I see that by “useless” you mean “I couldn’t find any factual mistakes”
It’s nice too see that opinions that (supposedly) back your case are not useless.
You apparently did read where they, prophetically, admit defeat.
It also didn’t mention how much mayo I should put in my hot dog.
What’s the science for saying it’s “baseless”?
Yeah, nothing like one-website-for-everything.
If I explained why they were relevant you’d say it was my opinion and therefore useless.
BBC? Libetarian who calls the parties Pepsi and Coke? Physicsworld?
I see, “right wing” means “I don’t like it”, or is it a boogeyman? Ad hominem in the name of science.
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One thing, I dind’t go around looking for cites willy-nilly, but even if I did it isn’t quite scientific to stay focused on such a minor point.
The BBC article says "If he is right, then we are going down the wrong path of taking all these expensive measures to cut carbon emissions; if he is right, we could carry on with carbon emissions as normal"and since it’s an '08 article they cannot comment on the results of a papaer published in '11.
To sum up your answers to all questions: “useless”, “opinion”, “lies”, “right wing”, “found it on google”; rahter than, you know, factual answers.
It’s a good question, but it’s also a very tough question to answer! Here’s an interesting graph showing the surface temperature records (GISS, HADCRUT and NOAA) from 1900 to 2008 compared with three predictions made by Hansen et a. in a 1988 published in Journal of Geophysical research, see: http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/1988/1988_Hansen_etal.pdf.
The blue/magenta/cyan lines bundles together show the actual temperature records, while the red, orange and yellow lines are predictions made by Hansen’s group in 1988. The red line was a prediction if we carried increasingly CO2 emissions regardless, the orange line a prediction if we froze CO2 emission rates at 1988 levels, and the yellow line a prediction of what would happen if we actually cut emissions. The straight black line is a linear fit from 1900 to 1988. More details on data and sources here: Ordinary Eyeball: How did Hansen’s Predictions Do? | The Blackboard)
Now, it is perfectly clear that Hansen’s predictions were pessimistic and the actual temperature record is most in line with his prediction if we had cut emissions, which we certainly did not. So in that sense, there’s a set of falsified predictions right there, not that’s it’s put off Hansen from doing the same sort of thing today but with even more doomcrying.
However, looking at the actual temperature record:
its perfectly clear that there is an overall upward trend
between the 20s and the 40s the upward trend was steep and people might well have extrapolated it to a +1.5 deg. anomaly by 2020
Between 1940 and 1980, the trendline went down-and-then-flat. That’s a FORTY YEAR period where alarmists would have seen no warming, and sceptics could have claimed warming had stopped.
So on the basis of past temperature records I’d say that even forty years of flat surface temperatures alone are not good enough to falsify! That’s why I don’t regard it as a useful question. Very small shifts in the partitioning of energy between the atmosphere and ocean can affect surface temperatures. There are ocean energy oscillations around forty years in extent, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_multidecadal_oscillation.
Measurements of ocean heat content are a slightly different matter, if we look at the Levitus OHC plot: Does ocean cooling prove global warming has ended? we can see that OHC shows a fairly steady rise since 1970 with the only big dips being due to volcano eruptions. The rather hefty and unprecedented “jump” at around 2003 occurs at the same time as the switch from XBT data to the far more extensively distributed ARGO buoys, and personally I’m suspicious that it’s an artefact and in reality OHC has been flat since around 1998-2000. But assuming I’m wrong there, how many years before a flat OHC without any volcanic sulphate begins to look anomalous? Ten years would raise an eyebrow for me (of course, I already think it’s been ten years) and twenty would really begin to ring alarm bells, but you must supply your own answer.
IPCC5 is due out 2013-2014, and maybe there’ll be some kind of statement on the subject. Interesting times if ARGO is still showing flat OHC even then.
Nope, read it again, what the experiment showed was one item from the contrarian theory. It still does not explain why the increase or decrease of cosmic ray activity did not become apparent on the actual clouds.
Still on a binge I see
Not doing your homework.
