"What in the Hell Do They Think Is Causing It?"—Al Gore talks about global warming, those e-mails, …

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.slate.com/id/2237789/

"What in the Hell Do They Think Is Causing It?"

Al Gore talks about global warming, those e-mails, and his new book.

By John Dickerson|Posted Tuesday, Dec. 8, 2009, at 9:45 PM ET

If Al Gore's film An Inconvenient Truth raised awareness about global warming by frightening people, he hopes his latest book, Our Choice, will help people find solutions to the problem. He talked about those solutions with President Obama yesterday in advance of Obama's trip to the world climate-change meeting in Copenhagen. He was coy about their conversation but did talk about his book, the nature of the climate change debate, and the controversy surrounding those e-mails disclosed from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia.

Question: Can something as complicated as climate change be tackled in the current calcified political system?

Answer: Sclerotic may be more accurate than calcified but either would do. The role of campaign contributions in our political system and the role of lobbyists have now reached levels that are quite unhealthy for the operations of our democracy. But the antidote, as in past eras of lobbyist excess, is for more involvement by citizens to build pressure on members of the House and Senate to serve the public interest. The House of Representatives has risen impressively to this challenge. The Senate's rules and traditions have made it a tougher case. And yet the public pressure is building and I am optimistic that this climate change legislation will pass the Senate. Sponsors say they have 60 votes but we'll see when the roll is called.

Q: Given the state of the economy, if people hear their energy bills are going up, isn't that going to make them oppose any change?

A: If you want your energy bills to go up, you should support an ever greater dependence on foreign oil, because the rate of new discoveries is declining as demand in China and India is growing, and the price of oil and thus the price of coal will go sky high. That is the formula for increasing energy bills. Secondly, the sooner we switch away from carbon-based fuel and start relying on renewable energy sources available in the United States, the sooner we will grow our economy by creating the millions of new jobs that will come from retrofitting homes and businesses, building smart grids, renewable energy systems and planting trees and all the rest. We need to create a lot of jobs that can't be outsourced.

…

[TxRider]

1. All the e-mails show..

Is that the historical temperature record is not solid, and leaves us unsure of exactly how much warming we have actually experienced, which leaves with an unclear picture of how much of it we are causing.

That the scientists of the major institutions presenting the historical temperature record are practicing sloppy science, and refuse to release the data used to arrive at those records.

That a couple of math whizzes can debunk the hockey stick and make Hansen at NASA revise his temperature record without even having access to their data and computer code, and that these scientists will go to any length to prevent their data and methods from being examined in detail says it all.

The U.K. meteorological office has taken the correct path in announcing the global temperature records they use (tainted by this scandal) will be redone from scratch with all raw data, computer code and adjustments made to raw data in a totally open and transparent manner.

NOAA/NASA should do the same, before the current law suits and FOI act requests force them to release their data and computer code and makes them look just as bad.

Science that is being used as the basis for an expensive transformation of human civilization at every level not seen since the industrial revolution cannot afford to be held hidden in the hands of a few scientists and should be open to audit by experts in statistical analysis and computer science.

If we can talk of spending trillions in changing our energy basis we can surely spend millions to double check and solidify the science behind it. Open up this cloistered process, document and validate it. What the e-mails show is that this has not been done and that it needs to be.

[tinrobot]

3. You can blather on all you want about a few emails...

...the ice caps will continue to melt regardless.

Here's some pictures to make it easier to understand.

[Indenturedebtor]

4. I'm sorry but this would have to be one of the first studies in history

to not offer raw data and present precisely the methods, materials, analysis, etc, and make the data available for other studies, meta-analysis, etc. It's part of the scientific method and all that.

As a matter of fact any publishable paper has to do that... did they publish in some whackjob climate change denier journal or something? And if so then why would the whackjobs perform this stupid hitjob? Doesn't make any sense.

[Name removed]

5. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[MH1]

8. Washington Times has never been considered a reliable source at DU

as far as I'm aware.

Timesonline I am less sure of but also strikes me as one that would get laughed at in other forums of DU.

[TxRider]

9. So who is reliable?

It's no secret that CEI among others has been waiting for years for the response to requests for data and code from NASA.

That CEI announced last week the intent to file suit.

That NASA responded saying it is taking more than 2 years to assemble the data etc.

The UK Meteorologic office announced just this week that due to climategate they are going to redo their temp records from scratch, releasing all data and code for transparency. But saying it be three years before the reworking of the temp records are complete.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6945445.ece


The question is why has it been a problem to make the data and methods public?

My suspicion is that climate science has grown from a couple of men in a shabby little room, to a very big deal, and in the past they have not been diligent in keeping records and archiving them along with code used on them because they saw no need to.

