OK, the ice is melting now, really!

Great Debates
21

I think it’s pretty widely agreed that Kyoto by itself isn’t going to solve any of the major problems. It simply doesn’t go far enough, and several countries are talking about a second round of more far-reaching emissions reductions.

IMHO, the great value of something like Kyoto is that it at least starts to point us in the right direction. You’re right that the exact quantitative impact of climate forcing at present is still only a rough estimate. But AFAICT, it is almost absolutely certain that if we haven’t yet caused drastic climate change by our current levels of greenhouse gas emissions, we definitely will do so if we continue our current course (especially since that course at present leads to ever-increasing emissions).

Unfortunately, the question now seems to be not “Will human-caused warming produce drastic climate change, or won’t it?” Rather, it’s “Is human-caused warming already starting to produce drastic climate change, or will it be delayed for a few years or decades?” It is not scientifically plausible, AFAICT, that we can go on altering our atmosphere with emissions to such a radical extent and not have a very serious impact on what is now our “normal” climate.

In other words, we’ve got to change direction sometime, if we hope to have a serious chance of avoiding major environmental catastrophe. Kyoto is simply a first step, although an insufficient one, in the process of changing direction. And that’s why I think we should embrace it—not because it’s a magic bullet to solve our problems, but because it’s at least the beginning of recognizing that we have a problem that we need to solve.

As for your concern about economic impact, I appreciate that that’s something that has to be taken into account. But you have to take into account the economic impact of climate change as well. As you may have noticed recently, severe hurricanes can have a pretty catastrophic economic impact all by themselves. And although AFAIK there is no evidence specifically linking Katrina to anthropogenic climate forcing, it is quite clear that anthropogenic climate forcing soon will (if it isn’t already) end up increasing the average severity of storms, in addition to a whole lot of other negative effects.

We no longer have the luxury of pretending that environmentally sound policy is something we don’t have to undertake unless we’re sure we can afford it. We’re rapidly approaching the point (if indeed we’re not already there) where we simply can’t afford not to.

22

UNFCCC homepage:
List of parties to the treaty

National reports on treaty implementation

23

Thanks for the info Kimstu. :slight_smile:

-XT

24

No prob, buttercup. :wink:

25

This might be a good time to invest in a mercenary army and a tanker of oil! :slight_smile:

26

What I find mostintriguing here is that at least 5 posters have either explicitely or implicietly said that I am denying thayt global warming is occiurring. Of course I have never said such a thing in my entire life.

Those same potsers then go on to construct and dmolish a strawman of my position based on that imagined conclusion.

Verrry intersting. But it doesn’t really add much to the discussion.
The idea that we should spend millions or billions on Kyoto on the off chance that it will prevent “the straw that breaks the camel’s back” is to me the on of the most ludicrous suggetsions I have ever seen. Kyoto will at best delay any anthropoigenic global wamring by a few years. The odds that those few years will be the crucial ones in a global climate cycle that will take at least millenia to equilibrate are remote to say the least.

It’s hard for me to justify Kyoto on the IPCCs own grounds that it is a symbolic first step and a trial run but at least it makes some sort of sense. It’s impossible to justify it on the grounds that those hald dozen years difference tyhat it makes will be the crucial ones over the next few millenia. That just makes no sense at all.

27

Blake, do you have any cites for these claims? I’d be very interested to read about glacial extents in the 1000 AD time period.
However, I dont think bringing the Little Ice Age into the argument is relavent. The fact is, air temps and sea temps have been rising at an **accelerating rate ** during the last 80 years. This had been occurring during a **dramatic increase ** in carbon dioxide levels. Carbon dioxide traps heat. All you have to do is put two and two together on this one.

28

I could cite a couple of theses that I have, but that probably wouldn’t help you much. However Google hits on medieval glaciers turned up pretty much the same facts (http://academic.emporia.edu/aberjame/ice/lec19/holocene.htm http://www.wooster.edu/geology/tr/slucas.html gsa.confex.com/gsa/2002AM/finalprogram/abstract_42353.htm ) You can do the same search yourself to get literally reams of data showing that glaciers were far further south in the dark ages/ early middle ages than they have been for the last 700 years at least.
This really isn’t in any way controversial or even obscure knowledge. I’m not a climatologist but this is one thing that really does seem to be universally accepted, far more so the current warming event. Basically the last 700 years seem to have been anomalously cold, hence the term “little ice age”, and the little ice age ended about 2000 years ago. As a result glaciers and the treeline advanced far south of their previous positions and have yet to return to the position they were in 1000AD. And as I said above, all this is pertinent to this thread because we would expect to see the ice sheets and glaciers retreating if we were indeed returning to the ‘normal’ temperature and we should expect to see them at levels never seen in the last 100 years. But the really important point is that they are not yet anywhere near where they were 1000 years ago.

