Say Anything Blog

Given that the Earth has existed in the past AND we’ve had volcanic eruptions in the past AND the world did not end then, I would make the conclusion there must be some corrective ability to our system.

Changes in the mean temperature of the planet are normal occurances. They happen irregardless of the actions of humans.

When surface temperature increases, so does atmospheric convection, which carries the atmospheric heat up into the atmophere beyond the layers of greenhouse gasses.

So Yes...the system is self correcting.

The real tragedy of the focus on global warming is that it distracts attention away from legitimate environmental issues.

Those legitimate environmental issues include loss of real wetland, overpumping of aquifers, pollution of groundwater, and frankly...about ever square inch of China.

Changes in the mean temperature of the planet are normal occurances. They happen irregardless of the actions of humans.

I had a guy go off on my on a local blog when I pointed out that the Earth has been warming up for a while now.  He seemed to think that the Earth warming since the last ice age is irrelevant to the discussion.

What I find very interesting is that it was a fair bit warmer during Roman times than now.  They skated by without any mass extinctions of polar bears.  And the seas weren’t any higher than either. 

The whole thing is fraud with just enough truth in it to full people.

The Debate is over!  Global Whining has been confirmed.

But,,,but,,,,but,,,,Algore,,,evil humans,,,glaciers moving,,,James Hanson,,,,,,,!?!?!?!?!?!? ARRRGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

And don’t even mention ice core sampling data to these environazis wackjobs, they have an absolute coronary over THAT little inconvenient truth.

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The global warming faithful will just flick this away as coming from a “global warming denier™” probably funded by “Big Oil™”.

The science of global warming - it’s about testing hypothesis faith.

The funniest part is they are claiming all this, and yet only use 1% of the available satellite data. Not a very sound methodology. Oh, well. Whatever it takes, I guess.

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I’m late to the party as usual.  Whistler, good post.

A couple of quick points:  First, according to the satellite data, it’s actually been cooling slightly since 2002, not just plateau-ing. 

Secondly, the fact that temperature change since about 1998 can’t be explained in terms of the current climate model has a very profound implication:  Namely, it demonstrates that there are natural perturbations as larger or larger than the CO2 driving term.  That puts in great doubt the argument of the global warmingists that the temperature change from 1970 to 2000 can be attributed entirely to the increase in CO2.

Why is that important? 

Because what it demonstrates is that the climate sensitivity to CO2 is probably less than has been argued by proponents of anthropogenic global warming. 

What this says is that if we were to e..g. double the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere we are looking at a much smaller change in atmospheric temperature.  Here’s what the temperature fluctuations look like:

And here’s the change in CO2 concentration:

For example if 100% of the effect 1970-2002 were due to the change in atmospheric, CO2 concentration, we would expect (depending on the model) roughly 2.5°C increase in atmospheric temperature for a doubling of CO2. 

The usual assumption is that the effect on temperature depends on the log of the CO2 concentration, btw. This is regardless of whether there is a water-vapor feedback amplification or not.  That’s in case somebody is interested in how I got my numbers (0.6°C temperature increase for a change from 320 ppm to 380 ppm).  This is roughly the number you would expect if there were a water-vapor feedback but no net effect from cloud formation associated with the extra water vapor.

If the effect from CO2 were e.g. 1/3 of this, we would have roughly a 1°C increase instead, which isn’t climatologically significant, compared to natural forcing terms.  That’s roughly the temperature effect expected if there were no net water-vapor feedback effect from the CO2.

Personally, I think that the data are consistent with no net feedback, but I don’t think the theory is wrong: That is I think there really is a water vapor feedback.  I think it may just be incomplete. 

A possible resolution is the iris hypothesis, which basically suggests that there is a natural negative feedback mechanism that prevents the Earth from overheating.  While I’m not sold on the science (meaning I think the idea needs work), some mechanism like this may well be correct, and the climate indeed may very well be self-correcting. 

To a degree:

I think the past history of the Earth supports the notion of a negative feedback mechanism that stabilizes the Earth against runaway heating.  I don’t think there is a similar mechanism that balances runaway cooling (probably driven by the increase in albedo associated with year-long ice reflecting more sunlight, leading to more cooling, more snow, etc), which is why a small negative perturbation in solar heating can yield such a large cooling effect on climate.

In practice, I think we have more to fear about a runaway cooling effect, than a warming effect.

