Global warming 'irreversible' for next 1000 years: study

Originally posted by The Bald Champion

Then you used that to harpoon the science ... It does not work that way. Yes water vapor is the largest portion of grass house gases, however the Earth and its bio systems do not operate without water vapor. Your lack of science fails to recognize that the EARTH now has to compensate....

speaking of which, do you know what saturation is? in this context it means that a high portion of that particular wavelength is already captured within a few hundred yards at current concentrations, which means that additional CO2 will only affect the tiny rest.

but i guess in all your splendor, you believed you could just trumpet your science from brainwash Inc. and win arguments on internet forums. not so, as you can imagine, representing an extreme minority view means you have to prepare and be willing to learn from your mistakes and previous encounters.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

i'll quote because i know these links don't get clicked:

myself, two years ago

Co2 does block IR and the effect is very relevant, but so is its saturation characteristic, which does not scale linearly, which you seem to assume otherwise you'd be much more relaxed about CO2 !

for all who are not yet fully awake: a trace of greenhouse gas will quickly change absorbtion with increasing concentration in the beginning (again very low concentrations) but will tehn gradually level off. after a certain threshold, the increase becomes unnoticable, because all wavelengths in question are already blocked out.


aip.org

...A still weightier objection came from a simple laboratory measurement. A few years after Arrhenius published his hypothesis, Knut Ångström sent infrared radiation through a tube filled with carbon dioxide. He put in as much of the gas in total as would be found in a column of air reaching to the top of the atmosphere. The amount of radiation that got through the tube scarcely changed when he cut the quantity of gas in half or doubled it. The reason was that CO2 absorbed radiation only in specific bands of the spectrum, and it took only a trace of the gas to produce bands that were "saturated" — so thoroughly opaque that more gas could make little difference

just for the record, i am by no means a climatologist, all i see is dishonesty, agenda and deceit are in use along with smoke and mirrors and i see how the concept of GW is instrumentalized in favor of very profitable (to some cooks) while very detrimental subsidized industries and politicians riding the wave of mass hysteria. their data often does not hold up under scrutiny, the South pole is melting in certain regions only, the data set underwent a drastic change in 1990, NASA charts contain discontinuities, ie. are unreliable and should have been tossed, which they did not do. if that data had been caught in any other context, someone would have been fired (see my previous posts)

no solutions are allowed except super expensive large scale green tech which will not solve much if anything, due to their inherent low energy density, while not so sexy green tech like the heat pump or small sclale heater/generator units, powered with whatever is locally available is mostly ignored. that's not a coincidence!

f-ex. wind power in its current shape and form is based on a centralized model, as are all biofuel initiatives, while the key to sustainability will never be one-size-fits-all, but solutions, which are developed on demand and tailored to fit into their environment.a

I for one can only imagine one reason for the current strategy, they are desperately trying to keep industry and housholds on the same grid, if that ever failed, everyone would instantly realize how costs have been externalized, ie. hoisted onto the taxpayer's shoulders.


It IS a politcal issue in the guise of science, not the other way around.

reply to post by Illusionsaregrander


Ice cores? See below.

Solutions? This isn't either/or! But it's defintitely not proven to be man-made, either.

It's: do we run blindly down an alley that leads nowhere, or proceed coolly and calculatingly to address meaningfully the problems most threatening?


Ice cores:

Geerts and Linacre published results of ice core sampling that showed a correlation, but not a causal effect, between temperature change and CO2 concentration. In fact, they found that “during deglaciation the two varied simultaneously, but during times of cooling the CO2 changed after the temperature change, by up to 1000 years. This … is not what one would expect from the enhanced greenhouse effect.”

www-das.uwyo.edu...

Core samples dating back 420,000 years confirm the correlation, without proof of causation, but note the influence of orbital and sun-cycle effects, as well in a study by French, Russian and American researchers.
Climate and Atmospheric History of the past 420,000 years from the Vostok Ice Core, Antarctica, by Petit, et al, Nature, 3 June 1999.