Well as I said, it’s very relevant to this thread because it shows that the OP is fundemenatally overplaying the situation by merely saying that the ice is at level not seen in the last 100 years. The ice is at a new retreat point for the pat 100 years, but not at anew retreat point for even the lat 1000 years. The point being that the last 7000 years have been anomalously cold and the ice had to retreat simply return things to ‘normal’, whatever that is.

If you have a look at the temperature graph produced by the IPCC that I linked to earlier you will see that isn’t correct. Even a quick glance will show that for much of the last 80 years, from circa1945 to circa1975, temperatures were in fact falling or stable. So although we can say there has been a rise over the last 80 years we can’t say that it’s been rising at an accelerating rate.

That seems reasonable, but unfortunately as the OP points out, it a case of post hoc ergo proptor hoc. The rise in temperature also occurred during a period of increasing solar activity. Take a look at this graph here: (http://solar-center.stanford.edu/sun-on-earth/varsun.html). This is the problem with the whole global warming issue as I noted above. It’s impossible to separate anthropogenic influences from natural influences. We can’t simply declare that because A occurs after B therefore A is caused by B.

29

Well this is GD, if you want references you only need ask. How does this grab you?

“These results suggest that 20th Century warming trends are plausibly a continuation of past climate patterns. Results are not precise enough to solve the attribution problem by partitioning warming into natural versus human-induced components. However, anywhere from a major portion to all of the warming of the 20th Century could plausibly result from natural causes according to these results.”
Loehle, C. 2004; “Climate change: detection and attribution of trends from long-term geologic data.” Ecological Modelling, 171:4

Now lets look at what I am apparently “adorably denying” :rolleyes:. This is the best science you have that says that we can separate anthropogenic effects from natural behaviour? How pathetic. It doesn’t say anything of the sort. It simply says that orbital variations will be less important than greenhouse gasses, a point that nobody here has contended. I guess that makes your entire post an adorable little man of straw, now doesn’t it LhoD?. It never says that we can separate out anthropgenic effects from natural atmospheric variations, which is what I said and what my references support me on. It says orbital effects will be less than fluctuating gas levels in the atmosphere.

Now try to understand this.

*Your ‘reference’ doesn’t say that anthropogenic effects can be separated from natural greenhouse gas fluctuations. In fact it doesn’t even touch on natural fluctuations is atmospheric composition.

  • Your reference doesn’t say that anthropogenic effects can be separated from the effects of solar activity. In fact it concedes that this cannot be done: “our understanding of the indirect effects of changes in solar output and feedbacks in the climate system is minimal. There is much need to refine our understanding of key natural forcing mechanisms of the climate, including solar irradiance changes, in order to reduce uncertainty in our projections of future climate change..

  • Your reference doesn’t say that anthropogenic effects can be separated from natural climatic variation form other potential sources such as cloud cover.

Next time you want to call someone’s contribution adorable in such a condescending manner I suggest that you first ensure that you comprehend what he has said, not just what you imagine he has said. And secondly that you understand your own references. At this point the reference pool is one nil, my favour. I have reference that says that anthropogenic effects can’t be separated from the natural. You have only a cute little misunderstanding of some big words that don’t contradict that.

Everything I say agrees perfectly with the entire field of “detection and attribution”.

The first thing to do is put this in perspective.

If you look at the IPCC graphs linked to above you’ll see that things aren’t increasing more rapidly than they have at the end of every other cooling period (although they seem be increasing further). For example in circa1470 or circa 1350. Moreover if you look at temperature over even longer time periods (Ice cores, carbon dioxide concentration, and climate ) you will see that far more abrupt changes have occurred than anything we are seeing now. For a really impressive fine scale picture from multiple data sets with greater certainty, albeit at a smaller than global scale, try these: http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/paleo/ctl/clihis10ka.html. Now that’s a rapid change in short time.

So the reality is that cool periods normally end with rapid warming events, and vice versa. Exactly why this should be is unknown, but people have put forwards various explanations. Which brings us to the next point. It simply isn’t true to say that nobody has come up with a plausible explanation for these rapid changes, There are a multitude of them. By all means accept anthropogenic global warming, that’s where the smart money is, but be aware that there are alternatives and this isn’t the only explanation.

30

So far, Blake is dominating this debate in a way seldom seen in GD. I am very impressed.

