Is global warming real? (Split from The First Climate Model Turns 50, and ...)

[Cynic]

 

 

 

 

You know, I feel like the odd man out on this man made global warming thing. Is it an actual thing? I don’t know, maybe. It appears to me that all information I’ve seen consists of attempts, through various models, to correlate atmospheric green house gases generated by human activity with global temperature change, specifically warming.

— Correlations, where they can even be demonstrated at all, mean little to nothing because correlation does not mean causation. Only actual experiments can verify whether a correlation is in fact the result of some cause and effect.

— However, no truly accurate, controlled experiments can be done to verify or falsify any observed global correlations because it is impossible to even establish a control for a planetary climate experiment. Ideally, we’d need an exact copy of earth, minus humans.

— I doubt the ability to accurately measure global temperatures as precisely as have been claimed, with the exception of the only very recent measurements obtained by remote sensing. Much of the data is collected from stations never intended for the purpose of determining global climate change.

— Climate has changed repeatedly and dramatically over the millennia with the complete absence of man made technology, or even man for that matter. It seems perfectly reasonable to believe that current changes are due to factors similar to what have happened throughout earth’s history, not something that came along in the last blink of an eye.

I have been called stupid, brainwashed, denier, ignorant of science, fill in the blank for merely stating this view on other forums. Is it really so wrong to be skeptical given the above?

[dimreepr]

7 minutes ago, Cynic said:

You know, I feel like the odd man out on this man made global warming thing. Is it an actual thing?

one day we'll Understand, money isn't edible... 😉

[iNow]

48 minutes ago, Cynic said:

this man made global warming thing. Is it an actual thing?

Yes

[John Cuthber]

48 minutes ago, Cynic said:

I doubt the ability to accurately measure global temperatures as precisely as have been claimed, with the exception of the only very recent measurements obtained by remote sensing. Much of the data is collected from stations never intended for the purpose of determining global climate change.

Why would the purpose of the data  recording matter?
 

50 minutes ago, Cynic said:

I feel like the odd man out on this man made global warming thing.

I invite you to contemplate why that might be.
 

 

50 minutes ago, Cynic said:

Climate has changed repeatedly and dramatically over the millennia with the complete absence of man made technology, or even man for that matter. It seems perfectly reasonable to believe that current changes are due to factors similar to what have happened throughout earth’s history, not something that came along in the last blink of an eye.

The recent changes in climate, like the "rise of man" have both happened in the blink of an eye.

https://xkcd.com/1732/


We know that CO2 levels have gone up .

We know the temperature has gone up.

We know that CO2 is a greenhouse gas.

In effect, what you believe is that we put  another blanket on the bed, and we are now warmer, but the two things aren't related.

Are you surprised that you are called "called stupid, brainwashed, denier, ignorant of science, "?

And, of course there's this aspect of it.
 

 

[Strange]

1 hour ago, Cynic said:

Only actual experiments can verify whether a correlation is in fact the result of some cause and effect.

The first experiments demonstrating the greenhouse effect were performed well over 100 years ago (Tyndall and Arrhenius).

The physics is well understood and consists of more than looking at correlations.

1 hour ago, Cynic said:

Climate has changed repeatedly and dramatically over the millennia with the complete absence of man made technology, or even man for that matter. It seems perfectly reasonable to believe that current changes are due to factors similar to what have happened throughout earth’s history, not something that came along in the last blink of an eye.

There have been no changes of this scale or speed in the past. We also, generally, have a very good idea what caused previous examples of climate chnage, and those are not significant factors now.

1 hour ago, Cynic said:

I doubt the ability to accurately measure global temperatures as precisely as have been claimed, with the exception of the only very recent measurements obtained by remote sensing. Much of the data is collected from stations never intended for the purpose of determining global climate change.

What are your doubts based on? Just a lack of understanding of the processes used? Or do you have data that shows them to be incorrect?

Surely, if anything, the fact that the temperature measurements were not made for the purposes of measuring climate change makes them better as a source of data: there is less chance that they have been affected by assumptions about climate change.

1 hour ago, Cynic said:

I have been called stupid, brainwashed, denier, ignorant of science, fill in the blank for merely stating this view on other forums. Is it really so wrong to be skeptical given the above?

It sounds as if your objections are based almost entirely on a lack of understanding of the relevant science. 

It is right to be sceptical about science. But not based on just ignoring what the science says and thinking "well that doesn't sound right".

