Another big one that you left out is methane release from permafrost and methane hydrates, which is already beginning based on reports; methane is such a powerful greenhouse gas (the GWP was recently increased to 105 over a decadal time frame) that even a few million tons a year would be significant, much less the possibility of a large-scale release in the gigaton range (1 GT methane ~ 100 GT CO2 ~ 3x annual human emissions).
Also, natural gas is often touted as a “clean” fuel with lower emissions than coal or oil but when leaks are factored in, it is likely worse than either, again due to methane’s GWP.
[ul]
[li]The actual measured warning rate for the last 30 years indicate a warming of 1.2 to 1.4 degrees centigrade from now until 2100.[/li][li]Basic climate science say we need an **exponential **increase in greenhouse gases to support a linear increase in temperature.[/li][/ul]
Anything less than an exponential increase in greenhouse gases would produce less than the 1.2-1.4 warming. I’m talking about actual measurements, not models.
Everything you’ve talked are just hypotheses without presenting a shred of proof. You don’t even show that tar sands produce more greenhouse gases per BTU than coal and you ignore the fact that the major new energy source is natural gas produced by fracking, which produces less GHGs per BTU than coal.
No, actually you are talking about models. There’s no way to estimate warming rates from now until 2100 without using climate models. Because, unfortunately, we don’t have any actual measurements of temperature or atmospheric greenhouse-gas concentrations from the period between now and 2100. (If it weren’t for this pesky time machine acting up I would have solved that problem by now, but I’m still waiting on parts. Sorry about that, folks.)
What you seem to be arguing for is taking “the actual measured warming rate for the last 30 years” and extrapolating that to the next 80 years. Surprise: that right there, that assumption that we can extrapolate directly from recent conditions to future conditions, is a climate model.
A very simple model, admittedly, but a model nonetheless. And, according to the research presented in the IPCC reports, not the most likely model, based on current knowledge about the physics of the carbon cycle.
Yup, and nowhere have I claimed otherwise. There is no proof available for any prediction about specific future climate conditions (that damn time machine again).
But the potential greenhouse-gas-boosting factors that I (and Michael63129) have mentioned are not only physically possible but, according to the current state of climate science, significantly likely. That certainly doesn’t prove that warming rates in the near future will be greater than linear, but it’s one of the reasons that we can’t just blithely assume that they won’t be greater than linear.
I didn’t claim that they do. They do, however, produce more greenhouse gases per BTU than other forms of oil extraction which they are predicted to replace as more easily accessible petroleum sources become exhausted.
I sure don’t understand the climate science. This stuff makes my brain hurt. But in my reading, I noticed a striking similarity to another question I recently researched.
I knew some intelligent and apparently rational people who disbelieved Evolution. I had taken it on faith, so I started out reading Darwin, and took it from there, reading both sides of the debate. A striking thing is that while many of those who adhere to NeoDarwinist dogma have differences of opinion, they agree on the vast majority of facts and fundamentals. On the other hand, those who criticize it rarely do so in any significantly technical way without severely contradicting the other critics.
I saw the same for scientists who criticize the IPCC concensus. There’s a great big tent, with most climate scientists inside it, and a lot of very little tents with only a few critics each, ouside. The critics can’t agree on much of any technical substance, except perhaps disputing the concensus view of the historical record. (Even there, they dispute it for different and often conflicting reasons.)
The most consistent criticism of the concensus is that detailed climate models are horribly complex and somewhat contradictory, so we shouldn’t take them too seriously. I agree that we shouldn’t take the specifics too seriously, but we should pay attention to the general trend, about which they tend to agree.
And then there’s the risk analysis viewpoint. If we take serious countermeasures, they may be very costly to our fragile economy, which costs might be wasted. However, if the risks are real, the cost of ignoring them are catastrophic. Furthermore, these are not a few chicken-littles who are crying, they’re the most significant scientific organizations in the world.