Once again you are telling all that you are proud of making a Gish gallop of an argument and thinking that it worked. Not gonna work.
No, you did not explained, I had to report on what a real scientist had to say about one of the items and I checked the others quickly to see if they were fair and looked at the big picture, only 2 of them were, suffice to say, I trust the scientists more than the spin of the ones that are not experts on the matter.
As I mentioned already that one of the good cites is the BBC one, your point here is dumb. I already mentioned who are the ones that fail.
So you say, but the evidence so far just shows reasoning after the fact, there is a reason why quotes from the cites are very important, it demonstrates before hand that you did pay attention or know how to differentiate the good from the bad cites.
So far it is clear that you can not yet.
And I already quoted the part were the same researcher explains how minimal at best the effect would be on real clouds, saying that for most of the intents and purposes that he was not right. The reason why it is a good cite is because it shows the big picture and the background. I would not be surprised that a denier site quotes the article and put the spin that you are still insisting is valid.
The factual reply was already made in the RealClimate cite made earlier, Gavin Smith and others also made good replies in the comments. What you say here is a baseless accusation. A factual answer was already given, but thank you for letting us know what kind of debater you are.
And as the article from Skeptical Science, with links to reasons why the CERN experiment is interesting but not much useful to climate deniers shows, I was on the right track:
How Do We Know That Cosmic Rays Aren’t Driving Significant Climatic Change?
In this case I think this is not a very good example to use, or should I say, lets not exaggerate:
Of course also the “same sort of thing” is not only coming from him nowadays. And since he was very close to the target using the tools of those days, I see that he is still respected and many continue to work with him.
This is not an accurate interpretation of the facts. Initial production target for 2011 for the Volt was only 10,000 units, and a third of those have been sold in the US in spite the car getting a technology refresh midway through it and being available only in limited introductory markets. The cites already provided give some some more complex arguments than your blanket dismissal. New technologies tend to creep in heralded by the naysayers, and gradually drop in price. They do not appear fully formed like some industrial version of Athena.
It is very naive to look at the Volt as a carbon success or failure. The Volt is introductory technology, it is not intended to change the status quo but to test the market and pave the way for the future. Toyota and Honda, with a 15 year head start on GM and much wider distribution even in the US, are obviously faring much better. The purpose of the Volt was never to dominate but to allow GM to enter and learn about the hybrid market while establishing a foothold and industry credentials. Think of the Volt as an Apple computer - originally a piece of technology that was popular only with a small market segment, but then evolved into a market leader thanks to the various lessons learned along the wayy. If instead of putting products out Apple had waited 15-20 years to introduce the generation of Mac computers that had a chance to capture significant market share, well that wouldn’t have been much of a business plan.
You presented a statement supposedly based on common sense which was shown to be quite outside the realm of common sense. You denied there was an emergency, and were shown to be wrong. Your insistence on something being financially viable before being introduced to market runs counter to our experience and history with many technologies, such as your own example of computing power (which dropped in price and increased in power only because of early adopters and the private concerns serving them). I don’t know enough of your individual recommendations for specific technologies, I was simply addressing fallacious arguments with which you tried to paint the position of other posters as lacking in common sense.
Actually what needs to happen is both of those things.
It’s already been mentioned earlier in the thread that the development of the Volt (which you clearly disapprove of) led to breakthroughs in battery technology. A “universal push for cheaper, smaller, lighter batteries” is a misleading concept because when you take a closer granular look “universal” actually means various private and public concerns working as individual entities. Like GM, or Nissan, or other car companies that are competing to develop their own green technologies (and secure intellectual property). Profit is the greatest motivator for private entities and it has to be bumped along sometimes (for example the various cash prizes being dangled in front of several private companies competing to produce viable space flight vehicles).
