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originally posted by: network dude
a reply to: Greven
I don't understand, the Sun has an affect on the climate? I can remember being told this is mans fault. If the sun has an affect, what percentage it it?
Let's assume that current levels are at 400, for ease of computation. What would be the difference in heat retention should co2 levels rise to 800ppm?
originally posted by: Greven
...
You'll note in that cartoon that it says "INCONVENIENT TRUTH: GLOBAL TEMPERATURES ARE DECLINING." This is a rather odd claim, given that this is what temperatures look like according to RSS and NASA's GISTEMP since August 1996 - neither of which show decline:
Additionally, you are demonstrably wrong about Mt. Pinatubo and quite ignorant of what our emissions are.
...
We emitted an estimate 36 gigatonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere last year alone.
Reference
Esper, J., Frank, D.C., Timonen, M., Zorita, E., Wilson, R.J.S., Luterbacher, J., Holzkamper S., Fischer, N., Wagner, S., Nievergelt, D., Verstege, A. and Buntgen, U. 2012. Orbital forcing of tree-ring data. Nature Climate Change: DOI 10.1038/NCLIMATE1589.
In a game-changing paper published in the online version of Nature Climate Change, Esper et al. (8 July 2012) provide convincing evidence that both the Medieval and Roman Warm Periods of 1000 and 2000 years ago, respectively, were warmer than the Current Warm Period has been to date, in spite of the fact that today's atmospheric CO2 concentration is some 40% greater than it was during those two earlier periods.
In setting the stage for their paradigm-altering work, the twelve researchers - hailing from Finland, Germany, Scotland and Switzerland - write that "solar insolation changes, resulting from long-term oscillations of orbital configurations (Milankovitch, 1941), are an important driver of Holocene climate," referencing the studies of Mayewski et al. (2004) and Wanner et al. (2008). In addition, they state that this forcing has been "substantial over the past 2000 years, up to four times as large as the 1.6 W/m2 net anthropogenic forcing since 1750," as suggested by the work of Berger and Loutre (1991). And on the basis of "numerous high-latitude proxy records," as they describe it, they note that "slow orbital changes have recently been shown to gradually force boreal summer temperature cooling over the common era," citing Kaufman et al. (2009).
Fast-forwarding to the present, Esper et al. describe how they developed "a 2000-year summer temperature reconstruction based on 587 high-precision maximum latewood density (MXD) series from northern Scandinavia," which feat was accomplished "over three years using living and subfossil pine (Pinus sylvestris) trees from 14 lakes and 3 lakeshore sites above 65°N, making it not only longer but also much better replicated than any existing MXD time series." Then, after calibrating the pine MXD series against regional June-July-August mean temperature over the period 1876-2006, they obtained their final summer temperature history for the period stretching from 138 BC to AD 2006, as depicted in the graph below.
...
originally posted by: bbracken677
a reply to: Greven
What exactly is the heat retention properties of differing levels of co2?
In other words, how much additional heat is trapped with an increase of 100%?
Let's assume that current levels are at 400, for ease of computation. What would be the difference in heat retention should co2 levels rise to 800ppm?
"If the quantity of carbonic acid [CO2] in the air should sink to one-half its present percentage, the temperature would fall by about 4°; a diminution to one-quarter would reduce the temperature by 8°. On the other hand, any doubling of the percentage of carbon dioxide in the air would raise the temperature of the earth's surface by 4°; and if the carbon dioxide were increased fourfold, the temperature would rise by 8°."
...
"Although the sea, by absorbing carbonic acid, acts as a regulator of huge capacity, which takes up about five-sixths of the produced carbonic acid, we yet recognize that the slight percentage of carbonic acid in the atmosphere may by the advances of industry be changed to a noticeable degree in the course of a few centuries."
The new best estimate based on the published results for the
radiative forcing due to a doubling of CO2 is 3.7 Wm−2,which is a reduction of 15% compared to the SAR. The forcing since pre-
industrial times in the SAR was estimated to be 1.56 Wm−2; thisis now altered to 1.46 Wm−2
The ABSOLUTE accuracy of the measurements is not nearly as good….probably no better than about 0.5 deg. C. But since each deep-layer measurement of the atmosphere includes individual air layers spanning tens of degrees, even small errors in the microwave absorption theory will translate into that much uncertainty.
originally posted by: amazing
originally posted by: network dude
a reply to: amazing
news.nationalgeographic.com...
