Really? You’re not familiar with the phenomenon of the 90-year-old smoker who insists she’s living proof that cigarettes don’t cause cancer?
Climate is usually defined over a 30 year period, which is why NASA for example uses a 1950-81 base period. But in any case, if you take the decadal average for the 1990s and compare it to the 2000s, the latter are noticeably warmer (in fact, every year in the 2000s was warmer than the average for the 1990s). Sure, if you take a 5 year running mean, there is a slowdown over the last few years, but it isn’t unexpected at all given the short term climate variability (and it actually overshot the 11 year mean around 2005). Also, note that the 11 year mean shows no slowdown, and the 12 month mean shows peaks in 2010, 2007, 2005 and finally 1998; just eyeballing the chart, I can’t fathom why people keep claiming that warming has stopped, I see no big difference between the past decade and the preceding decade. Nor is there any valid scientifically supported reason to suspect any major changes (sure, a major volcano could erupt, and I am talking about one like Pinatubo; the recent Iceland volcanoes emitted very little SO2, and it would only be for several years). Even if solar activity dropped to Maunder Minimum levels, it wouldn’t have much impact, less than a decade at the current warming rate
CO2 is a transparent gas. By what mechanism could it cause an increase in the albedo?
No, I am – and I’m familiar with the response, where folks gleefully spell out what a double-blind study entails, and how big a sample size is required, and why you need a control group. I’ve seen a big fine detailed answer given to a lone cigarette smoker who insists that data is the plural of anecdote; specifics are no trouble at all.
Cloud cover is the most commonly cited factor, though there are many, many more including smoke from vegetation fires, increases in biotic volatiles, increased convective cooling, land cover change etc.
I am a lukewarmer myself, which means that I agree with most of the climate science, but I disagree with the amount of warming that is going to occur. I think most climate models simply assume too much feedback from the increase in CO2. Standard climate science assumes a fairly small warming directly from the CO2 but there is a feedback loop because of the increase in water vapor caused by increase in CO2. The amount of warming that I estimate will occur by 2100 will be between 1 and 2 degrees centigrade. I don’t think there is a consensus among climate scientists about how much feedback there is.
From what I’ve calculated that is consistent with all the major temperature indexes.
http://www.anupchurchchrestomathy.com/2011/06/comparing-giss-hadcru-rss-and-uah.html
Another thing you have to understand is that long term climate models are based on economic models that estimate how much fossil fuels we can dig up and burn for the next 100 years. I frankly regard the economic models as little better than fantasy. This means that the climate models has a huge GIGO problem.
Clearly, out ability to add CO2 to the atmosphere is greater than the ability of the biosphere (and oceans) to absorb it. That’s why the Mauna Loa data set shows a steady increase in CO2 concentrations.
The fish tank isn’t proof of anthropogenic global warming, but it’s certainly a useful illustration of the greenhouse effect.
I am not arguing against global warming. It’s just that the fishtank is bunkum science, and will lead to more doubts and denial. It’s as stupid as the mouse tail experiment that supposedly disproved Lamarkism (and which “experiment” was used for years in textbooks as why Lamarkism is bunk).
Our ability is greater? Over the long term? Is that 100% proven?
Thanks Blake.
No, that isn’t clear at all. Once again, this is simplistic scientistic cheerleading based upon a near total failure to understand the arguments of either side.
We know from numerous data sets that every past warming event was followed by an increase in CO2 concentrations. We know that the Earth has been warming steadily for the past 400 years, so we would *expect *to see a steady increase in CO2 concentrations even if there were no humans on the planet. Every previous warming event has been followed by a steady increase in CO2 levels concomitant with the degree of warming.
So can you explain why the Mauna Loa data are “clearly” evidence that “our ability to add CO2 to the atmosphere is greater than the ability of the biosphere to absorb it”?
As Dr. Deth puts it, it’s bunkum science. It’s as stupid as the mouse tail experiment that supposedly disproved Lamarkism. The Mauna Loa data aren’t clear evidence of anyhting aside from an increase in atmospheric CO2 concentrations. Combined with other data and various assumptions they can be used to construct an *argument *that our ability to add CO2 to the atmosphere is greater than the ability of the biosphere to absorb it.
But that is very different to your claim that such a conclusion is “clear” from a single data set.
Indeed, one needs other data to get a proper view of where the CO2 is coming from.
