Climate "skeptics" vs climate scientists in a nutshell

[cypress]

 

The null hypothesis being that man has no effect on the climate system? Semi-skillful reconstruction of the historical climate necessarily includes anthropgenic forcings. Excluding them does not lead to a successful reconstruction.

 

Historical temperature proxies indicate that in the previous 200,000 years global temperatures have been 6 C warmer and 10 C colder than today. Do these reconstructions using anthropogenic forcing give a successful reconstruction of these variations? Why not? How about the little Ice age of the 1600's?

 

What you patronizingly refer to as the "designers presupposing" radiative forcings is typically known in science as a "hypothesis"

 

Actually it is known as conformational bias.

 

 

 

They have a model of it, albeit an inaccurate one. The radiative imbalances are model inputs, to be certain, and they don't compute to an "energy budget", but they can compare the model outputs to satellite data and see if they sync up, and see if the radiative imbalances as predicted by the model measure empirical satellite data. And for the most part, they do! I actually worked with two climate research groups, one measuring sea surface temperatures via satellite and another which was comparing the empirical SST measurements to their GCM outputs. And believe it or not, for the most part they match up!

 

Yes models again.....

 

 

 

No model is "free of errors". That's what makes it a model. Models aren't perfect. The standard model isn't perfect. It's a simplification of a complex underlying system based on the best available evidence. The standard model cannot explain what particles will do under relativistic conditions. Does that make it wrong, or not useful? No, it just means that relativity hasn't yet been incorporated into our picture of quantum mechanics.

 

I use models in engineering work daily. Simplified models approximate reality but are valid. Models that contain errors produce incorrect results and are invalid and not useful.

 

 

And please don't bandy around the term "red herring" when I make analogies to quantum mechanics. Both climate science and quantum mechanics work off of models which are incomplete pictures of the physical systems they are trying to model. Just because the picture is incomplete does not undermine the usefulness of the models these sciences have respectively created.

 

There is a difference between being incomplete and being wrong. When I run a validated engineering model over historical data, it reproduces the trend with similar accuracy regardless of the age of the data or patterns. Running climate models over periods of historically large variations in climatic temperatures break the models. I call those kinds of models invalid.

 

Excuses excuses. There are many people with a lot of money who would like to see real scientific evidence that the scientific perspective on climate change is wrong. The energy lobby has a vested interest in undermining the scientific consensus and the money to put forth towards true science which undermines the consensus viewpoint on climate change, much like the cigarette lobby had a lot of money to fund scientific research into how cigarettes don't cause lung cancer.

 

Can you identify any significant funding for development of GCM's by scientists skeptical of AGW? I can't. Also your generalization is false, I work for a large multinational oil company that does takes the viewpoint that GHG's are a threat to the environment.

 

However, in the case of climate change they haven't even managed to do that. As a complex nonlinear dynamical system, if you are able to reproduce the historical record based on temperature proxies, that pretty much tells you you're on to something.

 

But if you simply reproduce the short historical record that the model were used to train on you have simply deluded yourself. Reproducing the trends from 1890-1945 and 1975 to 2000 and very little else is not particularly impressive. Let's see how they do with 900-1800.

 

My suggestion is to truly research the issue, abandon your confirmation bias that climate scientists are wrong and truly dig into the scientific case for anthropogenically-forced climate change.

 

I have, and I find nothing to suggest there is a case for anything more than about 0.2C of warming unaccounted for.

 

 

 

[swansont]

 

Yes models again.....

 

 

 

 

 

I use models in engineering work daily. Simplified models approximate reality but are valid. Models that contain errors produce incorrect results and are invalid and not useful.

 

 

You can't complain about models and also claim "red herring" when someone brings up ones that work well.

 

Simplified models contain errors, by definition. You have contradicted yourself.

[cypress]

You can't complain about models and also claim "red herring" when someone brings up ones that work well.

 

Simplified models contain errors, by definition. You have contradicted yourself.

 

You should go back and read context I was responding. Bascule was responding to my complaint that GCM's are inaccurate, contain known errors and significant relevant omissions and except for the data sets that were used to train the models, don't reproduce historical trends. When I called out the issue that climate scientists are unable to produce a balanced energy budget he made the ridiculous statement that it was "

 

Simplified models contain intentional simplifications by definition. Errors are incorrect results attributable to bad judgment or ignorance or inattention. GCM's are erroneous. They produce incorrect results except on the data runs they trained on.

 

Those who claim that these models only produce good output when anthropogenic GHG forcing is included fail to point out that it is only over the trained data that they do so. They do not produce good results over historical periods of similar global temperature changes with or without the forcing correlations indicating that the model is missing causal inputs. When they remove a factor with correlated effects (like GHG feedbacks) but fail to retrain the model with more significant causal factors (like long term ocean oscillations and cloud cover feedbacks) it produces poor results over the trained data as expected. To suggest this is significant insults thinking people. Here is a summary of problems associated with over-reliance on climate models.

 

I will be more inclined to take GCM's seriously if known causal factors were included and the models reproduced good results over any usable historical data set.

 

Here is an article that puts our current temperature trend into better perspective.

 

A sample paragraph:

 

"During the Ice Ages the average temperatures were 8-10oC lower than the current ones, the sea levels were 120-130 m lower and much of the Northern Hemisphere was covered by an ice pack up to 4 km thick, down to the 40oN parallel (the latitude of nowadays New York). During the interglacials the average temperatures reached 4-6oC and the sea levels 3-6 m above the current ones. Our own interglacial the Holocene, which started 11,500-11,700 years ago, had average temperatures up to 4oC and sea levels up to 3 m above the current ones between 5,000-6,000 years ago (Middle Holocene)."

 

When these models are able to explain the variations described by this article I will agree they have merit.

Edited November 13, 2010 by cypress

[cypress]

YodaPs, You asked me to improve on the Skeptic's argument and I responded with this post. Do you ever intend to respond?

 

The summary position:

Studies of historical proxies have established that the earth’s climate is not fixed. It has been both warmer and cooler in the recent past than the temperatures experienced during the period of past 200 years. There are numerous causes for climate variations. Changes in GHG concentrations are some of perhaps hundreds of influencers to climate changes. Climate science is unable to accurately predict the influence human sourced GHG may have on future climate. Models that fail to incorporate natural factors which historically drove past climate variation cannot be expected to accurately predict future climate variations. Several natural variations and data artifacts account for a majority of the warming trend that has occurred from 1850 – 2010 leaving substantially less warming to assign to human causes. It is not credible at this juncture to believe that human sourced GHG will drive future climate warming in the range of 2-6 degrees.

[Edtharan]

In some ways I do agree with Cypress. Our ability to predict the consiquences of climate change are not perfect.

 

However, the physcis behind it are not in question.

 

Simple put, We know

 

1) The Earth is constantly getting energy from the sun in the form of sunlight.

2) This energy is turned into heat which is radiated out as infrared light.

3) The only way the Earth can get rid of energy is to radiate it out into space (mainly as infrared light).

