These burgeoning forests will then rather neatly lock up in the biosphere all that extra carbon that we have been releasing into the atmosphere. Or some of it. But the major point of this paper is that far from climate change being a threat to the tropical forests, it looks as if it will be the cause of more of them growing....
Now all we have to hope for is that the upcoming IPCC report, the fifth, will report honestly and openly upon all the effects of rising CO2 levels so we can work out whether it's worth ditching industrial civilisation or not.... We know very well what the direct effect of a doubling of atmospheric CO2 is: a 0.7 degree rise in temperature – that's just straight physics. The idea that we might get 2 or 4 or 5 degrees of temperature change comes from the interaction of positive and negative feedback mechanisms. And we don't know what all of those mechanisms are, don't know the direction of some of them and are really very unsure indeed what the total value is.
July 9, 2012
Global warming will expand forests over what are now grasslands.
According to a new study, "savanna trees were essentially CO2-starved under pre-industrial CO2 concentrations, and that their growth really starts taking off at the CO2 concentrations we are currently experiencing.“
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"...so we can work out whether it's worth ditching industrial civilisation or not..."
Ask the Third World how that works out.
The people who work with these computer simulation models do not actually know that much about the "straight physics" of the global atmosphere, so they tend to either ignore what they do not know or they make shit up to get the results they just "know" to be right.
As one of my professors at school said, "Beware the prophets of a new technology!"
They ought to read more about what other branches of science know about past eons.
No one ever seems to ask the IPCC types the simple question:
What makes you think that the correct, optimum temperature of the Earth, the temperature that we need to fiercely protect through constraints on our economy and standards of living, is right... NOW?
Why not 1900? Or 1700? Or 1300? Those years were either hotter or colder, on average, than the "baselines" that are bandied about by the alarmists.
The acronym is CAGW: Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming, meaning that the Earth is warming, it's caused by humans and it's going to be catastrophic.
Even if you concede the "GW" part, how many purists have even considered the possibility that the "C" might be wrong (let alone the "A")?
The feedback mechanisms in the major climate models have been proven wrong from observation. That these feedback mechanisms are still unknown, as The Register repeats here, is the big lie being perpitrated by Climate Alarmists. There can only be moderate warming from CO2. The science is settled.
The study does not mention water. Are we to assume that the water needs of the savannah grasses are the same as for the trees that will replace the grasses?
I noticed on my bike ride through the Arboretum yesterday that there are trees that appear to be dying -- all brown leaves -- in the present drought.
Essentially, the planet continues to revolve on its axis, regardless.
Or something like that.
If earth's ecosystem were as precariously balanced as the alarmists claim (a) no life could have survived as long as it has, and (b) previous climate change would have been unrecoverable.
The truth is:
(1) We're well within historical norms in every climate measurement possible.
(2) We need much more information before we understand the matter sufficiently to judge a course of action.
(3) If the alarmists were serious their CW action agencies would be headed by working scientists rather than political activists. [Exactly what was Van Jones' qualification for Green Czar? He was a commmunity orgaizer? What a wide range of experience that job must entail.]
(4) If the alarmists believed their own rhetoric they wouldn't be flying around the world to conferences and attacking legitimate scientific inquiry.
Terraforming Mars, Venus, the moons of Saturn and Jupiter and countless suitable asteroids is going to require all the earth science we can possibly muster.
In a wobbling way that influences climate. The largest cycle we definitely know about is on the order of 140-150,000 years.
And then there is the sun, which we know very little about.
Ah.
The Nature article does discuss the twin impact of water and CO2 on plant growth. Not sure why the person at The Register trying to build consensus didn't notice that.
I just glanced through the article, which reports on a model that purports to simulate the change in biospheres over 150+ years, but there doesn't seem to be much in the way of model validation, which is unfortunate.
So global warming means that we'll have more trees and less snow?
That'll be like moving to the Carolinas.
What's the downside again?
^Above comments made purely to aggravate those who believe in man-caused global warming.
I noticed on my bike ride through the Arboretum yesterday that there are trees that appear to be dying -- all brown leaves -- in the present drought.
My yard looks like fall right now, tons of dead leaves. Our whole state is on a burn ban.
What makes you think that the correct, optimum temperature of the Earth, the temperature that we need to fiercely protect through constraints on our economy and standards of living, is right... NOW?
This is the question that none of the global warning freak out people ever answer. I really would like to know the answer.
I'm thinking now about how 'change' was supposed to be so awesome when Obama was running but it is sky is falling awful when it's the climate.
Its a good thing this AGW insanity was not discussed and acted on during the last ice age.
MM
The modelists pretty much have to come up with ways to show drought with CAGW, because otherwise if GW is actually happening, man would likely be in better shape, not worse shape, due to the extensive amount of land that would be opened up for farming across Alaska, Canada, and Russia/Siberia. Look at a globe, and note that a large parts of these countries, maybe half of the biggest two countries in the world, are currently too cold to farm.
And, I think that the theories have to assume significantly changed weather patterns because of air's unfortunate ability to carry more water when warmer. But, I will posit, that the science is just not there yet to understand weather sufficiently to accurately predict less, not more, water being available for farming and consumption.
The assumption is that trace gas plant fertilyzer CO2 raises the global temperature by trapping heat.That idea is 100% false, and the scientists know that.
Meanwhile since 1998 the maunder minimum in sun spots is allowing more clouds from cosmic ray seeding to shade the globe from the direct sun and causing a plunge in global temperatures.
The current cooling which started at the poles and is descending now.
When the poles cooling we experience a shift of winds because winds are the interractions of cooler polar air with the hotter equatorial bands. This change which has recently resulted in temporary cloudless high pressure domes, across Russia last summer and the eastern USA this summer.