31

Doesn’t that statement imply that the icecap was smaller one hundred years ago? Or have we only been measuring it for one hundred years?

32

If you would bother to read that IPCC chapter you would see that there is much, much more that goes into attributing much of the recent climate change to human influences than simply saying “because A occurs after B therefore A is caused by B.”

You look at reports of some glaciers. However, proxy reconstructions of global temperatures (or at least the entire Northern Hemisphere) over the last 2000 years tend to show that the late 20th century is warmer than anything that has come before including the Medieval Warm Period. This is shown particularly dramatically by Mann et al. who don’t see the Medieval Warm Period as a particularly dramatic event on an entire Northern Hemisphere or global scale but even alternate reconstructions like the recent one by Moborg et al. that show stronger multi-centennial variations than Mann et al. found still reach the conclusion that the late 20th century has surpassed the Medieval Warm Period.

33

You know, after a first reading of your post I was ready to eat some serious crow: it certainly looks well-cited and subtle.

Then I reread your first post, and remembered what irritated me so much about it:

And that’s where we get into the nonsense.

Now, let’s discuss your dismissal of my reference:

These points may all be true, but they are irrelevant. I quoted and bolded one passage of my cite, emphasizing that greenhouse gases are far more important to global warming than factors such as solar positioning. I didn’t quote the passage that said–here, let me give it to you now–

Now, in your later posts in this thread, you’ve suggested that the smart money is on human causation of global warming. This is an understatement of epic proportions, but okay, sure, I can agree with it. You suggest also that there are other plausible explanations. This is not something that the literature supports as a whole, and one single quote from one single article isn’t sufficient. Tragically, that article you cited costs $30 to access online, so I can’t read the full thing to evaluate it in context. I’ll hazard a guess and say that you didn’t pull that quote from the article, but instead from one of the many anti-environmentalist articles on the web. You also didn’t reveal that Loehle is an employee of The National Council on Air and Stream Improvement, “The Environmental Resource for the Forest Products Industry.” (cite)

So we’ve got a guy who works for an industry group that specializes in putting out research favorable to the forest products industry. And he manages to publish an article casting doubt on human causation of global warming. And you offer the quote as if you found it in the journal, and you don’t mention his industry connections.

And other people come along and think that you’re dominating the debate.

The smart money is on human causation of the substantial portion of global warming. There’s virtually no money on the other side, except the money used to pay Loehle’s salary.

Daniel

34

I should add a bit of crow-eating, however: Blake was right to call me on my condescension, and I apologize for that.

Daniel

35

Still, the problem is that similar changes in the past as those we are now witnessing have taken place over the course of hundreds, if not thousands, of years. But research is telling us that more than a third of the ice on the cap have disappeared in only 30 years. Noone has, AFAIK, been able to say (or link to a study) that this has happened before (happend so fast that is).

Global temperature graphs only tell us part of the story because there’s much more to climate than the Earth’s overall surface temperature. For example, while some areas become warmer others become colder, and the global temperature is an average of the changes. What’s interesting is that the Earth’s temperature has increased considerably in the last 100 years (two rapid changes, 1910-1950, and 1970-present), while variations in temperatures in the 1000 years before that were in the +/- 1 or 2 tenths of a degree range. It’s also interesting that this rapid change we’ve seen in the last 100 years has brough us back almost to the point we were at 6000-8000 years ago. The main question before us is not only why this is happening, but can we estimate when will this trend stop, because when might tell us something about what kind of world we might be looking at in the future.

While not important, in the interest of the Dope this is not true. The Scandinavian glaciers have not only returned to, but are now past the point where they were 1000 years ago, before “the little ice age” (though not by much). I don’t know about the Alps. It should also be noted that both the Scandinavian and Alp glaciers are socalled warm glaciers, unlike in other places, like Greenland.

The current solar activity is similar to the one 400.000 years ago ((graph, look at the yellow mark), and is not a good analogy to current trends. Further, a recent study (Science, October 1, 2004) (press release), (discussion/interview), funded by the National Science Foundation, an independent US government agency, claims, while not conclusive, that the impact of solar activity is limited and cannot explain the recent increase in global temperatures. Quoting a comment: “Removing long-term solar cycles from the input to climate models takes away about a tenth of a degree [Celsius] of early 20th century warming”. FWIW.

