kicks.
Snow Bunny says:
Not everything is in danger of extinction: Ticks.
Dammit. New Hampshire is now infested with ticks. Outdoor people advise not to go out without long clothes. Ugh. It is not cold enough in the winter so the ticks can find places to survive here now. NH's winter temperature is up 4 degrees F.
http://www.carseyinstitute.unh.edu/publications/IB_Hamilton_Climate_Survey_NH.pdf
A relative has Lyme disease.
The moose returned to NH 2 or 3 decades ago, but now the population is declining due to moose ticks. Moose used to carry 30,000 ticks (doesn't sound like fun, but moose are large). Now they carry 120,000 ticks sucking enough blood to cause anemia. The moose hunting licenses have declined because the moose have declined from a peak of 7000 to 4000.
BigCityLib got back a fine epistle from Stanley Goldenberg, proud to remain a Heartland Expert.
Also Norway, whole damn country.
Ah, you mean the "blue" line here:
http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/File:1000_Year_Temperature_Comparison_png
and here:
http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/File:2000_Year_Temperature_Comparison_png
I'm not one to speak for Eli, but the fact that Hardy thinks Mike Mann's "hockey stick" graph doesn't show "the middle warm period" [sic] demonstrates how gullible Hardy is when it comes to swallowing misinformation when it's coated with a flavour he likes.
As I said, multiple hockey sticks (see the other color lines) that don't include Siberian tree ring cores show that a) the Medieval Warm Period wasn't nearly as warm as Lamb's old chart of the Central England Temperature record suggests, b) that the MWP was not a truly global event spacially or temporally, and c) that the rise in global average temperature since 1979-80 (not 1950, sweetie) is in fact not only real but also warmer than the MWP.
Dr. Lumpus Spookytooth, phd.
@Jay
so WUWT is where people go who do not want to listen and Gambino's Closed Mind is open to all?
ahahahahaha
I have a question:
Eli, I bet you $50 dollars if you polled climatologlists and asked them if there is more likely a 300% positive feedback or a 40% negative feedback, the majority would say 40% negative feedback.
Dr. Lumpus Spookytooth phd.
@not so original sheep
@Hardy.
Do you believe that there is an unknown negative feedback cycle that will compensate CO2's radiative forcing? Which one is it? I ask because I am sure that you can inform us of its existence (stupid people we are....).
A not-so-original-sheep
let me shoot this one. No, I can honestly say I do not know of an unknown source that could cause a negative feedback but I do know of some known sources that may cause negative feedbacks.
a. the clouds
b. the ocean
now I would like to ask you some questions.
do you believe that a puff of smoke from your car is more powerful than the fireball in the sky? I am sure you can explain to us why (stupid people that we are)
Lumpus, you tried to shoot, but you failed, sorry, next time try better.
1) It is not a puff from my car, it is a matter of all the puffs from all the cars, heaters and so on. Please, do not build such a straw man or the discussion loses all the interest.
2) Big firewall in the sky. You are right, it is huge. The question is that if you measure its throughput in terms of watts/square_meter and try to explain observed temperature changes (surface and stratosphere, for instance) on the basis of that, you simply can't. Wise people at the IPCC went there and did that. I am a humble sheep, can't explain you how did they. Just go and read the IPCC technical summary at least. If you don't understand it, read some books until you understand it.
3) Clouds. Lindzen versus Dessler? I prefer Dessler's grass, perhaps you eat Lindzen's, but I can't eat that.
4) Ocean. Are you really going to get/send energy to the oceans FOR EVER? I am a humble sheep, but you can't do that for sure, it will get out from there (or get exhausted) some day.
SnowBunny is right, there are lots of ticks here, today. We sheeps do not tolerate ticks. They bother us.
Lumpus asked: "do you believe that a puff of smoke from your car is more powerful than the fireball in the sky?"
Well, sweetie, that's a poorly worded question, as it doesn't matter what we believe, and the puffs don't have to be more powerful than the sun, they just have to add to what the sun does.
And the fact is the global mean temperature trend says those puffs of smoke have done what the sun couldn't have done since around 1979-80 or so.
Dr. Lumpus Spookytooth phd
@Jim Eager
"And the fact is the global mean temperature trend says those puffs of smoke have done what the sun couldn't have done since around 1979-80 or so."
I don't agree with that at all, that's just your opinion. Earth averages higher temperatures so the global mean trend says the sun almost always drives the temperature.
