Update on global warming!

[lamont]

If you're insinuating that I suggested models are worthless, you're not reading very well. To suggest that the models have been very good in the past (wrt climate research), however, is nuts. Predicting weather is one of the hardest things modelers have attempted (just think about how often weathermen are wrong about tomorrow's forecast). To say we should ignore the models is ABSURD! The question (not for you, but for science) is to what degree are the current models reasonable. There seems to be real debate here. The answers are important.

The article that you quoted asserts that climate models are worthless:

"Many of the most alarming studies rely on long-range predictions using inherently untrustworthy climate models, similar to those that cannot accurately forecast the weather a week from now."

Weather models are also not climate models. Global climate changes by a fraction of a degree every year, the temperature can change 50F overnight. Weather forecasting will always be bad because it is plauged by chaotic dynamics and large amounts of noise on small scales. The climate is much easier to predict because it averages out all of the weather and chaotic dynamics over long periods and on a global scale. Since energy is conserved, even if you've got unpredicted cold weather in one region, you'll have unpredicted warm weather in another region and it averages out.

What is difficult to predict in climate models, though, are things like the atlantic conveyor belt shutting down, or the exact rate of melting of the greenland and antarctic ice caps. In another 100 years or so we should have some very good data and some very good models, but by then it might be a bit too late.

 

[Rainer]

First, I didn't write the article, but your confusion is excused. Second, it might be worth reading the authors articles concerning *why* he finds current models suspect. The article linked is clearly intended for the masses, but his research is obviously intended for his field.

 

[Wildcard]

Now go give algore a big hug, go ahead, you know you want to.

"yeah, and the last time this amount of greenhouse gases were released into the atmosphere and the climate changed this rapidly it produced an exinction event known as the paleocene-eocene thermal maximum which killed most of the species then alive. that is an entirely 'natural' change in our past which best models the disaster we're heading towards now if we continue along business as usual."
Yup, quick check says we were not here then. So it happens again and it's big oils fault? We need to be thinking about how we are going to adapt not fighting about whos if anyones ( pretty arrogant IMHO that we think we can change the world) fault it is.
Screw it, we are doomed! Dive while we can.

 

[lamont]

First, I didn't write the article, but your confusion is excused. Second, it might be worth reading the authors articles concerning *why* he finds current models suspect. The article linked is clearly intended for the masses, but his research is obviously intended for his field.

I found this statement very interesting from his 2001 testimony to the Senate:

that doubling CO2 alone will only lead to about a 2F increase in global mean temperature. Predictions of greater warming due to doubling CO2 are based on positive feedbacks from poorly handled water vapor and clouds (the atmosphere’s main greenhouse substances) in current computer models. Such positive feedbacks have neither empirical nor theoretical foundations. Their existence, however, suggests a poorly designed earth which responds to perturbations by making things worse.

The problem with this statement is that the geological record is starting to support the view that the Earth is actually "poorly designed" and has positive instead of negative feedback loops.

The scientific theory that he favors is the "Iris effect" where buildups in cloud cover act to reduce global warming and stabilize the climate. So far it looks like the empirical data coming in from NASA research is not backing him up though:

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NasaNews/2002/200201167312.html

 

[lamont]

So it happens again and it's big oils fault? We need to be thinking about how we are going to adapt not fighting about whos if anyones ( pretty arrogant IMHO that we think we can change the world) fault it is.

I never mentioned anything about blame, other than the human race and anthropogenic activity in the aggregate.

And its fairly naive to assume that 6.5 billion human beings can't have an aggregate effect on the world large enough to change it. At some point if you dump enough energy into a system you can modify anything. The human race has now grown to the point where our effects are large enough to affect the Earth's biosphere.

 

[H2Andy]

lamont, my friend...

you are wasting your time and considerable knowledge

some people don't want to accept the data; not much we can do about that

 

[Rainer]

lamont, my friend...

you are wasting your time and considerable knowledge

some people don't want to accept the data; not much we can do about that

You're right, some people DON'T want to accept the data. I'm not one of them. There are three issues for science and policy:

(1) Is the Earth currently warming? [Evidence strongly suggests 'yes'.]

(2) Is this due to anthropogenic activity? [Evidence is in dispute, but is leaning toward 'yes'.]

(3) If (2) is true, what is the best course of action?

I see those most ignorant discussing (1) and (3) [somehow lots of people miss (2) for (1)].

 

[lamont]

Yeah, but I'm learning a lot in the process Andy...

Here's a wealth of information on debunking Lindzen's positions:

http://www.logicalscience.com/skeptics/Lindzen.htm

So far the best thing I've found on the "Iris effect" and the only actual science Lindzen puts forth is here from a former Lindzen co-author:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/04/lindzen-point-by-point/

About the IRIS paper- I really can't see what he's complaining about. The paper was published, depite some rather "outlandish claims." For instance, in the IRIS paper, Lindzen argues that tropical surface temperature and polar surface temperature should be assumed to vary in exactly the same way as CO2 concentrations increase. This is based on the idea that baroclinic neutralization maintains a particular critical temperature gradient, an idea that had a brief period of fashionability in 1978. In any case, there's certainly been a lively debate about the paper, and if it's widely viewed as "discredited", then that's the judgement of the climate dynamics community. If we're a bunch of dummies, history will judge us harshly, but we can only do our best.'

EDIT: here's a better rebuttal to Lindzen from 2006:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/02/richard-lindzens-hol-testimony/

 

[H2Andy]

yeah ... i guess i'm just burned out on this topic

hate it when someone saunters up and, with a look of inmense satisfaction, quips, "yeah, how bout this cold winter we're having?"

like that really refutes global warming ...

arg...

Rainer: that's about where i am. i think there's a bit more evidence of No. 2 these days ... 90% certaintity it's man-made

 

[Wildcard]

How about the people that ignore record cold because they wont open there eyes? Of course it's getting warmer, it has been for a long time now. What we need to be looking at is how wild the climate is becoming and what if anything can be done? IMHO, NOTHING... Whats done is done. Who did it? Ma nature? Us? No matta. Y'all sit so snug and "safe" in your stick houses in flood zones and wonder why they get blown away or wiped out all the time? It's time to think about more surviable homes and lifestyles with less impact on the environment. Driving three hours each way to work so you can live in some affordable home has to end...Living within walking distance of work is a long lost concept. We all motor to work and play so if anyone is to blame, we all are....Long past my bedtime. Gnite
Were all in this together.