36

LhoD,

First off, apology accepted re condescencion. Now we can get back to the real debate. :smiley:

Unfortunately your position still consists solely as a straw man, and you still haven’t provided even one reference that says that we can separate out natural variation.
You say that you “quoted and bolded one passage of my cite, emphasizing that greenhouse gases are far more important to global warming than factors such as solar positioning”. Unfortunately what you still haven’t acknowledged is that this is a contention that nobody has made in this thread, much less else where. It’s a strawman. Unless of course you are trying to construct an argumentum ad absurdum, suggesting that because I say that natural effects can’t be separated that means that we can’t separate out all natural effects, including season length, time of day, hourly cloud cover etc. If that’s all you are attempting then I concede the trivial point and if you wish I’ll rephrase and say “anthropogenic effects cannot be separated from many natural climatic variation from other potential sources such as cloud cover over yearly intervals or longer”. It’s a trivial distinction, as I say, and I’m not quite sure where you intend going with it.

Moving on, you seem to further add straw to that man of yours. You provide reference that humans have added greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere, a point that I have never disputed. This is a classic strawman. You are attacking apposition I have never put forward. Never have I been arguing that humans have not added to the levels of atmospheric greenhouse gasses. Perhaps what you might like to do now is burn that strawman and actually address what I have said, which is that the effects of that anthropogenic gas addition simply can not be separated from natural climatic variation using the best science we have.

You seem to want to dispute my claim that “it’s simply impossible to separate out the human impact from what would have happened naturally”, yet none of the quotes you have provided actually dispute that at all. You have instead attacked strawmen about the effects of orbital position or anthropogenic gas additions. What you have not done is in any way addressed what I have actually said.

Look, let’s get the facts straight here shall we, maybe then you can start addressing my actual argument rather than simply introducing tangential but largely irrelevant references that I have always agreed with. so.

The IPCC itself says that it’s impossible to separate out human impact. ( http://www.ipcc.ch/pub/taroldest/syr/011.htm) “Key Uncertainties: Magnitude and character of natural climate variability. Climate forcings due to natural factors and anthropogenic aerosols (particularly indirect effects)." The IPCC webpage itself is down ATM, but I assume you will accept “Science” as an equivalent substitute of what the IPCC actually says? “Kerr, R.A… Science, 292:5515, quoting the IPCC “most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely [66% to 90% chance] to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations.” This is a variable and chaotic system with a sample size of 1. Normally scientific probabilities for significance would be set at 95%. Anything less than that and you simply can’t be very sure that what you are seeing isn’t the result of random chance. The best probability the IPCC can give is 90%. That is what we would normally consider to be marginally significant, IOW worthy of closer study, but by itself not compelling. 66% is quite frankly laughable. It’s scarcely better than flipping a coin and certainly less than you’d expect with an informed guess.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says that wec can’t separate out natural variation with any certainaty. ( http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/globalwarming.html ) “There is much need to refine our understanding of key natural forcing mechanisms …, in order to reduce uncertainty in our projections of future climate change.”

I really can’t understand what you are disputing here beyond those strawmen you have constructed. I said that “separate[ing] out the human impact from what would have happened naturally… is the biggest complication of the whole global warming debate.” The IPCC says that “Climate forcings due to natural factors” is an area of “key uncertainty”. Yet you want to dispute this when I say it. I said that “it’s simply impossible to separate out the human impact from what would have happened naturally” while the IPCC says that there is only at best a 90% and at worst a 66% probability that we can separate out those things, while Loehse says that we simply can’t separate them put. Yet you want to dispute this.

So where exactly do you stand on this points? Do you still wish to argue that it is possible to separate out natural effects despite the best science saying that we can’t do. If you do wish to contend that then can you please provide a reference to support that assertion.

IOW: “CITE!”.

I have provided numerous references that say outright that we can not separate out natural variation with any certainty. That is precisely the point you have said is ‘nonsense”. Now it’s time for you to put up and find eve one reference that says that we can separate out natural variation with certainty.

And FYI, yes, I have read the article I quoted. I have no idea what it costs normally, I get it free because my institution has access. AFAI can tell anyone with access to Synergy online shouldget it as part of their ‘freebie’ list of full text journals. I’ll provide any extracts you want, within fair usage limits of course. And no, that isn’t “one single quote from one single article”. As you can see it is in fact scientific consensus.

And I can provide any number of other references which say that it is impossible with modern science to separate out natural climatic variation form the anthropogenic. But even if this was just ““one single quote from one single article” it is still better than you have managed. You can’t find any quotes form any articles which say that separating out natural variation isn’t a key area of uncertainty. You can’t provide any quotes from any articles saying that we can separate out anthropogenic effects with certainty. When you can provide even one such reference you’ll have something beyond sheer assertion. But at this point the reference pool is four nil, my favour. I have four references that say that anthropogenic effects can’t be separated from the natural. You have nothing to support your contention that this is incorrect.

