Give me your opinions about global warming

[Fred56]

So why is it so difficult for you to grasp the simple fact that' date=' in times before those AGGs became so potent, that sunspot activity was then the dominant driver?

[/quote']

Simply because "the simple fact" isn't that simple.

[1veedo]

There are numerous parameters governing climate change. This makes the issue highly complex.

How many times have we tried to tell you this already? You keep bringing up your "1941 to 1976" argument and several people have pointed out to you repeatedly that there's more to the climate than just CO2 and temperatures. So essentially you ignore this fact when it's inconvenient to you and embrace it whenever convenient.

[SkepticLance]

1veedo

 

Let me re-post my last statement

 

"I did not require a single parameter. There are numerous parameters governing climate change. This makes the issue highly complex. However, there are sometimes dominant parameters, rather than single parameters".

 

I have always accepted the complexity of global climate change, and this forms the centre post of my argument about taking the results of computer models too literally. The complexity is what makes it so difficult for models to get it right. However, among all the parameters that influence the climate, there is no equality. Some are always more potent than others. This is also part of my argument and has always been so.

 

Ultimately, empirical evidence is what we must take most notice of. It is empirical evidence that shows that greenhouse gases are dominant at present. It is also that empirical evidence that shows the potency of sunspot activity as a climate driver in earlier decades.

[Fred56]

Quite. But despite accepting that there is a lot of empirical evidence, and there is also overwhelming consensus (despite the details still to be figured out), you do seem to be clinging to the concept of a “simple” explanation somewhere in amongst all the complexity.

 

If you're interested, there are climate models you can download and run to help out with testing how well they model past climate. You get all the software and the local client takes care of data downloads for model “runs”. Here's the link: http://www.climateprediction.net/index.php

[bascule]

"This is not true, for the simple reason that the current warming trend started in 1960. So why do you say 1976? Simple. It better fits your agenda."

 

Please do not engage in deliberate deception. You are as aware as I am that any warming from 1960 to 1976 is trivial. The real warming happened after 1976.

 

Well likewise... when you make statements like:

 

Another commonly quoted statement from the IPCC is that 90% of warming over the past 50 years is driven by people. This is also not true

 

while writing off:

 

 

as:

 

calculations, that work on the results of other calculations, that work on the results of yet more calculations

 

You are engaging in deliberate deception.

[swansont]

Fred

I do not readily take offense. However, my highest respect to you for the apology, even if it was unnecessary. Only quality people offer apologies.

 

Swansont said :

 

"Your requirement that there be correlation with but a single parameter is without basis."

 

Re-read my posts. I did not require a single parameter. There are numerous parameters governing climate change. This makes the issue highly complex. However, there are sometimes dominant parameters, rather than single parameters. You would not argue with the statement that, over the past 3 decades, anthropogenic greenhouse gases have been the dominant parameter driving global temperature change. Would you?

 

So why is it so difficult for you to grasp the simple fact that, in times before those AGGs became so potent, that sunspot activity was then the dominant driver?

 

Regardless of the accuracy of that statement, the problem is when you imply that the "dominant driver" and overall trend have to match each other, or that whatever driver matches the overall is the dominant one.

[SkepticLance]

Swansont said :

 

"the problem is when you imply that the "dominant driver" and overall trend have to match each other, or that whatever driver matches the overall is the dominant one."

 

Could you please rephrase this? I am having a problem understanding what you are getting at. If you are suggesting that the parameter that correlates most closely to the trend is not the most potent, then I fear for your process of logic.

 

This whole argument as far as I can see is simply that the more extreme global warming advocates do not like to accept that, in the past, sunspot activity could have been the most potent driver. Am I right in that interpretation?

 

Obviously, over the past 30 years, greenhouse gases have been most potent. Also clearly, the pattern before that is different, and other parameters become more important. In the period of 1941 to 1976, where overall temperatures dropped by 0.2 Celsius, greenhouse gases cannot have been the dominant influence, since they increased very substantially, while temperatures fell. Sulphate aerosols may have been a part of the picture at that time, but so was a drop in sunspot activity.

 

Over the period of 1880 to 1940, sunspot activity was clearly dominant. Greenhouse gases rose steadily, though at a much lower rate than today. From 1880 to 1910, at a time sunspot activity was falling, so was temperature. From 1910 to 1940, at a time sunspot activity was rising substantially, so was temperature. This is empirical data. Why is it so hard for people to understand that greenhouse gases were not the major influence at that time?