4) CO₂ and other greenhouse gasses scatter infrared light.

5) Thus any infred light radiated out from Earth is scattered bythe greenhouse gasses.

6) Just under 50% of the light scattered will be scattered back towards Earth, this reduce the amount of energy leaving the Earth.

7) If less energy is leaving than is arriving, the amount of energy stored in a system will increase.

 

What this amounts to is that if we increase the amount of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, then we will increase the amount of infrared light scattered and reduce the amount of energy that leaves the Earth, which will cause an increase in the amount of energy in the Earth's climat and Oceanic systems.

 

This energy does not exist as a thing, but causes "things" to move. This means that the climate becomes more energetic and unpredictable and more extreme.

 

This is the undisputed physics. What is in dispute is wether a particular location will get warmer, or how quickly it will change or how great an effect a certain amount of greenhouse gas increase will cause. But the physics says that change will occur.

 

Think of it like a bowling pin. A bowling pin can stand upright without much problem. It is stable. It can also take a certain amount of a knock and still stay upright. However, hit it hard enough, or just keep pushing it further and further over, it will eventually reach a "tipping point" and fall.

 

This is a property common to all complex systesm, that is they can take a certain amount of disturbance, but there will come a point where it will "tip" into a new configuration. Sometimes the amount of disturbance needed is only small, and some times it is large, it depends on the system, its current state and what other influences are affecting it.

 

We know the Earth's climate is a complex system (that is why it is so hard to make predictions about what it will do). The Ice ages are a good example of such tipping point effects.

 

Another thing we know about the Earth's climate system is there are feedback effects, some positive feedback which amplifies any change, and others that are negative feedback which tends to suppress changes. We, of course, don't know all of them, but we do know some big ones with a lot of influence.

 

One is Albedo, that is the reflectivity of the surface of the Earth. We know that light coloured areas will reflect sunlight instead of converting it into heat (and eventually infrared light). Thus, if you reduce the amount of reflective surfaces (like ice caps), then you increase the amount of energy that gets eventually turned into infrared light and potentially scattered back (ultimately decreaseing the amount of energy lossed from the system).

 

ANother is permafrosts. These areas are frozen areas with usually vegitation in them. This vegitation is frozen and dead, but because it is frozen it does not rot. Rotting vegitation releases Methane and CO₂ boith greenhouse gasses (with Methane a more poten greenhouse gas than CO₂).

 

As the area warms, the permafrost melts, thus releasing more greenhouse gasses, and thus trapping more energy which increases the haet which melts more permafrost, etc, etc.

 

As for the amount of greenhouse gasses release by humans, I heard that with the recent Icelandic vocanic erruption, the amount of CO₂ emmitted by the vocano was less than the amount of CO₂ that would have been emmitted by the aircraft that were grounded.

 

As the vocano was only a temporary event, and planes are running all over the world every day 24/7/365, then air travel is emitting far more CO₂ than the volcanoes, and volcanoes are often touted as a source of greenhouse gasses that is greater than what humans could ever produce.

[pioneer]

Greenhouse gases do not generate energy, but simply stored energy better. A greenhouse may get warmer during the day, but at night, the energy is free to leave since the energy generator or sun is gone. In the past, volcanos have been known to cool the earth many degrees, since their impact is dust that can lower the amount of heat input. Theoretically, a large enough volcano could cool the earth and remove all the built up heat the green house gases have accumulated.

[cypress]

In some ways I do agree with Cypress. Our ability to predict the consiquences of climate change are not perfect.

 

However, the physcis behind it are not in question.

 

Simple put, We know

 

snip ...

 

What this amounts to is that if we increase the amount of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, then we will increase the amount of infrared light scattered and reduce the amount of energy that leaves the Earth, which will cause an increase in the amount of energy in the Earth's climat and Oceanic systems.

 

This energy does not exist as a thing, but causes "things" to move. This means that the climate becomes more energetic and unpredictable and more extreme.

 

This is the undisputed physics. What is in dispute is wether a particular location will get warmer, or how quickly it will change or how great an effect a certain amount of greenhouse gas increase will cause. But the physics says that change will occur.

 

It's not anywhere near this simple. Greenhouse gasses do not scatter radiation they adsorb and re-emit particular frequencies of radiation in proportion to temperature to the forth power. Because radiation is a function of temperature, the temperature profile of the atmosphere above the earth where the GHG resides will influence the earth's surface temperature and visa versa and this interaction will not be simple to deconstruct but will generally cause surface temperatures to rise to overcome the adsorbed and back-emitted energy. When the the concentration of these GHG's change, this interaction becomes much more difficult to accurately describe, but one can at the very least predict that changing concentrations could change the temperature profile of the atmosphere. If the change in temperature profile alters other factors that change the adsorption and reflection of incoming solar energy (cloud cover is one possible feedback effect) or induces other feedback effects the situation turns to one that is not understood. The reality is that the actual effects are not understood at the present time.

 

Think of it like a bowling pin. A bowling pin can stand upright without much problem. It is stable. It can also take a certain amount of a knock and still stay upright. However, hit it hard enough, or just keep pushing it further and further over, it will eventually reach a "tipping point" and fall.

 

This is a property common to all complex systesm, that is they can take a certain amount of disturbance, but there will come a point where it will "tip" into a new configuration.

 

Not all complex systems have this property. Some are inherently stable and self damping. Historical proxies indicate the climate is such a system that is inherently stable and self damping within a broad range of temperatures as much as 12 C colder and 6 C warmer than today irrespective of significant changes in CO2 concentration. In light of the historical record, the null hypothesis should be that the earth's climate is stable with respect to CO2.

 

We know the Earth's climate is a complex system (that is why it is so hard to make predictions about what it will do). The Ice ages are a good example of such tipping point effects.

 

Perhaps I am wrong but I'm not sure we understand enough about Ice Ages to know that they represent tipping points. How can you substantiate this? Can you identify the tipping point and the causal factor? What caused the system to tip back?

 

As the area warms, the permafrost melts, thus releasing more greenhouse gasses, and thus trapping more energy which increases the haet which melts more permafrost, etc, etc.

 

What volume of methane is generated by permafrost areas and what rates will be released as a function of global temperature anomaly? What evidence do you have that these rates and volumes will change methane concentration and what effect will it have on surface temperature? Is this demonstrated or speculation?

[swansont]

It's not anywhere near this simple. Greenhouse gasses do not scatter radiation they adsorb and re-emit particular frequencies of radiation in proportion to temperature to the forth power. Because radiation is a function of temperature, the temperature profile of the atmosphere above the earth where the GHG resides will influence the earth's surface temperature and visa versa and this interaction will not be simple to deconstruct but will generally cause surface temperatures to rise to overcome the adsorbed and back-emitted energy. When the the concentration of these GHG's change, this interaction becomes much more difficult to accurately describe, but one can at the very least predict that changing concentrations could change the temperature profile of the atmosphere. If the change in temperature profile alters other factors that change the adsorption and reflection of incoming solar energy (cloud cover is one possible feedback effect) or induces other feedback effects the situation turns to one that is not understood. The reality is that the actual effects are not understood at the present time.