Carrick:

I’m late to the party as usual.

Yes, you are!  I recommend getting up, or going to bed, earlier. Otherwise, I’m left as the only sane person here.

"Here lies, in honored glory, an American soldier, known but to God.”

“The power to tax is the power to destroy.”
Chief Justice John Marshall, McCullough v. Maryland

Secondly, the fact that temperature change since about 1998 can’t be explained in terms of the current climate model has a very profound implication

This is the voice of utter bullshit.  The fact that the average temperature shows significant random variation from year to year is neither new nor significant.  The idea that it is somehow out of line with expectations is absurd.

Take a look at the graph Carrick has provided.  The red line (the 5 year moving average) has shown a fairly steady, accelerating rise since about 1950.  This is global warming.  The last decades’ rise has been particularly steep and steady. Carrick claims that recent data “can’t be explained”, but you’ll notice that the red line is still pointing steeply upward.

It’s possible, perhaps likely, that the red line will turn briefly downward at some point in the next decade or two.  This is part of the normal shorter term variation which is expected.  After all, the red line has already turned downward 5 times since 1950, but those brief downturns have not signaled the end of global warming.  The longer-term trend remains clear.

And how is that different from the natural heating experienced from 1910 to 1940? 

Pretty much looks like the 1950-1998 warming doesn’t it.  Could it be that that was also natural factors? 

We know that the Earth has been warmer in the past.  We know that it’s been a lot colder. 

The longer-term trend remains clear.

That’s an absolute hilarious statement.  Saying that 50 years is a long term trend for a planet 4,000,000,000 years old is utter and complete folly.

The Debate is over!  Global Whining has been confirmed.

Yep, and combined with lower than predicted oceanic temps it is clear, we are all going to die in a giant fireball caused by human activity. Time to wipe out the evil, filthy human race!

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Saying that 50 years is a long term trend for a planet 4,000,000,000 years old is utter and complete folly.

Of course, that’s not what I said.  Plus, the timescale of interest here is not measured in billions of years, but rather in decades or centuries.  Who cares what happens a billion or even a million years from now?

Regardless, you’ve missed the point which is that Carrick’s chart above shows global warming is still going strong and his claims to the contrary are bullshit.

It’s been cooling since 1998, which is darned near a decade. 

Plus it’s been warming since the little ice age ended which cannot be blamed on us.

We know the Earth has warmed up and cooled off.  In fact it was warmer during Roman times.

The Debate is over!  Global Whining has been confirmed.

Jimmy:

This is the voice of utter bullshit.  The fact that the average temperature shows significant random variation from year to year is neither new nor significant.  The idea that it is somehow out of line with expectations is absurd.

Actually, it’s not bullshit.  It’s about the left changing the narrative when the facts slip out from under them.  More on that later.

The red line (the 5 year moving average) has shown a fairly steady, accelerating rise since about 1950.  This is global warming.

It is only the warming after 1970 that the climate modelers attribute to human generated emissions.

Carrick claims that recent data “can’t be explained”, but you’ll notice that the red line is still pointing steeply upward.

It’s a five year running average.  The last year centered on that average for the data considered was 2002, before the plateau started.  Using more up-to-date data (these are from VORTEX/satellite data): The red line clearly shows a topping-off around 2003-2004, and an actual small decrease since then.

After all, the red line has already turned downward 5 times since 1950, but those brief downturns have not signaled the end of global warming

Other than the long term slow down from circa 1945-1970, which is generally attributed to an increase in sulfate emissions, the other blips you are talking about originated from short-term (1-2 year) down turns resulting from volcanic eruptions.

Now back to the changing narrative and the slipping away of facts.

The fundamental problem for global warming advocates is that you really need all of that warming to get an “alarming” rate of increase for a doubling of CO2.  The reason is that it is well understood that the effect of CO2 is saturated in the atmosphere.  As I mentioned above, that translates into a logarithmic relationship between CO2 concentration and global mean temperature, a fact that has been known for over a century.

We also don’t have a first-principles estimate of the sensitivity of global mean temperature to CO2 concentration, so it is necessary to use the portion of global mean temperature ascribed to global warming to fix the CO2 sensitivity.  This again is because it is thought that the dominant effect from CO2 is through the amplification from the CO2-water vapor feedback loop. 