 

In a similar way, sunspot activity has been found by empirical studies to be the major influence earlier in history. Sunspot activity can be estimated by studies of ice cores. These studies showed a high level of sunspot activity (though still lower than today) during the Medieval Climate Optimum of 900 AD to 1350 AD. Sunspot activity fell after that time, and the world entered the Little Ice Age. The coldest part of the Little Ice Age was a 50 year period known to astronomers as the Maunder Minimum, since there was almost zero sunspot activity at that time. Sunspot activity began to rise about 1750AD, and the world began to warm up.

[iNow]

This whole argument as far as I can see is simply that the more extreme global warming advocates do not like to accept that, in the past, sunspot activity could have been the most potent driver. Am I right in that interpretation?

It's A driver. Singular. It no longer the most dominant, and PERHAPS never was. It's also extraordinarily miniscule in relevance due to the vast scope of anthropogenically induced warming.

[bascule]

In the period of 1941 to 1976, where overall temperatures dropped by 0.2 Celsius, greenhouse gases cannot have been the dominant influence, since they increased very substantially, while temperatures fell.

 

That statement is an enormous non sequitur.

 

Premise 1: The global mean surface temperature fell 0.2 Celsius

Premise 2: Greenhouse gases increased

Premise 3: ???

 

Conclusion: Greenhouse gases did not have the strongest radiative forcing during the time period in question

 

You seem to be implying that if greenhouse gases are the strongest radiative forcing than they must be greater than all of the others combined

 

and PERHAPS never was.

 

Don't lead him down that road, that's just a strawman he uses to confuse the issue

[swansont]

Swansont said :

 

"the problem is when you imply that the "dominant driver" and overall trend have to match each other, or that whatever driver matches the overall is the dominant one."

 

Could you please rephrase this? I am having a problem understanding what you are getting at. If you are suggesting that the parameter that correlates most closely to the trend is not the most potent, then I fear for your process of logic.

 

 

You have a $50k income, and so does your wife, and your son has a $25/week paper route. One day, you get laid off. Luckily, your wife gets a massive raise that balances that out. Your son's paper route income stays flat. Your household income stays flat. Your household income most closely correlates with your son's income. Are you really telling me that you think his income is the dominant term?

[1veedo]

I have always accepted the complexity of global climate change

Except for every time you brought up the years 1941 to 1976 when someone (be it me or someone else) had to inform you that CO2 and the sun are not the only two factors in the climate. Specifically during this period we had a rise in particulates.

[SkepticLance]

To Swansont

 

Thank you for your explanation. I can now see what you were driving at. However, your analogy deals with only one change in income. As far as climate change go, there are numerous changes - with temperatures rising and falling at various times. With the strong exception of the 1976 to present situation, the various times that temperature changes its trend (that is : rising temperature becomes falling, or vice versa) are always preceded by a change in sunspot activity.

 

The same applies to the argument that a combination of climate forcings other than sunspots overcome greenhouse gases. This might happen once, or maybe twice. However, we have so many occasions where the trend alters, preceded by sunspot activity changes, that this interpretation seems pretty silly.

 

Think about it.

1. Lower temperatures before 900AD. Sunspot goes up. Temperature goes up.

2. Higher temperatures in 1350 AD. Sunspot goes down. Temperature drops.

3. Lower temperature in 1750 AD. Sunspot goes up. Temperature up.

4. Higher in 1880 AD. Sunspot down. Temperature down.

5. Lower in 1910 AD. Sunspot up. Temperature up.

6. Higher in 1941 AD. Sunspot down. Temperature down.

 

There are six separate occasions where sunspot activity change precedes a relevent temperature change. Are you trying to tell me it is all coincidence?

If you are, then you must also believe that the high incidence of lung cancer experienced by smokers is also coincidence.

 

I accept that other factors are involved. However, the empirical evidence strongly suggests that sunspot activity, up until about 1976, is the most potent.

[Fred56]

There are six separate occasions where sunspot activity change precedes a relevent temperature change. Are you trying to tell me it is all coincidence?

Well, are you saying that it isn't? A correlation implies, but does not, and cannot, be said to be causative. This is simply way too big of a simplification. This is what everyone's been trying to convince you of.

[SkepticLance]

To Fred

 

I am sorry if this appears undiplomatic, but that statement of yours is nonsense.

 

We have a strong correlation between sunspot activity rise and fall, followed by global temperature rise and fall, six times. In fact, every time from the middle of the 20th Century back to more than a thousand years ago, that global temperature undergoes a significant rise or fall, it is preceded by sunspot activity rise or fall.

 

Bascule is fond of saying that correlation does not prove causation. That is a true statement, but, as in this case, there are only three possibilities when the correlation passes beyond any reasonable possibility of coincidence.