The emergency exists. The technology to mitigate this emergency exists. The will, however is still lacking, thanks in part to the kind of equivocal confusionary nonsense spread by people who refuse to acknowledge the seriousness of the situation (denial, again - a lot of it present in this thread). Yes, you are correct in saying that specific examples of technology like specific solar power technologies may see important developments in the near future, but I am talking in terms of general approach and you seem to be more focused on specific examples that favour the “do little now and wait for technology” solution. We’ve had years of obtuse delays, and without more aggressive targets and even more aggressive investment those delays will continue. You cannot overcome inertia as massive as that of the carbon liberating industries overnight just because a new gizmo appears on the market - it takes time, which is a critical item in the climate change emergency. So it makes sense to start addressing the problem early and begin to educate the market, even if better tech is on the way.
I disagree. Realclimate state that scenario A represents exponential increases in forcing and scenario B represents linear increases in forcing, which glosses over what Hansen said about those scenarios. Hansen’s 1988 paper is here, section 4 is the relevant part: http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/1988/1988_Hansen_etal.pdf Scenario A is increasing emissions over time, which is what has actually happened since 1988, while scenario’s B and C are various levels of decreasing emissions over time (giving a linear increase in forcing and a reduction in forcing respectively). Hansen’s temperature prediction due to scenario B may fit reality well, but scenario B is not what has actually happened with emissions. We have experienced the temperature increase that Hansen expected IF we reduced emissions a bit, but we’ve experienced them while increasing emissions! Hansen was a good way off the mark.
Did you see Abes link in post 162 where Hansen claims based on paleo data that climate sensitivity is more than twice that of IPCC models? Mann is the pioneer in paleo work and yet Mann’s own results shows a fair bit of variation in temperature reconstruction, depending on which proxies you select. How Hansen can possibly claim ever greater climate sensitivity on paleo data (where he is not an expert IIRC) after his last effort is difficult for me to understand.
The link actually came from Gigobuster, I only reposted it for emphasis! Not sure if I read/follow correctly here, but are you indicting a researcher based on predictions in a paper from the dawn of climate change science? Is there nothing more current that could prove useful?
I see it mostly as science progressing, and once again, Hansen is still respected.
Even he had to realize he was wrong on the sensibility applied to the early model, but, as **Abe **notices, science marches on, the model still managed to get close to the overall trend, and that has to be commended not condemned, there is a reason why the American Meteorological Society and others recognize him.
Ah, I missed that. I’m not indicting anyone - as you point out, 1988 is a fair way back in climate science. I was responding to Waldo Pepper’s repeated requests for a “falsifiable” prediction of climate science by pointing out that the surface temperature record has an upward trend that contains a downward-to-flat period of around 40 years. So we’d probably need a longer flat period in the temperature record than that before we could consider anything “falsified” by the temperature records alone. The fact that Hansen’s 1988 predictions overestimated warming according to some analyses was an interesting aside.
I’m very unimpressed about Hansen’s paleo claims of high sensitivity though. To estimate sensitivity you have to have good paleo data on the temperature and the forcings. My comments and links on the hockey stick in this thread show that paleo temperature reconstructions aren’t that good (Mann’s own results change considerably depending what proxies are included). As for paleo data on the forcings, we don’t even have good data on the current sulphate aerosol forcing, let alone its value far in the past! The models use different estimates, see: http://downloads.climatescience.gov/sap/sap2-3/sap2-3-final-report-ExecSummary.pdf
From page 4 section ES 3.1
“Despite a wide range of climate sensitivity (i.e. the amount of surface temperature increase due to a change in radiative forcing, such as an increase of CO2) exhibited by the models, they all yield a global average temperature change very similar to that observed over the past century. This agreement across models appears to be a consequence of the use of very different aerosol forcing values, which compensates for the range of climate sensitivity.”
First off, this is absurd; both sides call it climate change. Second, shouldn’t folks who make predictions offer falsification criteria (a) without being asked, or failing that, (b) regardless of what they think – perhaps mistakenly – about someone who requests one?
I’m not asking whether it’s passed falsification tests so far. I’m asking whether it can still be falsified going forward. That I’m asking about the second question implies no disregard about the first. That you’re ducking the second question implies you don’t like it; tough.