 

 

1. It's absorb, not adsorb; these are two distinct processes.

 

2. An individual CO2 molecule is not a blackbody, so it does not absorb/emit in proportion to T^4. It's the sun and earth that are approximately blackbodies, and the shift in temperature tells you what the spectrum is for each; incoming is heavily weighted to the visible, while the outgoing is peaked in the IR. CO2 has absorption peaks in the IR, so while they are transparent to visible light, the molecules tend to intercept certain bands of the IR light emitted by the earth and scatter (yes, it's OK to say that) some of it back to the earth.

[Edtharan]

Greenhouse gases do not generate energy, but simply stored energy better. A greenhouse may get warmer during the day, but at night, the energy is free to leave since the energy generator or sun is gone. In the past, volcanos have been known to cool the earth many degrees, since their impact is dust that can lower the amount of heat input. Theoretically, a large enough volcano could cool the earth and remove all the built up heat the green house gases have accumulated.

I never said that Greenhouse gasses generate energy. They also don't "store" it better. Also greenhouse gasses are not the same as a botanical greenhouse.

 

So you got 3 out of 3 wrong there.

 

Using the correct information:

 

Yes, during the night the Earth does indeed have very little energy incoming, but this does not actually change the rate that heat is lost. It just means that for that time there is a net loss. But during the day there is a net gain. If you add these together, for the climate to remain stable, they need to equal exactly 0.

 

No in reality this is never precicely 0, but for a stable climate it should at least average 0. What is happening when greenhouse gasses are added to the atmosphere is that the amount lost (even at night) is reduced due to the extra scattering effect (although this is not a reflective scattering effect) caused by the increased greenhous gasses. As less energy is lost, this means that the sum ends up being biased in favour of a net gain of energy, thus global warming.

 

But you did get it mostly right with vocanos. It is not as simple as that. The particulates from a volcano that cause a reduction in energy reaching the Earth (which itself is a scattering effect) will leave the atmosphere in a few months to a few years. However CO₂ will remain in the atmosphere for decades.

 

Thus you will get a cooling effect from vocanos, but this is only in the short term (a year or two). In the long term (decades) you will get a warming.

 

And, yes, if you did get a volcano large enough (or long term volcanism) it could cause a significant cooling effect, however, the CO₂ produced by these vocanos, over the long term, will eventually cause an increase in termperature.

 

It's not anywhere near this simple. Greenhouse gasses do not scatter radiation they adsorb and re-emit particular frequencies of radiation in proportion to temperature to the forth power. Because radiation is a function of temperature, the temperature profile of the atmosphere above the earth where the GHG resides will influence the earth's surface temperature and visa versa and this interaction will not be simple to deconstruct but will generally cause surface temperatures to rise to overcome the adsorbed and back-emitted energy. When the the concentration of these GHG's change, this interaction becomes much more difficult to accurately describe, but one can at the very least predict that changing concentrations could change the temperature profile of the atmosphere. If the change in temperature profile alters other factors that change the adsorption and reflection of incoming solar energy (cloud cover is one possible feedback effect) or induces other feedback effects the situation turns to one that is not understood. The reality is that the actual effects are not understood at the present time.

CO₂, like Swansont said, is not a black body radiator. For starters, it selectively absorbs certain frequencies of radiation (IR is one) and re-emits it at that frequency. So it is not the same as a black body, which re-emits it in different frequencies specified by the amount of energy it has (its temperature). the sun and the Earth do this, but not CO₂.

 

Actually, even if GHG acted like black body radiators, my argument would still stand. As these black body radiators would radiate it in all directions, it would give the same scattering effect. Now, as it is not the specific temperature of the radiation emitted that is important, but the fact that this radiation carries energy is.

 

Even as a black body radiator, increasing GHGs would still cause an increased amount of energy within the Earth's climatic systems, again leading to global warming.

 

If you look at it as a Black Box (not to be confused with black bodies) system, the inputs and outputs are what matter (not what goes on inside them - hence the "Black Box" as you can't see into it).

 

Using this, we can easily understand the effects of increasing GHGs in the atmosphere (regardless if you use your Black Body or not). Increasing GHGs reduces the amount of energy leaving the system, but as the system heats up, it will increase the amount of energy radiated.

 

thus, increasing GHGs will cause a change in the equilibrium between the amount of energy incomeing and the amount of energy trapped in the system.

 

As Global Warming is concerned with the amount of energy trapped in the system, then this analysis shows that increasing GHGs is a problem for the climate.

 

Not all complex systems have this property. Some are inherently stable and self damping. Historical proxies indicate the climate is such a system that is inherently stable and self damping within a broad range of temperatures as much as 12 C colder and 6 C warmer than today irrespective of significant changes in CO2 concentration. In light of the historical record, the null hypothesis should be that the earth's climate is stable with respect to CO2.

Ok, yes, not all complex systems. My mistake. I ment to say that complex systems can exhibit that behaviour, and that it is the feedback systems (both positive and negative) that were common to all.

 

Perhaps I am wrong but I'm not sure we understand enough about Ice Ages to know that they represent tipping points. How can you substantiate this? Can you identify the tipping point and the causal factor? What caused the system to tip back?

Well it is easy to identify a system as having tipping points. It is one where inputs into the system cause a specific type of change in the system. That it has mroe than one stable state and it can rapidly change from one to the other, and that the scale of these changes is not a linear relationship to the inputs.

 

If a system displays this behaviour, then you can be certain that it has tipping points.

 

Ice ages area good example as the amount of warming or cooling that goes on is not a linear realtionship to the amount of energy recieved by the Earth, and there are at least two "stable" states (one of interglacial and one of glacial). As this clearly demonstrates the properties of systems with tipping points, we can say for certain that the climate system has tipping points.

 

What volume of methane is generated by permafrost areas and what rates will be released as a function of global temperature anomaly? What evidence do you have that these rates and volumes will change methane concentration and what effect will it have on surface temperature? Is this demonstrated or speculation?

The amount of methane (and other GHGs) generated by permafrost is the same as would be produced by vegitation of that type. I am not sure of the exact amount emmitted over an area, but it would be comparable to other, similar vegiation.

 

The amount of permafrost effected would depend on the local rise in temperature. This is hard to calculate so it would not be an accurate prediction. However, we can make some predictions by looking at what might occur:

 

1) There is a local temperature rise: If this is the case, then if the local temperature increased above 0 degrees, then you would get thawing at that location.

 

2) There is no local temperature change: Then things remain the same.

 

3) There is a local temperature drop: Actually, this is quite possible, even in a global warming world. It is actually possible that the end result of increaseing the energy in the Earth's climate systems could actually cause a global cooling by shifting ocean and air currents. Even if there is a global warming, there can still be local cooling and this could even local up more area into permafrost.