A subsequent analysis of several studies speculated about varying influences, but tellingly noted that it’s “unknown how much of the historical temperature changes have been due to greenhouse trace gases (CH4, CO2, and others), and how much has been due to changes in solar radiation, or perhaps long-term shifts in ocean circulation.”

www.daviesand.com...

A European consortium confirmed the correlation, but not causation, with cores dating back 800,000 years. Surprisingly, the study published by the University of Copenhagen revealed that sudden changes occurred without man’s influence:
“About 770,000 years before now, scientists identified rapid changes in the amount of both CO2 and CH4 in the atmosphere … which occurred within just a few decades. The dramatic changes indicate that climate change can take place very quickly. Similar changes took place about 40,000 years ago during the last glacial period.”

www.eurekalert.org...#


As for peer review:

Geophysical Research Letters:
Eichler, et al: Temperature response in the Altai region lags solar forcing.
The authors found a very strong correlation between temperature and solar activity. The data determine the lag to be about 10-30 years. It takes some time for the climate to respond to the solar changes. Taking into account data from other studies, they conclude that "Our results are in agreement with studies that 50% of the observed global warming in the last 100 years can be explained by the Sun.”

www.agu.org...


In a 2007 paper, Scaffetta and West in “Physics Today,” found that solar activity accounted for 69% of temperature variation.

www.fel.duke.edu...


And, the OP article’s subject, Susan Solomon, has a department and colleague at Univ. Colorado whose published findings confirm that seal level has not varied upward since 2005!

sealevel.colorado.edu...


Finally, for a summary of Hansen’s faults and frailties and comments on the CU research, see the “2008 Best Science Blog” Weblog Awards winning blog “Watts Up With That.”

wattsupwiththat.com...

And just for fun: ATS
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Deny ignorance. Please.

I thought Al Gore was full of hogwash with his ongoing rants about the CO2 levels, rising sea levels, rising atmospheric temperatures, super hurricanes, the county of Manhatten NY underwater but now I'm starting to give this clown some credit.

Mankind has belched out so much CO2 in the last 100 years that now it's affecting the climates of Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and even Neptune. It's all in this article, though this article is trying to make us believe that the Sun is in an active stage.

I hope everyone knows that I'm being sarcastic about Al "The Tree" Gore.
If he can receive a Nobel Peace Prize on unfounded evidence then any moron can receive this prize.

1000 years of irreversible warming? This study goes to show that any moron can publish bogus reports. While there may be evidence that man has affected the climate to a degree, the Earth's dynamic ability to heal itself can't be ignored.

It was mentioned in a post here that the year 1934 is the hottest year on record. If you watch the weather report each day, you'll notice that they'll mention records for that day and I haven't seen any records broken on the warm side of the thermometer.

We can lower the Earths' temperature in a controlled way starting right now. If we manufactured 10 million square miles of parachute-type material and deployed it to a strategic part of space between the Earth and the Sun, the temperature of the Earth would immediately start dropping while recieving enough light for growing crops. When the Earths' temperature became stable, we'd just roll this material up and store it in L1 or L2 for later use. Maybe this touches on a little science-fiction but everything we have and take for granted today was once "science-fiction."

Here's one more little tidbit which reports that James Hansen's NASA supervisor and many others at NASA are ashamed to be associated with AGW alarmists. Another senior scientist has joined the ranks of us AGW skeptics. Also reporting the latest Al Gore insanity and much more:

U.S. Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works


Please watch the YouTube video also.








[edit on 1/28/2009 by TheAvenger]

Originally posted by Long Lance

aip.org

...A still weightier objection came from a simple laboratory measurement. A few years after Arrhenius published his hypothesis, Knut Ångström sent infrared radiation through a tube filled with carbon dioxide. He put in as much of the gas in total as would be found in a column of air reaching to the top of the atmosphere. The amount of radiation that got through the tube scarcely changed when he cut the quantity of gas in half or doubled it. The reason was that CO2 absorbed radiation only in specific bands of the spectrum, and it took only a trace of the gas to produce bands that were "saturated" — so thoroughly opaque that more gas could make little difference

How about going on and posting the rest of the story?