While this mechanism is thought to be well understood, there is no disagreement that there are problems with the effect of the added water vapor on cloud formation.  More high level clouds and you get an additional enhancement of the CO2 greenhouse effect (they don’t add to the albedo but do block more infrared).  If you have more heavy low lying clouds, on the other hand, you get an increase in the albedo and a net cooling.

I happen to favor Earthshine because I think it’s a cleaner way of measuring the results.  And what they find is indeed an increase in the Earth’s albedo over the same period we’ve seen a decrease in both ocean and atmospheric temperatures:

So what we do have is data that seem consistent with an iris-like hypothesis:  Namely there is a long-term negative feedback loop that prevents a runaway CO2 greenhouse effect.  We sort of knew that already.  The Earth didn’t melt down 500-million years ago when CO2 concentrations were 20 times their current levels.

Jimmy:

Regardless, you’ve missed the point which is that Carrick’s chart above shows global warming is still going strong and his claims to the contrary are bullshit.

Just noting that this claim of yours is wrong.

The five-year trend line currently has a negative slope.

Global warming based on the metric you’ve choose to use (five year rather than one year), is NOT “still going strong”.

Whistler:

It’s been cooling since 1998, which is darned near a decade.

Exactly.

1998 was the warming year on record.

By the way the satellite data don’t show as steep a growth even for 1980-2000 as are seen in the ground based data set.  As you know I prefer the satellite data because it avoids sampling problems such as urban effects, and large empty areas with no sensors.

The down size is it doesn’t go back prior to 1980.  However, other data, such as the fact that the Northwest Passage was also open briefly in the 1940s suggests that there may still be biases in the ground based measurements.  I’m pretty sure the ground based data above was from GISS, which shows the largest temperature increases among the various data sets.

1998 was the warming year on record.

I think Carrick meant warmest. 

One thing that bothers me is that we’re talking about temperatures where a tenth of a degree is important.

Prior to satellite data there is no way we could measure global temperatures that accurately. 

We sure as heck don’t know what the temperatures were 100 years ago in Central Africa or the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. 

We know about current conditions only in the last few hundred years ago.  We’re told that glaciers melting proves a never before seen warming trend.  What does it mean when these glaciers uncover evidence of human beings before the glacier was there?

We know that a thousand years ago the Vikings were farming on Greenland.  Certainly it’s warming because we can only just now plant the same crops.

By the way Jimmy do you want me to explain why an ice berg melting doesn’t raise the sea level?

The Debate is over!  Global Whining has been confirmed.

Those are good points, Whistler.  The biggest problem is measurements in the Arctic, because that is where the largest effect from global mean temperature increases are seen, and this is precisely where we have the worst coverage both now and especially historically.

One thing we need to know WHAT is normal.  I don’t think we ever will because there is in fact no “normal.”

For example if we’re worried about glaciers melting we have to compare that with...What. Certainly we can’t compare with the depths of the little ice age.  Prior to that NOBODY has a definitive idea of what the ice level was, worldwide of course.

The Debate is over!  Global Whining has been confirmed.

Whistler:

One thing we need to know WHAT is normal.  I don’t think we ever will because there is in fact no “normal.”

Or if we reduce it to what is “normal” we are left with some pretty blurred-out generalizations!  Like there are land masses, with things growing on them, and bodies of water with things living in them, ice caps at the poles, hot at the equator.

Everything else (and even this to some extent) has been in a constant flux since the origin of the Earth.

How do we know what was normal for ice coverage in the Arctic prior to global warming?  Or Greenland?

Historical evidence points to it actually being as warm or warmer there then than it is now!

It’s been cooling since 1998, which is darned near a decade. 

This is standard bullshit.  1998 was an unusually warm year, but as I pointed out above, unusually warm or cold years are to be expected.  What matters is the longer term trend.  The decade of the 1990s was significantly cooler than the current decade.  The 5 year moving average for 1998 is substantially below the current 5 year moving average.

Just noting that this claim of yours is wrong.

The five-year trend line currently has a negative slope.

Ahem. You’re refering to a different chart.  The claim I made was correct.  Then afterward, Carrick brought up a much finer-grained chart.  Of course the finer-grained chart shows more little ups and downs.  It still proves my original point.  The finer grained chart shows five distinct brief downturns since 1980, whereas Carrick’s original coarser chart only showed 2 since 1980, and yet once again the clear longer-term trend of the chart is upward.