 

So basically, if, there is a local rise in temperature above 0 degrees, then we could get thawing of the permafrost and this would cause the frozen vegitation to rot and release GHGs. This would cause an increase in the amount of GHGs being emmitted and thus giveing a positive feedback to the GHG situation.

 

As Methane is a GHG and scatters IR radiation, this would cause the same effect as CO₂, however, Methane is more effective at this than CO₂, but fortunately does not last as long in the atmosphere.

 

As surface temperature is a combination of complex factors, and I am not talking about making such prediction (remember I agreed with you about how the prediction models are not good at predicting specific effects of Global Warming). What we can say is that increaseing GHGs in the atmosphere causes more energy to be trapped in the climate systems (Atmosphere and Oceans).

 

What this energy does specifically is where the problems come in. It is the large scale consiquences that I am talking aobut, and that means the amount of energy trapped, as opposed to the amount of energy incomeing and being released by the Earth.

 

The effects can be demonstrated, using GHGs in a lab, you can get them to scatter the IR radiation that passes though them. You can measure this.

 

Then you can use mathematics to show that trapping an extra portion of energy that would normally leave the system, with a specified level of energy input will cause a build up of energy in the system (you can also demonstrate this in a lab as well if you want).

 

So yes, everything that I am talking about can be demonstrated in a lab, and can even be seen occuring in real, natural systems. But, like I agreed with you, the specific effects on the climate systems can not be easily predicted, and climate scientists don't use the word "prediction" because of that (they use "forcast" instead - which tries to tell you the chances of all of the possiblities occuring).

 

But, because the system energy retention is based on physical laws that are not all that complex, they can be predicted, and that prediction is that by reducing the amount of energy leaving the system, you increase the amount of energy in the system. This is based on the conservation of energy law. It is only by violating this law can you not have a build up on energy in the climate systems because of increased GHG.

[cypress]

CO₂, like Swansont said, is not a black body radiator. For starters, it selectively absorbs certain frequencies of radiation (IR is one) and re-emits it at that frequency. So it is not the same as a black body, which re-emits it in different frequencies specified by the amount of energy it has (its temperature). the sun and the Earth do this, but not CO₂.

 

No, I did not describe CO2 and atmospheric mixtures of CO2 as black bodies. I described CO2 in the atmosphere (distinct from individual CO2 molecules) as capturing radiation of particular frequencies and then re-emitting particular frequencies of radiation whereby the heat flux is guided by formulas involving temperature to the forth power. Here is a link that confirms the behavior for black bodies, grey bodies and also for pure and mixed molecular gases.

 

You are incorrect to suggest atmospheric layers containing various concentrations of of GHG's do not behave as I described.

 

Actually, even if GHG acted like black body radiators, my argument would still stand. As these black body radiators would radiate it in all directions, it would give the same scattering effect. Now, as it is not the specific temperature of the radiation emitted that is important, but the fact that this radiation carries energy is.

 

Even as a black body radiator, increasing GHGs would still cause an increased amount of energy within the Earth's climatic systems, again leading to global warming.

 

As I previously clarified, layers of atmosphere are not black body radiators. But the behavior is as I described, and your argument is inconclusive just as I previously claimed, not necessarily because what you describe is inaccurate but because it is too simplistic.

 

If you look at it as a Black Box (not to be confused with black bodies) system, the inputs and outputs are what matter (not what goes on inside them - hence the "Black Box" as you can't see into it).

 

Using this, we can easily understand the effects of increasing GHGs in the atmosphere (regardless if you use your Black Body or not). Increasing GHGs reduces the amount of energy leaving the system, but as the system heats up, it will increase the amount of energy radiated.

 

thus, increasing GHGs will cause a change in the equilibrium between the amount of energy incomeing and the amount of energy trapped in the system.

 

The earth's energy budget and energy balance is not nearly as simple as you would have us believe. The system is not understood to the level that we can even balance inputs and outputs to generate an energy budget. Since we can't do an energy balance, we can't treat the the system as a black box and reach meaningful conclusions. We do not know or understand all of the significant follow on, feed forward and feedback effects.

 

As Global Warming is concerned with the amount of energy trapped in the system, then this analysis shows that increasing GHGs is a problem for the climate.

 

It doesn't because it employs conformational bias by myopically ignoring the reality that we don't understand the full system and cannot perform a proper energy balance.

 

Well it is easy to identify a system as having tipping points. It is one where inputs into the system cause a specific type of change in the system. That it has mroe than one stable state and it can rapidly change from one to the other, and that the scale of these changes is not a linear relationship to the inputs.

 

If a system displays this behaviour, then you can be certain that it has tipping points.

 

Ice ages area good example as the amount of warming or cooling that goes on is not a linear realtionship to the amount of energy recieved by the Earth, and there are at least two "stable" states (one of interglacial and one of glacial). As this clearly demonstrates the properties of systems with tipping points, we can say for certain that the climate system has tipping points.

 

Tipping points in physics and climate are not described the way you have just done so. They are points beyond which an irreversible change occurs. Since historical climate proxies indicate that Ice ages are reversible, they do not represent tipping points. Sorry you are in error, Ice ages do not represent tipping points.

 

History indicates global climate can change by 15-20 or so degrees, and CO2 concentrations can modulate from near zero to over 2000 ppm and not encounter any tipping point.

 

The amount of methane (and other GHGs) generated by permafrost is the same as would be produced by vegitation of that type. I am not sure of the exact amount emmitted over an area, but it would be comparable to other, similar vegiation.

 

The amount of permafrost effected would depend on the local rise in temperature. This is hard to calculate so it would not be an accurate prediction.

 

Then you are speculating. You don't know what magnitude effect or if any effect would occur. You are sounding the alarm without facts. You don't even know if there is a problem. This is alarmism.

 

As surface temperature is a combination of complex factors, and I am not talking about making such prediction (remember I agreed with you about how the prediction models are not good at predicting specific effects of Global Warming). What we can say is that increaseing GHGs in the atmosphere causes more energy to be trapped in the climate systems (Atmosphere and Oceans).

 

NO, we can't say this. What we can say is that changes in GHG concentrations could have an impact on net energy retention and thus the surface climate but we don't know what impact it will have or the magnitude of this impact because we don't understand the sum of all the factors that influence the earth's energy budget. We are not able to perform an accurate or meaningful energy balance at this time so we don't know and cannot quantify what contributing factors might be in play to override and therefore erase or magnify and therefore add to the modest notional impact you describe (but can't quantify) due to increasing CO2.

 

We have observed historical changes in the global climate driven by natural events that have resulted in temperatures about 6 C warmer and 12 C cooler than the present. Since the industrial revolution in the early 1800's global temperatures have risen about 0.8 C and thus far natural influencers unrelated to GHG's have been identified that account for between 75 and 100% of this temperature rise, leaving at most between 0 and 0.2 C unaccounted for. This is hardly the problem some alarmists attempt to make it out to be.