Regardless of why, it should be cleaned up for all our benefit not hidden and denied, so we can calculate better and with more certainty what the situation is, what we can do about it, and how long before we have problems. With what's at stake I consider as much accuracy as humanly possible, and openness and transparency of the science a pretty big priority.

We also need to fund more instrumentation for climate measurement, as what science currently has is inadequate as any climate scientist can tell you. All the e-mails as an issue show us is that we need to clean up and open up the science, as that has been resisted until now.

This is all just common sense.

[MH1]

66. Also note that the TimesOnline.co.uk is owned by Murdoch

The Washington Times is part of Sun Myung Moon's empire, hence why it is called "Moonie Times" and not considered credible at all, along the lines of NewsMax and other right-wing rags.

CEI? Is that Competitive Enterprise Institute? Another right-wing outfit (quite literally corporatist).

As to the substance of you question about data, I believe that has been addressed elsewhere. Since this thread keeps popping up I thought I should clarify why some sources are not accepted here.

[joshcryer]

12. That's simply not true, raw data has been available for decades. So a few people don't release...

...their data. Big fucking deal. MET Office has released a bunch of their data. It doesn't change the fact that NASA and NSDC has been releasing it.

[joshcryer]

13. NASA/NOAA *have* been transparent. NASA is the most transparent organization...

...on the fucking planet.

The temperature record is most accurate as we can get, the various reconstructions are very sound, to pretend otherwise is to buy into the lie.

[Viking12]

14. Yeah, right. The code is so top secret that its posted on teh intertubes for everyone to see

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/data-sources/

[TxRider]

16. That page is less than a month old.

The date is Nov27 2009, it is in response to climategate, and a good thing.

The author, Gavin, works at NASA and is in some of the climategate e-mails.

Hansen only released his code after a blogger pointed out his year 2000 y2k bug in 2007 and he was pressured into doing so in 2007.

Since then programmers in the public have worked with NASA to fix several bugs.

I'm not sure the code for the USHCN adjusted data is available.

The point is all this should have been made available and verified and should continue to be at all stages. Especially if we are to spend trillion in policy on the basis of it.

[Viking12]

17. You're confused

The date is Nov27 2009, it is in response to climategate, and a good thing.

The page is a new directory to data and code that has been available on the web forever.

The author, Gavin, works at NASA and is in some of the climategate e-mails.

So?

Hansen only released his code after a blogger pointed out his year 2000 y2k bug in 2007 and he was pressured into doing so in 2007.

So the code wasn't necessary to identify the problem, right? It took until 2007 because no had looked too closely prior to that time. Once the 'bug' was identified it was corrected and proper acknowledgment was passed along. Simple.

USHCN adjusted data is available

WTF? The USHCN data is raw data.

The point is all this should have been made available and verified and should continue to be at all stages. Especially if we are to spend trillion in policy on the basis of it.

Fail it is available and has been to other researchers all along. This notion that scientists need to respond to every Tom-Dick-&-Harry that requests data is colossally stupid.

[TxRider]

19. If I am it's not surprising

"The page is a new directory to data and code that has been available on the web forever."

If you know where to look in obscure and undocumented sites some is, but the page referenced is is still post climategate.

The other issue is ability to determine exactly what sets have been used in what published research, with what code.

Necessary stuff for examining accuracy.



"False. The code has been available for a long time. How do you think someone found the "bug"?"

The y2k issue in GISS was pointed out on Aug 7th. 2007 along with a request for source code. The bug was found without the code.

http://climateaudit.org/2007/08/06/quantifying-the-hansen-y2k-error/

From Jim Hansen of NASA's own e-mail, Sep 8th 2007, a month later...

"Reto Ruedy has organized into a single document, as well as practical on a short time scale, the
programs that produce our global temperature analysis from publicly available data streams of
temperature measurements. These are a combination of subroutines written over the past few
decades by Sergej Lebedeff, Jay Glascoe, and Reto. Because the programs include a variety of
languages and computer unique functions, Reto would have preferred to have a week or two to
combine these into a simpler more transparent structure, but because of a recent flood of
demands for the programs, they are being made available as is. People interested in science may
want to wait a week or two for a simplified version. The documentation/programs are at:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/sources/"

I am not aware of the code being available previously. Am I incorrect?




"WTF? The USHCN data is raw data."

"Quality Control, Homogeneity Testing, and Adjustment Procedures

The data for each station in the USHCN are subjected to the following quality control and homogeneity testing and adjustment procedures."

