How long before Global Warming kills us all?

The CCSP report is old hat (from where the graphs are from). It noted a potential discrepancy, and even they suggested it was likely a result of data issues and they note that newer corrected datasets no longer show a discrepancy

Do you have any updated graphs?

This significant discrepancy no longer exists because errors in the satellite and radiosonde data have been identified and corrected. New data sets have also been developed that do not show such discrepancies.

If these discrepancies have been "corrected" and thousands of radiosonde measurements and numerous satellite data were all just wildly inaccurate then can I see some updated graphs?

Indeed, the lack of a hotspot tells us nada about CO2-induced warming, just the vertical and regional nature of warming - it is not specific to GHG-induced warming

You say that we should find the hotspot regardless of what causes the warming but the IPCC tell us that it is now almost beyond doubt that most of the warming of the last XX (50, is it?) years is caused by CO2. So are you saying that we should not be seeing a hotspot caused by anthropogenic influences? Very strange if you are. What matters though, is that regardless of what's supposed to cause the hotspot, there is no hotspot, and therein lies the problem.

If you've read Santer et al (2005) you would know this anyway (i.e., it is a physical mechanism readily shown to exist for short-term variability).

None of the Santer's papers prove anything. He latest outing, Santer et al (2008) says that the hotspot is hidden in the "noise", although he doesn't actually find the hotspot.

Honestly, dude, I'm not interested in chasing after you. I can't even pin you down on this, why the hell would I want to move on to other zombie memes like the lag fallacy? I'm well-versed on the denier's MO.

Well, I don't know about you, but I think the simplest explanation is usually probably the right one. As I said before, all ice core data, going back 850,000 years shows that CO2 follows temperature change. It follows temperature as it declines and it follows temperature as it increases, on average by 800 years. What does this tell us? Mmm. Can you figure it out? It's a brain-taxer. It tells us that CO2 is an effect of temperature change - not the cause. This simple fact alone invalidates AGW. But hey, I guess I'm just a narrow-minded denier, right?

Allen & Sherwood (2008)

This is what Allen & Sherwood say:

"Despite these attempts, most analyses of radiosondes continue to show less warming of the tropical troposphere since 1979 than reported at the surface."

Also, Sherwood resorts to measuring the temperature via windshear. How can windshear be better at measuring temperature than actual thermometers? It defies logic.

[edit on 15-7-2010 by Nathan-D]

Originally posted by Nathan-D

The CCSP report is old hat (from where the graphs are from). It noted a potential discrepancy, and even they suggested it was likely a result of data issues and they note that newer corrected datasets no longer show a discrepancy

It's not from the CCSP - but from the NIPCC. Also, do you have any updated graphs?

The source is actually the CCSP, they have just taken their figures and added some labels. You can check the CCSP report if you want - CCSP is even clearly noted as the source.



And here's a figure from Santer et al. (2008; Figure 6) if you really need it:



It shows a comparison between more recent dataseries and the models. No dataseries are significantly different than models (most readily seen in B).

If these discrepancies have been "corrected" and thousands of radiosonde measurements and numerous satellite data were all just wildly inaccurate then can I see some updated graphs?

lol, do you need it in picture form? The data is described well enough in the abstracts I've posted, and I've got much better things to do than to hunt down each and every article again and capture figures for you. The Santer figure above will suffice.

You say that we should find the hotspot regardless of what causes the warming but the IPCC tell us that it is now almost beyond doubt that most of the warming of the last XX (50, is it?) years is caused by CO2. So are you saying that we should not be seeing a hotspot caused by anthropogenic influences? Very strange if you are. What matters though, is that regardless of what's supposed to cause the hotspot, there is no hotspot, and therein lies the problem.

Neither said anything like that. I said that they are two different beasties. Even if modern warming is due to something other than CO2, we would still expect to see this tropospheric hotspot - it's a consequence of adiabatic lapse rate theory.

None of the Santer's papers prove anything. He latest outing, Santer et al (2008) says that the hotspot is hidden in the "noise", although he doesn't actually find the hotspot.