[Edtharan]

No, I did not describe CO2 and atmospheric mixtures of CO2 as black bodies. I described CO2 in the atmosphere (distinct from individual CO2 molecules) as capturing radiation of particular frequencies and then re-emitting particular frequencies of radiation whereby the heat flux is guided by formulas involving temperature to the forth power. Here is a link that confirms the behavior for black bodies, grey bodies and also for pure and mixed molecular gases.

But, as I said, it makes no difference (so I am not going to get into a discussion that has no impact on my argument) as it is about the amount of radiation that goes up as compared to what goes down. Even if (and that is an if) the atmosphere behaves as you claim, then it makes no difference as the amount of energy that would be re-emitted would be in a random direction. As this means that some will go up and some will go down, it behaves exactly as a scattering effect. It does not matter one iota if the frequency shifts. Conservation of energy and the effect of random radiation vectors means that it will trap extra energy in the Earth system. That is the only important factor, and you have not argued against this.

 

So, answer this: In your scenario of black body (like) behaviour of the atmosphere, is the direction the radiation re-readiated in random vectors, or is it in a vector directly away from the Earth?

 

If it is random, then my argument stands.

 

As I previously clarified, layers of atmosphere are not black body radiators. But the behavior is as I described, and your argument is inconclusive just as I previously claimed, not necessarily because what you describe is inaccurate but because it is too simplistic.

Not at all. It is simply applying conservation of energy. Are you trying to suggest there is some complicating factor that allows the conservation of energy to be violated. If not, then my argument stands.

 

The earth's energy budget and energy balance is not nearly as simple as you would have us believe. The system is not understood to the level that we can even balance inputs and outputs to generate an energy budget. Since we can't do an energy balance, we can't treat the the system as a black box and reach meaningful conclusions. We do not know or understand all of the significant follow on, feed forward and feedback effects.

One does not have to know the exact energy budget to know that if you stop energy leaveing the system and have a constant input to the system, then the amount of energy in the system will increase.

 

Think of this like a bank account. One does not need to know how much money you have in the account, what your expense are and what your income is to know that if you reduce your expense then you will end up with more money.

 

This is what I am arguing. We might not know what the total energy input to the Earht is, we may not know the total amount of energy currently stroed in the Earth's claimate system and we might not know how much is being lost. But we can know that if we reduce the amount leaving, then we will have more energy in the system.

 

It is that simple. And that is why it is so simple.

 

It doesn't because it employs conformational bias by myopically ignoring the reality that we don't understand the full system and cannot perform a proper energy balance.

Not at all. We don't need to know all the details of the system. Maths and the laws of conservation of energy dicatate that it must be so.

 

Tipping points in physics and climate are not described the way you have just done so. They are points beyond which an irreversible change occurs. Since historical climate proxies indicate that Ice ages are reversible, they do not represent tipping points. Sorry you are in error, Ice ages do not represent tipping points.

Did you eve read that article. Here is the quote about irriversability (bold me for emphasis): "The tipping event may be irreversible, comparable to wine spilling from the glass—standing up the glass will not put the wine back."

 

It saiys may be, not has to be, not is, "may be". In other words I was right. Ice ages are a good example of a tipping point as tipping points may be irriversable (but they don't have to be).

 

And, if you were correct, then once you tip over a wine glass, then it owuld be impossible to stand it back upright by whatever means. As we know that this is not the case, your arguemnt here is abolutly ridiculous (including the fact that the article disagree with you).

 

Come on, you can do better than that. You are posting to articles that prove my point in an effort to disprove me. I feel embaressed for you .

 

History indicates global climate can change by 15-20 or so degrees, and CO2 concentrations can modulate from near zero to over 2000 ppm and not encounter any tipping point.

If Earth did not have the greenhouse effect from the current GHGs in the atmosphere, it would be about 30 degrees C cooler. That is Earth would be around -15 degrees C (on average). We would be locked in a permenent ice age.

 

It is calculated that pre-industrial the Earth have around 260 – 280 ppm per volume CO₂. Measurement now put it at around 390 ppm per volume. That is an increase of 44% (at best) and a 50% (at worst).

 

Now if the temperature increase was linear (it is not), then we could be expecting average temperatures of 27 to 45 degrees C based on current atmospheric CO₂ levels.

 

Fortunately it is not a strict linear realtionship as not all the infrared light radiated off the Earth encoutners the GHGs, and that as the energy increases more energy will be emmited. So, it is less than linear and we don't know exactly the effect (but good models forcast it will be around 4 to 5 degrees if the amount does not increase.

 

The other problem is that ther eis a lag time between the amount of CO₂ and the temperature increase.

 

But, as I said, all of this is specific effects, and I was not going to talk about specific effect. I was going to dhow that the physics behind global warming means that if we increase HGHs, then the amount of energy in the Earht's climate system has no option but to increase. And I think the bank account annalogy is a perfect example.

 

You don't need to know the specific details of the back account. In fact you don't need to know anything aobut it at all. All you need to know is the conservation law (money doesn't grow on trees) and that there is an amount going in (that is effectivly constant over the time periodyou are looking at) and that you reduce the rate that money is leaving the account.

 

Such as it is with Earth. We don't need to know any details about the amount going in or out, but we only need to know there is a conservation law (conservation of energy) and that the amount going out is being reduced (and the random vector of the radiation from the greenhouse gass absorbtion/re-emmision or scattering is the cause of this).

 

Then you are speculating. You don't know what magnitude effect or if any effect would occur. You are sounding the alarm without facts. You don't even know if there is a problem. This is alarmism.

 

I am not peculating. The physics is pretty simple here. If you raise the temperature above 0^C, then ice will melt. Do you disagree with that.

 

If you have dead vegitation it will rot and the products of that rotting includes CO₂ and Methane. DO you dispute that.

 

If you do not sispute either of them then you have to agree with my argument.

 

Again I will restate this: I was not talking about specific effects or consiquences of global warming. I was just trying to show that the accepted science requiers certain things to occur. Basically melted permafrost has dead vegitation in it and this vegitation will rot releasing greenhouse gasses. There is a lot of permafrost and this will melt if the local temperature rises (for whatever reason).

 

As local temperature rise is a specific effect of global warming, I did not try to say that this would occur (in fact I gave two other possibilities). I only said IF there is a local rise in temperature above 0^C then you will get greenhouse gasses released from the permafrost.

 

NO, we can't say this. What we can say is that changes in GHG concentrations could have an impact on net energy retention and thus the surface climate but we don't know what impact it will have or the magnitude of this impact because we don't understand the sum of all the factors that influence the earth's energy budget. We are not able to perform an accurate or meaningful energy balance at this time so we don't know and cannot quantify what contributing factors might be in play to override and therefore erase or magnify and therefore add to the modest notional impact you describe (but can't quantify) due to increasing CO2.

It is basic Conservation of energy. If you stop (or restrict) the amount of energy leaving a system that has an effectivly constant input, then you will get an increase amount of energy in the system. Actually it doesn't even have to be energy, it only has to have the property of conservation (so money in your bank account, matter, etc).