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/ushcn/ushcn.html#QUAL



"Fail it is available and has been to other researchers all along. This notion that scientists need to respond to every Tom-Dick-&-Harry that requests data is colossally stupid."

It's called the freedom of information act. Taxpayer funded research falls under it. You can call it stupid, but it is law.

If the scientist archived the data set and code used for the published article, and made it available, he would not need to respond to any requests for it at all. That's the whole point.

[Viking12]

20. You are....

If you know where to look in obscure and undocumented sites some is

Yeah, because contacting the researcher and asking for the ftp is soooooo difficult.

I am not aware of the code being available previously. Am I incorrect?

You were correct. I updated my post. The code was not necessary was it?

Quality Control, Homogeneity Testing, and Adjustment Procedures

You need to scroll down on the page a little further to where it describes the 4 data packages:
"Raw: the data in this version have been through all quality control but have no data adjustments."
The raw data package is posted along with the other 3 right here:

ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ushcn/v2/monthly/

- "9641C_YYYYMM_raw.max.gz" if you want monthly mean maximum temperatures that
are not bias adjusted; OR
- "9641C_YYYYMM_raw.min.gz" if you want monthly mean minimum temperatures that
are not bias adjusted; OR
- "9641C_YYYYMM_raw.avg.gz" if you want the average of monthly mean maximum and
minimum temperatures that are not bias adjusted.

[TxRider]

21. Ok

If you know where to look in obscure and undocumented sites some is

"Yeah, because contacting the researcher and asking for the ftp is soooooo difficult."

If the e-mails leaked are an indication, yes it is sooooo difficult..


"You need to scroll down on the page a little further to where it describes the 4 data packages:
"Raw: the data in this version have been through all quality control but have no data adjustments."
The raw data package is posted along with the other 3 right here:

ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ushcn/v2/monthly /

- "9641C_YYYYMM_raw.max.gz" if you want monthly mean maximum temperatures that
are not bias adjusted; OR
- "9641C_YYYYMM_raw.min.gz" if you want monthly mean minimum temperatures that
are not bias adjusted; OR
- "9641C_YYYYMM_raw.avg.gz" if you want the average of monthly mean maximum and
minimum temperatures that are not bias adjusted."

As someone who has the raw set, I don't need to do anything.

If you will read back, I didn't say they did not publish the raw data, but that I was unaware of the source code they use to provide the adjusted data being publicly available.

It is your assumption that I was ignorant enough not to be aware of both adjusted and raw data sets, obviously an incorrect one.

[Viking12]

24. I did read back and you did say they did not publish the data.

Nevertheless, the formulas are detailed in the articles listed at you link. Look 'em up.

[TxRider]

26. Nope

I said..

"I'm not sure the code for the USHCN adjusted data is available."


You said...

"USHCN adjusted data is available

WTF? The USHCN data is raw data. "



Let me get this straight.

In order to verify the adjusted data accuracy one has to read the page that describes the adjustments, including reading through several referenced papers, sit down and write code from scratch that they feel follows those descriptions, try to figure out which apply to which stations, and then run the raw data through it to see if it matches and try figure out what went wrong if it doesn't?

Seems releasing the taxpayer funded source code would be a touch simpler and more straight forward yes?

Evidently Hansen came to that conclusion in 2007, and the UK Met service now has as well.

[Viking12]

28. So you didn't write..

That the scientists of the major institutions presenting the historical temperature record are practicing sloppy science, and refuse to release the data used to arrive at those records, in Post#1 that has your name on it.

In order to verify the adjusted data accuracy one has to read the page that describes the adjustments, including reading through several referenced papers, sit down and write code from scratch that they feel follows those descriptions, try to figure out which apply to which stations, and then run the raw data through it to see if it matches and try figure out what went wrong if it doesn't?

Umm yeah, that's how the replication process has operated in science for decades. See for example:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/02/on-replication/

I can see that nothing will satisfy you. When one of your banal demands are met, you move the goal posts and demand even more, sliding into the realm of absurdity.

[TxRider]

30. Baloney

Hansen releasing code and methods satisfies me.

The UK met office stating they will release code and data satisfies me.

Journals discussing making relevant code and data available for reviewers satisfies me.

I have never stated anything different. I am most pleased with these people opening up their process. It doesn't seem to have placed extreme burdens on them to do so.

None of those demands are banal, no goal post has been moved.

As for replication, from your own link...

"MM07 posted their data-as-used, and since those data were drawn from dozens of different sources (GDP, Coal use, population etc. as well as temperature), trends calculated and then gridded, recreating this data from scratch would have been difficult to say the least. Thus I relied on their data collation in my own analysis. However, this means that the economic data and their processing were not independently replicated. Depending on what one is looking at this might or might not be an issue (and it wasn’t for me)."