BTW, I’m a fiscal conservative and would really like to avoid any further governmental damage to the economy. But the results of failing to act in response to a risk of impending doom are well documented in history. I don’t want to wind up in that section of the book.
One thing you need to understand is most of consensus is engineered. Climate models can get almost any result by tweaking a few parameters. The IPCC got the climate modelerers to sit down in a room and agree on a common set of parameters. The guys that don’t, are excluded for the IPCC reports and get their funding cut.
:dubious: Nowhere in your cite does it say that uncooperative researchers “got their funding cut”; that seems to be your conspiracy-theoretical addition to the description of the model development process.
Nor does this description sound to me like a process of “engineering consensus”. Rather, it sounds like the successful functioning of scientific competition between different hypotheses, where proponents of different ideas have to engage in argument and conflict with each other about the relative merits of their positions. Adversarial debate exposes the shortcomings of the various arguments, and eventually the adversaries agree on common ground.
Why should that be considered suspect, except by someone already determined to mistrust the IPCC?
And why would you trust them unless your are willing to accept the IPCC as gospel? When real science is conducted you don’t try to force all round pegs into square holes. All the results that pass peer review are published.
The reality is that most of the latest skeptical efforts to show that most of the scientists are wrong have been found to be hopelessly flawed. And yet they do find ways to be published, what it is ignored here is that publishing is not the end of it, then there is replication and other scientists checking the paper, and even there the common theme is just the spectacular failure coming from the part of the skeptics.
What I constructed is not a model, it is the null hypotheses that things will continue doing what they are already doing. It is what every climate model is tested against. You can’t actually challenge it so you are reduced to Argument from authority without even mentioning an authority. You don’t even try to address the questionable economic underpinning of the scientific arguments.
You haven’t produced a single cite to substantiate anything you’ve said. Until you do any intelligent person will ignore what you say.
It is amazing how you keep using non-peered reviewed sources, while insisting that other people’s non-peered reviewed sources should be ignored. Of course since you don’t actually understand any science all you can do is cut and paste arguments you don’t understand.
That particular piece might be regarded as one element in Spencer’s own peer review process. Since he publishes his work with little or no community peer review, the peer review process must take place out in the wide open. Like this. If every peer review document must be itself reviewed by another peer, ad infinitum, either nothing would ever get published or the noise level would reach the point that extracting real information would become nigh impossible.
This is why scientific research is a “conspiracy”. Scientists and researchers must work together to validate each others’ work. Publishing with no review as Dr. Spencer does, allowing Cato, National Review, et al to enthusiastically wave the material around at the vast ignorati, is really nothing more than nihilistically politicizing science.
Meh, that was just to test you, it is you who does not understand, the previous post was the early going of Spenser in the climate sensibility issue in his book, if you were indeed interested in the science you would had know already that Spencer **did **publish and then the mega fail took place:
BTW among the scientists that did find the flaws was Dr. John P. Abraham, Associate Professor of thermal and fluid Sciences at the University of St. Thomas School of Engineering, Minnesota. His area of research includes thermodynamics, heat transfer, fluid flow, numerical simulation, and energy.
I would think that guys like him do understand the issue better than a blogessor or Spencer.
All you are doing is showing that you are busy refuting strawman arguments that no one is making. Nobody in this thread has mentioned Spencer except you.
I can see how people think that, but I’ve seen GIGOBuster debate with actual scientists on the boards and he is basically revealed to be a paper tiger. He spam posts tons of cites. Some of them are from reputable sources and should be considered reasonable, but a lot of them come from alarmist websites.
GIGOBuster actually hurts the cause because he is a global warming alarmist. Alarmists believe, beyond any claims ever made by science, that global warming will basically cause an apocalypse. There is no scientific evidence whatsoever that global warming will cause any sort of near-term (meaning within the next few hundred years) apocalypse.