 

Yes, we can not specify the exact amount of energy that would be retained, but it has to be retained unless the conservation of energy is violated (and if we could do that, then we could make a perpetual motion machine to give us unlimited, cleen, free energy and Global Warming would not be a problem).

 

We have observed historical changes in the global climate driven by natural events that have resulted in temperatures about 6 C warmer and 12 C cooler than the present. Since the industrial revolution in the early 1800's global temperatures have risen about 0.8 C and thus far natural influencers unrelated to GHG's have been identified that account for between 75 and 100% of this temperature rise, leaving at most between 0 and 0.2 C unaccounted for. This is hardly the problem some alarmists attempt to make it out to be.

Again, these are specific effect. At no point did I say that the climate was static. There are natural variations in the climate. ALso I did not say that the energy retained would necesarily be in terms of increased temperature. I made it a point to say that it wouldn't always be a temperature change. I even said that it could make it colder.

 

You are trying to argue specific outcomes of a complex system, where I am trying to explain the system's over all behaviour. I agree, we can not state that these specific changes that you or anyone else is claiming will come to pass. But, the physics of conservation of energy, the maths of random vectors means that what I am saying is indisputable.

 

I eve said I agreed with you that such specifics can't be predicted. So I don't know why you are trying to argue them against me. I agree with you in so far as the specific can't be predicted, but the basic physics of conservation and geometry means that what I am saying has to be true. that is unlees you are saying that energy is not conserved, or that random vectors are not random vectors.

 

If you accept either of these, then you have to agree with my argument because they are a direct consiquence of them. What is more, is that these properties (conservation and random vectors) are common to many other systems, and all these systems share the same behaviours because of these. You would have to accept that withdrawing money form your bank account does not change the amount of money in your account at all if you disagreed with my arguemnt.

 

All that is needed to be know is that:

 

1) Stuff goes in

2) Stuff goes out

3) We change the amount of stuff that goes out.

 

These 3 things are all that is needed to be known to know that reducing the amount that goes out will cause a build up of stuff. That is all I am really trying to argue.

[cypress]

 

 

Not at all. It is simply applying conservation of energy. Are you trying to suggest there is some complicating factor that allows the conservation of energy to be violated. If not, then my argument stands.

 

Since there are follow on feed forward and feedback effects, the system is not as simple as you make it out to be. We don't understand these follow on effects, so the are additional excluded energy fluxes in the balance that your model neglects. You can be wrong without having to show that mass and energy balances are violated.

 

 

All that is needed to be know is that:

 

1) Stuff goes in

2) Stuff goes out

3) We change the amount of stuff that goes out.

 

These 3 things are all that is needed to be known to know that reducing the amount that goes out will cause a build up of stuff. That is all I am really trying to argue.

 

No you have not included the following:

 

4) changes to atmospheric layers set up follow on effects that are not accurately characterized.

5) These feed forward and feedback effects may be positive or negative.

6) The final influence is unknown.

 

Empirical data indicates that the final impact of increasing CO2 in the atmosphere from 280 to 390 ppm is likely between -0.2 and +0.4 C. The skeptic augument is that more information is needed to improve this estimate and it may not be effective to attempt to reverse the trend in CO2.

[Edtharan]

Since there are follow on feed forward and feedback effects, the system is not as simple as you make it out to be. We don't understand these follow on effects, so the are additional excluded energy fluxes in the balance that your model neglects. You can be wrong without having to show that mass and energy balances are violated.

What goes on within the Earth's climate does not effect this. It can increase or decreasae the amount lost, but then that is regulated by GHGs.

 

Earth is close to a black body radiator. It is not exactly one (as there is some reflection), but Earth can not loose energy by convection or conduction as there is nothing for it to convect to and nothing for it to conduct to. Therefore the only way Earth can loose energy is by radiation. And as Black Body radiation state, the frequency of energy the Earth looses energy at is in the infrared radiation band (you even tried to argue this).

 

Therefore, if anything reduces the ability of the Earth to loose infrared radiation must therefore reduce the rate that Earth looses energy. As this energy has to go somewhere, it stays within the Earth's climate systems.

 

What I think you are thinking I am saying is that this energy has to go into warming up the Earth. This is not the case, I am just talking about energy here. It could go into making the winds faster, it could change their direction, it could heat up the atmosphere, or any number of other things (it could even cause cooling). But according to the conservation of energy, it must still be within the Earth's climate systems because it can't be destroyed.

 

If it hasn't left, then where could it be. If you have some other place it can go, please tell us.

 

No you have not included the following:

 

4) changes to atmospheric layers set up follow on effects that are not accurately characterized.

5) These feed forward and feedback effects may be positive or negative.

6) The final influence is unknown.

 

Empirical data indicates that the final impact of increasing CO2 in the atmosphere from 280 to 390 ppm is likely between -0.2 and +0.4 C. The skeptic augument is that more information is needed to improve this estimate and it may not be effective to attempt to reverse the trend in CO2.

These are mechanisms that change how much goes out, or where it is stored, but it does not address my argument at all. From this I can see you have absolutly no understanding of what I am saying.

 

Let me repeat:

I am not saying that this excess energy has to go into heating up the Earth.

 

Please read that sentance several times until you actually get what I am writing. It is a key aspect and dispite several posts and it being repeated several times in them, you still don't seem to have read it.

 

I have even stated this excess energy can COOL the climate. So why do you keep arguing that I am saying that it must WARM the climate. That is just one posibility.

 

I am talking about the amount of energy in the Earth's climate systems. This is dictated solely by the rate that energy comes in and the rate that it goes out.

 

If you decrease the rate it goes out without change the rate it goes in, then it MUST increase the amount stored.

 

If you need objective proof, just look at your bank account. The amount of money that is in there is dictated solely by the amount that goes in and the am ount that goes out. If you decrease the rate you take money out without changing the amount that goes in then it MUST increase the amount stored in your bank account.

 

It is very simple.

 

However, what goes on within the climate systems are not simple, but the amount of energy stored is ONLY determined by the amount the goes in and the amount that goes out.

 

If you really want to dispute the maths of this, you can increase the amouont of money going out of your bank account by giving me some.

[JohnB]

Gentlemen, if I may.

 

It strikes me that you are talking past each other. Edtharan is quite correct re the budget, if more comes in than goes out, then energy is retained. In this respect the system is a black box and the internal interactions mean diddly squat. The increase in GHGs lowers the rate that energy leaves the system and therefore causes energy retention. This is basic physics and cannot be argued with. However I think cypress was trying to say that it is only the starting point.

 

CO2 doesn't actually retain heat at all, it absorbs and re-emits IR almost immediately and it's the Oxygen and Nitrogen that retain the heat. Once the mass of air is heated it will rise thereby using convection to transport the heat to the upper atmosphere where it can lose energy by radiation more quickly. Thereby increasing the outgoing radiation and balancing the budget. (More or less) So to paraphrase Edtharan; If you increase the rate it goes out without change the rate it goes in, then it MUST decrease the amount stored.