"Data as used" was quite helpful and used in this example. Being more straight forward and saving much time and difficulty. the purpose it is being used for is context sensitive. In the context of simply checking methods for correctness reconstruction from scratch is counter productive.

If the person has the data set, runs it through a program and achieves a result, archiving the set of 3 together and making it available is trivial.

Gavin does it (the blog you linked), Hansen does it, the U.K. Met office is now going to do it. I fail to see why you think doing so should be some major issue for them or anyone else. It's simply good practice.

Especially when the results have the gravity of changing human civilization at every level. If it was a paper on the nest tunnel structure of a tazmanian 3 legged ant it wouldn't matter.

[Viking12]

31. Whatever.

First, you claim the data isn't available. When it's served up on a platter you complain that it is hosted on 'obscure' ftp sites not the Yahoo homepage. Then you complain about 'code' and when it's explained to you and where to find the methods how replication in science actually works you claim that's not enough.

I see you lie about the Trenbreth e-mails below. You've made clear where you stand, with Inhofe and Hannity, not science.

[TxRider]

32. Someone has made up their mind

And I think it is you intentionally reading what you want to into my posts and misrepresenting them to make me fit into your preconceived notions.

I can pull up the entire Trenberth conversation in total and post it if you want.

Would you care to point out my alleged lie?

The figures I quoted come directly from his peer reviewed paper. I quote...

"For the clear sky,
water vapor contributes to 60% of the
total radiative forcing, while carbon dioxide
contributes 26% to the clear sky
radiative forcing. In discussing increases
in greenhouse gases and their impact on
climate change, the dominant contribution of water
vapor to the current greenhouse effect is often overlooked.
We have also demonstrated that the presence
of clouds in the atmosphere complicates these percent
contributions due to the strong wavelength overlap
between absorption by water vapor and liquid."


For clarity sake, I believe the earth is warming. I believe man is having a definate effect. I simply want to see clearly how much effect we are having accurately.

Clear science is my only agenda.

[Viking12]

35. Funny how you change the subject when it's shown you're wrong.

You do move goal posts and fast. It's right above us in black-&-white.

Not only that, you cherry-pick. For instance, you completely missed the point of the article on replication, focusing only on a few select quotes that suit you. That explains why you find the cherry-picked quotes from the e-mails so 'interesting'. The only purpose for the demands for code is to create FUD and harass real scientists. McIntyre and his fanboyz do not act in good faith and have no interest in improving the science. Anybody actually interested in advancing knowledge knows where to find the data, would get easy access, and would know how to replicate the science without someone holding their hand.

[TxRider]

36. ROFL

I didn't miss the point, it was an article that was purposely made to say that data and code aren't always relevant. Within it he also made the point that sometimes it is, depending on the purpose, the context.

Replicating the science isn't that purpose in some cases, checking the accuracy of the methods to make sure they were done in a mathematically correct manner in a specific case is.

Coming up with a "similar" reconstruction is not relevant in that instance, just as reconstructing the data set in the example Gavin gave was not relevant to his purpose.

You are diving into the realm of the political, which I have no interest in. You haven't made a correct statement yet about anything I have posted here. If data and code is "on a platter" point me to CRU's raw dataset and code for HADCrut3, or GHCN source for their adjusted data set which is widely used.

As for e-mails, I did not quote anything from an e-mail. zero, nada. much less cherry pick. And you sir brought up that subject, not I.

I simply referenced the gist of the conclusion of a discussion in my own words. As Tom Wigley said in the concluding e-mail of the conversation it relates to our level of understanding, or lack of it, nothing more.

I have not seen Mr. McIntyre act in bad faith, I doubt he is responsible for his fanboyz as you put it any more than the owner of this site is responsible for all posters here. Though I do not follow him closely and he could be guilty of a great many travesties I am not aware of.

I don't believe scientists in question are acting in bad faith either, I just believe the science needs to be more open for verification.

You seem hell bent on tarring me with some sort of political brush, it's rather disappointing and detracts from discussion.

[Viking12]

37. I brought it up? I wrote your post #29?

You sure have a funny way of revising the history of what you write. And once again, you change the goalposts - we've been discussing your bogus claim in #1 about NOAA/NASA. You've been shown to be wrong about those institutions and now you skip back to CRU (BTW, they use the same data as a has been pointed out to you).

[TxRider]

39. I haven't been shown to be wrong about anything.

You have been shown to be misinterpreting me is all.

You can call the claim bogus as soon as you point to a link with the code used to create the adjusted GHCN data, not before. Until then I am right.