Your point, by contrast, is nonexistent. You refuse to spell out falsification criteria for current predictions, which means they’re no predictions at all.
You need to spell out, specifically, what “take the big picture into account” means, otherwise you’re not even playing.
Pardon? Again, my support was the UN’s report by the World Meteorological Organization: global average temperature indicates cooling after '98 followed by precisely no statistically significant warming past that '98 mark during all the fluctuations that followed – all of which is irrelevant, since I only keep mentioning it while asking for a replacement falsification criterion.
I’m asking you for the “points based on real data” that could falsify it. You’re clamming up, sticking to the since-'98-ain’t-good-enough talking point without specifying what would be good enough.
I keep telling you I’ll drop it when you supply a replacement, and you keep saying, no, just drop it. Pathetic.
So you keep alleging – and keep refusing to replace it with a less peculiar and more useful one. Possibly you don’t have one?
Well, that’s certainly missing it closer than GIGO’s posts, but it still looks uncomfortably vague. It’s a tough question, you say. Forty years of flat surface temperatures wouldn’t be enough, you say. Ten years would raise an eyebrow for you, you say (and add that you of course think it’s already been ten years). Interesting times if ARGO is still showing it in 2013-2014, you say. Twenty would ring alarm bells, you say, with some promise – but I must supply my own answer, you add.
The first four are just detailed notes about what’s not good enough to falsify it. The fifth approaches it, and I appreciate that – but it still backs off right when specificity would be key. (And I’m certainly not out to supply my own answer; I could just declare victory and go home, which would be silly and pointless.)
It is uncomfortably vague! I’m not trying to persuade you of anything - just inform you where the science is at and why your question can’t be answered well. Climate science has some really big, glaring gaps in it which are not well publicised or acknowledged and are only just beginning to be filled in. ARGO is giving good OHC data, which we didn’t have before, and the GLORY satellite was supposed to sort out the sulphate aerosol uncertainty but it crashed and burned. God knows how a 400 billion dollar satellite mission will be replaced in the current economic climate, and without tightening up our understanding of sulphate levels, the estimates of climate sensitivity are wide open.
I think you’ve missed my point a little, which is that surface temperature measurements ON THEIR OWN can’t tell us all that much either way. Forty years of flat surface temperatures indeed wouldn’t be enough, because we’ve seen it before in the middle of a general rising trend. Surface temperatures are cluttered by weather noise (which can easily be averaged out over a few years of data) but also by various ocean energy oscillations (EL Nino/La Nina being the most famous) some of which last over forty years. If we could quantify those oscillations and take their effects away from the temperature record, then such an “adjusted” temperature record would tell us if the underlying trend had truly changed direction, ten years probably being good enough. The thing is, we don’t have a good understanding of those oscillations so the temperature record is currently obscured by them, and we’d need a century of good data to average out a 40 year oscillation! The surface record isn’t that useful overall and that cuts both ways. We saw a big temperature rise 1970-2000 but thanks to the ocean oscillations I believe nature IS capable of producing that sort of temperature rise all by itself, temporarily. We have to look elsewhere to determine how much of it (if any) was nature and how much (if any) was us.
ARGO is whole different kettle of fish. ARGO isn’t measuring surface temperatures, it’s measuring ocean heat content (OHC) which is a much more useful metric as it’s where practically all the excess warming energy (if there is any) goes. Ocean energy oscillations only affect the surface temperature, whereas OHC is mostly distributed in the top 750m and so is largely unaffected by them. The thing is, ARGO has only been online properly since 2003-2004 and a few wrinkles had to be sorted out in the early data. It’s a relatively new data source and the OHC data prior to that is far less reliable. From Levitus’ OHC plot, I think a ten year OHC flat spot without a volcano to explain it would be unprecedented. That’s MY eyeball assessment and I hoped you’d check out the plot and agree or disagree. There is no “declaring victory” here, at least not with me, because I don’t have a “side”. I just want to know exactly how much we know and why we think we know it, as opposed to all the partisan crap! I’ve found you really have to dig and read and research in this area and supply your own answers much of the time. Just the way it is.
