This started with the pup’s statement “The “question” you cite has been well and truly answered.” in his post #63. My one point is that it is wrong to state this as a probability of exactly 1. Further, I stated my case why this is wrong. It seems your rebuttal consisted of an ad hominem attack.
There’s a sticky for this board that clearly explains what can be said here and what can’t be said here.
But for the record, I’m specifically parroting Bate, Roger R.; Mueller, Donald D.; White, Jerry E. (1971). Fundamentals of Astrodynamics. Dover Publications, Inc., New York as expressed in Wikipedia’s article on perturbations. Of course these have little effect per orbit, but we have 4.7 billion orbits in hand. Back to my one point, it doesn’t matter how small this effects climate change, it is NOT zero. If you’ve taken Calculus, then you should know just how small a quantity can be and still not be exactly zero.
Fine, just saying that you should had admitted that you do not trust them even if it was approved (it was accepted, some details are still being checked), of course after claiming many times that we should wait for the science, it is clear that you will not accept them, no matter if scientists are the ones reviewing already publicized science for the IPCC report.
Just an aside here, Gigo, I’d like for you to stop providing these extensive quotations. Your statement above stands quite well on it’s own, and providing the citation is outstanding. The six column-inches of copy/paste is overkill, in my opinion. If any certainty can be given in a Great Debate, it is your good faith. I hope you feel the same towards me.
Sorry, but in my experience how someone deals (or not) with a citation does show a lot.
You see, I’m not only posting for you, I post for all that should not take with just faith the musings of an anonymous bloke on the internet (and I’m referring to me here). Specially with a subject like this one where evidence is falling from the ears of many experts. And I do post also to learn, the meta point here is that as some (not you here, but do I have to mention what was done elsewhere?) do indeed concentrate on a poster so as to not deal with what people with more experience are reporting about this issue.
As always, I remain amazed that you don’t seem to grasp why you so often need to break out that boilerplate: since you’re here, making claims and replying to questions, people can naturally ask you follow-up questions – to which your post would then, and often does, suffice minus the rest.
You can, of course, then follow up with tons of other stuff if you wish – it does no harm, I suppose – so long as you’ve already done the all-important part of answering the question you’re asked. But like the man said, it’s redundant.
Ahem!! The IPCC WG1 report has been through a series of draft releases and major reviews throughout its more than three years of development by 258 principal contributors and hundreds of independent reviewers and review editors. The Summary for Policymakers has already been published following line-by-line approval, and the full report will be published later this year with (relatively speaking) only very minor changes, which are documented here.
So to suggest that this is some kind of tentative document subject to any kind of substantive changes is extremely misleading.
Just as misleading, in fact, as making offhand statements about how “the IPCC has been wrong before”. In fact considering the intense scrutiny that the thousands of pages of detailed scientific assessment are subject to by those with an agenda of discrediting the IPCC (see my post #62 here about the massive denialist spin machine) the robustness of the IPCC assessments is actually quite remarkable and a testament to their expertise.
The IPCC is far from perfect, but among their imperfections is their inherent conservatism with respect to scientific levels of confidence and the consensus-based nature of their determinations, which makes their conclusions actually far more understated than the much stronger position that many believe is justified by the evidence.
I’m not sure what is to be gained by such semantic acrobatics. In the post previously linked, Mr. Brazil seemed to be trying to claim that in the context of warming induced by elevated levels of CO2, negative feedbacks would predominate. At least, that was my interpretation of the claim. In fact, there is really no debate about the fact that it’s positive feedbacks that dominate positive CO2 forcing. Where the disagreements arise is in the important area of quantifying them with some level of precision.
Many of the points you raise have already been well answered by GIGObuster – I’ll just throw in a few more things.
It simply has to do with the fact that shorter-term cycles dominate over long-term ones. An analogy might be the fact that we are more concerned about seasonal changes in our lives than we are about ice ages. By the same token, the Quaternary ice age we are in is relevant only at what I’ve called tectonic timescales – the millions of years that it takes tectonic plates to move around. It is completely irrelevant in assessing what anthropogenic CO2 is doing to the planet; in that context, we need to be much more concerned about the regular pattern that’s been established for the past 1.2 million years, since the mid-Pleistocene transition, of 100 Ky glaciation cycles.
The fact that we have thrown CO2 levels so far out of the normal range of these cycles that it exceeds normal maxima by more than the total differential between an ice age and an interglacial should be truly frightening. That is, we have introduced a long-term net climate forcing that is greater than the forcing differential between North America as it is today and North America covered by a mile-thick sheet of ice. But we’ve done it in a positive (warming) direction, at the peak of the present Holocene. Where this will take us nobody truly knows.