These measurements and arguments had fatal flaws. Herr
Koch had reported to Ångström that the absorption had not
been reduced by more than 0.4% when he lowered the
pressure, but a modern calculation shows that the
absorption would have decreased about 1% — like many a
researcher, the assistant was over confident about his
degree of precision.(8a) But even if he had seen the1%
shift, Ångström would have thought this an insignificant
perturbation. He failed to understand that the logic of
the experiment was altogether false.

The greenhouse effect will in fact operate even if the
absorption of radiation were totally saturated in the
lower atmosphere. The planet's temperature is regulated by
the thin upper layers where radiation does escape easily
into space. Adding more greenhouse gas there will change
the balance. Moreover, even a 1% change in that delicate
balance would make a serious difference in the planet’s
surface temperature. The logic is rather simple once it is
grasped, but it takes a new way of looking at the
atmosphere — not as a single slab, like the gas in Koch's
tube (or the glass over a greenhouse), but as a set of
interacting layers.

Did it occur to anyone that before there was ice over the polar regions, it was warm enough for the land underneath to be formed and be visible. There were also forested areas and this is where the polar oil reserves were derived.

Global warming means that we are still emerging from an Ice Age, and that process will continue for some time to come; maybe 1000 years or maybe 10,000 years, or even longer.

Whilst we need to stop burning fossil fuels, reduce our carbon footprints and generally stop pollution, for the sake of Planet Earth's health, we will continue to come out of this Ice Age for a long time to come, irrespective of what Humanity does.

Global Warming is largely natural in its cause and needs to be seen over a long time scale, not just mankind's recent industrial past. 1000 years in terms of Earth's history is a mere blink of the eye.

Originally posted by jdub297

Solutions? This isn't either/or! But it's defintitely not proven to be man-made, either.

The rise above the natural cycle of CO2 concentration as recorded by the ice cores is not man-made? How do you support this?

Originally posted by jdub297
It's: do we run blindly down an alley that leads nowhere, or proceed coolly and calculatingly to address meaningfully the problems most threatening?

I challenge you to show anywhere in any post I have said we should do anything approaching "running blindly down an alley that leads nowhere."

Originally posted by jdub297
Geerts and Linacre published results of ice core sampling that showed a correlation, but not a causal effect, between temperature change and CO2 concentration.

Originally posted by jdub297
As for peer review:

Geophysical Research Letters:
Eichler, et al: Temperature response in the Altai region lags solar forcing.
The authors found a very strong correlation between temperature and solar activity.

Notice how both find a correlation? What do we know about correlation? A good scientist knows that correlation does not equal causation. So, in the ice core studies, they note that correlation does not assure causation.

In the quote you posted from the "Temperature response in the Altai region..." paper, they go the extra mile and say that are sure that the correlation between solar activity and temperature IS a causative effect.

(By the way, I could not find that paper in the list that you linked to, perhaps I am overlooking it, but I looked several times and did not find it)

You are rigorous about correlation not equating causation when CO2 is concerned, as, I may point out, are the scientists involved in the ice core studies themselves. However both you and the authors of the paper (at least as you quote them, I cannot find and read the paper myself) you claim supports the solar activity theory are willing to ignore this small detail when it is your own pet theory?

Applying the principles of scientific inquiry equally to our own beliefs and the beliefs of those we disagree with IS denying ignorance.

Making a special exception for the beliefs we hold dear is not.

I guess I am left wondering why you feel that all the science that contradicts your pet belief should be abandoned in favor of.....well of what? What ARE you saying should be done if this cycle should prove to be caused by the sun? Nothing at all? Or should we study that aspect only, and do nothing to change our own behavior in light of a possible natural change in climate that could devastate our species if we do not acknowledge and respond to it?

In addition, while trying to find any graph or data that would support your contention that solar activity is the single cause, I came upon this;

en.wikipedia.org...