 

If A correlates with B, and does so often enough to be beyond coincidence, then either

 

1. A causes B

2. B causes A

3. Both A and B are caused by C

 

If A is sunspots and B is global temperature, then clearly possibility number 2 is impossible. There is no way a warming Earth can cause sunspots to appear.

 

That leaves possibility 1 or 3. Possibility 3 seems unlikely in the extreme, because the cause of global warming would then also have to cause sunspots. Not necessarily impossible. Maybe some unknown extra-solar event releases an unknown and undetectable particle in vast numbers that has the property of both stimulating sunspots and warming the Earth. Yes, not impossible, but unlikely in the extreme.

 

Conclusion : the correlation between sunspot activity and global warming leaves an almost 100% certainty of causation with high sunspot activity causing global warming.

[swansont]

You might note in my example that no conclusion at all could be drawn if the dollar values had not been given, and that's what you are missing. Your analysis is qualitative, which is why it is insufficient and the conclusions invalid.

 

The dominant term is simply the one that has the largest effect. And you could have the biggest term decrease and the overall increase or remain constant, because they net is the sum of all of the effects.

[SkepticLance]

To Swansont

 

You are correct. However, I am casting doubt on the so called quantitative analyses. In particular, the figures given for solar forcings. These have always been very low, even for occasions such as the 1910 to 1941 warming, where the effect has been very strong.

 

This has been something of a puzzle to me. I suspect the reason is that the mechanism for sunspot activity driven warmings/coolings is not really understood. There is a quite separate forcing, which is solar irradiance. This has been increasing to a small degree for decades. It has been accurately measured for a relatively short time, and I suspect this is what the IPCC use for their calculated solar forcings.

 

This is not really the same as sunspot activity. Sunspots do increase irradiance, but they also have other effects, including magnetic fields (which reduce cosmic ray flux), and a substantial increase in ultra violet output, which affects ozone levels. If, as I think, the IPCC is only taking into account the increase in irradiance, they are missing the major source of sunspot driven global temperature change.

[santa]

I reckon George Bush is not doing enough to help stop Global warming. Neither is John Howard. A lot of countries have signed the Kyoto protocol except for those two

[1veedo]

It's not the sunspots causing everything. The sun fluctuates all of these parameters on an 11 year cycle and one of the effects of this is a change in the number of sunspots. In other words there's an underlying "z factor" as you'd say in correlation study.

[Fred56]

No there isn't. Check out the other thread on sunspots, mate. There is absolutely nothing, zip, nada, zilch, to the idea that the sun is to blame. There's a cycle is all. Someone apparently (why it took so long I have no idea) found out that there is a bigger forcing from the cycle, but there's no underlying trend in the data.

[1veedo]

I didn't say that lol Fred56, thanks anyway. The reason there are historical cycles isn't really because of the sun at all but our position relative to it. Right now we're "moving away" you could say, and we have been for roughly 8k years. Humans are not only offsetting a cooling trend as part of a natural cycle, but are also heating up the Earth. That's why I always thought the "our climate is getting warmer anyway, we're just speeding it up" crowd was kind of funny.

[SkepticLance]

If I am reading the last two posts correctly, then there are a couple of ostriches with heads in sand. If I am not, please explain.

 

The big global temperature changes over the past thousand years, except the last 30, were all preceded by relevent sunspot activity changes. The concept that the sun has nothing to do with global warming/cooling seems to be real ostrich country.

[Fred56]

It's a bit like one of those blind guys who feels an elephant's leg and announces that an elephant is “just like a tree”. Don't you think?

[SkepticLance]

Fred

 

Here's a couple more references for you.

 

On long term solar effects on warming/cooling cycles - three articles from sciencemag (AAAS)

http://www.sciencemag.org

 

Their 7 December 2001 edition.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/294/5549/2130?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=Holocene&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&issue=5549&resourcetype=HWCIT

 

Also

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/sci;294/5549/2109

 

Also

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/short/294/5549/2149

 

And a more popular description of solar activity causing warming/cooling. Not very accurate, but generally supporting the point.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/56456.stm

[Fred56]

Several different teams of researchers have since discovered no such thing, however. You can keep reading old news items and looking wherever else for whatever you think they might have missed, but I'm happy to leave it up to them myself.

[Chris C]

Skeptic, the sources are fine but they don't have much to say about today. We know solar activity has influenced temperature over the Holocene and throughout paleoenvironments. I'm famaliar with most of those authors (and have contact with them) and can tell you none of them think there is a solar forcing predominant over the last 50 years (many guys in the third one are from realclimate as well). The sun is obviously an important part of global temperature but no real trend (or negative) since mid century, and we know CO2 reduces the infrared loss to space- actually if you think about it if you got more solar activity you get more incoming and less outgoing (because of CO2) and you just get worse-- Chris