[Cynic]

I’m going to get buried here....so, one thing at a time, the Tyndall and Arrhenius publication, is this the one you mean? It more resembles a review paper than an experimental report. Do I have the wrong one?

https://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/Arrhenius 1906, final.pdf

“It sounds as if your objections are based almost entirely on a lack of understanding of the relevant science.“

That’s entirely possible but I read both sides of this argument and I cannot reach a decision on who is actually correct. I’m an old school biologist (college in the 60s) and this is certainly not my field.

4 hours ago, John Cuthber said:

Why would the purpose of the data  recording matter?
 

I invite you to contemplate why that might be.
 

 

The recent changes in climate, like the "rise of man" have both happened in the blink of an eye.

https://xkcd.com/1732/


We know that CO2 levels have gone up .

We know the temperature has gone up.

We know that CO2 is a greenhouse gas.

In effect, what you believe is that we put  another blanket on the bed, and we are now warmer, but the two things aren't related.

Are you surprised that you are called "called stupid, brainwashed, denier, ignorant of science, "?

Well, that didn’t take long. Yes, there is correlation in some data. However, correlation does not mean causation. It is not proof of anything regardless of how suggestive it might be. However, some say there is not even a correlation. E.G. 

Also, for what it’s worth, I am all for being a good Stewart of our planet but I don’t think swapping billions of dollars of carbon credits among countries and corporations is any way to do it. 

4 hours ago, John Cuthber said:

 

 

Edited January 12, 2020 by Cynic

[iNow]

18 minutes ago, Cynic said:

That’s entirely possible but I read both sides of this argument and I cannot reach a decision on who is actually correct.

It’s pretty easy. There are no longer two sides. There is the side that overwhelmingly agrees that human behaviors are altering our climate, and there is the side that is ignorant and/or lying. 

[Cynic]

Regarding the question earlier about why I doubt the accuracy of measurements, this is a station map of the monitoring sites and the length of time they’ve been operational. Aside from the Antarctic being dramatically under-sampled,  most of these stations simply haven’t been around that long and of those that have, little thought was given towards locating them so as to best evaluate global temperature patterns.

 

edit: forgot the link to below

https://data.nodc.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/iso?id=gov.noaa.ncdc:C00839

Edited January 12, 2020 by Cynic

[iNow]

Broken thermometers cannot account for the changes we’re experiencing 

Edited January 12, 2020 by iNow

[studiot]

1 minute ago, Cynic said:

Aside from the Antarctic being dramatically under-sampled,

Good golly gosh man, have you never heard of ice cores?

Where do you think they come from, Barbados?

[Cynic]

3 minutes ago, studiot said:

Good golly gosh man, have you never heard of ice cores?

Where do you think they come from, Barbados?

Yes, which brings me back to the earlier graph showing correlation, or lack of, temperature and CO2 over geologic time.

3 minutes ago, iNow said:

Broken thermometers cannot account for the changes we’re experiencing 

We have experienced dramatic changes in earth’s climate before without any thermometers at all.

Edited January 12, 2020 by Cynic

[swansont]

6 hours ago, Cynic said:

You know, I feel like the odd man out on this man made global warming thing. Is it an actual thing? I don’t know, maybe. It appears to me that all information I’ve seen consists of attempts, through various models, to correlate atmospheric green house gases generated by human activity with global temperature change, specifically warming.

other than the questionable wording, which implies scientists are seeking a particular result, yes. Science is all about building models to explain how nature behaves.

 

6 hours ago, Cynic said:

— Correlations, where they can even be demonstrated at all, mean little to nothing because correlation does not mean causation. Only actual experiments can verify whether a correlation is in fact the result of some cause and effect.

— However, no truly accurate, controlled experiments can be done to verify or falsify any observed global correlations because it is impossible to even establish a control for a planetary climate experiment. Ideally, we’d need an exact copy of earth, minus humans.

No. If this were true there’s a lot of science you’d have to reject (large parts of astronomy and evolution, for example) 

You can test elements of the model separately, in lab conditions.

 

6 hours ago, Cynic said:

— I doubt the ability to accurately measure global temperatures as precisely as have been claimed, with the exception of the only very recent measurements obtained by remote sensing. Much of the data is collected from stations never intended for the purpose of determining global climate change.

what is different when the data is for global consideration, vs local? If it’s 20 C outside, is it no longer that temperature if we want to apply it to a global measurement?