Or GIStemp code released before it was forced by pressure after bugs were revealed. Until then I am right.

Or CRU raw data and code used to create CRUtemp.

This is simple, Hansen and GISS is a perfect example. Release the code and go open and it's a win win for everyone. Better code, better science, better for everyone and no room for deniers to misrepresent.

Don't release it and deal with years of FOI act nonsense, years of unrepresentative smears, and end up forced to go open in the end anyway.

I ask you, why is it a problem to publish all data and source code as used?

The science needs to be more open, more easily verified. It's just good solid practice and better for all of us. No reasonable person could conclude otherwise, there is no downside. It is slowly being forced to be so.

Still waiting to pointed out on where I lied about Trenbreth. You toss the personal insults around rather freely. It really belongs in a response to post #29 though, not here where it just muddies the discussion.

[wtmusic]

41. Those emails bring up some interesting points

Remember, there was a time when everyone just accepted the idea that the earth was round

http://www.alaska.net/~clund/e_djublonskopf/Flatearthsociety.htm

[TxRider]

42. That certainly isn't one of them

[wtmusic]

43. No but every bit as valid

[TxRider]

55. You confuse

The points the media and such tries to make of cherry picked excepts with the points made in the longer conversations within them.

Obviously you haven't read much of them. The discussions and points about issues ongoing in the science debated within them are quite valid, quite relevant and pretty fascinating reading.

[wtmusic]

57. Actually I've read a lot of them

and you have it exactly backward - deniers have cherry-picked anything that has the slightest suggestion of doubt.

Well guess what? Despite doubts and even some contradictory data the vast vast vast vast majority of data supports anthropogenic global warming as a real problem.

And that's why the vast vast vast vast vast vast majority of climate scientists agree. You really can't get past that, can you?

[TxRider]

59. Hmm

I said..

"The points the media and such tries to make of cherry picked excerpts"

You said "and you have it exactly backward - deniers have cherry-picked anything that has the slightest suggestion of doubt."


I don't have it backwards at all. Ignoring the deniers and their intent, the e-mails are quite interesting reading.




Most skeptics support anthropogenic warming of some amount. The debate is in precisely how much of the current warming is anthropogenic, how much is natural variability?

Which is why historical temp records, and how we arrive at them is so important. One tenth of a degree error per decade would wipe out most of the warming we present as having happened at all. And it is on the edge of our scientific capability to determine.

Which is why data and methods need to be open for scrutiny. Too much is riding on it.

[wtmusic]

62. Atmospheric CO2 is up 30% since the start of the Industrial Revolution

and it is higher than it has been in hundreds of thousands of years, if you take ice core averages - not one cherry-picked sample from the middle of Greenland.

To deny a correlation would be pretty damn stupid, wouldn't it?

[TxRider]

63. Yup it sure would be

But does the correlation with temperature indicate mean causation?

That's where any uncertainty must lie.

Uncertainty in temperature record reconstruction.

Uncertainty about natural variability.

Uncertainty about feedback mechanisms.

Is an accurate record to a .1 or .2 deg per decade resolution level over the last 1000 years even possible without a margin of error larger than any possible measured anomaly? Or even for the last 50 years for that matter?

[wtmusic]

64. The temperature record is unquestionable for the last 150 years

as is atmospheric CO2 content for the last 50 years



Even a consistent .1 degree/decade rate of change is unprecedented historically, and dwarfs any recorded anomaly (note 2004 arrow at left)



An incredible coincidence, no, that this parallels the CO2 output since the beginning of the industrial revolution? Of course, it's possible that this huge spike just happened to occur at the same time.

It's also possible that it's not gravity holding you in your desk chair, but the hands of angels pushing down. Plenty of morons believe that with all their little ignorant hearts.

[TxRider]

65. Sure it is

That's why it gets constantly corrected year after year, and why so many people question its accuracy.

You do realize your talking only about 9 tenths of one degree change over 150 years right?

Are the thermometers in the stations even capable of a tenth of a degree measurement plus or minus a hundredth?

Are you certain adjustments to the individual station raw data are valid, and that stations chosen to leave in the record or exclude are properly chosen with sufficient methodology and statistical methods used to pull out that small an anomaly to be accurate to less than one tenth of a degree per decade?

I'm certainly not convinced.

The melting ice is more convincing to me.

[wtmusic]

67. The melting ice is certainly a powerful visceral record

but if you're still not convinced, you're very, very alone.

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2001

"An increasing body of observations gives a collective picture of a warming world and other changes in the climate system... There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities.

Since 2007, no scientific body of national or international standing has maintained a dissenting opinion."


Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2007

"The world's leading climate scientists said global warming has begun, is very likely caused by man, and will be unstoppable for centuries....The phrase very likely translates to a more than 90 percent certainty that global warming is caused by man's burning of fossil fuels. That was the strongest conclusion to date, making it nearly impossible to say natural forces are to blame."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change

What are the credentials which give you the confidence to disagree with most of peer-reviewed academia? :shrug:

onedit: do you have a link to back up your assertion that recorded temperatures since 1880 get "constantly corrected year after year"?

[timeforpeace]

2. Did Al not get the memo about using Climate Change in place of Global Warming?

[OKIsItJustMe]

6. They mean different things. In this case, he's talking about “Global Warming.”

http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/basicinfo.html

Climate Change or Global Warming?

The term climate change is often used interchangeably with the term global warming, but according to the National Academy of Sciences, "the phrase 'climate change' is growing in preferred use to 'global warming' because it helps convey that there are changes in addition to rising temperatures."

Climate change refers to any significant change in measures of climate (such as temperature, precipitation, or wind) lasting for an extended period (decades or longer). Climate change may result from:

• natural factors, such as changes in the sun's intensity or slow changes in the Earth's orbit around the sun;
• natural processes within the climate system (e.g. changes in ocean circulation);
• human activities that change the atmosphere's composition (e.g. through burning fossil fuels) and the land surface (e.g. deforestation, reforestation, urbanization, desertification, etc.)

Global warming is an average increase in the temperature of the atmosphere near the Earth's surface and in the troposphere, which can contribute to changes in global climate patterns. Global warming can occur from a variety of causes, both natural and human induced. In common usage, "global warming" often refers to the warming that can occur as a result of increased emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities.

Personally, I prefer the phrase “Greenhouse Effect” since that's what we called it in the 70’s.

[petronius]

56. Except that you have to separate the natural GHE from the enhanced GHE

I typically go with AGW, "anthropogenic climate change" for all the human stuff at any scale, and "natural climate variability" for the natural stuff at any scale.

Personally, I tend not to use the 'greenhouse' word unless I'm talking specifically about that radiative process - picking a nit over the misnomer, really...

[Viking12]

10. That was Republican memo

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2003/mar/04/usnews.climatechange

[Kablooie]

7. Of course, God decided to warm up the earth. We can do nothing about it.

You see it's a test of our faith.
Those who try to fight global warming are fighting God and will go to hell.
Those who simply sit and burn up here on earth will be spared the burning in hell.

So there!

[Nederland]

11. I don't know Al

Perhaps it's being caused by any of the dozen other forcings that IPCC models take into account when they predict climate change? :shrug:

[GliderGuider]

15. You mean the other 17 gases that collectively constitute only 37% of the forcing?

As opposed to single gas (CO2) that causes almost two thirds of the forcing all by itself?
CO2 and methane together account for over 81% of the forcing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPCC_list_of_greenhouse_gases

Gas Radiative Forcing (W/m^2)
CO2 1.66
CH4 0.48
N2O 0.16
CFC-11 0.063
CFC-12 0.17
CFC-113 0.024
HCFC-22 0.033
HCFC-141b 0.0025
HCFC-142b 0.0031
CH3CCl3 0.0011
CCl4 0.012
HFC-125 0.0009
HFC-134a 0.0055
HFC-152a 0.0004
HFC-23 0.0033
SF6 0.0029
CF4 (PFC-14) 0.0034
C2F6 (PFC-116) 0.0008

And here are the percentage contributions to forcing:

CO2 63.22%
CH4 18.28%
CFC-12 6.47%
N2O 6.09%
CFC-11 2.40%
HCFC-22 1.26%
CFC-113 0.91%
CCl4 0.46%
HFC-134a 0.21%
CF4 (PFC-14) 0.13%
HFC-23 0.13%
HCFC-142b 0.12%
SF6 0.11%
HCFC-141b 0.10%
CH3CCl3 0.04%
HFC-125 0.03%
C2F6 (PFC-116) 0.03%
HFC-152a 0.02%

The top 4 gases contribute 94% of the forcing. We're already acting on CFCs, so I'd say that looking really hard at CO2 is probably a good idea.

[Nederland]

18. Those are merely estimates

The forcings for other GHG are merely estimates, not empirically observable and provable numbers.

More importantly, GHG are not the only thing the the IPCC models say change climate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Radiative-forcings.svg

[GliderGuider]

22. The reason is that their effects are so small.

That's even more reason to concentrate on the known large influences, namely CO2 and CH4. We're already working to reduce aerosols, though that's going to make the forcing worse rather than better...