Well, yes, but Milankovitch cycles (I originally spelled it Milankovic – I’ve seen it both ways) also change things like the Earth’s orbital eccentricity and the orbital plane. But you don’t even have to accept Milakovitch cycles as the trigger for glaciation cycles; it’s clear that once the cycle begins, CO2 is the driver (anyone who doubts this needs to revisit the CO2 radiative transfer equation I linked upthread; this is basic physics).
Nowhere did I say that they can’t, only that they will get more from what the experts report, as I always say, an educated opinion is better than an ignorant one. BTW when you come with that “To whom are you referring?” and insisting that I must have a problem: it is also an attempt at personalizing the issue, look at what the experts claim.
And thank you for showing all that you are not willing to deal with that “redundancy” what a surprise that how wrong contrarians got an item is not the lesson.
It’s not my attempt at personalizing the issue; you mentioned that ‘some do indeed concentrate on a poster,’ threw in a parenthetical along the way, and left me wondering which persons you were referring to.
I have no idea what you’re going on about. I didn’t take the contrarian side; I have nothing to add, or dispute, when it comes to the subject in question. I merely wanted to emphasize that, when someone asks you a question, and you give an answer that satisfies him – and you then add a great deal more, and he explains why you don’t need to add all the extra stuff – that I (a) commend you for supplying the answer before doing the rest, and that I (b) don’t see why you bother with the rest, but, again, full marks for getting the important part right.
These are valid points that I’ve seen brought up before so I’ll bite.
Yep, it’s been really cold over most of North America, and in some parts of the world. What matters is global average temperature. NOAA hasn’t published the final numbers for December yet but as of November, the year 2013 was on track to be the fourth-warmest year on record and globally November was confirmed as the warmest November ever recorded.
Regarding the Antarctic. Yes, it’s summer, but it’s early summer and at this time of year there is on average still about 2.5 to 3 times the amount of sea ice as there is at the seasonal minimum.
Also, both polar regions are experiencing ice loss as a result of global warming. In the Arctic, which is predominantly ocean bordering land areas, we see it as decreases in overall sea ice cover. The Antarctic is almost the diametric opposite, basically a land mass surrounded by ocean. There, the predominant ice cover is the continental ice sheet, which overall is losing mass at the rate of about 200 to as much as 300 GT per year. The sea ice is largely seasonal and not an important indicator of climate change since most of it disappears by the end of summer though a combination of melt and drifting away. In fact, there is some evidence that freshwater outflow from the melting ice sheet is – ironically – contributing to increased amounts of coastal sea ice.
No…You misunderstand the term “negative feedback” and “positive feedback”. A positive feedback doesn’t necessarily cause warming; it simply magnifies whatever perturbation occurs. You are imagining a cooling perturbation and finding that it gets magnified, i.e., the increase in ice caused by this perturbation leads to further cooling. That is a positive feedback because it is magnifying the original perturbation.
uh oh … I generally don’t read what Gigo posts … maybe we should close off the current debate with a vote. Have I made my case for restraining ourselves from statement of certainty, or do the rebuttals prevail? I’ll cast my sixteen votes for the rebuttals to my first two points, but I’m going to stand on my last point: That IIPC study doesn’t include certainties, why should we think they are certain?
Would not the 41Ky glaciation cycle then stand as counter-example? You’ve used the word “bullshit” and I’m not clear how that applies to semantic acrobatics. This is about energy in, energy out. If they’re the same, temperature stays the same. Increase energy in and/or decrease energy out, temperature goes up … simple … Where’s the energy? Answer that question and you’ll find your problem.
The IPCC assessments most assuredly do include well-calibrated language to express formally defined uncertainty ranges where this is applicable; where it’s not meaningful to broad general conclusions, controversies and uncertainties are discussed in the supporting detailed assessments.
Herewith a few such statements from the IPCC AR5 WG1 Summary for Policymakers:
Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, and since the 1950s, many of the observed changes are unprecedented over decades to millennia. The atmosphere and ocean have warmed, the amounts of snow and ice have diminished, sea level has risen, and the concentrations of greenhouse gases have increased
Ocean warming dominates the increase in energy stored in the climate system, accounting for more than 90% of the energy accumulated between 1971 and 2010 (high confidence). It is virtually certain that the upper ocean (0−700 m) warmed from 1971 to 2010 (see Figure SPM.3), and it likely warmed between the 1870s and 1971.
