The environmental debate thread

[Orbital]

I am a first year Enviromental Science student. As such, I am certainly no expert on the subject of climate change. It would be my understanding however, that in order to conduct good science, one should not become 'attached' to any particular hypothesis, but rather 'seek the truth', regardless of whether it contradicts their initial beliefs or not. It would appear to me that some in this thread appear to be emotionally 'attached' to their hypothesis. Surely this isn't conducive to good science, or to a good scientific debate for that matter.

[SkepticLance]

To iNow

 

Reaper/Lockheed has made no new points. We are back to the same tired old arguments, and we are not going to agree. I have pointed out at length that the irradiance measures used by the IPCC do not relate to the total changes caused by sunspot activity - ie. magnetic effects, and solar wind effects, and indirect effects due the fact that the irradiance is skewed to the ultraviolet during times of strong sunspot activity. Yet he returns to the same assumption that the total effect of changes in solar activity comes from changes in total electro-magnetic radiation - called irradiance.

 

Why should I try to debate with him? We just go in circles.

[iNow]

Hello, pot? Meet the kettle.

 

 

Oh well...

[Reaper]

Please tone down your language. I have no interest in debating with people who cannot moderate their emotional outbursts.

 

HA! You mean you have no interest in actually talking about the science behind it or being honest with your debate tactics, because you know exactly why I'm calling you an idiot. You are in no position to make any demands.

 

But, I'll tell you what. I'll flame a little less so that you don't go off running away, and if your a good boy, I might even drop the insults and sarcasm all together.

 

Reaper/Lockheed has made no new points. We are back to the same tired old arguments, and we are not going to agree. I have pointed out at length that the irradiance measures used by the IPCC do not relate to the total changes caused by sunspot activity - ie. magnetic effects, and solar wind effects, and indirect effects due the fact that the irradiance is skewed to the ultraviolet during times of strong sunspot activity. Yet he returns to the same assumption that the total effect of changes in solar activity comes from changes in total electro-magnetic radiation - called irradiance.

 

Oh looky here, lots of claims and no references. And, strawmans too! And do I see instances of you making stuff up? How typical:rolleyes:. I guess we can also ignore all of those graphs that include sunspot activity too, many of which you can find in just about every site that deals with climate change, and the other points that I just previously made (e.g. blocking solar wind).

 

And, I guess you still don't believe (or don't understand) the definition of solar irradiance: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_radiation

 

The Earth receives a total amount of radiation determined by its cross section (π R2), but as the planet rotates this energy is distributed across the entire surface area (4 π R2). Hence, the average incoming solar radiation (called sometimes the solar irradiance), taking into account the half of the planet not receiving any solar radiation at all, is one fourth the solar constant or ~342 W/m². At any given location and time, the amount received at the surface depends on the state of the atmosphere and the latitude.

 

Or, you can look at these definitions: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&oi=definer&q=define:total+solar+irradiance&defl=en

 

Solar irradiance is SOLAR ENERGY HITTING THE EARTH, mostly coming from radiation.

 

Or, if you still don't understand that, then take a good look at this blackbody diagram, and you tell me where most of the sun's energy peaks:

 

Why should I try to debate with him? We just go in circles.

 

Oh no, this ain't going around in circles anymore. You know why? Because this time, you aren't going to be given a chance to slip away with your blasted rhetoric....

 

 

============================================

 

 

We do provide you enough respect to respond and try to find middle ground, providing support for our positions and remaining open to evidence which proves those positions false. Will you not do the same?

 

Indeed. And all of that didn't amount to anything. Time to bring out the nukes !!!!!!!!

[ParanoiA]

Wasn't sure where to put this...hopefully this is the right thread.

 

I caught a recent discussion about Richard Lindzen, of MIT, and some paper he and a fella named Yong-Sang Choi put together about climate sensitivity, particularly on the relationship of radiation and CO2. Normally this stuff puts me to sleep, and this is coming close, but I managed to stay awake and actually absorb some of it.

 

So I tried looking up some info on it and found a few articles. If I'm reading this one right, I think the essential summary is that as CO2 levels increase, so does radiation, which counters the conventional thought that radiation is blocked or whatever by increased levels of CO2. This comes from data generated by the ERBE (Earth Radiation Budget Experiment) satellite that measured outbound radiation over the course of like 15 years or so.

 

The latest findings to this effect by Lindzen and Choi add to the work that Roy Spencer and several other researchers have been doing for years in this arena. Instead of a climate sensitivity lying within the IPCC’s range of 2.0° to 4.5°C, Lindzen and Choi report it to be about 0.5°C—six times less than the IPCC’s “best estimate” of 3.0°C.

 

Lindzen and Choi make their determination by examining radiation data measured by instruments carried by satellites orbiting above the earth’s atmosphere and comparing the variation of incoming and outgoing radiation with the variations in the earth’s tropical ocean temperatures. Climate models seem to predict that when the ocean temperature increases, less radiation leaves the earth to space, which leads to additional warming—a positive feedback.