Although global temperatures have been rising over the past century, a slowdown in the rate of warming in the past few years has left some scratching their heads over a seeming "global warming pause."
The suggestion that global warming has stopped is "nonsense," climatologist Richard Alley of Penn State University said last fall. The fact that the year 2012 was no warmer than 2002, he said, ignores the long-term trend of warming.
But scientists say that trend has been partially obscured by the ocean, which is likely absorbing the excess heat.
A paper published in the journal Nature in August 2013 by staff of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California, suggests the extra heat has been absorbed by the surface waters of the Pacific Ocean, aided by the warming and cooling cycles of weather patterns known as El Niño and La Niña.
I tried to pick the least offensive source I could find. Now, if there is not PAUSE, why in the hell would this guy be trying to explain it?
I just think it's only one minor point. In the overall view and data of long term analysis.
Here's a link that makes sense to me.
www.scientificamerican.com...
You've walked away from your earlier wrong and unattributed remarks without comment, but return to ask this?
The IPCC last estimated doubling the CO2 concentration to cause a 1.5C to 4.5C increase in temperature. NASA says the Earth's temperature rose between 0.6C and 0.9C from 1906 to the present. The CO2 concentration has risen by about 1/3rd, from ~300ppm to ~400ppm. Seems fairly close so far, but that's not the whole story.
originally posted by: Greven
originally posted by: bbracken677
The link in the statement regarding pre-inductrial co2 concentration takes on to Mauna Loa co2 ..
I would like to point out that correlation does not equal causation. As temperatures rise, co2 is released from the ocean. As temperatures drop, co2 is stored in the ocean. This is one of the reasons that at the end of glacial growth that co2 level increases typically lag behind temperature increases by 800-1000 years.
...And? I list the relevant contents to the point I'm making immediately afterwards - that the atmospheric CO2 concentration is considered to be 280ppm before the industrial age began.
Correlation does not equal causation, but the CO2 concentration is increasing slightly less than what we humans are estimated as emitting into the atmosphere - and it seems to be getting worse. Historically, CO2 leads temperature increase. I want to again note here that the term "historically" means during written history, which is well after the last ice age. Prehistorically, CO2 lags temperature rise by less than 200 years - in the Southern Hemisphere. What about the Northern Hemisphere? Well, CO2 leads temperature rise there - by hundreds of years.
originally posted by: bbracken677
a reply to: amazing
Your statement is inherently wrong. I, sir, am a geologist and I can tell you that a majority of geologists are not all caught up in the man-made climate change hysteria. I think you are poopin stuff now.
In fact, the wording : man-made climate change is wrong in any form, fashion or manner. Climate change is a natural phenomena that has been happening as long as there was a climate.
The unbridled advocacy of CO2 being the major cause of climate change is unbecoming of NASA’s history of making an objective assessment of all available scientific data prior to making decisions or public statements Read more: www.businessinsider.com...
Missing and/or Simplified Processes Largely because of incomplete scientific data and understanding, and because of computing limitations, many processes and agents of climate change either are not incorporated in climate models, or they are represented in a simplified manner. The following list illustrates that the state-of-the-science in climate modeling, despite many improvements, still has many shortcom- ings and limitations. These shortcomings and limitations must be overcome in order to increase the credibility of the models. The list will allow the reader to evaluate the extent to which climate models simulate faithfully all important processes governing current and future climates, an IPCC requirement.
• “While improved parameterizations have built confidence in some areas, recognition of the complexity in other areas has not indicated an overall reduction or shift in the current range of uncertainty of model response to changes in atmospheric composition” (Stocker, 2001, p. 419). • There are “[l]arge uncertainties in estimates of internal climate variability from models and observations” (IPCC, 2001, p. 59). “Models tend to underestimate natural climate variability derived from proxy data over the last few centuries” (McAvaney, 2001, p. 512).