By the way Jimmy do you want me to explain why an ice berg melting doesn’t raise the sea level?

What brought up that question?  Why would someone expect a melting iceberg to raise the sea level?  If it’s an iceberg, that means it’s already in the ocean.  Melting it doesn’t add any water to the ocean.  Not sure I understand your question.

Jimmy:

The claim I made was correct.  Then afterward, Carrick brought up a much finer-grained chart.

It’s not the finer grain that makes you wrong.  It’s the more up-to-date.  (GISS for some “inexplicable reason”, can you guess, quit updating their chart in 2005.) Your claim was “global warming is still going strong”.  Obviously that is not *quite* true.

Anyway, you keep using that word “bullshit”.  I do not think that word means what you think it means.

Jimmy:

The decade of the 1990s was significantly
cooler than the current decade.

I’d quibble a bit with “significantly”.  The difference is only about 0.1°C, which isn’t very significant.

jimmy? You need to get your waterwings on, you are in WAY over your head. DKos talking points ain’t a gonna cut it with this crowd. Carrick is going to smack you with the data 2x4 till you are bloodied and semi-conscious. Oops. Looking at your comments I see you are already there!

While you are recovering perhaps you would enjoy a bit of an educational break. Here go! Get a clue, then toddle back in on your crutches. We will still be here.

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Those who think the party or the country, will be “taught a lesson” by handing the levers of power over to the liberals will learn a lesson, but it will be at the expense of our country and her liberties. And there are no guarantees that the party or the country will come out stronger, more conservative or better positioned to win elections against the incumbent liberals.

So, whats your point, Proof? Or are you pulling a “jimmy”?

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Just trying to close Carrick’s “italics”. Didn’t work, so I summoned the “Italics Not Closed” Police!
Nothing to see here! Move along! Keep moving!

Those who think the party or the country, will be “taught a lesson” by handing the levers of power over to the liberals will learn a lesson, but it will be at the expense of our country and her liberties. And there are no guarantees that the party or the country will come out stronger, more conservative or better positioned to win elections against the incumbent liberals.

I pulled a jimmy once in college! (It was very painful!)

Those who think the party or the country, will be “taught a lesson” by handing the levers of power over to the liberals will learn a lesson, but it will be at the expense of our country and her liberties. And there are no guarantees that the party or the country will come out stronger, more conservative or better positioned to win elections against the incumbent liberals.

Speaking of the Sun, how is that Shattered Sun Offense working out for you 2Hotel9?

I’d quibble a bit with “significantly”.

Carrick is starting to come around!

It’s not the finer grain that makes you wrong.  It’s the more up-to-date.

No, my original assertion was correct. If you look at the up-to-date GISS data, you’ll see for yourself.  GISS provides once-a-year data points and the 5 year moving average is currently still sloping upward.

Even though I’m right about this, it still amounts to a quibble.  The temperature record is noisy.  We’ll need a few more years of data before it will be clear whether the longer-term trend has changed one way or the other.

Do you mean in Warcraft, Carrick?

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Jimmy:

No, my original assertion was correct.

Well your original assertion was “global warming is still going strong”.  Not that “using the inferior metric of GISS and selecting a rather arbitrary averaging period, we still set a net increase”.

GISS provides once-a-year data points and the 5 year moving average is currently still sloping upward.

No it doesn’t. You can get monthly averages from it too.

If you look at the up-to-date GISS data, you’ll see for yourself.  GISS provides once-a-year data points and the 5 year moving average is currently still sloping upward.

The running five year average for GISS is also decreasing at the moment.  I don’t have to look at their plot (which by the way isn’t up-to-date) to see this, because the raw data are available and can be processed directly.

The temperature record is noisy.  We’ll need a few more years of data before it will be clear whether the longer-term trend has changed one way or the other.

Again, you miss the point.  If there are natural fluctuations that are of the scale as the CO2 driving term, then just as we can’t attribute the current decrease to the underlying theory of AGW being wrong, we also can’t attribute all of the warming we have seen 1980-2002 as being entirely man-made. 

Once you make that assertion, what drops out of that is that the slope 0.016°C/year 1980-2002 contains natural contributions to warming (such as heating of the poles resulting from ice loss from before the AGW signal “turned on” in 1970).