 

However, actual observations seem to show that warmer oceans results in more radiation lost to space, which acts to reverse the warming—in other words, a negative feedback. Changes in cloudcover are one possible mechanism involved. The data presented by Lindzen and Choi are shown in Figure 1. The red box surrounds the data from the observations and shows a positive relationship between sea surface temperature changes and the amount of radiation lost to space, while the climate models (the other 11 boxes in Figure 1) show the opposite—radiation lost to space declines as ocean temperatures rise.

 

 

 

In the discussion I caught on TV they made it sound like Richard Lindzen had quite the reputation and authority on climate science, but obviously I would have no earthly idea if he was a quack or a genius.

 

So what does the peer review on their paper look like? I'm curious what climate scientists think about this conclusion by Lindzen and Choi.

[ParanoiA]

I don't usually bump threads, but I'm surprised no one has responded to this. This is a very damning paper that is empowering the anti-AGW crowd to declare victory. I'm not sure how to check for peer reviewed results, rebuttals or whatever.

 

Any ideas if the paper mentioned in the post above has been reviewed and critiqued?

[swansont]

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/01/lindzen-and-choi-unraveled/

http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/08/a-rebuttal-to-a-cool-climate-paper/

[ParanoiA]

Thanks! Looks like they're waiting now for Lindzen and Choi's rebuttal. Interesting.

[JohnB]

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php...hoi-unraveled/

http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/20...climate-paper/

Cool. Does this mean I can use blogs and newspapers to rebut published papers too?

 

Seriously. The Trenberth RC article is a classic strawman.

 

From RC;

A goal of LC09 was to quantify the cloud feedback by examining variability in top-of-atmosphere (TOA) radiative fluxes in the tropics as it relates to variability in mean sea surface temperature (SST).

 

What a load of crock.

 

The abstract of the Lindzen paper;

Climate feedbacks are estimated from fluctuations in the outgoing radiation budget from the latest version of Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) nonscanner data. It appears' date=' for the entire tropics, the observed outgoing

radiation fluxes increase with the increase in sea surface temperatures (SSTs). The observed behavior of radiation fluxes implies negative feedback processes associated with relatively low climate sensitivity. This is the opposite of the behavior of 11 atmospheric models forced by the same SSTs. Therefore, the models display much higher climate sensitivity than is inferred from ERBE, though it is difficult to pin down such high sensitivities with any precision. Results also show, the feedback in ERBE is mostly from shortwave

radiation while the feedback in the models is mostly from longwave radiation. [i']Although such a test does not distinguish the mechanisms[/i], this is important since the inconsistency of climate feedbacks constitutes a very fundamental problem in climate prediction.

(Emphasis mine)

 

I don't see anything about clouds there, do you?

 

From the papers conclusions;

Note that while TOA flux data from ERBE are sufficient to determine feedback factors, this data do not specifically identify mechanisms. Thus, the small OLR feedback from ERBE might represent the absence of any OLR feedback; it might also result from the cancellation of a possible positive water vapor feedback due to increased water vapor in the upper troposphere [soden et al., 2005] and a possible negative iris cloud feedback involving reduced upper level cirrus clouds [Lindzen et al., 2001].

(Emphasis mine)

 

Okay, here they mention clouds, but only as a "possible" mechanism and only after pointing out that the data "do not specifically identify mechanisms".

 

The purpose of the paper was to compare model predictions with real world observations and thereby attempt to get an idea as to climate sensitivity. To a great degree the mechanisms of this are irrelevent.

 

The 11 models chosen (from AMIP for the IPCC AR4 no less) all predict TOA flux would reduce with an increase in SST temps. These predictions are being compared to ERBE observational data to see if the prediction is correct. (Funny, that's what I always thought "science" was supposed to do)

 

Bottom line. The models used predicted the TOA fux would decrease with increase in temperature but the observations showed an increase.

 

So, do real world obs trump the models, or do the models trump the obs? I know which one I vote for.

[swansont]

Cool. Does this mean I can use blogs and newspapers to rebut published papers too?

 

When the blog is a summary of a paper, written by the authors, why not? And the other was an article in which the author admits that certain criticisms of the paper were valid and he was making changes to address them.

 

As for the rest, read the introduction to the paper. That's where they outline their approach, and mention clouds and TOA radiative balance.

Edited February 24, 2010 by swansont

[JohnB]

You're right, they use the word "clouds" twice. They also use the words "water vapour" twice, specifically;

 

These feedbacks arise from the dependence of radiatively important substances like water vapor (which is a powerful greenhouse gas) and clouds (which are important for both infrared and visible radiation) on the temperature.

 

and

 

The primary feedbacks involving water vapor and clouds occur on time scales of days [Lindzen et al., 2001; Rodwell and Palmer, 2007], while response times for relatively strong negative feedbacks remain on the order of a year [Lindzen and Giannitsis, 1998, and references therein].

 

Does that really justify the statement on RC;

A goal of LC09 was to quantify the cloud feedback

?

 

Given that the paper specifically says that the tests used could not "identify mechanisms"?

 

The stated purpose of the paper was to compare what the models said the TOA flux "should be" with what the direct obs said it "is". To paint it as anything else is a strawman, pure and simple.

 

(Although given Dr. Lindzen's preference towards his "Iris" hypothesis, such a connection is perhaps, to a degree understandable.)

[swansont]

mechanism ≠ source