So: personally I think we’ve already seen ten years of flat OHC in reality, but ten years of flat actual ARGO data (up to 2013-2014) will make climate science at large begin to accept that something unexpected is going on. The paper I linked to earlier attempts to explain it in terms of increases in Chinese coal-burning, which indicates to me that some climate scientists are beginning to worry about it. My personal answer to your “How much longer?” if I’m forced to give one is three years for ARGO, eighty years for surface temperature records.
No you don’t, because the models also have different climate sensitivities, which compensate for the different aerosol histories so they all give the same answer! If that sounds like a great big kludge to you, you’re not alone.
The models are “trained” using the “known” forcing history and tweaked until they match the past temperature record. Then they are run into the future. The thing is, there are big uncertainties in the forcing history so the various groups make assumptions, so you end up with a bunch of different forcing histories used by different groups. The amount, geographic extent and the effect of sulphate aerosols in the air and on clouds are all poorly quantified at the moment.
Among skeptics that do look at the science, not so by a good chunk of the most irrational denialist sites.
If you had not been influenced by them, then you would had said “We **also **call it climate change”, you said “we call it climate change now” the sorry now common point from deniers is: “Why do they call it “climate change” now instead of “global warming”? Is it because “global warming” is a tough sell in a cooling world?" making that meme to be a very closely related one to the “it has not cooled since 1998” denialist misleading meme.
I already linked and quoted even a conservative scientist (Brickmore) on why this cooling meme is silly, everyone can see that besides you not liking the answers, you also deny that even a reference to that big picture was ignored by you.
And we come to yet another denialist shibboleth, a search of the keywords regarding the UN report (and everyone should notice how after complaining a lot about citations, you do not have one here) shows a member of the UN team being quoted on the apparent cooling. This cite was typical:
Well, besides not citing the report directly (itself a red flag there and here in the thread) alert readers can notice that the secretary general nor the article claims that
“the world is cooling because of global warming!” there is no hint that what the secretary said here was in the report and on top of that, the UN climate secretary is in reality only rhetorically saying that this has prompted some to question climate change theory. He is just describing the few contrarians that are still beating on this sorry point.
And one does not have to go far to get evidence of what Mr. Jarraud actual position is.
So, yeah, I have to say that is good evidence that you are at least aware on why you did not posted a link to your sources, you are aware that those cites would not fly.
The evidence shows what is the position of the secretary after the report was made, and what the release actually did say, I do think that the source where you got that UN 1998 point should be known, the UN report does not say what the denial spin says it did, so you indeed do not have any good support from the UN nor the other climate research centers that track the temperature.
About the only good thing you can do now is to point at the source you did use The Other Waldo Pepper, because, really, the ones that deserve condemnation are the ones that start and broadcast that false information.
It’s a flaming waste of money that could have been invested in something that accomplished it’s intended purpose.
That’s it in a nutshell. There is no emergency. New York is not going underwater anytime soon. Al Gore is a complete buffoon who makes millions running his mouth. He gets paid to scare people.
We have much larger fish to fry right now. If the world economy isn’t put back on track there will be ZERO money to front future needs including global warming/climate change dejure. If we don’t have the money maintain the natural technology progression then we’re screwed because there is nothing that the United States can do if the rest of the world is still living under a bush. Our industries could shit pure oxygen and rainbows and it wouldn’t matter if India, China and all the 3rd world countries are still cranking out co2.
We are on track for major breakthroughs whether you care to admit it or not. If they go down in flames because the economy tanks then THAT will be the real problem.
If you raise the cost of energy you will kill business in this country and it will move to places like India where they will burn anything not tied down to produce energy.
Funny thing is that even in India they are more active than the US on recognizing and doing something about the issue, it does not seem that they see regulations, or cap and trade as economic killers.
The impression I get is that even more would be done if the USA would lead on the efforts.