@anonymous sheep
1) It is not a puff from my car, it is a matter of all the puffs from all the cars, heaters and so on. Please, do not build such a straw man or the discussion loses all the interest.
"But the sun is so much larger than the earth. You can fit 1.3 million earths into the sun, and almost all of the mass in the solar system comes from the sun."
Maybe you built a strawman, not me.
"2) Big firewall in the sky. You are right, it is huge. The question is that if you measure its throughput in terms of watts/square_meter and try to explain observed temperature changes (surface and stratosphere, for instance) on the basis of that, you simply can't. Wise people at the IPCC went there and did that. I am a humble sheep, can't explain you how did they. Just go and read the IPCC technical summary at least. If you don't understand it, read some books until you understand it."
I'm not going to refute this other than to say its a complete opinion on your part, and I would say wrong at that. Remember, earth is below GAT, so you really need the sun to explain past high temperatures.
3) Clouds. Lindzen versus Dessler? I prefer Dessler's grass, perhaps you eat Lindzen's, but I can't eat that.
another opinion here, at least you admit it though. I like Dessler, he is one of a very select few who actually debated Lindzen. I would point you to the fact sir that so few of Dessler's colleagues will engage him, so perhaps they are afraid? Did you see at the last congressional testimony, Cicerone had nothing to say when Lindzen corrected him about the atmosphere.
4) Ocean. Are you really going to get/send energy to the oceans FOR EVER? I am a humble sheep, but you can't do that for sure, it will get out from there (or get exhausted) some day.
this one you are correct, we cannot send energy to the ocean forever. However, we know we are nowhere near the threshold. The threshold is at least 7,000ppm of co2 and probably higher. We know this because it happened before and the oceans took it ALL out. They made rocks with it. Some calamitous climate change there I bet!
Ah, I see Jaybird counldn't stick the flounce but has reinturdinated as Herr Doktor Lumpus Spunkydrawers.
Care to explain, Herr Doktor, how the oceans provide a negative feedback?
Lumpus: "I don't agree with that at all"
Of course you don't sweetie, that's because, like a petulant child, you flat out refuse to look at the evidence that shows there has been no correlation between solar output and global mean temperature since 1979-80: solar output has stagnated or even declined, yet temperature rose and continues to rise.
Lumpas: "that's just your opinion"
No, it's not sweetie, it's verifiable empirical evidence. It's science, something that you have demonstrated time and again is beyond your ability to comprehend.
Now run along, child. You're bothering the adults again.
Doktor Lumpus-Jay-Hardy.
Your last paragraph is excellent. Let's dissect it.
"this one you are correct, we cannot send energy to the ocean forever. However, we know we are nowhere near the threshold. The threshold is at least 7,000ppm of co2 and probably higher. We know this because it happened before and the oceans took it ALL out. They made rocks with it. Some calamitous climate change there I bet!"
We were talking about energy and you, suddenly, form sediments with energy. This sheep fails to understand that. Humble sheeps don't read WUWT and resources like that. That may be the reason that I don't see the link going from energy to rocks.
And just to finish. Do you seriously mean that sediments formed in a coupled of centuries? Don't think so, even humble sheeps know that can't be done.
I go back to my field, real grass is awaiting.
The not so original ship
You should live so long. It takes millenia for that stuff to happen
Looks like it was bunraku after all.
Meanwhile, outside the theatre of the bizarre:
Did you hear the one about the oyster-killing California Current?
A sleeper story, via Knight Science Journalism Tracker.
> at least 7,000ppm of co2
That refers to the "cap carbonates" found on top of when the whole Earth was frozen over from equator to poles for, eh, 30 million years or so. Not exactly the kind of event sequence that don't worry be happy narratives are made of.
I'm pretty sure Jaybird Spookypants didn't come up with this himself or even understands it. The folks he got it from didn't either but thought it would be useful
@ Dr. Lumpus Spookytooth phd.
I have to echo a_ray_in_dilbert_space's puzzlement here.
How do the oceans act as a negative feedback?
Sorry - the above should have been signed BBD.
Sloppy, I know.
The bunnies have scampered away from my inquiry.
Hardy Cross
No, sweetie, the bunnies answered your spurious query, you just didn't like the answer. 'Tis Not the bunnies' problem.
Badgers, OTOH, are easily bored.
Was hoping to hear a definitive response from the Uber-bunny, not so much the munchkins. Sweetie.