[Nederland]

23. How do you know the effects are small?

All your numbers in post 15, where do they come from? For example, what experiment can you run to verify that the radiative forcing of CO2 is actually 1.66? More importantly, what experiment can you run to verify that the feedback for CO2 that the IPCC uses is correct?

[GliderGuider]

25. Personally, I take the word of physicists and climate scientists

If you're going to take a contrarian position, it's up to you to show whey their numbers should be questioned.

[Nederland]

27. That's not science

That's a belief in knowledge by authority, which takes the human race back about 300 years.

[GliderGuider]

33. I'm not a climate scientist.

I understand the scientific method and the purpose of peer review, and accept them both as valid. I have investigated the peer-reviewed claims of client scientists to the extent I'm able, and find them persuasive. That's not simple forelock-tugging deference to authority the way you're trying to spin it.

As a comparison, if you haven't done the Michaelson-Morley experiment yourself, how do you know that the speed of light is a constant? Do you just believe those "physicists" when they tell you it is?

[TxRider]

34. Actually no I don't.

But I'll take their word for it until I have need to know.

They aren't using the "constant speed of light" as a basis for reorganizing human civilization in our lifetime that I'm aware of or I just might be interested enough to get more interested in it.

[wtmusic]

46. You'd want to take their word for it before you have a need to know.

That's the whole idea behind the precautionary principle, and why it's disastrous to wait for "proof" in this instance (many would argue there already is proof).

"Scientific uncertainty should not automatically preclude regulation of activities that pose a potential risk of significant harm (Non-Preclusion PP)."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle

[Nederland]

49. The Precautionary Principle got us the Iraq war

You know, the whole idea that we need to act now because it might be disastrous to wait for proof that Iraq has the bomb. Better safe than sorry they told us. Trust our experts they told us. And so history repeats itself, only this time on the left.

[wtmusic]

50. Not one person will die as the result of GW mitigation

Not one. Straw man.

[Nederland]

53. That's ridiculous

GW mitigation costs large amounts of money--money that won't end up going to things like AIDS prevention, establishing clean water, etc.

[wtmusic]

58. GW is killing 150,000 every year, right now

Nederland can't see them suffering, so they must not exist.

http://environment.about.com/b/2008/02/28/global-warming-leads-to-150000-deaths-every-year.htm

[Nederland]

38. Bad analogy

Michaelson and Morley conducted an experiment with expected results designed to prove a theory. They ran the experiment, did not get the results they expected, and in time concluded the theory was wrong. In the case of climate scientists calculating the radiative forcing of CO2, they did not run an experiment at all. There was no result from their activities that would make them say: you know, we were wrong about this. In other words, there was no chance of falsifiability. The question you must ask is this: what experiment can I ran that might produce a result that would make me conclude that the radiative forcing of CO2 is NOT 1.66? If you cannot name such an experiment, you are asserting the truth of a theory that is not falsifiable. That is not science.

[GliderGuider]

40. It's not something I lose much sleep over.

I'm just saying that we can't all be experts on everything, so by necessity we rely on the pronouncements of authorities to fill in some of the terrain on our belief maps. I believe and trust peer-reviewed climate scientists, and when the announce a consensus like "1.66" I'm inclined to accept that as a working truth. In areas where I have a strong interest in I'll dig deeper, in others I'm content to apply more minimal checks.

I also don't think that science is the supreme pinnacle of human development, so I tend not to apply the requirements of science to my personal mythology (or at least I'm not very strict about it). I suspect we may differ in that regard.

[Nederland]

47. You are far to cavalier about this

These things actually matter, because the values that get plugged into the models all interact with each other and small changes can have large effects. Since you seem to have a great deal of confidence in experts, I trust you will believe what Gavin Schmidt says. Read this blog except in which he deals with the accusation that the recent years of fairly flat temperatures invalidate IPCC models:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/05/what-the-ipcc-models-really-say/comment-page-2/

What this article basically says is that the recent years of a fairly flat temperature trend do not invalidate the models because the models have so much uncertainty within them. The reason that the models have so much uncertainty within them is precisely because of the reason I articulated: the models rely on factors whose values that are not know with a great deal of precision, and those factors all interact, magnifying the error. As Gavin points out, there are some realizations of the model that result in a negative temperature trend over a twenty year period.

This matters. It matter because the ONLY reason we are doing anything about global warming is because a bunch of computer models tell us that things are going to get bad in the future. If those models have a great deal of uncertainty within them, you might want to think twice about trusting them.

[wtmusic]

51. Accuweather says it's going to rain today, but there's so much uncertainty!

There are all kinds of factors which aren't known with precision! All the factors will interact, magnifying the error!