A 2006 study and review of existing literature, published in Nature, determined that there has been no net increase in solar brightness since the mid 1970s, and that changes in solar output within the past 400 years are unlikely to have played a major part in global warming.[6] However, the same report cautions that "Apart from solar brightness, more subtle influences on climate from cosmic rays or the Sun's ultraviolet radiation cannot be excluded, say the authors. They also add that these influences cannot be confirmed because physical models for such effects are still too poorly developed."[7]

They are not excluding your theory completely and "running down a blind alley" it IS being considered. (As one would expect any good scientist to do) However it is not currently considered the most likely theory. They admit that we simply do not have the physics to measure all the possible sun related factors at the moment.

Additional edit to add;

In this report they show in graph form the relative contributions according to our current scientific understanding of the varied possible causes. The graph is on page 4.

www.ipcc.ch...



[edit on 30-1-2009 by Illusionsaregrander]

Originally posted by jdub297


And, the OP article’s subject, Susan Solomon, has a department and colleague at Univ. Colorado whose published findings confirm that seal level has not varied upward since 2005!

sealevel.colorado.edu...

How do you come to that conclusion from the graph you provided as evidence for it? As I see it, they are reporting a steady incline in average sea levels.

reply to post by stander


the concept of saturation is valid, you can construe anything around a 'fragile balance', ie. an unstable feedback loop in volatile equilibrium. such positive loops have little use in a technological setting, because they tend to run off into the next best boundary. negative feedback is of course widely in use, although never mentioned in the context of climate, along with clouds... i'll leave it to the reader to connect the dots.

they say their calculations revealed that saturation was not as pronounced as the experiment suggested - so what, we are talking about one percent change for a doubling of CO2. the experimental setup wasn't fully calibrated or the calculation is based on differing parameters, which wouldn't be all that surprising, because this wasn't about creating empirical curves for later use, it was likely about finding out where our athmospheric concentration is, on the saturation curve. the deviation is is for all intents and purposes negligible, unless you invoke magic self-reinforcing loops.

i do not expect these sites to agree with me, all i need them for is validation of concepts. the characteristic altitude of absorption will change by a miniscule margin (and even less after that - diminishing returns, how often do i have to write it out?). from there, it becomes obvious that these are simply GW disclaimer passages, because they do not adequately explain what's so flawed about the concept of saturation.

invoking thermal convection means nothing, because it's always happening and doesn't pop up at a certain point, the difference remains 1%, to suggest that this percent would somehow change a lot means postulating a ridiculously sensitive climate. this assumption lacks any plausibility, because climate repeatedly moved into and out of ice ages, had fluctuations in historic times and did not run off either way.


PS: If alarmists talked about a 1% change in absorption rate rather than CO2 concentrations, which increased by ~40%, would you think we would be having this conversation? numbers mean a lot in PR.

[edit on 2009.1.30 by Long Lance]

reply to post by Long Lance

The whole debate is meaningless, because the opposition to the global warming issue disputes that the average air temperature has been rising.
www.junkscience.com...

Disputing acquired data is a favored weapon for those who fail to offer viable alternative hypothesis to a cause and so there is no surprise to see this method of rejection in the article as the main argument, even though both authors produced a chart showing a correlation between solar magnetic cycles and deviation in air temperature over the period of 250 years. The correlation chart (Astrophysical Journal) shows that the temperature has been steadily rising since 1980, but the other chart (Marshall Institute) shows that the temperature has been dropping between 1979 and 1996.


Btw, the copyright of the article belongs to Dow Jones & Co., Inc., Those thick traders who very likely commissioned the study only understand the Dow charts, so no one noticed the contradiction that both charts are responsible for. "Science has spoken." once again. I hope that I heard the last word.

Originally posted by TheAvenger
Here's one more little tidbit which reports that James Hansen's NASA supervisor and many others at NASA are ashamed to be associated with AGW alarmists. Another senior scientist has joined the ranks of us AGW skeptics. Also reporting the latest Al Gore insanity and much more:

U.S. Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works


Please watch the YouTube video also.