6 hours ago, Cynic said:

— Climate has changed repeatedly and dramatically over the millennia with the complete absence of man made technology, or even man for that matter. It seems perfectly reasonable to believe that current changes are due to factors similar to what have happened throughout earth’s history, not something that came along in the last blink of an eye.

No, it’s not reasonable, if you are doing science.

 

6 hours ago, Cynic said:

I have been called stupid, brainwashed, denier, ignorant of science, fill in the blank for merely stating this view on other forums. Is it really so wrong to be skeptical given the above?

You aren’t being skeptical, though. 

[Strange]

1 hour ago, Cynic said:

I’m going to get buried here....so, one thing at a time, the Tyndall and Arrhenius publication, is this the one you mean? It more resembles a review paper than an experimental report. Do I have the wrong one?

I have never read the original work by Arrhenius (or Tyndall). But that may well be a relevant paper.

1 hour ago, Cynic said:

That’s entirely possible but I read both sides of this argument and I cannot reach a decision on who is actually correct.

I'm not sure there are two sides. Unless you mean climate scientists vs non-scientists with a political agenda.

45 minutes ago, Cynic said:

Regarding the question earlier about why I doubt the accuracy of measurements, this is a station map of the monitoring sites and the length of time they’ve been operational. Aside from the Antarctic being dramatically under-sampled,  most of these stations simply haven’t been around that long and of those that have, little thought was given towards locating them so as to best evaluate global temperature patterns.

Most of the longer term temperature measurements use proxies such as rates of plant growth, etc. Not ideal, but the best we can do for the very long term trends.

[iNow]

1 hour ago, Cynic said:

We have experienced dramatic changes in earth’s climate before without any thermometers at all.

And those changes weren’t caused by magic pixies. We know why they happened. Those precious causes cannot account for the changes we see today. Human emissions can, and do. 

 

Edited January 12, 2020 by iNow

[StringJunky]

10 minutes ago, iNow said:

And those changes weren’t caused by magic pixies. We know why they happened. Those precious causes cannot account for the changes we see today. Human emissions can, and do. 

 

It seems odd to me that deniers don't see the very clear trend in increasing carbon emissions not that long after the industrial revolution started. 

[iNow]

Often it’s just an easy troll. Other times it’s a reminder of how many folks think their opinions are just as relevant as our facts. 

[StringJunky]

2 hours ago, Cynic said:

Yes, which brings me back to the earlier graph showing correlation, or lack of, temperature and CO2 over geologic time.

We have experienced dramatic changes in earth’s climate before without any thermometers at all.

Explain this one away:

https://climate.nasa.gov/causes/

You would expect to see the two rise and fall with each other.

Edited January 12, 2020 by StringJunky

[studiot]

25 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

Explain this one away:

Explain what away exactly?

The observation that the mean temperature has risen nearly 1^o ( which I make at about 5% or 0.34%  depending how you base it) since about 1940, whilst the solar radiation has increased by 0.5 w/m2 or 0.037% in the same period?

Have there been any attempts to calculate alternative mechanisms for instance the much cleaner air we have over most of the zones that were highly carbon dioxide emissive in the 1940s?

IOW are we keeping more of the solar input than before because of CO2 or are we simply receiving more of the input because there is less smog?

Or is it even a double whammy?

Edited January 12, 2020 by studiot

[Sensei]

3 hours ago, Cynic said:

Regarding the question earlier about why I doubt the accuracy of measurements, this is a station map of the monitoring sites and the length of time they’ve been operational. Aside from the Antarctic being dramatically under-sampled,  most of these stations simply haven’t been around that long and of those that have, little thought was given towards locating them so as to best evaluate global temperature patterns.

[map of stations on the Earth]

"Weather satellites have been available to infer sea surface temperature (SST) information since 1967, with the first global composites occurring during 1970.[9] Since 1982,[10] satellites have been increasingly utilized to measure SST and have allowed its spatial and temporal variation to be viewed more fully."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_temperature_measurements

Comparison of temperatures collected from satellites and ground monitoring stations:

There is no need for specialized weather satellites to capture photography of Arctic, Greenland, Antarctic etc. etc. and to make timelapse video from forty years:

...or measure the amount of land that has turned into a desert during the last forty years...

... or measure the number of forest fires (and area) during the last forty years..

etc. etc.