Tell you what - Ima take my umbrella, you can get wet. :P

What's the downside of assuming that anthropogenic global warming is real and we have a potential disaster on our hands?

Conservation? Less consumption? Cooler weather? Help me out here.

[Nederland]

54. You'll spend money on the wrong things

You'll spend hundreds of billions of dollars on a problem that might actually not be a problem.

[GliderGuider]

52. What difference would it make to me or the world

if I immersed myself in the minutiae of greenhouse gasses? The future will still contain lots of unknowns, and I will still have to deal with the situation as it unfolds. My meager knowledge about GHG modeling won't influence public policy. In fact, it would only be useful for arguing on the internet, something I can do no matter how much or little I know about the subject (as is repeatedly demonstrated on this board). So I choose to be a little "cavalier" as you put it. So what? So I choose to lead my life as though AGW were proven as well as Newton's Three Laws of Motion. So what? What difference could it possibly make to my life if I were to worry about whether 10,000 climate scientists might have inadvertently slipped a decimal point all at the same time and never noticed it?

[bergie321]

44. If I need surgery

I am not going to go to school for 10 years to learn how to do it. I will just take the word of the doctor that he knows what he's doing.

[Viking12]

45. Before you get that surgery...

You might want to check with the lumber salesman that runs the blog, "Surgery Audit." There you will get the full unvarnished truthy-like information behind the whole surgery scam.

[Nederland]

48. Bad analogy

A doctor can look at you and say "Yeah I've been doing this for 20 years and I've seen thirty different people with symptoms like yours, and I performed surgery X on them and they all got better." So based on my experience I'm going to recommend you get surgery X done."

In contrast, climate change scientists have no track record of success either in diagnosing the problem accurately or recommending solutions. They cannot claim with any degree of certainty that what they say will happen will happen because nobody has seen AGW before now. Furthermore, they cannot claim with any degree of certainty that following their recommendations will fix the problem, because, again, it has never been done before.

The comparison simply doesn't apply here.

[TxRider]

29. Keep GHGs in perspective.

"The top 4 gases contribute 94% of the forcing. We're already acting on CFCs, so I'd say that looking really hard at CO2 is probably a good idea."

Those gasses are 94% of forcing only as far as GHG forcing goes, GHG's in total are a smaller part of overall forcing which is dominated by water vapor.

According to Trenberth, in clear sky conditions water vapor is responsible for 60% of radiative forcing.

C02 is responsible for about 26% of radiative forcing in the same clear sky conditions.

Man produces less than 6% of that C02 in excess according to IPCC. Which would be what, 1.56% of forcing? Of course it is adding up all the time.

Just to keep things in perspective.

A good paper to read IMO...

Earth’s Annual Global Mean
Energy Budget
J. T. Kiehl and Kevin E. Trenberth
National Center for Atmospheric Research,* Boulder, Colorado

http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/Trenberth/trenberth.papers/KiehlTrenbBAMS97.pdf

For those following the climategate e-mails, Trenberth is an IPCC lead author, Nobel prize winner... He is the guy quoted in them by the media as saying it's a travesty we cannot explain the lack of warming in recent years.

Or as he later clarified to Tom Wigley that we are not close to balancing the climate energy budget and cannot account for what is happening currently in our climate system with regards to lack of recent warming. Even though it is not outside the bounds of current scientific theory and climate science to allow for.

I have to say some of the discussions in those e-mails are quite fascinating.

[Laura902]

60. FOR THE SKEPTICS, THE FACT IS...

that carbon dioxide has always affected earths climate, it is why plants were so plentiful during the Carboniferous period and why that climate was so warm. There is a natural cycle of carbon in the environment and that and volcanic activity and other factors have always effected earths climate.........but as we humans are both pumping out carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and cutting down forests at a high rate we increase the amount of this "greenhouse gas". I know most of you know what a greenhouse gas is but for those who don't, they prevent the suns rays from escaping earths atmosphere, it is a natural effect that is increasing because we are pumping out carbon dioxide and methane and other gases. Most credible scientists DO NOT debate whether climate change is happening, it is. And even if you are a devoted skeptic, there is not doubt we need to reduce our dependence on foreign oil and use renewable resources and manufacture equipment to harness those(solar, wind) in the United States. There is always talk about drilling more in our area and this would seem logical because we do have vast reserves of oil still left in the world. However oil under the sea and around the western world will not be drilled when it is so difficult to get at that it takes just as much oil to use drilling as you would get out of the earth at one time. This is common sense and yet economists seem to be forgetting it. Don't believe the ignorance of "Drill Baby Drill"

[wtmusic]

61. Good points Laura902

and welcome to DU!

:bounce: :toast: :bounce: