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

[michel123456]

15 hours ago, iNow said:

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. 

Well there is this Frenchman Vincent Courtillot who has good arguments. But he faces virulent critics & in the end John Cuthber's sketch "what if this a hoax and make a better world for nothing" is IMHO the most appropriate.

Basically Courtillot doesn't deny global warming. He says global warming has ended (!!!) and he says it is caused by the sun, it is not caused by the excess of CO2. To him, CO2 is the effect of GW, not its cause. Food for thought.

But I wouldn't call him a liar. He is a scientist.

I will not put a link, if someone is interested he can make a search. Most info in French.

Edited January 13, 2020 by michel123456

[iNow]

1 hour ago, michel123456 said:

Basically Courtillot doesn't deny global warming. He says global warming has ended (!!!) and he says it is caused by the sun, it is not caused by the excess of CO2. To him, CO2 is the effect of GW, not its cause. Food for thought.

He may as well be saying it’s caused by unicorn farts. By what mechanism is warming leading to an increase in CO2? Melting permafrost releases more methane, but does not cause us to expel CO2 from our tailpipes, buildings, concrete mixing, manufacturing processes, etc. To me, it’s a bit like saying vomiting causes the flu. 

I’d place that assertion squarely into the ignorant bucket, but YMMV

[swansont]

2 hours ago, michel123456 said:

Well there is this Frenchman Vincent Courtillot who has good arguments.

Who claims they are good?

 

Quote

But he faces virulent critics & in the end John Cuthber's sketch "what if this a hoax and make a better world for nothing" is IMHO the most appropriate.

Basically Courtillot doesn't deny global warming. He says global warming has ended (!!!) and he says it is caused by the sun, it is not caused by the excess of CO2. To him, CO2 is the effect of GW, not its cause. Food for thought.

OK, Cynic earlier referred to a correlation, or lack thereof, in one graph. A graph of solar activity vs temperature was posted by StringJunky. For the last ~60 years, there is an anti-correlation between solar activity and temperature. Activity peaked in the late 50s at ~1361 W/m^2 and is now half a Watt lower, and yet temperature has been climbing all that time. What is Courtillot's explanation for this?

 

Quote

But I wouldn't call him a liar. He is a scientist.

I will not put a link, if someone is interested he can make a search. Most info in French.

That's not how this works. You're making a claim and then not backing it up in any way.

[studiot]

7 minutes ago, swansont said:

What is Courtillot's explanation for this?

I don't know, I have never heard of the Man.

 

but you also said this, which I fully agreed with

14 hours ago, swansont said:

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

 

.

 

Alternate  periods of Global Warming and Clobal cooling have occurred throughout the Earth's history. It is the natural state of affairs.
There have been pretty well no substantial periods of temperature stasis.

The point I am making is that pretty well all the energy involved in the surface warming comes from the Sun.

There are several factors involved in how much this is.

1) Solar output incident upon Earth's outer atmousphere.

2) The % of this actually reaching the Earth's surface.

3) The % of that reaching the surface that is absorbed and not reflected stright back.

4) The % of radiation from the Earth's surface that is retained due to Cuthber's blanket (which includes CO₂)

 

As a matter of interest here is an example of what I was describing leading to cooling in December 2019

smog (item 2 on my list)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-50953950

 

As regards the increase in CO₂, the same thing applies.

The concentration is multifactorial as it is a dynamical system.

We should also consider, for example, the amount of CO₂ reduced

 

[dimreepr]

It doesnt matter what, what matters is what we do... 

[MigL]

44 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

It doesnt matter what, what matters is what we do... 

What ??
( you gotta stop being so cryptic, Dim  )

[dimreepr]

It doesnt matter what has been, what matters is what we do next (is that too cryptic?) 

[michel123456]

3 hours ago, swansont said:

Who claims they are good?

I do.

I don't support especially his POV, I was annoyed by the "liar" accusation in I-don't-remember-who's-post. He is a living example of scientific denial of human GW.

"Vincent E. Courtillot (born 6 March 1948) is an emeritus French geophysicist, prominent among the researchers who are critical of the hypothesis that impact events are a primary cause of mass extinction of life forms on the Earth. He is known for his book "La Vie en catastrophes" (Paris, Fayard, 1995), translated into English as "Evolutionary catastrophes" (from Wiki)

(...) He is usually considered^[7] to be a global warming denier, often associated with Claude Allègre. Vincent Courtillot asserted that his collaboration with oil companiesTotal and Schlumberger on CO₂ sequestration (CCS)^[8][9] has no influence on his research and results."

As it appears the "who is talking" is of major importance. If you believe that he is paid by Total & Schlumberger then you won't even listen to his arguments. That's up to you.

For those who can stand 25' of French.

 

[swansont]

34 minutes ago, michel123456 said:

I do.

I don't support especially his POV, I was annoyed by the "liar" accusation in I-don't-remember-who's-post.

I don't know either, seeing as how you brought him up and denied he's a liar in the same post. There was no mention of him in this thread prior to that. Nobody called him a liar.

Prior to your mention, his name did not appear for more than ten years, according to our search function. Two in 2007, and one in 2006.

 

Quote

He is a living example of scientific denial of human GW.

Absent the science, I don't see how you can claim this.

 

 

[michel123456]

One can also find over the Net the systematic demolition of his arguments.

21 hours ago, iNow said:

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. 

That is the post that bothers me.

 

[swansont]

12 minutes ago, michel123456 said:

One can also find over the Net the systematic demolition of his arguments.

Which you called "good arguments"

 

12 minutes ago, michel123456 said:

That is the post that bothers me.

And it's not possible that he is ignorant? That as a geophysicist, he is just running outside of his lane when it comes to climate change?

[John Cuthber]

20 minutes ago, michel123456 said:

 

That is the post that bothers me.

 

Re. " there is the side that is ignorant and/or lying. "

In fairness, I think you might want to consider "misguided" as a possible third option, though some would say it's a subset of "ignorant".

Psychotic is also a possibility.
These 4 options can be summarised as Wrong, Wrong, Wrong and Wrong.

Edited January 13, 2020 by John Cuthber

[iNow]

Perhaps instead of ignorant I should’ve said ignorable 

[Cynic]

Thanks to those who posted up data and links for me to study. I’ve been seeing both sides of this debate ad nauseum and have not been able to make up my mind. As for Ken Fabian’s comment that I say others don’t know, I do not recall saying that. I questioned whether decisions on global economic scales should be based on correlations when correlations are not an accepted basis for causation. In fact, I said in my OP that it might very well be the case that man is responsible. One person astutely brought up the use of correlations in epidemiology and this was exactly why I brought up the question elsewhere in this forum of Hill’s Criteria being used to identify cause based on correlation. However, it seems to me that such correlations, regardless of how suggestive, are only really proven after properly controlled experiments. Anyway, the discussion here is exactly what I had hoped to see, for my own edification.

Edited January 13, 2020 by Cynic

[iNow]

Dismissively asserting that the human impact on climate is only suggestive and based on correlation suggests that you require quite a bit more edification on this topic. 

To that end, you might begin here: https://skepticalscience.com/empirical-evidence-for-global-warming-intermediate.htm

[Eise]

11 hours ago, Cynic said:

I questioned whether decisions on global economic scales should be based on correlations when correlations are not an accepted basis for causation.

Here is your error. the causal connection is already know since more than 150 years.

Quote

Eunice Foote demonstrated the heat-trapping properties of carbon dioxide at a scientific conference in 1856, newly digitised records show.

Irish physicist John Tyndall is commonly credited with discovering the greenhouse effect, which underpins the science of climate change.

Starting in 1859, he published a series of studies on the way greenhouse gases including carbon dioxide trapped heat in the Earth’s atmosphere.

A recently digitised copy of The American Journal of Science and Arts suggests a woman beat him to it, however.

It includes a presentation by Eunice Foote to a top US science conference in 1856. She describes filling glass jars with water vapour, carbon dioxide and air, and comparing how much they heated up in the sun.

“The highest effect of the sun’s rays I have found to be in carbonic acid gas,” she writes, using the contemporary term for carbon dioxide.

“The receiver containing the gas became itself much heated – very sensibly more so than the other – and on being removed, it was many times as long in cooling.”