Good evening, TA, hope you're well.

Dr. Theon appears to have retired from NASA in 1994, some 15 years ago. Until yesterday I had never heard of him (despite working with and for NASA for the last 13 years). His insights into both modelling and publicity appear to date from then, rather than any recent events. He was not Hansen's 'boss' (the director of GISS reports to the director of GSFC, who reports to the NASA Administrator). His "some scientists" quote is simply a smear - which scientists? where? what did they do? what data? what manipulation? This kind of thing plays well with Inhofe et al because it appears to add something to the 'debate', but in actual fact there is nothing here. Just vague, unsubstantiated accusations.

linky

Revkin replied to the post as follows:

"Jim Hansen is a remarkable climate scientist, and now also a passionate climate campaigner, and has been a trusted source of mine since 1988. But his views of some of the science are not always in sync with those of scientists focused on specific questions. Sea level is a case in point. Jim’s views are clearly at the upper boundary of what many glaciologists and oceanographers together see as realistic, or even physically possible, in a warming world."

Whether you agree with Revkin or Hansen on the science, Revkin never asserted that Hansen promoted sea level claims that were not even physically possible. Revkin is saying is that Hansen’s views are at the upper boundary of what “many” scientists say is physically possible. Okay. It’s an upper bound in the view of many experts. I won’t disagree with that.

The Inhofe/Morano headline is simply a lie. Like pretty much everything else they publish.

linky

So, in sum, more Inhofe pseudoseptic claptrap. He and Morano really are certified cases of Anti-Science Syndrome.

[edit on 30-1-2009 by melatonin]

Originally posted by stander
reply to post by Long Lance

 

The whole debate is meaningless, because the opposition to the global warming issue disputes that the average air temperature has been rising.
www.junkscience.com...

Disputing acquired data is a favored weapon ...

the debate is not meaningless, as long as anybody is still interesting in the actual data sets and drawing unbiased conclusions.

you can dispute anything with reasonable cause, but you have to explain your train of thought, how you arrived at that particular conclusion and so on. as i posted here and in the antarctic warming thread,

www.abovetopsecret.com...

there are serious issues, which call into doubt the entire data set used to push GW, which become most obvious when close to irrefutable evidence of developments against the (alledged) trend surfaces, like the Antrctic pack ice season's a day per year increase during the last decades.

attacking GW in the data set is not truely required in the scientific sense anyway, but it's generally more convincing. even if global warming was a given, its causes would need to be proven first. CO2 doomsayers have not presented proof, they presented mostly computer models, which don't work at all unless you put a few dozen more 'adjustement' paramerters in and will show anything you want if you do. computer simulation is nice once it's validated by experiment, which is impossible, because we do not have another copy of Earth, so it's all basically as credible as a cartoon.

what it all boils down to is the threat of doom, without it, the whole thing becomes a joke.

[edit on 2009.1.31 by Long Lance]

Ok in the beginning the earth was like a garden of eden, in other words warm tropical and nice. then we had an ie age, real cold. Now things are warming up again.
Many animals have gone extinct on earth as well as some humans without humans being the cause.

Could it be possible that Global "warming" is a natural flow of change on a very alive planet and not directly caused by us? Volcanos, earthquakes, tsunamis, tornados, are these all our fault too?

Seasons change from spring to summer to fall to winter and back again. Maybe we are doing a large scale slow moving season change from warm to cold to warm again.
There is so much we do not know.

How long has the ozone layer been thinning? Well we can only know it since we had the technology to measure it.

Considering the entire history of earth and its changes, I think we are over reacting. Yes we can make changes, well we can, but big business and the wealthy don't want to make any changes that adversly affect their pocket books.

We use to make things to last. We use to grow our own food, we use to use what we had near to us. Thanks to GATT and NAFTA that is gone. So to really change things would require people to be honest, a trait that is rare today and few want it.

As for the earth, she is very safe and will kick you off when she chooses to and there is nothing you can do to stop her.