Over the last two decades, the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have been losing mass, glaciers have continued to shrink almost worldwide, and Arctic sea ice and Northern Hemisphere spring snow cover have continued to decrease in extent (high confidence)
The rate of sea level rise since the mid-19th century has been larger than the mean rate during the previous two millennia (high confidence). Over the period 1901–2010, global mean sea level rose by 0.19 [0.17 to 0.21] m
Total radiative forcing is positive, and has led to an uptake of energy by the climate system. The largest contribution to total radiative forcing is caused by the increase in the atmospheric concentration of CO2 since 1750.
Human influence on the climate system is clear. This is evident from the increasing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere, positive radiative forcing, observed warming, and understanding of the climate system.
Climate models have improved since the AR4. Models reproduce observed continental-scale surface temperature patterns and trends over many decades, including the more rapid warming since the mid-20th century and the cooling immediately following large volcanic eruptions (very high confidence).
Human influence has been detected in warming of the atmosphere and the ocean, in changes in the global water cycle, in reductions in snow and ice, in global mean sea level rise, and in changes in some climate extremes. This evidence for human influence has grown since AR4. It is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century.
It would, if any such cycle was presently occurring. But it isn’t.
Eh? The total amount of incoming solar energy remains the same; the radiative transfer balance is changed by the increasing amounts of GHG’s. More thermal energy is being re-radiated back to earth instead of escaping into space, hence the earth’s temperature is going up. Looks like I found the problem!
It’s the nature of what can be said in a peer-reveiwed environment.
The only thing constant about solar radiation is that is never constant. I’ve offered orbital perturbations as cause, I’d like to hear any disputes with this material. There’s a quote from Sir Issac Newton in note 3, I honestly thought this was common knowledge.
If I might prey upon one of your earlier metaphors, the solar radiation would be like the outside temperature. Even though this is increasing, some dumbass cranked the carbon dioxide thermostat all the way up … and the water vapor is just cookin’ away. Man, that bill will be expensive.
You tell me that’s a highly likely scenario, I’m gonna say your right. If you tell me it is certain, I’m gonna say your wrong. If you tell me it’s a bad thing, I’m gonna say that’s philosophy …
… and a thing most worthy of Great Debate [wolfish grin].
Not really, as long as you pick a long enough time frame to show the true trend. The two charts you referred to had different starting dates, one 1880 and the other 1950, yet they both showed the the global temperature is increasing, while hitting temporary plateaus multiple times.
No it doesn’t. Every forecast has a range for a given future data point, and in the IPCC forecasts the bottom of that range is always lower than the prior year. That’s pretty standard in most forecast models. The trend is upward, has been upward, and sure seems to remain upward, despite the fact that we’ve “plateaued” many times in recent decades.
Do you understand that the previous holocene had a smaller anomaly variance in its thousands of years of growth than we’ve had in the past hundred? Hell, the last 30 years have the same anomaly variance as the estimations of the 2000+ years of growth during that period. This ain’t a cycle here.
I’m just trying to help you out, since you can’t seem to make up your mind what you actually believe.
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I notice that both of your linked articles contain charts that show the global average temp has plateaued for over a decade. That’s not “increasing”.
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The “globe” has been warming since the last ice age.
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While I realize that it gets confusing when one regurgitates the various arguments trotted out by the deniers, those sure seem to be at odds to me. Or we could go with the fact that your first quote focuses on 10 years of data from charts of 60-130 years and just note that you’re cherry-picking, instead of disagreeing with yourself. Either “flip-flopping” or “cherrypicking” work for me, so I’ll let you decide.
Correct, but it is constant enough for our purposes, within the sorts of timeframes we are talking about, and indeed constant enough for us to give it the provocative name “solar constant”!
The solar constant directly correlates with incoming total solar irradiation (TSI) incident on the upper atmosphere which is a relative constant within very narrow limits of variance. The actual temperature of the earth on average is determined by the total insolation penetrating the atmosphere and reaching the surface (mitigated by clouds and atmospheric aerosols) and the amount escaping back into space (also mitigated by clouds, but most significantly mitigated by greenhouse gases of which CO2 is dominant).
Working through the math and the physics, incremental CO2 becomes the overwhelmingly dominant variable.
I’m willing to wait for the new IPCC report to be officially released AND PROPERLY VETTED by independent organizations. By “properly vetted”, I mean being able to see the actual human inputs used for the IPCC’s computer modeling as opposed to the IPCC’s history of not releasing their inputs and eventually “losing” them when it appeared that the data would have to be made public.