The results are some isolated temporary areas of cloudless earth with little air circulation for a few weeks which heats up fast, followed by the polar air descent restarting with a blast of storms as cold meets hot.
The world government green Marxist jihad welcomes and uses any and every crisis myth to announce world authority. They make up whatever fake science they can buy. And there is plenty available.
Sustainable world government anyone. That IS Obama's goal.
MM
"but there doesn't seem to be much in the way of model validation, which is unfortunate."
Unfortunate, but no worse than the models supposedly justifying a complete re-ordering of society.
Are we to assume that the water needs of the savannah grasses are the same as for the trees that will replace the grasses?
Interesting point about the grass, trees may need more water, but they can dig deeper for it. Maybe it's a wash. I would definately be interested in seeing more information on that.
because otherwise if GW is actually happening
Madison has had 19 record highs this year, and 33 record highs since the last record low (way back in 2008). There are now more record highs on the books from 2012 than from any other year. This year's heat in WI has been compared to 1936. 1936 had several record lows that still exist in the record books. Not 2012.
I think your cautious if might be too cautious.
a model that purports to simulate the change in biospheres over 150+ years, but there doesn't seem to be much in the way of model validation, which is unfortunate.
A reasonable, even pointed, caveat. Something much needed, almost always. And how.
Alarmism over CO2 levels all arises from the "feedback" effects. People who understand science have been discussing this for years. Unfortunately, trying to uncover the extent of feedback effects in alarmist models is difficult. Validating the effects is tough too.
See
http://www.climate-skeptic.com/
For some good honest discussion of same.
As far as what the "correct" temperature of the earth should be, maybe we could use this as a guide:
10th – 14th century: The Medieval Warm Period or Medieval Climate Optimum
During the High Middle Ages, Europe experienced a climate slightly warmer than in the period preceding and the period following it. The summer temperatures were slightly higher than the average temperature of the 20th century. The winters were even warmer.
In Europe the warm conditions had positive effects. Summer after summer, the harvests were good and the population increased rapidly. As a result thousands of acres were cleared of woodland and farmers expanded their fields high into the hills and on mountain slopes. It was even possible to successfully grow grapes as far north as Yorkshire(in England)and led to the settlement of Iceland and Greenland by the Scandinavians.
Under these conditions, art, literature and even science were developing apace and we see the height of medieval civilization. The most visible achievements of this period are undoubtedly the construction of the many cathedrals all over Europe. The good harvests had made Europe rich and the good weather freed people from the burden of the struggle against the elements. It created the wealth and labor force to build cathedrals. It was a golden period for European Architecture and art.
Somehow warmer temps didn't turn out all that bad for Europe, eh?
Unfortunately this was followed by The Little Ice Age which caused famines, political upheaval and all manner of unpleasantness (like the Black Death). I think I'll take my climate warm, please.
"What makes you think that the correct, optimum temperature of the Earth, the temperature that we need to fiercely protect through constraints on our economy and standards of living, is right... NOW?"
Because 99% of ALL human innovation -- from agriculture, to metal work, to city living, to writing, to math, to industrialization, to sanitation to space flight (pretty much everything beyond fire, stone tools and rudimentary communication) -- has occurred at temperatures within 1˚C on either side of 20th century averages. It would be in our best interests to keep them there. Widely recognized climate models place us outside that range before the end of this century. Oh. Forgot. Evil scientists lie. Never mind.
I add CO2 to my aquarium. I buy it in paintball cannisters and trickle it into the water. It produces two things: lucious plant growth, and more oxygen for my fish. The plants produce more O2 because they are essentially CO2 starved without the gaseous fertilizer.
Our planet is the same, increase CO2 leads to more vigorous plant growth which leads to increased 02. Serious indoor pot growers know this and use CO2 as fertilizer as well.
Trey
Because 99% of ALL human innovation
Are you counting everything that happened since we came out of the last ice age?
@Toby, your view is a little Eurocentric. How was the climate in, say, China or India then?
Recognize that Global means just that. It's a caveat I include to all my students when I talk about one location.
TraditionalGuy, please point me to a data set that shows a plunge in global temps since 1998. Dare ya.
(I actually do know of a couple, but they are obscure and explainable. If TG comes up with one of them, I'll know he's really been eagerly anticipating cherry season.)
Shanna said: "Are you counting everything that happened since we came out of the last ice age?"
Yes. Roughly 13,000 years.
Ah, but don't forget, for environmentalists, every silver cloud has a black lining!
So, even if the grasslands become forests, it'll be a bad thing: first, it'll harm the savannah-adapted animals and cause species loss; and second, those huge forests will all spontaneously burst into flames, releasing all the carbon in them at one time, and extinguish all life on Earth!
Just look at Colorado!
So all that tells us is to avoid an ice age (although that's sort of a pipe dream too, we're going to be due for one eventually, best learn to adapt).
Either way, we're better off figuring out how to live in a wide variety of climates. They are going to happen anyway.
"jimspice said...
Because 99% of ALL human innovation -- from agriculture, to metal work, to city living, to writing, to math, to industrialization, to sanitation to space flight (pretty much everything beyond fire, stone tools and rudimentary communication) -- has occurred at temperatures within 1˚C on either side of 20th century averages. It would be in our best interests to keep them there. "
This is an unsupported leap in logic from a perspective excluding cost.
Madison has had 19 record highs this year, and 33 record highs since the last record low (way back in 2008). There are now more record highs on the books from 2012 than from any other year. This year's heat in WI has been compared to 1936. 1936 had several record lows that still exist in the record books. Not 2012.
Meanwhile, England and Europe are experiencing the coldest wettest summer on record. The west coast has been unseasonably cold. The snow in the mountains is still so high that roads through several National Parks were late in being opened. And the glaciers on many mountains are expanding despite the computer models.