Hardy Cross
The anti-science person has trouble understanding that the answer is the same no matter who you ask, when talking about scientific things. Maybe in their bizzaro world the answer changes depending on who you ask?
Actually, that fits the intellectual incoherence of deniers quite nicely. Anything that suggests the warming isn't our fault is siezed upon, even although the multiplicity of explanations are usually mutually exclusive. But that doesn't matter in the face of their determined know nothingness.
I dunno, could be Eli has better things to do than entertain fools.
Just sayin.
The Eli does not commit to an answer to my queries, above. All I get is scato-splatters from the munchkins but nothing from the Eli behind the curtain.
Hardy Cross
John Cleese played the Black Knight way better than Hardy Cross.
Rib smokin' bunny
Yeah, I'm bettin on better things to do than entertain self-important fools.
Dr. Lumpus Spookytooth, phd.
The oceans can act as a negative feedback because nature controls the mixing of the water currents. Global warming cannot shut down the Gulf Stream as Bill Nye has asserted.
Furthermore, recent studies now suggest that animals like jellyfish play an important role in mixing water.
Speaking of self-important fools.
Dr. Lumpus Spunkydrawers,
That is NOT a negative feedback. It does not change the amount of energy coming in from the Sun or the amount of energy leaving the planet. All it does is possibly delay when we hit equilibrium. Try again, Punkin.
Uh, dude, you do know what a feedback is, don't you?
"How do the oceans act as a negative feed back?" Quite simple my dear anonymouse, The freezing point of salt water is 1.9C lower than the thawing point of fresh ice. As the salt water sink temperature becomes more dominate, the energy flux increases. Glacial and inter glacial periods cycle between salt and fresh enthaply of fusion limits. That is about a 7.5Wm-2 variation in the total rate of cooling.
Dr. Lumpus Spookytooth phd
@ A Ray
The ocean does act as a negative feedback if the surface temperature goes up and the ocean responds with a higher evaporation rate. Of course, this is all very hard to prove.
Now, would you care to explain the positive 300% feedback that Schmidt, Mann, Hansen and Trenberth endorse? And I'm sure Eli endorses it as well.
@Hardy Cross
Eli is almost the same person as Tamino(known as Gambino to most) in that his followers worship him and place him on a pedestal, yet he does nothing. Gambino and Eli call out what they think to be foul plays but I never see them debate or engage a heavy hitter. That said, Eli at least does not edit and heavily censure comments, like Gambino does over at closed mind.
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Now would either of the two previous commenters care to break that down into English?
-The Management
I always chuckle warmly when Lumpass prattles on about "300% feedback", too clueless to even notice how far off his math is.
There he goes again.
Obama flips Inhofe the bird. Someone needs to get their money back from Willie Soon (still convinced they thought they were funding a project on Mercury, not mercury).
"The ocean does act as a negative feedback if the surface temperature goes up and the ocean responds with a higher evaporation rate. Of course, this is all very hard to prove."
Don't you mean "The ocean does act as a positive feedback if the surface temperature goes up and the ocean responds with a higher evaporation rate, since water vapor is a potent greenhouse gas. Of course, this is all very well understood."
OK, so I'll take that as you admitting you don't know what a feedback is. And unless Dallas is attempting satire, neither does he.
Hardy Cross --- Itts all over by 2055 or thenabouts.
@Benson:
2055 - which month?
Hardy Cross
Greenpeace declares war on the finance sector
The greenies have educated themselves on the twists and turns, and found rich pickings in fossil fuel financing. This could be a very interesting and entertaining development. Watch the injunctions and gagging orders eventually starting flying out from The City and Wall Street.
Snow Bunny says:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/06/19/professor-fired-after-expressing-climate-change-skepticism/
This is a strange story -- the professor (perhaps not his formal title) was abruptly fired and his keys taken before the end of the semester. The conservative jokers are all over the story that he is a victim of the global warming "business". If he's not tenured, his academic contract can simply be let lapse: why would he be fired this way?
Drapela was not a professor, was a lecturer, but the dramatic narrative for Fox is better if he's accidentally promoted to professor.
Disclosure of the reason for his dismissal might be one of those cases of "be careful of what you wish for"; either the department did gratuitously fire him and leave themselves open to a lawsuit or other trouble, or they're respecting his privacy by not describing the exact reasoning behind the decision.