• Failure to adequately simulate key processes and feedbacks indicates that “... the major problems are generic, affecting all climate models”. These processes include ocean mixing, atmospheric convection, hydrologic processes, and representation of clouds and “... contribute significantly to model uncertainties” (USCCSP, 2002, p. 48). “In addition, climate models exhibit serious bias due to their inability to fully represent small-scale cloud and precipitation processes” (Lawford et al., 2002, p. 21). “Furthermore, it is not clear how the production of precipitation from these clouds will be altered as a result of forcing” (Lawford et al., 2002, p. 17).
• The Earth’s atmosphere is a heat engine driven primarily by solar radiation. Despite frequent reference to a solar “constant”, the global climate model experiments acknowl- edge that total solar irradiance (TSI) is, in fact, a variable that ranges from 1354 to 1370 Wm-2 (www-pcmdi.llnl.gov...; May 5, 2003 ). In discussing the estimate of solar radiative forcing since 1750, the IPCC reports that “...because of the large uncertainty in the absolute value of TSI and the reconstruction methods our assessment of the ‘level of scientific understanding’ is ‘very low’” (Ramaswamy, 2001, p. 382). “Other mechanisms for the amplification of solar effects on climate ... may exist but do not yet have a rigorous theoretical or observational basis” (Ramaswamy, 2001, p. 352).
• “Unfortunately, there are no global estimates of surface flux that do not rely heavily on models. The best model-independent estimates come from the Global Energy Balance Archive (GEBA), a compilation of observations from more than 1,000 stations (Gilgen et al., 1998). Compared with GEBA observations, surface solar insolation is overestimated in most AGCMs (Betts et al., 1993; Garratt, 1994; Wild et al., 1997, 1998; Garratt et al., 1998). Downwelling long wave radiation, on the other hand, is underestimated (Garratt and Prata, 1996; Wild et al., 1997). The shortwave discrepancy is of more concern: it is more than a factor of two larger than the long-wave discrepancy, and could be due to missing absorption processes in the atmosphere.” “If the observations are correct, then improving the models will reduce the energy available for surface evaporation by 10-20% with a corresponding reduction in precipitation (Kiehl et al., 1995) and a general weaken- ing of the hydrological cycle” (McAvaney 2001, p. 484).
• “There are unresolved differences between the observed and modeled temperature varia- tions in the free atmosphere” (Mitchell and Karoly, 2001, p. 729).
• “Coupled models indicate that, in mid-latitudes, the predominant process is the atmo- sphere driving the ocean as seen by the surface fluxes and as observed, yet when an atmospheric model is run with specified SSTs, the fluxes are reversed in sign, showing the forcing of the atmosphere from the now infinite heat capacity of the ocean (implied by specified SSTs)” (Stocker, 2001, p. 451).
• “ENSO is not simulated well enough in global climate models to have confidence in projected changes with global warming (Chapter 8). It is likely that changes in ENSO will occur, but their nature, how large and rapid they will be, and their implications for re- gional climate change around the world are quite uncertain and vary from model to model (see this chapter and Chapter 9)” (Stocker, 2001, p. 453).
• “In the extra-tropics, a key question remains the sensitivity of the mid-latitude atmosphere to surface forcing from sea ice and sea surface temperature anomalies. Different modeling studies with similar surface conditions yield contradictory results (e.g., Robertson et al., 2000a,b). The crude treatment of processes involving sea ice, oceanic convection, internal ocean mixing and eddy-induced transports and the coarse resolution of most coupled climate models, adds considerably to the uncertainty” (Stocker, 2001, p. 451).
• “The atmospheric response time of carbon dioxide is subject to substantial scientific uncertainties, due to limitations in our knowledge of key processes. When carbon dioxide is used as the reference, as it often is, the numerical value of all global warming potential of all greenhouse gases can change substantially” (Ramaswamy, 2001, p. 386).
• “Temperatures during mid-winter in the stratopause and mesopause regions at the South Pole are 20-30 K colder than current model predictions” (Pan et al., 2002).