And no, I didn’t reveal where Loehse worked because it isn’t relevant. This is an ad hominem attack on the author, rather than an attack on the science involved. The article was published in a reputable peer reviewed science journal, that is sufficient for me to credit it. If you wish to attack Loehse’s science then by all means do so, but where he works is irrelevant. Unless of course you want to also discount all work by authors who are employed by organisations funded by the IPCC, since they profit financially from advocating the certainty of climate change exactly as I assume you are implying that Loehse benefits form pointing out uncertainties. Is that what you wish to do, to discount all work by anyone with a vested interest in this debate? If so our references will be pretty thin, since everyone is paid in some way by one side or the other in this issue. In fact I shall have to cease to participate myself, since my salary is in part payed for through the IPCC. Though I guess that’s OK because my interests don’t conflict with my position in this instance.

Now would you like to discuss the science instead of the scientists?

OK, now you ave steeped over the line into a blatant ad hominem attack. You are seeking to discredit Loehse’s science with accusations that he is dishonest due to who is paying his salary.

Bzzzt. You have been disqualified. Please retract this or forfeit the debate. Attack the position. Not the man.

As I pointed out everybody in this debate has their salary paid by organisations who will suffer economically depending on the outcome. But the simple fact is that the IPCC and other climate change organisations will suffer far worse than any industry. Industry will survive even if the worst climate change scenarios are proven to a 99.9% significance level. In contrast if anthropogenic climate change is disproven or significantly downgraded the IPCC and similar organisations will cease to exists altogether.

So if we are going to start slinging mud about, to see which side is more compromised by their vested financial interest in the outcome of this debate we simply have to ask two questions “Which side will actually be destroyed altogether if the debate runs against them?” and “Which side will see its researchers without any funding at all if the debate runs against them?”. That makes it pretty clear which side has a greater incentive to poor science based on financial incentive. It’s the industry that depends on the acceptance of climate change for its very existence. And that ain’t forestry, and it ain’t big oil. They’ll exist even if climate change is accepted universally. Will the IPCC still exist if climate change is falsified comprehensively? Will the IPCC borad still have jobs on the IPCC board?

Of course all of this is irrelevant to the real debate. We should be discussing the science, not indulging in baseless attacks on the integrity of reputable scientists in reputable publications.

Shouldn’t we?

37

I understand that “lawn-chair” posts aren’t generally thought of as a good thing, but I’ll certainly agree with this assessment.

38

Yes, I think Blake is doing really well with all the nothing he has to work with. I’ve never seen hand-waving done at such length. Basically, his contention is, “because we can’t exactly delineate the difference between global warming and climatic variation, global warming can’t possibly be important to the Earth’s heating” and “even if global warming is happening, the best thing we can do about it is nothing.”

Really, I’m all tingly at the sheer fuzziness of his logic.

(Could there be a REASON why armchair posts are discouraged on the Dope?)

39

Gee strawman much?

Of course not. You’d never construct such a blatant strawman. You’ll be able to provide quotes of where I said at least approximately those things.

Won’t you EC?

Won’t you?

Maybe not.

Perhaps you’d care to dispute something that I actually posted instead?

Huh?

Nah, I guess it’s easier to dispute a gross mirepresentation of my position based on things I never said.

40

Blake, you seem to be backing off your claim that nothing can be determined about the cause of the current warming and instead arguing that there is still some uncertainty as to the amount from various causes, which is no doubt true. There is also uncertainty in regards to the future prediction of warming…e.g., the IPCC prediction range for the period from 1990 to 2100 is a globally-averaged warming due to anthropogenic emissions of something like 1.4 to 5.8 C. While some of this uncertainty reflects uncertainty in the path of human civilization (i.e., how fast our emissions rise), much of it still reflects remaining uncertainty in the science.

However, I am not sure how that translates this remaining uncertainty into a case for doing absolutely nothing about it.

They don’t say it is impossible to separate it out; it is not easy to do but not impossible in principle. They simply say, as of 2001, the evidence was such that the most accurate statement to make was that it was likely that most of the observed warming over the last 50 years was due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations. And, the evidence comes from many different studies, as they explain, not simply from noting the correlation and postulating cause and effect (as you have implied in past statements in this thread). Since then, additional evidence has continued to accumulate (such as the fingerprint in the ocean warming and the resolution of most of the discrepancy between the satellite measurements of warming in the lower troposphere and surface measurements of warming) and it seems very likely that the next assessment report they are due to start work on will make a stronger statement.