Besides CO2 levels, is there any aspect of global climate which has increased in such a steady manner over the last 50 years? Seems to me that if CO2 level increases were the result of natural variation, you would expect it to rise in fits and starts.
Why would you expect that?
We might just as well say "Seems to me that if temperature level increases were the result of fuel consumption, you would expect temperature to rise smoothly not in fits and starts. Since temperature hasn’t increased in a steady manner over the last 50 years, it can;t be due to fossil fuel use.
Of course neither argument makes any sense. These are complex systems, you can’t expect a perfect correlation between the cause and the effect because of the multitude of natural buffering effects, long term effects and so forth.
If CO2 levels were responding to temperature changes, as they have in the past, then we wouldn’t expect to see short term fluctuations because it responds to long term temperature trends.
You can look at the C)2 concentration graph for the past 1,000 years at the bottom of this page, and the concentrations for the past 14, 000 years at the top. A few things should be apparent form that data:
The concentration doesn’t move in fits and starts over the short term. It moves in a smooth progression for several decades, followed by a single inflection point and a change in slope, followed by stable movement in the new direction for several decades. Since it did that 10, 00 year ago and 500 years ago, presumably in response to natural factors, why would we expect natural factors to produce different results now?
Now we need to be careful when reading ice core data. It’s notorious for producing smoothing effects that obscure trends of less than ~100 years. But even taking that into account, the century-scale pattern is one of smooth trend followed by inflection. It’s not one of fits and starts.
First, there’s the isotope ratios mentioned by Gio.
Second, there’s the fact that CO2 concentrations are increasing. This clearly indicates that the total CO2 generation on the planet exceeds the rate at which it is being removed from the atmosphere. There are natural emissions, as sure as I breathe. There’s also the oceanic CO2, which we can argue over the the anthropocentric nature of. But there’s clearly CO2 emitted by burning fossil fuels. We’re adding about 30 GT per year of CO2, and the mass of atmospheric CO2 is increasing by 15 GT per year. All things being equal, if you remove the fossil CO2 from the balance, CO2 wouldn’t be increasing (and they won’t be equal - CO2 removal would decrease).
Perhaps I needed to be a little more precise. “The current generation rate of CO2 from anthropogenic and natural sources exceeds the ability of the biosphere to absorb it in the intermediate term (decades to centuries).”
Simple, easy-to-see argument: Look at any of the before-and-after photos of Glacier National Park. Huge expanses of the park used to be covered with ice year-round. Now, they’re not. What changed?
Local climate. That’s really not the best argument.
Is this a joke, or do you really not understand that anecdote is not scientific data?
Simple, easy-to-see argument:
Up until 1979, any ship could sail to a distance of 500 km of the Antarctic coastline at any time of year. Now, they can’t because of the sea ice. What changed?
ZOMG! This so proves that the Earth is getting colder.
Right Chronos?
Unfortunately such psuedoscientifc arguments that simply ignore the scientific evidence are the norm for alarmists. We seen the same repeated multiple times im this thread alone Very few actually understand any of the science, instead simply parroting the rhetoric fed to them by the anti-scientific alarmist doomsayers.
True, although to make it best one has to make it a more complex one, the ice loss from glaciers is there when one looks at the average, but this goes a little beyond what the OP is looking for IMHO.
A better way to for the average person to take the information is to check the videos from the Climate Crock of the week.
Data is which is open to numerous interpretations, as has been seen in the scientific literature. SO this certainly doesn’t make you assertion “clear”. It forms part of a complicated and debatable argument to that end based upon certain assumptions.
Which in no way supports your assertion that humans are clearly responsible for the increase in generation.
That’s arguable at best. Even the IPCC stops clear of making the bold assertion that it is a fact. Perhaps that shoud;l give you cause to rethink why you belive it is a definite fact when the IPCC does not. It certainly isn’t clear form the Mauna Loa data as you asserted.
That is perfectly true, and it has been perfectly true for at least 50% of the history of our planet.
So what exactly is your point?
Yes, it’s there, and it can be attributed largely or entirely to soot.
And of course even with that, glaciers today still haven’t retreatedas far as they had 1, 000 years ago, a time when global temperature was supposedly entirely natural.
Glaciers come and glaciers go. We know almost nothing about the causes, but if the current retreat is attributable to global temperatures, then we are forced to concede that the temperature were significantly warmer than today. And if we wish to assert that temperatures today are warmer than they have been for the past 1, 00 years , then we have to concede that the current retreat of glaciers isn’t attributable to temperature.