 

Edtharan seems to me to be arguing the first paragraph and Cypress the second.

 

Re "Tipping points". One of the things we sceptics must be very careful of is to argue the point actually made in a debate and not some weirdos alarmist rant. Cypress, Edtharan was very clearly referring to a tipping point as one where a system that has two stable states can switch from one to the other quickly. He was not making the unfounded claim of "There will be runaway Global Warming and Earth will look like Venus". There are warmers at SFN, but not alarmists and doom sayers.

 

One of the things I find interesting about the climate debate is focus. There is incredible focus and emphasis on positive forcings and feedbacks. One could argue that this reasonable since we are worried about warming and positive forcings and feedbacks increase the warming. Negative feedbacks are routinely minimised, however they must exist or the Earth would have been a smoking ball eons ago. However, if you are only looking for things that worsen the situation, then it is unsurprising that you keep finding things are "worse that we thought". Confirmational bias and "consensus" is a very real problem and it effects the peer reviewed literature.

 

I was recently pointed to this paper from 1977 on predjudices in peer review which I thought informative. 75 reviewers were given differing drafts of the same paper. Some had the data scewed to conform to the prevailing ideas and in some the data was scewed to contradict it. The data was plausible but entirely imaginary. Comments by reviewers were enlightening.

 

Positive results that confirmed the prevailing view recieved comments of;

"A very fine study . . . I have not seen the Discussion section but I don't see how it could be very far off the mark."

"An excellent paper . . . it definitely merits publishing. I find little to criticize. The topic is excellent and very relevant, the design is quite adequate, and the style is very good."

 

Negative results that challenged the current view;

"There are so many problems with this paper, it is difficult to decide where to begin. While I have not seen the discussion section, I can't think of what would be thcrc to save this paper."

"The paper [ is] perpetrating a serious, mistaken conclusion by unwary readers."

"I would hope that the authors avoid making . . . wild overgeneralizations."

 

Remember that in both cases, the data supported the conclusion, it was just that one supported the "consensus", and the other didn't. Interesting, no? One must wonder what happens in climate science where the consensus is that the vast majority of forcings and feedbacks are positive.

 

Edtharan, you rightly point out the possibilities for methane from the permafrost, but can you answer a simple question? Why didn't it happen before? A quick look at the ice cores shows that our current temps are barely reaching the minimums of the Holocene Optimum some 8,000 years ago. Temps were warmer than now and remained so for some thousands of years, so why didn't the permafrost melt then? Surely if we are in danger of a methane explosion (shall we say) due to a bit of warming in the next 50 years then it must have happened when temps were much warmer for thousands of years.

 

Note that I'm not arguing against the concept of methane release. My point is that it should have occurred in the past and apparently didn't. The only logical conclusion is that there are other factors involved. What are they and how do they effect your worry about methane release?

 

Note my point on "focus" above. You are very focussed on the increase of CO2 blocking IR radiation and storing heat, but not really worried about increased convection increasing the release of that heat. You are worried about methane release but not about why it hasn't happened during far warmer periods in the past. Why do you only look at one half of the equation?

 

Cheers.

[cypress]

Let me repeat:

I am not saying that this excess energy has to go into heating up the Earth.

 

In that case your argument is irrelevant.

[cypress]

Since the follow on effects can change the magnitude and even the direction of the effect so that the final outcome is not understood, then it makes sense to try to get a better handle on the total energy budget before making drastic and costly changes to society unless it is known that the benefits to the changes exceed the social cost.

 

Since it is now known that the earth's climate in recent history has far exceeded the 2-3 degree centigrade number the IPCC has been using, without human influences, and biological life managed through it, it seems unclear that the warnings are realistic. In the mean time until energy balances are understood, empirical studies seem to be the more sound method of estimating impact to climate. The empirical data increasingly indicates the upper limit for climate influence by increases in GHG's is about 1 degree centigrade. The lower limit is slightly negative. If we should be concerned about 3-4 degree effects and since we know that natural forces are capable of effects between +6 and -12 degrees, if planning to avoid climate change is as critical as some suggest, would it not make more sense to attempt to override these far more potent natural drivers?

[Edtharan]

In that case your argument is irrelevant.

Not at all. As I said, that energy has to go some where. It could go into changing wind patterns, or rain fall patterns, it could go into increasing evaporation or even decreasing it.

 

It is the consiquences of this extra energy that we should be looking at, and the main consiquence is that in a complex system extra energy can change the behaviours of that system (and is likely to do so).

 

So my argument is not irrelevent, it is extremely relevent because there are people arguing that green house gasses do not effect how much energy is within the Earth's climate systems (and if ther eis no increase in energy, then there would be no disturbance to the system).

 

Once this basic science is accepted (it has been confirmed) then we know that we are causing an effect and we are responsible for it. And, we can start looking to what the consiquences of this are.

 

Since the follow on effects can change the magnitude and even the direction of the effect so that the final outcome is not understood, then it makes sense to try to get a better handle on the total energy budget before making drastic and costly changes to society unless it is known that the benefits to the changes exceed the social cost.

First we need to know how the system works. Knowing the budget is not as important as knowing how the system changes as the budget changes.

 

Take the wine glass as a simple example: It is not as important to know how much force is applied as to know that if enough force is applied then the wine glass will tip over. If you also know that after a certain amount of force is applied, the glass will tip over, then it wouldn't matter if twice that force is apllied,a s once you know that enough force is apllied to tip it obver, any more force becomes irrelevent.

 

With the climate systems, they are much more complex, and the consiquences are also more complex. However, scientists are getting better and better at understanding the way the system works, and what we know is that undercertain conditions we will get changes to the climate that are harmful to us as a society.

 

Since it is now known that the earth's climate in recent history has far exceeded the 2-3 degree centigrade number the IPCC has been using, without human influences, and biological life managed through it, it seems unclear that the warnings are realistic.

Yes, the Earth's climate does fluctuate. However, it is not about whether life can survive it (we know it can), what is in question is whether our scocieties can survive it. I am certain that Global Warming, even the type expressed by warming extremists, will not even make us extinct.

 

This is alarmism to suggest taht it could make us extinct, or that it will destroy life on Earth. Global Warming can't do that (there is not enough GHGs on Earth to force that much warming - and even then, it will eventually cool down as the gasses breck down or are converted by plants).

 

Some ecosystems will be disrupted, and some that are now rare will get a boost. However, as top predators in an ecosystem, Humans are sensitive to disturbances in their underlying ecosystems. Fortunately, Huamns are also omnivorous and are highly flexable in their predations. This means we will survive as a species, but as a society we can still be easily disrupted.

 

Edtharan, you rightly point out the possibilities for methane from the permafrost, but can you answer a simple question? Why didn't it happen before? A quick look at the ice cores shows that our current temps are barely reaching the minimums of the Holocene Optimum some 8,000 years ago. Temps were warmer than now and remained so for some thousands of years, so why didn't the permafrost melt then? Surely if we are in danger of a methane explosion (shall we say) due to a bit of warming in the next 50 years then it must have happened when temps were much warmer for thousands of years.