 

Edited January 12, 2020 by Sensei

[swansont]

3 hours ago, Cynic said:

Yes, which brings me back to the earlier graph showing correlation, or lack of, temperature and CO2 over geologic time.

This would only matter if CO2 is the only way to cause warming, and people were claiming it was responsible in all those cases

 

.

[Prometheus]

8 hours ago, Cynic said:

— Correlations, where they can even be demonstrated at all, mean little to nothing because correlation does not mean causation. Only actual experiments can verify whether a correlation is in fact the result of some cause and effect.

— However, no truly accurate, controlled experiments can be done to verify or falsify any observed global correlations because it is impossible to even establish a control for a planetary climate experiment. Ideally, we’d need an exact copy of earth, minus humans.

Medicine, particularly epidemiology, suffers from these same restrictions and is yet able to proceed. There are interesting parallels between the accumulation of evidence that inhaling tobacco smoke causes lung cancer and AGW, but one point of departure is that the basic physics seems far more well understood than the basic biology was for tobacco related lung cancer.

[iNow]

13 minutes ago, Prometheus said:

There are interesting parallels between the accumulation of evidence that inhaling tobacco smoke causes lung cancer and AGW,

Including the fact that many of the very same people were involved in both using what’s become known as the wedge strategy. 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wedge_strategy

[Ken Fabian]

 

11 hours ago, Cynic said:

it is impossible to even establish a control for a planetary climate experiment.

Welcome to the test tube! Personally I would rather we used physical data and understanding of physical processes to model what we can expect to happen, before they happen. Even imperfectly.

11 hours ago, Cynic said:

It appears to me

It isn't up to you. You are entitled to your opinion - unless you are a scientist, operating within professional codes of conduct, which makes misrepresenting the work of your peer or yourself an ethical breach. Or you hold a position of trust and responsibility, which makes ignoring expert advice negligence.

12 hours ago, Cynic said:

Is it really so wrong to be skeptical given the above?

Real science skeptics say "I don't know". They do not say "everyone else doesn't know". Not even while the take the effort to check to be sure. If you don't know, how would you know the experts are wrong?

You are doing faux skepticism, not genuine scientific skepticism. Presuming the mainstream body of knowledge on climate is false unless your are personally convinced is not scientific skepticism - it is just a sciency sounding way to reject anything you don't, can't or choose not to understand.

 

12 hours ago, Cynic said:

Climate has changed repeatedly and dramatically over the millennia with the complete absence of man made technology, or even man for that matter.

It is because climate has changed dramatically in the past that makes adding CO2 emissions such a big deal; it would take a climate system that does not change for it to not matter. The very opposite conclusion to it meaning emissions won't matter. It is the vehicle that will not steer a straight line that is most likely to run off the road and crash.

 

I will trust the world's leading science bodies ahead of a pseudonymous internet faux expert. The US National Academy of Sciences for example -

Climate change is happening today. Scientists have known for some time, from multiple lines of evidence, that humans are changing Earth’s climate, primarily through greenhouse gas emissions.

The evidence is clear and compelling. Earth’s atmosphere and oceans are warming, the magnitude and frequency of extreme climate and weather events are increasing, and sea level is rising along our coasts. 

Climate change is increasingly affecting people’s lives. It is having significant effects on infrastructure, agriculture, fisheries, public health, and the ecosystems that support society. It is also changing the environment in ways that affect the distribution, diversity, and long-term survival of species of plants, animals, and other forms of life on Earth.

 

 

[StringJunky]

4 hours ago, studiot said:

Explain what away exactly?

The observation that the mean temperature has risen nearly 1^o ( which I make at about 5% or 0.34%  depending how you base it) since about 1940, whilst the solar radiation has increased by 0.5 w/m2 or 0.037% in the same period?

Have there been any attempts to calculate alternative mechanisms for instance the much cleaner air we have over most of the zones that were highly carbon dioxide emissive in the 1940s?

IOW are we keeping more of the solar input than before because of CO2 or are we simply receiving more of the input because there is less smog?

Or is it even a double whammy?

It's caused by greenhouse  gases in the lower atmosphere. You lose the point of my post, namely that it was aimed at cynic.

.

[studiot]

6 hours ago, StringJunky said:

It's caused by greenhouse  gases in the lower atmosphere. You lose the point of my post, namely that it was aimed at cynic.

That's too simplistic was my point (and also it appears, swansont's)