I guess it is only global warming when it affect YOU personally. Screw the rest of the world.....right?
If we didn't have climate change you would be under about a mile of ice right now.
" in the present drought"
Of course the present drought is occurring with nothing like the CO2 levels extent while plants evolved. It is well known that increasing CO2 increases drought tolerance because the little holes on the bottom of the leaves that plants use to breathe don't have to be wide open when they are not sucking for CO2 as they do today. These same little holes allow water to escape the plants
As for your second point about local warming in Europe.
A) THere are plenty of studies that counter the one study by Mann et al that show a more global MWP, but forgetting that, let's look to the historical evidence.
During that time, travel started up for some reason over the Steppes to the Far east, and of course from there to here. Something changed, or it was just a coincidence? Absent the other evidence, I suppose it would be defensible to claim coincidence, but the plague came across Asia at that time. Marco Polo's trip happened. Lot's of things.
In order to believe that the whole of the northern hemisphere did not warm, you are required to believe that there was a localized hot spot in Greenland that lasted in one spot, like a spinning top that wouldn't move, for centuries.
Madison Man, if you are really interested, I will happily spend the time to write more clearly on this subject, and to answer any pointedly skeptical (of my position) questions you may have.
Absent that expressed interest, I am just going to assume that this will go in one ear and out the other and the reader will revert to their ideological default.
If I only had a shiny quarter for every time one of these global warming dire predictions was proven wrong over time....
DBQ,
Don't forget the hideous winter they had in Europe that brought snow and bitter cold to southern Europe.
Of course their records go back to the Little Ice Age, so there were likely few new records on the cold side.
Meanwhile, England and Europe are experiencing the coldest wettest summer on record.
And yet a google news search on 'Europe Record Low' only hits interest rate stories, and one daily minimum low (Clermont, FR, back on the solstice).
Oh, and This story.
Yeah, yeah, we know, the science is settled.
Interesting all the warmists have been running around the past week or so screaming, "This is what global warming looks like".
No, it's what a bad hot spell looks like.
I've seen a couple in my life.
And this wasn't that long.
"Meanwhile, England and Europe are experiencing the coldest wettest summer on record."
Stats are in for only 1 of the 3 summer months, so it MAY be a bit premature to call it. But if you insist ... June was the wettest in the U.K. since 1910, not "on record," (and in any case, wet is expected with AGW) but you only have to go back to '91 to find a June cooler.
So. Shall we chalk this one up to lying? Or willfully and ignorantly repeating some falsehood you heard just assuming it was true.
Not to worry about global warming, because on December 21, 2012 it will be the end of the world according to the Mayan calendar. Of course being a very old prediction and not using the super duper computer modeling that we have now, it is unclear how the world will end. So.....I plan to have an end of the world party, and if the data from the Mayans is wrong, at least we will have had some great hors d'ourves and a nice hang over.
note: I'm joking about the Mayans and I take that about as seriously as worrying about global warming, what type of lightbulbs I use or whether we will be entering a new ice age. All that crap is filed under the "things I can do nothing about so fuggedaboutid" category.
Shall we chalk this one up to lying? Or willfully and ignorantly repeating some falsehood you heard just assuming it was true.
Or trying to poke a stick at the hornets nest to see just what kind of a buzz I can get?
:-D
jimspice said...
Because 99% of ALL human innovation -- from agriculture, to metal work, to city living, to writing, to math, to industrialization, to sanitation to space flight (pretty much everything beyond fire, stone tools and rudimentary communication) -- has occurred at temperatures within 1˚C on either side of 20th century averages
You read a lot of dumb stuff on the Internet, and this is a perfect example.
jimspice said...
Widely recognized climate models place us outside that range before the end of this century
Silly dupe:
"Widely recognized climate models" have been categorically wrong on the predictions of what the temps would be in 2012.
But don't let that stop you.
What's dumb about it? It's all correct.
"Because 99% of ALL human innovation..."
Wow. Just... wow. Yes, primitive societies do much better when they're not covered by massive glaciers. I will definitely give you that. Genius.
So... uh... do you have any non-Ice Age-related evidence to back up your claim?
You read a lot of dumb stuff on the Internet, and this is a perfect example.
It's not clear from your sentence or from the context: By 'this' do you mean what you quoted, or what you wrote?
No, it's what a bad hot spell looks like.
And in Arkansas, it's pretty much just been summer so far. I mean, a little hotter than usual in June but really no big deal. If we have another week or two of 108-112 temps like last year then we'll talk.
But two or three years ago, we had more rain than seattle and a mild summer. We're running into that weather does not equal climate thing again, aren't we?
The earlier recorded global temps records in the 1930s through the 1980s have been systematically changed by Fake Science apparatchiks to keep their "broken records chant" going.
But just last week the U. of Wisconsin Antarctic station reported the lowest recorded temp in recorded temp history there...minus 104.3 F.
The South Pole areas have been cooling fastest. The Patagonian region of Agentina has been nearly uninhabitable in the past 5 Summers ( their winters) for man or indigenous wild animals that once flourished there.
Yes, the sun spot minimum can always end, and we find that it masked a CO2 effect. But the point is how much work and money the UN and Friends have been putting into lying to us and why.
"'Widely recognized climate models' have been categorically wrong on the predictions of what the temps would be in 2012."
Wrong. And you would know that if you ever read outside of your comfort zone.
Again, TradGuy, I renew my challenge to provide a data set that shows cooling since 1998. Glove? Meet ground.
Arctic Ice at Record low for June since...... 1979, when the records in question started.
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/extent/AMSRE_Sea_Ice_Extent_L.png
See if this "record low" jumps out at you.
jm,
The trend since 1998 has been flat
You can cherry pick around and move it either way by small amounts.
For instance the last decade has a cooling trend.
The above data is a combination of both satellite and surface temps. There is no settled reference temperature DB.
"U. of Wisconsin Antarctic station reported the lowest recorded temp in recorded temp history there...minus 104.3 F."
No. Geez. Why can't righty blogs resist the temptation to exaggerate, even when it's not necessary? The record breaking temperature was -100.8°F.
So. Shall we chalk this one up to lying? Or willfully and ignorantly repeating some falsehood you heard just assuming it was true.
Speaking of sea ice extent, which Madison Man was, and speaking of the Antarctic, which jimspice just did, let's look at the trend down under
OMG, I guess it isn't "global" warming after all....
My advice to MM and JS is bring a better game if you don't want to hurt your cause.
jimspice said...
Wrong. And you would know that if you ever read outside of your comfort zone.
Hysterical.
Keep shouting.
jimspice said...
What's dumb about it? It's all correct.
You're dumb.
That's obviously correct.
jimspice said...
Wrong. And you would know that if you ever read outside of your comfort zone.
There are facts, and then there is the bullshit you're peddling.
jimspice said...
Wrong. And you would know that if you ever read outside of your comfort zone.
That was quite the bit of revealing projection.
Anyway, since you're like a real big reader, here are some papers for you that detail the utter bullshit that is climate modeling.
Here
Here
and
Here
Finally, please point me to the model that predicted no increase in global temps over the last decade.
Thanks in advance.
The crowds at the French Open a few weeks ago and again at Wimbeldon, which just ended were often wearing jackets. Is this normal Summer wear in Europe?
JS's argument seems to be that since there has been substantially more innovation over the last century, than in all of preceding human history, that we should do whatever it takes to maintain that temperature.
I would suggest however that the reasons for the rapid increase in the rate of innovation is a function of the speed of communication throughout the world, combined with the wealth needed to support the research and communications. The problem with tied this to AGW then, is that alarmists, presumably like JS, want us to beggar ourselves in order to slightly lower the probability of AGW, and that beggaring will by itself significantly reduce the wealth that fuels the innovation that he apparently so desires. (Ignoring, for a moment, that the ChiComs, who are putting a new coal fired plant a week online, have little interest in following us in this folly). And, of course, we aren't going to forget how to use the Internet, telephones, etc. just because the earth gets a bit hotter.
Lets just hang all of these eco-commies with recycled rope. Think of the benefits: no more wannabe tyrants, they no longer emit C02 and by burying them we sequester carbon. And we get an instant bump up in the average IQ of the general population. I tell ya, there is no downside to this.
"What makes you think that the correct, optimum temperature of the Earth, the temperature that we need to fiercely protect through constraints on our economy and standards of living, is right... NOW?
Why not 1900? Or 1700? Or 1300? Those years were either hotter or colder, on average, than the "baselines" that are bandied about by the alarmists."
Why limit this to the holocene?
Jay said: "These are facts..."
Did you read the paper? Fildes and Kourentzes are not criticizing the conclusions. They are nitpicking the tools that produce them. In fact, their alternate method provides solid evidence FOR global warming.
I don't want to pile on about jimspice's comment ("99% of ALL human innovation . . . has occurred at temperatures within 1˚C on either side of 20th century averages"), but doesn't the + or - 1 degree refer to global average temperature, and not to the temperatures of the places where the innovations occurred? Because some of the innovations took place in north Africa, others in northern Europe, others in eastern China, others in western Asia, etc., etc., etc. Certainly the temperatures at those locations varied from the global average by more than 1 degree. The temperature range within which innovation occurs seems to be much wider than 1 degree. Also, having lived in south Florida for 6 years I attest that technology affects what temperatures are tolerable -- south Florida began to develop when air-conditioning became readily available.
TiV: Look at the trend up over! Last time I checked, |-1.7| > |.4|
"Because 99% of ALL human innovation -- from agriculture, to metal work, to city living, to writing, to math, to industrialization, to sanitation to space flight (pretty much everything beyond fire, stone tools and rudimentary communication) -- has occurred at temperatures within 1˚C on either side of 20th century averages"
All of it occurred in an inter-glacial period, yes?
So we have to decide if it's all because of ice ages, or in spite of ice ages. Maybe human development required the pressure of an ice age to adapt and evolve. Maybe we were just lucky and got our bit in during the happy chance of a warm period.
I don't know that we can logically say that whatever triggered our evolution is also required for us to continue at the top of the food chain. Maybe what triggers one ascension is what wipes out what came before. Who knows?
But we do *know* that a vastly warmer world was friendly to life.
I think it's time to dump most climate science into the dustbin along with Piltdown Man, Lysenkoism and phrenology.
It seems to me that what is needed is some local climate engineering to try to minimize the 'heat island' effect around large cities: More parks, white rooftops and/or rooftop gardens, a better mix of trees and shrubs and terracing instead of flat-walled glass/steel/concrete office buildings. And heat recycling to take waste heat from HVAC systems and use that to heat water, rather than having to use gas or electric water heaters.
TiV said: "The trend since 1998 has been flat."
No it hasn't. Not even by the data set you reference.
"You can cherry pick around and move it either way by small amounts."
Yes. I know. That's why deniers always picked '98 as a starting year. The funny part is, rank and file deniers didn't get the memo that the '98 thingy doesn't work anymore. With the addition of a few data points, the slope of that line is now positive and significant, yet they continue to haul out the old argument.
"For instance the last decade has a cooling trend."
Hey, take a look at the linked graph and tell me if you see a positive trend. How about when we're living on the downslope of one of those individual humps?
"...has been flat."
I forgot. All that flatness (actual slight positive slope) occurs above the average line, by the way.
"Now all we have to hope for is that the upcoming IPCC report, the fifth, will report honestly and openly upon all the effects of rising CO2 levels so we can work out whether it's worth ditching industrial civilisation or not.... "
This is the statement that I care about, or the last part of it at any rate.
Shall we ditch industrial civilization?
My question is... if it's ALL true, including the catastrophic part... where does ditching industrial civilization come into it?
And the answer to THAT is that it's the PREFERRED solution.
There's no cause at all. None. And if those who prefer that solution wanted to save the Earth more than they wanted to ditch industrial civilization, they could get the deniers and skeptics on board by promoting nuclear or more exotic solutions that don't depend on destroying industrial civilization in preference to an idealized fantasy about quaint primitive people living in harmony with nature.
But they don't.
Instead we get "green" energy in the form of CO2 producing bio-fuel and electric cars that plug into coal plants.
Brilliant!
This is an unsupported leap in logic from a perspective excluding cost.
Actually it's a textbook case of post hoc ergo propter hoc.
I was thinking along the same lines as "The Godfather" Lots of innovation has happened in places with high average temperatures such as the Southern USA, Italy and Australia. There has also been plenty of innovation in places with colder averages such as New England and Northern Europe.
So JS's claim may be true but of no relevance to future innovation.
Maybe we could get conservatives to recognize the warming trend if we would present temperature data as stock prices. You know, like you mix in the peas with the macaroni before you present it to a toddler? Maybe then they'd apply all their statistical acumen.
Green ‘drivel’ exposed 1130
The godfather of global warming lowers the boom on climate change hysteria
...Having observed that global temperatures since the turn of the millennium have not gone up in the way computer-based climate models predicted, Lovelock acknowledged, “the problem is we don’t know what the climate is doing. We thought we knew 20 years ago.” Now, Lovelock has given a follow-up interview to the UK’s Guardian newspaper in which he delivers more bombshells sure to anger the global green movement, which for years worshipped his Gaia theory and apocalyptic predictions that billions would die from man-made climate change by the end of this century.....
...(4) Finally, about claims “the science is settled” on global warming: “One thing that being a scientist has taught me is that you can never be certain about anything. You never know the truth. You can only approach it and hope to get a bit nearer to it each time. You iterate towards the truth. You don’t know it.....”
Britain's Atlantis was just found.
Swamped by a tsunami in 8500 B.C.
Very advanced. It must have been global warming.
Massachusetts and California are both US states renowned for innovation. The average temperature of California is 59.4F, Massachusetts is 47.9F.
A new study of survey data gleaned from space has shown a vast region of Himalayan glaciers is actually gaining ice steadily, mystifying climate scientists who had thought the planet's "third pole" to be melting....
...The melting or non-melting of the high Asian glaciers provides key underpinnings to climate models and sea-level forecasts and is thus crucial to the climate-change/global-warming debate. However it's actually very difficult to find out what's happening up in most of the valleys of the "third pole", as they are extremely hostile and inaccessible environments. This has led in recent years to attempts to get a proper handle on the situation using space surveys. As in this case, some of these new improved measurements have provided surprising results: a recent survey by the GRACE [Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment] satellites showed that overall the third pole appears not to be losing any mass at all....
"Maybe we could get conservatives to recognize the warming trend if we would present temperature data as stock prices."
And what good would recognizing the warming trend do?
Does everything else just automatically follow from that or what? All that's required is for conservatives to go "oh, wow, warming" and they'll suddenly agree to break the economy?
Or think that running an electric car on coal makes a person intelligent?
Not to be biased by East and West coasts: Texas 64.8F and Wisconsin 43.1F Wow! 20 degrees separate these two and yet both are able to invent things.
Fleming never would've invented Penicillin if it had 68 degrees outside instead of 65 degrees. It's science, people!
Einstein came up with the Theory of Relativity when it was roughly 55 degrees outside. Never woulda thought of it if it had been 3 degrees warmer. It's a fact.
And what good would recognizing the warming trend do?
Well, entities like the US Navy have to recognize because they have to plan for the future, being responsible for fielding ships in all the Oceans they can. Businesses should recognize a warming trend because it will change how their business will run. Governments should recognize a trend so they can anticipate changes that may happen in business, agriculture, etc.
Note that I don't say anything about govt trying to change behavior to head off the change. My own opinion is that *some* of the distrust of observations of warming is rooted in the anger against the Big Government trying to use that change as an anvil against which to hammer hammer hammer a particular life choice into its ruled populace. I think people could better use their anti-GW agitprop to change the government to something more suitable (Certainly that would be more to my liking, and therefore it is to encouraged :) ) rather than nattering on about Climate Models.
Internal migration in the United States over the past 20 years has been predominantly from north to south.
Job creation, booming economies, widespread opportunity, livable communities, culture... all moving to the warmer weather.
Frankly, we should find ways to encourage global warming. Let's warm up the whole world to make it as attractive, prosperous, technologically advanced, and diverse as the American South.
Maguro, your statements would be more scientifically valid is you used Celsius (or Kelvin) rather than Fahrenheit.
Get with it. Just don't say degrees Kelvin. That's redundant.
I'm pretty sure that if we look at historical records we'll see that all inventions happened in the Spring and Fall. In the Summer, our brains are frying and cannot function. In the Winter, they are addled by cold.
It is Science. You will understand it next Fall when your brain begins to work again.
I want a bumper sticker that has the word VICE forming a power plant with billows of smoke coming out of the smoke stacks made by the letters and then a power cord with a plug winding away to the other end of the sticker that has the word VIRTUE in the shape of a car.
Get with it. Just don't say degrees Kelvin. That's redundant.
Kelvins are temperature gradations just like other degree. "Degrees Kelvin" serves to distinguish from other degrees and avoids confusion with jeanetics. :)
Mad Man, are you or have you ever been a recipient of a federal largesse premised on AGW?
"What's dumb about it? It's all correct."
The models are all corrupted and the East Anglia e-mails plus the comments in the programming lead to serious doubt that any of this is uncontaminated by politics and/or self interest in grant awards.
Jimspice reveals himself to be a watermelon with the comments about "conservatives" and "righty blogs." It must be infuriating to be rejected when you are so sure that you are smarter than all of us.
Curious George said...
"...so we can work out whether it's worth ditching industrial civilisation or not..."
Ask the Third World how that works out.
Yet we have knuckle-headed academics like Mark Maslin, published by serious publishers proposing just that: link
To paraphrase Robert Crumb, "you can't make that shit up."
"Well, entities like the US Navy have to recognize because they have to plan for the future, being responsible for fielding ships in all the Oceans they can."
Is there going to be more oceans? More shallow oceans? Planning for fuel availability != warming.
"Businesses should recognize a warming trend because it will change how their business will run."
How? Planning for shifting political reality != warming.
"Governments should recognize a trend so they can anticipate changes that may happen in business, agriculture, etc."
Would it not make more sense to react to what actually occurs? So far the government's anticipation seems horribly flawed, subject to catastrophists's belief systems and wishful thinking.
Have we started building nuke plants?
No.
If the midwest stays sopping wet the farmers will figure out all on their own to grow rice.
What do you imagine government will do if everyone says, sure, warming?
Mad Man, are you or have you ever been a recipient of a federal largesse premised on AGW?
Am I supposed to be reminded of the quote At long last have you left no sense of decency?
I'm not certain if it's premised on AGW as you say, but I am PI on a grant right now that is related to observed warming in Wisconsin.
"With the addition of a few data points, the slope of that line is now positive and significant, yet they continue to haul out the old argument"
I am sorry, but to which data set are you referring? I am betting you are cherry picking the one that shows the most warming, the one overseen by a political figure who hangs on to his sinecure at NASA to keep up his credibility with people who don't actually examine the math.
The satellite based data does not really agree the surface temp data. One of them is wrong or the theory is wrong.
Is there going to be more oceans? More shallow oceans? Planning for fuel availability != warming
The main issues, as I understand it, are the threats from storm surge at coastal installations (of which the Navy has plenty), and expanded operations into the Arctic, as mandated by Congress. The Navy must plan for the eventuality (Link 1 and Link 2).
I am pretty sure the Navy also has contingency plans for an attack by France. I don't lay awake worrying about it though. I would welcome our new overlords who knew how cook!
Let's look at the warmist camp's favorite satellite data set vs the data set that jimspice chose.
Oddly enough, jimspice chooses the outlier data set.
MM, the threats from storm surge ought to be considered in any case. It may be politically useful to ask for budgets for better construction and claim global warming, because that's always a good way to get more money, but natural disasters or really huge storms are always a possibility even if we assume, for planning purposes, that storms will continue as they ever have.
Global warming, after all, had nothing to do with either the Indonesian or Japanese tsunamis.
The problem with the argument that most innovation has happened in the last 100 years (BTW, during a time of apparently rising temperatures) is that it ignores why that is true.
What we have is an exponentially increasing rate of knowledge and speed of communications. A hundred and fifty years ago, it took days or weeks for some of the country to discover that Lincoln had been assassinated. Now, microwave towers are going up between NJ and Chicago because the speed of information through air is faster than through fiber. We are talking the trading advantages of minuscule fractions of a second.
Knowledge is cumulative, and billions now have almost immediate access to new discoveries. Combine that with a continuing increase in literacy throughout the world, and maybe even more important, an increase in the education level, both average and at the higher end of the scale. More PhDs every day to understand the cutting edge developments from around the world.
Now, most of the important knowledge that is evolving does not have the time critical requirements that the high volume traders have for their arbitrage, and so don't need near-light speed communications. Rather, Internet speed is more than sufficient. The difference between getting the new information in five minutes versus six is irrelevant for most, since humans are the ones operating on the information, and not specialized machines (which is what those high volume traders are starting to utilize over general purpose computers).
Back to my point in my previous post - what drives the current innovation boom is the interaction between wealth, knowledge, and speed of communications. It is hard to fathom why a warmer climate would affect any of these, but easy to see how squandering resources trying to prevent AGW through utilizing less and significantly more expensive energy would adversely impact at least the wealth aspect of this dynamic.
BTW - also keep in mind that this innovative explosion happened as we left the Little Ice Age. Maybe coincidental, but...
I would welcome our new overlords who knew how cook!
Do they really? Or, just know how to cover up rotten meat better than most with their sauces?
Synova--good point re Tsunamis--those were a consequence of earthquakes, and to my knowledge there is no link between earthquakes and climate conditions (or weather conditons if you prefer)
Red said: "GRACE [Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment] satellites showed that overall the third pole appears not to be losing any mass at all..."
Not so. I believe the study to which you refer is from Nature and is co-authored by Tad Pfeffer who suggests "The good news is that the glaciers are not losing mass as fast as we thought. The bad news is that they are still losing a lot of water. There is still definitely a serious problem for the Himalayas."
jimspice wrote: Because 99% of ALL human innovation -- from agriculture, to metal work, to city living, to writing, to math, to industrialization, to sanitation to space flight (pretty much everything beyond fire, stone tools and rudimentary communication) -- has occurred at temperatures within 1˚C on either side of 20th century averages. It would be in our best interests to keep them there.
The idea that human civilization correlates to global average temperature is a piece of normative nonsense. Is the average temperature of the 19th-century English Midlands within 1 degree C of the average temperature of 20th-century Los Alamos? Did the Roman road builders study the entrails of doves out of worry about the average temperature in Beijing?
History tells us that civilization is no respecter of temperature.
I am thinking of giving the warmist case a second look on account of the advocates for that side of the case are utterly pathetic.
jimspice looks for the weakest arguments to dispute, and grasps for the most beside the point factoids in his response. This makes it look to most of us like he really doesn't have any responses.
For instance, he links to a grap showing a drop in Arctic ice since 1979, I link to one showing that the much larger Antarctic ice area has been steadily growing since 1979. Of course this link is ignored.
jimspice references a single data set that shows the warming he believes in so earnestly, and ignores the fact that this data set is an outlier and ignores my RCP type average of all the data sets, which refutes his point of view.
I could go on, but what is the point?
MM seems to be involved in climate change research, and is unable to muster the feeblest argument.
The meta argument goes poorly.
I almost feel like the issue is too important for one side of the argument to be carried by innumerate lefties.
In response to the phrase if GW is actually happening, we get
Madison has had 19 record highs this year.
In response to a comment about the Medieval Warm Period, we get
your view is a little Eurocentric. How was the climate in, say, China or India then?
Recognize that Global means just that.
500 years of temperature data across the European continent is weather. Brown trees in the Arboretum yesterday resulted from climate.
@Henry: The good Rev. Spice is just preaching thermo-normative behavior.
Another aspect of the problem is well illustrated by jimspice's comment that "It would be in our best interests to keep [global average temperatures with 1 degree C of the 20th century average]. Even assuming that this is a desirable goal, and even further assuming that we know how to achieve it, is the value of the goal worth the cost? The measures identified by the AGW alarmists as needed to solve the problem would impose huge costs on the developing and developed countries of Earth. Would it not, perhaps, be better to encourage economic growth, thus to generate the resources needed to cope with the challenges of a warmer or colder world?
Do you know what does correlate to drastic changes in local climate? Deforestation. The book to read is "Changes in the Land" by William Cronon.
My biggest problem with the politics of global warming is that by pretending that everything is global it ignores real, local, transforming environmental issues.
Global warming also, paradoxically, subverts individual responsibility. If everything is global, everything is someone else's problem.
your view is a little Eurocentric. How was the climate in, say, China or India then?
And, maybe we should also look to see where most of that innovation, at least through the 20th Century was coming from. It wasn't coming from equatorial Africa, and, realistically, despite another couple billion people between them, from the Indians or the ChiComs. So, maybe we should consider that it was coming out of the Little Ice Age, after the Medieval Warming Period, that caused all this innovation?
I think that Tim may be right - that JS is getting increasingly desperate in his warmist responses.
His argument about innovation is a classic case of post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacious reasoning. We may have some weak correlation there, but that likely has nothing to do with causation, and, indeed, I think it likely that the innovation is likely more closely tied to the temperature rise as we exited the Little Ice Age, which would be an argument for more GW, not less (but, mindful of this sort of reasoning, an argument that I will not make).
"Not to be biased by East and West coasts: Texas 64.8F and Wisconsin 43.1F Wow! 20 degrees separate these two and yet both are able to invent things."
Wisconsin hasn't invented anything since the deep-fried cheese curd.
It's the drought, I tell you. The drought!
TiV said: "...the data set that jimspice chose."
Um, I'm pretty sure I haven't yet pointed to a specific data set unless commenting on one which had been previously mentioned by another commenter.
"I am betting you are cherry picking the one that shows the most warming..."
No but, you'll note in my earlier challenge to TradGuy I mentioned "cherry season," by which I was referring to the troposphere figures which you so magically produced on cue.
"I am sorry, but to which data set are you referring?"
Just to show that I'm not choosing the data based on arguments in this thread, here's a third-party blog post from May where I presented my case in the comments section, including links to regressions I ran myself where you can find the link to the data set I used.
"I am pretty sure the Navy also has contingency plans for an attack by France."
We'll just have our ally, Germany, invade France. That'll keep 'em ocuppied for awhile. (pun intended)
+ GISTEMP LOTI global mean
+ GISTEMP gTs global mean
- HADRCUT3 global mean
+ HADRCUT4 global mean
- RSS MSU lower trop global mean
+ UAH NSSTC lower trop global mean
+ CRUTE3 land global mean
+ CRUTE4 land global mean
- HADSST2 global sea surface
Speaking of cherry picking, Wood for Trees offers these data sets, 7 showing warming, 3 showing cooling, and you pick a cooling. Can I go to Vegas with you? By the way, established models predict cooling in the lower troposphere, so that one shouldn't count.
TiV said: "...jimspice looks for the weakest arguments to dispute..."
BINGO! You are ABSOLUTELY correct. I hope that if I can show someone willing to listen that something they had sincerely believed to be true, to be actually false, perhaps it will open them up to the possibility that maybe more of what they find on the denier blogs are hogwash as well. Such is the case with "start with '98." It SHOULD be easy to convince someone if they are willing to listen and have an open mind.
"For instance, he links to a grap showing a drop in Arctic ice since 1979, I link to one showing that the much larger Antarctic ice area has been steadily growing since 1979. Of course this link is ignored."
I didn't ignore it. I said the northern sea data was of greater magnitude than the southern sea data. Of course we'd need to know the total mass of each to determine which is "absolutely" greater, and therefore whether total global ice is shrinking or growing. Why don't you go run and figure that one out.
And yet, still no one has answered my original question:
What makes it "catastrophic?"
Higher sea levels? Tell it to the Dutch. We've been dealing with fluctuations in sea levels for all of human history. Crops dying out? You mean we'll have to shift our growing regions? (Like we've never done that before.)