A conservative thing to do would be to compare the slope for the entirely natural temperature increase 1905-1945, which is 0.011°C/year, and assume the difference between the two is the human generated proportion, i.e., only 0.005°C/year average increase for 1980-2002.  Since CO2 increased from 340 to 380 ppm over that period, this gives a net +1°C increase for a doubling of CO2.  That’s right at theory prediction if there were no net CO2-water vapor enhancement.

I’m not necessarily saying that 1°C for a doubling of CO2 is the right number, I’m just saying there is plenty of reason to be cautious about adopting radical conclusions about the consequences of AGW.  Especially, if the argument is to adopt radical solutions that cause wide-spread massive economic damage.  In other words, you need to look at the consequences to developing nations from the proposed solutions, not just the consequences of doing nothing.

I am entirely in favor of a cautionary approach, where we continue to mitigate our CO2 emissions.  But the approach needs to be sane, unlike Kyoto, which wasn’t.  Market driven solutions with federal R&D dollars seems to be a rational approach to take.  Trying to limit CO2 emissions by fiat probably isn’t.

2Hotel9:

Do you mean in Warcraft, Carrick?

If there are natural fluctuations that are of the scale as the CO2 driving term, then just as we can’t attribute the current decrease to the underlying theory of AGW being wrong, we also can’t attribute all of the warming we have seen 1980-2002 as being entirely man-made.

Um, I never said a word about CO2 or AGW.  It sounds like you think I did.  All I said is that the longer-term warming trend of the past 60 years is still intact.

BTW, contrary to your assertion, GISS does provide once-a-year data points.  You can find them
here.  And yes, the slope of the 5 year moving average of the very latest annual data is pointing up, as I said before.

It’s hard to pinpoint the end of any long term trend in a noisy signal.  If you have a couple of slightly up days in a bear market, does that mean the bear market is over?  Probably not.

As far as cautious mitigation of CO2, I agree with much of what you’re saying.

Jimmy, if you want the monthly average for GISS, it’s here.

I use a median for trends which is more robust than the arithmetic mean.  Using a median trend line, even the GISS curve is currently trending downwards.

Also, as I mentioned, GISS has signal corruption’s from a variety of sources, including urbanization, shifts in equipment and station location, incomplete and nonuniform spatial coverage that are not shared by satellite data.  As a physicist, I pick the best metrics and work with them.  GISS actually has a larger temperature trend compared both to satellite and to their main competition, Hadcrut3v.

If you want to know what is going on with the Earth and global warming, the satellite atmospheric temperature data are superior to the ground based measurements in everybody’s minds but those producing the ground-based products.

The sea temperature data are actually a better indicator of the amount of global warming because the mass of the oceans is much greater than the mass of the air above it of course.  Thus it says a lot more about whether the Earth is currently warming or cooling to look at ocean temperature trends, which it turns out have been decreasing for about five years.  An even better metric is latent heat, which by the way has also been decreasing since 2004.

So no, I wouldn’t drop out of a market because of two days of bad performance.  But I would try to understand why the stocks were taking a beating.  In this case, we don’t have a good model for it.  We are in the middle of the most significant minimum in solar activity 400 years.  That would be one logical explanation.

The point here is these aren’t just “random fluctuations”, they measure the response of a complex system to a change in the driving force.  Something changed in 2003, and we would all like to know what that is.

Thanks for clarifying that you meant global warming, rather than the anthropogenic portion of it.

Oh, hell yea! But I am cheap. Still doing the whole Burning Crusade thing. I actually like running through the landscape, it is relaxing. Oh, yea. Warsong Gultch. Not really all that relaxing. Not so much. More of a hyper sort of thang. Win or lose. I like it.

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All I said is that the longer-term warming trend of the past 60 years is still intact.

I’d say that we have a hundred year warming trend going. 

If that’s the case mankind couldn’t have started the warming trend. 

Pretty much ought to shut up the Algore’s of the world.

The Debate is over!  Global Whining has been confirmed.

2Hotel9, I’m not much on PvP.  Maybe when my kids get out of the house that will change.  These days, I’m a classic run-by-himself night elf.  Have a hunter 70, that has mostly parked except farming for gold.

My main is an Orc Hunter, Female. Atalantia, in Misha Realm. Have several alts I am keeping active, in Misha and 3 other realms. Orc fems are just faster. In every respect. Got a real Jones for Warsong and Arathi Basin. Thats why my main is only a 45.

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Oh, and speaking of which, bye y’all. See you later.

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