E.g. are Venus and Mars are warmer than one would expect from their distance from the sun. Mars' tropics can reach 35^oC, average temperature on Venus is 464^oC. Both have an atmosphere of mainly CO₂ (Mars very thin, Venus very thick).

You are right that correlation does not mean causation. To take another example: the effect of cell phones on our health. Some studies suggest a connection (most don't, just for the record). But what especially is missing is a causal explanation: how can such low energy radiation (it is non-ionising radiation) cause brain tumors? But with global warming, we exactly know the cause: greenhouse gases, like CO₂, methane, water vapour, and some more.

We need computer models to try to predict how this global warming works out. The biosphere is a highly complex system, and what will happen due to global warming is not easy. And locally the impact might be very different. Some places on earth might even get colder, others more wet, still others drier and much warmer. But all these models have in common that the expected concentrations of greenhouse gases is one of the input parameters.

So the computer models are not just extrapolations of present trends. They implement known causalities on one side, and empirical knowledge about atmospheric and oceanic physics on the other. In the latter we surely do not know everything, but obviously the trends are predicted very well. Even computer models that were made 50 years ago predict quite well what actually has happened.

Global warming is happening, and anthropic greenhouse gases are the cause, there is no scientific doubt about it whatsoever. Everybody who denies this is deceiving himself and/or others.

 

 

[Strange]

12 hours ago, Cynic said:

I’ve been seeing both sides of this debate ad nauseum and have not been able to make up my mind.

There are only “two sides” in the political discussion. There is only one side as far as the science is concerned. 

12 hours ago, Cynic said:

I questioned whether decisions on global economic scales should be based on correlations when correlations are not an accepted basis for causation.

But the mechanism of causation is known. And has been known since before the correlation was identified. 

 

[Alex_Krycek]

On the whole, yes, climate change is happening.  The data is all but irrefutable at this point, and drastic action needs to be taken to mitigate the consequences.  However the way the news media reports climate change is often misleading, and other causes can be attributed to global events that are often purportedly related to climate change. 

For example, concerning the Australian bush fires happening of late: many Australian farmers and forestry workers have said that policies from the Australian Green Party have lead to the increased magnitude of the fires.  Instead of allowing forestry workers to carry out controlled burns of land to control tinder build up, or to let livestock roam free in certain areas, thus trampling down underbrush, foliage in certain areas has been allowed to grow unchecked thanks to protections from environmental legislation.  This increase in dried out foliage being built up over the decades has created a tinder box, and the catalyst for the blazes (either from pyromaniacs or lightening) have not changed.

Thus we have a situation where the news media is going berserk, attributing the scale and ferocity of the Australian fires to climate change, when in reality it is an ill advised and short sighted environmental policy that has lead to the increased likelihood of such "super-fires" coming into existence, due to the fact that an increase in fuel has been allowed to propagate.

[Strange]

11 minutes ago, Alex_Krycek said:

Thus we have a situation where the news media is going berserk, attributing the scale and ferocity of the Australian fires to climate change, when in reality it is an ill advised and short sighted environmental policy that has lead to the increased likelihood of such "super-fires" coming into existence, due to the fact that an increase in fuel has been allowed to propagate.

I suspect that there are multiple causes in play. Inadequate management of forests (due to both policy and funding issues) plus higher temperatures and drier weather resulting from climate change.

Many reporters are careful to point out that a particular hurricane/fire/drought/whatever cannot be attributed to climate change but that climate change means that these events are more likely and more extreme. Unfortunately, many are not so careful.

On the other hand, the audience is not entirely made up of people who want thoughtful analysis. It may be better to try and shock people into action, even at the risk of alienating some. (Or maybe not. I really don't know.)

[swansont]

14 hours ago, Cynic said:

Thanks to those who posted up data and links for me to study. I’ve been seeing both sides of this debate ad nauseum and have not been able to make up my mind.

There's a "both sides"? That's one of the problems, as iNow has already pointed out. This isn't a "both sides" issue, from a scientific perspective. It's not a matter of half of the scientific community supporting one position while the other half supports another. It's not a matter of two distinct results that don't statistically overlap, so you can't be sure which method/answer is correct (and even then, such situations typically don't deny that there is an effect in the first place) 

This is a flat-earth type issue at this point. 