No one can answer this challenge:
1. Describe the worst-case scenario that could arise from CAGW.
2. Explain why we wouldn't be able to adapt to that worst-case scenario.
I'll begin to take alarmists seriously when they begin to consider ways to adapt to a different climate. Instead, they look for far more expensive "solutions" that rely on - tellingly - top-down mandates and government expansion into our private lives.
It is my understanding that the climate models upon which the AGW hypothesis depend produce a specific temperature distribution in the troposphere; a distribution that is not seen in the data. Has there been any resolution on this issue?
jmspice
Those data sets are not all equivalent, nor are they all independent.
There are multiple versions of the surface temps in there, I chose GISSTemp because that is the most widely quoted to represent those,
Then there are two independent satellite data sets, RSS amd MSU, one published by warmists (RSS) and one published by a skeptic (MSU) I might have those backwards.
The point is that there are three independent tropospheric data sets. I don't even think you can follow the argument that far, so this whole debate is pointless.
" Of course we'd need to know the total mass of each to determine which is "absolutely" greater, and therefore whether total global ice is shrinking or growing. Why don't you go run and figure that one out."
We do know that ice extent is growing globally when both poles are counted.
If it is your contention that total ice mass is not growing, I am happy to read the paper that shows it. Hint, links to "Skeptical Science" do not count; peer reviewed literature only, please.
Jimspice? MM?
Original Mike,
If you want to get their heads spinning, ask them why the main expected signature of AGW, stratospheric cooling, has been AWOL for 18 years, and before that, was heavily influenced by volcanic activity.
It is fun to watch.
As far as your question, the resolution is that the spread is shown "within the margin of error" which is so large as to be meaningless.
Without the stratospheric cooling, any warming must be considered due to other causes.
I think we're talking about the same thing, Tim. I dove into this a few months ago, and should go back to my notes to brush up, but it's my understanding that the actual temperature profile in the atmosphere is NOT what the models predict.
I know that one of the model atmospheres -- or maybe it was an IPCC atmosphere -- had a very unrealistic tropopause, so much so that any tropical modeling based on the atmosphere was basically worthless. But that was several years ago. Maybe 5 now. Time flies.
Sorry, I was away. Telecon duty.
People must be publishing on model vs. measurement atmospheric temperature spatial distributions. You can't point me to any, MM?
(So I don't know if it's been resolved).
As far as Antartic ice goes, I like this website. Nice clear graphics (Tim, your line graph is hard to interpret).
The problem with these images, though, is that they don't show ice volume, which is a more important parameter than coverage.
I have two scientific problems with the AGW hypothesis. The first is this apparent inablity of the climate models to produce the temperature distribution in the real atmosphere (but maybe I've been misinformed; that's why I'm asking). The second is that the CAGW results depend on feedbacks in the model which, by many reports, are uncertain at best.
Donner et al from the J. Climate in 2011 (pp. 3484-3519) describes (exhaustively or exhaustingly) the latest, I think. It's short on direct comparisons to temperatures, but there is some info in it. If you're on a UW computer, you should be able to read it through the library.
I always like reading the end when they talk about what they don't like in the model, that is, what they need to work on.
TiV said: "If it is your contention that total ice mass is not growing, I am happy to read the paper that shows it...peer reviewed literature only, please.
Chen et al. 2009
By the way, has anybody ever told you that you debate like a douche bag? I'm guessing yes.
Yes, I can access it. Thanks, MM.
To a layman like me, it's always interesting to follow a discussion like this, where over time the people who know what they're talking about, and those who have only an ideological ax to grind, self-identify.
It's also interesting that we all pretty quickly ignored the post that started the discussion, which raised a serious question about whether the consequences would be so bad if an aspect of the AGW theory (increased CO2 levels) were correct.
Jimspice fails to note that not a single climate model can hindcast--you cannot start any of them in a given year, say 1920, and then produce the observed temps of 1930, 1940, etc. why in the name of Zeus should we accept their "predictions" for temps in 2090 or 2100?
leading CAGW hoaxer Kevin Trenberth wrote [in a leaked email] in 2009--
this is the same Kevin Trenberth who, in October of 2009, expressed his frustration in a leaked email to Michael Mann that the darned planet just would not cooperate with his hysterical prognostications:
Well I have my own article on where the heck is global warming? We are asking that here in Boulder where we have broken records the past two days for the coldest days on record. We had 4 inches of snow. The high the last 2 days was below 30F and the normal is 69F, and it smashed the previous records for these days by 10F. The low was about 18F and also a record low, well below the previous record low. This is January weather (see the Rockies baseball playoff game was canceled on saturday and then played last night in below freezing weather).
…The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our observing system is inadequate.
". No
significant trend in the ice sheet-integrated Surface Mass Balance (SMB) is found
over the period 1979–2010, and only (insignificant) trends
exist regionally."
LENAERTS ET AL 2012
Your paper cherry picked a very short period, April 2002 to January 2009, if you look at the graph on page 3 of 5, the black bars represent SMB, which were cherry picked to show a sharp drop. If you look at the whole period starting in 1979, the period was in no way unusual.
In other words, jimspice, thanks for playing.
As for debating styles, your use of the term "douche bag" pretty much settles that argument.
I will caution you against using model results to compare to (or argue against) GRACE observations.
At some point Lenaerts et al should compare their model results to GRACE observations. That would be an interesting paper.
"not a single climate model can hindcast"
Is this true?
The model results and GRACE observations agree for the short period which the GRACE paper treated. FYI.
These "model results" agreed with in situ measurements "without recalibration," as the study says. This is not a climate model, it is a model of the ice mass that takes into account precipitation, sublimation, etc to calculate total mass.
Not to calculate mass. To estimate it.
Hmm. How did all those trends shake out?
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