I feel sorry for his family; high and dry. Sucks.
Ah, Faux News. The network that actually makes you stupider. The guy is a wingnut. You don't want anti-science nutjobs teaching science. I do not want my tax dollars directed to lying to children. See:
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2012/06/12/the-light-of-day/
" And unless Dallas is attempting satire, neither does he."
Some what satirical. Determining what is a feed back in a complex system is difficult because you have to know what is the forcing first. CO2 forcing is actually a feed back of total energy. No energy, no CO2 forcing/feed back.
That is why I think the Moisture Boundary Layer model is useful. It defines an envelope of moist enthalpy, the main variable in the atmosphere. A warming ocean would expand that envelope. Since the total area of the envelope would increase at a greater rate that the surface area of the ocean, warming of the oceans, the forcing would increase the area of heat dissipation, the moisture boundary layer, a feed back. If the ratio of the area of the moisture envelope to Sea surface area remains constant, it is a neutral feed back. So you not only have a change in lapse rate but also a change in moist radiant surface area to consider. Water was a GHG last I heard.
"Disclosure of the reason for his dismissal might be one of those cases of "be careful of what you wish for""
Oregon Universities are dealing with an 11% cut in the current biennium. The last two bienniums saw significant cuts, too.
At some point, when money available to run a University drops for six straight years, you need to decide whose contract you'll renew, and whose contract you'll let lapse, because you don't have enough money to keep everyone on board.
Dallas,
The ocean as the radiating area is mostly irrelevant--what matters is the irradiating surface--and that varies with wavelength.
A_ray, above the moisture boundary layer the the wave length of the ORL becomes important. From the surface to the top of the MBL the wave lengths are dominated by the water spectrum. What I am defining as the MBL is the region where water and/or water vapor dominate the spectrum to simplify the thermal balance.
Think of a balloon that has exactly 1 square meter of surface area and is radiating exactly 100Wm-2. If you add energy inside the balloon it will radiate more energy, but depending on how elastic the balloon is, the WM-2 change outside will vary. If I add enough energy for just 1 more Wm-2, how much change would you observe?
To me, it is easier looking inside of the balloon, I use the surface as my frame of reference. That was the second thing they beat into my head in thermo, frame of reference.
a_ray, This is just a work sheet to estimate the limits between a stable glacial and a stable inter glacial. The range is limited by the freezing points of salt and fresh water. It neglects geothermal energy and solar variation.
http://redneckphysics.blogspot.com/2012/06/not-forth-coming-ice-age.html
Just very simple thermal balance model, KISS BTW was the first thing on the board in thermo, but it looks pretty interesting.
Uh, Dallas, aren't you ignoring the fact that if the radiating area is increasing, so is the absorbing area. I think you're well beyond second order effects now.
Hardy Cross --- Ides of March.
a_ray, the model is only for OLR with a near constant average SST. The SW and albedo would be a different model. For the OLR, a greater area of open water would allow greater heat loss from the oceans. The solar constant doesn't change though and the vast majority of solar is absorbed in about 50% of the surface area. The impact of increased resistance to OLR would be highest near the MBL boundaries which is kinda the point of the model, how much is that impact?
Since the general flow of energy in the oceans from the warmer middle to the polar edges, adding 3.7Wm-2 to a 307 - 315 Wm-2 sink would reduce the flow, but not reverse the flow. The net is a negative feed back.
Thought of helping Greenpeace get a million signatures to pressure governments to protect the Arctic from drilling?
Save the Arctic Campaign.
POPSCI: The Battle Over Climate Science
Good article. Particularly enjoyed the backgrounder to Stephen Milloy.
"Milloy is dressed in a striped pink button-down shirt and khaki pants, classic Potomac prep. He moved into climate denial in the 1990s as funding from the tobacco lobby began to dry up...."
Fixed link, hopefully:
POPSCI: The Battle Over Climate Science
Business Green's James Murray decides the Rio glass isn't all half empty, for businesses at least.
Has the Rio +20 Earth Summit really been that bad?
A journalist gets it, spells it out, and even mentions a rabbit hole.
On Not Responding to Climate Deniers, and What I’d Say If I Did
Joe Bastardi takes exception in comments. I'm surprised he didn't accuse climate scientists of serial child rape this time.
Adaptation comes to Colorado Springs. :-(
Something possibly significant just happened in Texas.
Texas judge rules atmosphere, air is public trust
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