Short answer: It has.

 

Actually there has been melting of permafrosts in past interglacial periods ( http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VBC-41XM80M-6&_user=10&_coverDate=01%2F31%2F2001&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_origin=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1555866986&_rerunOrigin=scholar.google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=53b2402f19ad729ec1a5e694bb6120be&searchtype=a ), however, there is one crucial difference between then and now: Humans.

 

We are active deforesters on large scales. During these other interglacial periods, large forests grew in these thawing areas which acted as temporary carbon sinks. It is these forests that have become our curent permafrost sites.

 

The fact that there is vegitation there confirms this, as how else would that vegitation get there if it has been permanently frozen since the last interglacial period.

 

Because humans are deforesters, it is unlikely that enough vegetation will grow to counter act the emission of GHGs due to rotting.

 

Also, we are in an interglacial period, this means that the permafrost areas we have are likely to have only melted in very warm interglacial periods before. The permafrost that did melt due to the interglacial period we entered would have melted thousands of years ago, and was likely instrumental in tipping us into this interglacial period in the first place.

[swansont]

!

Moderator Note

Marat's economic implications post split off to politics http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/53023-what-to-do-about-competing-arguments/

[JohnB]

Edtharan, could you please rephrase your comment? I'm not able to understand it clearly.

 

cf.

Also, we are in an interglacial period, this means that the permafrost areas we have are likely to have only melted in very warm interglacial periods before. The permafrost that did melt due to the interglacial period we entered would have melted thousands of years ago, and was likely instrumental in tipping us into this interglacial period in the first place.

If it might melt if the world gets warmer, how could the permafrost have melted when the world was far colder to tip us into the interglacial?

 

I'm sure that what I'm reading is not what you meant.

[Edtharan]

Edtharan, could you please rephrase your comment? I'm not able to understand it clearly.

 

cf.

 

If it might melt if the world gets warmer, how could the permafrost have melted when the world was far colder to tip us into the interglacial?

 

I'm sure that what I'm reading is not what you meant.

Ok, first of all, there have been many ice ages. Between each ice age there is a warmer period called an interglacial period. We are currently in an interglacial period. We have been in an interglacial period for quite some time now.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Atmospheric_CO2_with_glaciers_cycles.gif

 

During glacial periods, permafros areas extended far further than they do today. It was the melting of these other permafros areas that was part of the feedback loop that caused the Earth to warm rapidly.

 

The permafrost areas we have today are much smaller than what they used to be at the end of the last ice age. What we have today are remenants of much larger permafrost areas.

 

When the Earth was colder, the permafrost areas were in different places as the colder temperatures would havae made areas closer to the eqator more like the areas where we have permafrost today. The reason that we don't have permafros in these areas is because it has melted.

[cypress]

During glacial periods, permafros areas extended far further than they do today. It was the melting of these other permafros areas that was part of the feedback loop that caused the Earth to warm rapidly.

 

So since the permafrost first had to melt and then decompose before methane could be released, how could methane be the cause of warming or even more rapid warming since the warming had already occurred?

[cypress]

I would also be interested in your response to this question I posed to you earlier.

 

If we should be concerned about 3-4 degree effects and since we know that natural forces are capable of effects between +6 and -12 degrees, if planning to avoid climate change is as critical as some suggest, would it not make more sense to attempt to override these far more potent natural drivers?

[pioneer]

The push toward alternate energy, such as solar and wind, began before we coined the phrase "greenhouse effect". It actually began with the energy crisis of the 1970's, when oil prices sky rocketed and there was a push toward energy efficiency and alternate energy. The market place was never able to become competitive in terms of alternate energy, especially as oil prices stabilized and began to fall. But it it was successful with energy efficiency.

 

It is not coincidental that global warming implies the need for alternate energy. Global warming is a good tactic to alter behavior, using fear to justify government control of behavior to push technology that can't make it in the free market. When people are afraid they can't think rationally, so they are easy to manipulate. People would be willing to pay more to appease fear to make up the difference between alternate energy and hydrocarbon costs. The global warming solution gives a two-for-one since it implies an increase in hydrocarbon costs that is called the carbon tax. It is not coincidence that those who were always most into alternate energy; democrats, but who lacked the ingenuity to make it work in the free market, are also the ones pushing for the same thing using big government to force change.

 

The reason this tactic works better in modern times, than in the past, is connected to the liberal push for men to get in touch with their feelings. The men of the past tended to be more cool and rational but often lacked emotional development. That meant cool reason with less irrational sway stemming from emotional sentiment. Although balancing the male personality with feelings was progressive, the feminization of the younger generations of men, sway them away from the cool reason of the golden generation. The newest generation of men lack much of the cold common sense of the golden generation, which prevented such manipulation. This tactic would not have worked 30-40 years ago even if the females could have been induced to fear. The males would have stuck by their common sense expecting reasons.

 

Nuclear power would have pre-empted the carbon scare, since it would have lowered the amount of greenhouse gases. But the fear manipulation of the liberal emotional mind overcame reason for short term gain, that turned out to be a bad long term call. This is history repeating itself. I have not yet figured out what new problem the irrational will create if or when they are able to win this battle and lose the war.

Edited November 27, 2010 by pioneer

[Incendia]

I believe it is happening but for the sceptics:

 

If humans are NOT the cause:

 

Skeptics: congrats you were right...guess we didn't have to do anything...

 

Human caused climate change believers[HCCCB]: Well we were wrong but...at least we have a self sustaining society with more efficient technology...not all bad.

 

If humans are the cause:

 

Skeptics: Ha your dead...wait...i'm dead...you killed me!

 

HCCCB: Ha! Take that skeptics...imagine how many people could have died because natural disasters and stuff if we had listened to you...Earth could have ended up like Venus. You said we should waste our time and take the effort...We laugh at you...Now go pedal some more...The light bulbs are getting dimmer again and I want to watch TV.

Edited November 29, 2010 by ProcuratorIncendia

[Edtharan]

So since the permafrost first had to melt and then decompose before methane could be released, how could methane be the cause of warming or even more rapid warming since the warming had already occurred?

Because, as I said, this is part of a positive feedback loop.

 

Yes, warming has to occur before permafrost melts. But when it does it puts more GHGs into the atmosphere and increases the amount of warming that occurs.

 

I never said it was the original cause of the warming.

 

You have a habit of not reading posts and making up what the person was actually saying. Please read all posts carfully. It will save a lot of problems.

 

I would also be interested in your response to this question I posed to you earlier.

Please read my posts first. I have already answered this in several other posts. But for clarification:

 

Yes, if we were in danger of such changes, then I would recomend doing something about them. Of course (as I have said before), this would not be about survival of the planet or even survival of our species, but survival of our society.

 

In cases like this, many species would go extinct, anad even our species would ahve a chance to go extinct (but it would be unlikely as we are highly adaptable omnivores), however, it is our society that would be most at risk from such changes (as I have said before).