Quote

As for Ken Fabian’s comment that I say others don’t know, I do not recall saying that. I questioned whether decisions on global economic scales should be based on correlations when correlations are not an accepted basis for causation.

But that's not the end of the investigation, and not the justification for the conclusion. Scientists looked for the causation and modeled it, which is what scientists do. The only answer that fits our current situation is CO2 from human activity. To paraphrase Westley, anyone who says different is selling something.

 

 

[Huckleberry of Yore]

9 hours ago, swansont said:

It's not a matter of half of the scientific community supporting one position while the other half supports another.

What exactly is the specific data that backs this up? 

The last time I saw a claim that "97% of scientists" support AGW I determined that the conclusions for that specific claim were wrongly drawn from the source.  Seemingly you are going further, saying 100% of expert scientists agree that humans are altering the climate and that alteration is meaningful increases in temperature.  Risking sounding pedantic, interpreting your words precisely, you suggest the fulcrum of pro/con AGW is, if not exactly %100 of scientists pro, it is virtually so, in that the con population are of zero meaningful significance.  I suspect you have valid references for this.

[hypervalent_iodine]

11 hours ago, Alex_Krycek said:

many Australian farmers and forestry workers have said that policies from the Australian Green Party have lead to the increased magnitude of the fires.  Instead of allowing forestry workers to carry out controlled burns of land to control tinder build up

Side note: they believe that because the LNP and Murdoch press convinced them to believe it, presumably to detract from their own accountability in all of this. It simply wasn’t / isn’t the Greens policy. A topic for another thread, however.

Certainly, fuel reduction has been an issue. I mentioned this elsewhere, but after the Black Saturday fires in 2009, it was identified as such, but nothing has been done really. However, it’s only one factor of many, and it’s short sighted you say that it will fix the issue going forward. It is not a cure all, and it doesn’t always work (but it can help). The reason climate change is implicated is because as it gets hotter and drier, the presence of undergrowth no longer really matters - the fire will spread anyway. There is an article on the ABC that I thought was well laid out that covers the topic.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-10/hazard-reduction-burns-bushfire-prevention-explainer/11853366

[Strange]

38 minutes ago, Huckleberry of Yore said:

Risking sounding pedantic, interpreting your words precisely, you suggest the fulcrum of pro/con AGW is, if not exactly %100 of scientists pro, it is virtually so

Actually, interpreting that quotation absolutely pedantically, one might infer that it is a 49:51% split (not half and half). In other words, I can’t see how you can infer the absolutist position you seem to  

However, the overwhelming majority of climate scientists (if not 100%) accept that the cure t climate change is almost entirely driven by anthropogenic CO2. There are, of course, significant differences of opinion over fine details: the exact effects of cloud cover or particulates, how much the oceans can buffer CO2 and/or heat, and so on. 

But I have not seen one instance of a well established climate scientist saying that it is entirely or largely  due to non-human factors. 

[Huckleberry of Yore]

6 minutes ago, Strange said:

Actually, interpreting that quotation absolutely pedantically, one might infer that it is a 49:51% split (not half and half).

I was giving you credit for writing something meaningful.

8 minutes ago, Strange said:

However, the overwhelming majority of climate scientists (if not 100%)

Again, references?

10 minutes ago, Strange said:

But I have not seen one instance of a well established climate scientist

Great, but I didn't ask who you've seen, I asked for hard data backing up your claim in regards to a large population.  I wouldn't expect you to have interviewed any significant fraction of that population or you'd be very busy!

[Strange]

2 minutes ago, Huckleberry of Yore said:

Great, but I didn't ask who you've seen, I asked for hard data backing up your claim in regards to a large population.  I wouldn't expect you to have interviewed any significant fraction of that population or you'd be very busy!

Do you have references to professional climate scientists who deny the role of anthropogenic CO2? (This is not an attempt to shift the burden of proof; but it is pretty hard to prove a negative. On the other hand, it should be straightforward for you to provide evidence of this “other side” if it exists)