[Factually speaking Earth’s apocalypse for all life will eventually be caused by the ever-increasing output of heat from the sun, which scientists project will cause the Earth’s oceans to boil off around a billion years from now creating an environment incompatible with life.]
Further, people repeat claims like “in the past the Sun was dimmer”, but during the Pleistocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum global temperatures were much warmer than they are now, and global CO2 concentrations spiked to as high as 2000 PPM, vastly higher than today. Life thrived on that world, and that world could easily have supported human life.
The problem with even talking to alarmists, is if you do not buy into their alarmist hysteria you immediately get attacked as a “denier.” Unfortunately on these boards, everyone is hyper sensitive to the possibility that an evil Koch-sponsored denier is spreading anti-scientific falsehoods. But the truth is this:
Science projects warming that will cause many problems for mankind, but even the worst projections of reputable science do not project anything that would be apocalyptic.
That’s all that people who refute some of GIGOBuster’s more outrageous claims in the past are trying to say. Most of us are saying, “we agree AGW is a serious problem and we need to do everything we can to curtail it long term, but let’s not make false claims and exaggerations.” Those exaggerations are easy to latch on to by people who are actual anti-science and who really believe AGW is a liberal conspiracy theory.
But just ask yourself these questions, and then research for yourself the answers:
What level of global temperature increase would be needed to have 65 F temperature in the arctic?
What level of global temperature increase do reputable scientists predict?
What level of CO2 concentration was associated with 65 F arctic temperatures during the Pleistocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum?
What is our current CO2 atmospheric concentration and what is its expected trajectory?
Was life on earth possible with arctic temperatures of 65 F?
I want you to look for your own answers, but I’ll give some of mine. Global temperatures would have to increase far beyond any projections for the poles to be so warm. CO2 concentrations sometimes as much as four times the total we have right now were present, and life thrived in this environment.
This is where you start to get angry alarmists at you, because they think by noting “life thrived in this environment” I’m saying “global warming is great and will be no big deal at all.” That is not what I’m saying, life is not synonymous with “extant human life and civilizations.” As has been mentioned our societies have developed around the climate seen over the past 5000 years and most especially the last 200-300 years. We are disproportionately living next to the oceans in human society for various historical reasons. We are disproportionately, as a species, going to be affected by the loss of traditionally arable lands and the rising sea levels. These will have destructive and catastrophic effects on human society.
But “catastrophic for human society” is not the same as “Armageddon that Turns Earth into Venus.” The science does not support anyone who thinks Earth is turning into Venus and you should be skeptical of anyone who associates with people who think that why (by linking to alarmist websites, for example.)
My position, and the one of most rational people on this issue, is one of restraint and accuracy. You can be all for reducing our carbon footprint and working to find as many adaptations as possible to the reality of global climate change (which is going to happen regardless of the reduction we make in carbon footprint, we can work long term to make sure humans don’t release so much carbon in the future but we’re essentially on a train that doesn’t stop anytime soon right now and we need to recognize that reality as well), without having to resort to alarmist style doomsaying.
Spenser is the closest one related to the climate sensibility issue, and the point stands, yin reality you have not much knowledge on what is going on. There is no need to be an expert on the issue, only to be aware of what is going on in the scientific community.
Something to note is the IPCC is probably wrong about their economics vis-a-vis fossil fuels. Before some of the recent large scale oil and natural gas discoveries ExxonMobil released a report stating they projected fossil fuels would still constitute a majority of the world’s energy supply by 2070. So the hope that by the 2050s fossil fuels will be economically uncompetitive are probably “optimistic” (optimistic depending on your perspective.)
Evidence suggests we’re finding more and more oil and gas and getting better and better at extracting it, and that we could probably keep running on the stuff for a lot longer than people thought even ten years ago.
What this means is this is a scenario in which the externalities are such the government has to get involved. The government will need to intentionally make fossil fuels too expensive to use, to strictly regulate where they are burned and how, because we can’t just hope that economic reality drives fossil fuels into the dustbin of history.