That wasn't the point of the Santer article. It was to compare data and models and show they were not inconsistent for tropical tropospheric trends. Indeed, even the CCSP report concluded the issue was predominately due to data issues rather than the models.

Well, I don't know about you, but I think the simplest explanation is usually probably the right one. As I said before, all ice core data, going back 850,000 years shows that CO2 follows temperature change. It follows temperature as it declines and it follows temperature as it increases, on average by 800 years. What does this tell us? Mmm. Can you figure it out? It's a brain-taxer. It tells us that CO2 is an effect of temperature change - not the cause. This simple fact alone invalidates AGW. But hey, I guess I'm just a narrow-minded denier, right?

I've already answered the lag fallacy here. I'm not going there again. CO2 is both cause and effect.

No idea why you buy denier's tripe. Wishful-thinking? Ideological blinkers? Not really my problem.

This is what Allen & Sherwood say:

"Despite these attempts, most analyses of radiosondes continue to show less warming of the tropical troposphere since 1979 than reported at the surface."

And they use the CCSP report to support that statement. Again, more research has been done and I've outlined a pile of it earlier.

Also, Sherwood resorts to measuring the temperature via windshear. How can windshear be better at measuring temperature than actual thermometers? It defies logic.

It think it would depend how the thermometer was used.

You should have read the introduction of the paper a bit better. The paragraph directly preceding the quote you extracted would be helpful:

It has long been recognized that radiosonde temperature data
are affected by non-climatic artifacts due to station relocations,
observation time changes and radiosonde type or design changes1.
Several investigators have attempted to detect and adjust (that
is homogenize) these artefacts using a variety of tools, including
statistical procedures, station metadata, various indicators of
natural variability (such as volcanic eruptions, vertical coherence)
and forecasts from a climate data assimilation system2–6.

The radiosonde data is much less than perfect, and wind shear has been identified as one approach to overcome their limitations. Their main issue is heterogeneity, and recent methods to homogenise the radiosonde data are indicating more agreement with model projections.

[edit on 15-7-2010 by melatonin]

I've already answered the lag fallacy here. I'm not going there again. CO2 is both cause and effect.

Any evidence for this? The ice core data is pretty unambiguous - it's clearly an effect. CO2 lags temperature. There's no getting around that fact. As oceans warm they release more CO2 and as they cool they suck in more CO2 - it's simple chemistry and it's the only reason why CO2 levels rise and fall. If CO2 was a major temperature amplifier the world wouldn't have cooled dramatically in the past when CO2 levels were thousands of parts per million higher than they were today. During the Little Ice age 300 years ago CO2 levels were higher than they were in the Minoan Warming Period. Whatever warming effect CO2 has, it's clearly no match for other climatic forcings out there.

No idea why you buy denier's tripe. Wishful-thinking? Ideological blinkers? Not really my problem.

You enjoy throwing the word 'denier' around, don't you?

That wasn't the point of the Santer article. It was to compare data and models and show they were not inconsistent for tropical tropospheric trends. Indeed, even the CCSP report concluded the issue was due to data issues rather than the models.

Typical warmest. When the models don't mirror observations you immediately assume that the likely problem is with the observations and not with the independently unaudited climate models. I find it exceedingly more likely that the models aren't capturing the complexities of an ever-changing, multi-faceted climate. Many of the factors that play a big role in the climate, like cosmic rays, solar-magnetic effects, etc, are omitted from the models because they are uncertain or unpredictable. However way you look at it, the models are unreliable. I don't know about you, but I think the last thing we should be doing is basing economical policies on computer models.

The radiosonde data is much less than perfect, and wind shear has been identified as one approach to overcome their limitations. Their main issue is heterogeneity, and recent methods to homogenise the radiosonde data are indicating more agreement with models.

Are we really to believe that thousands of radiosonde observations from 1979 to 1999 are all somehow instrumentally flawed? Radiosondes are individually calibrated to 0.1C and the hotspot should be at least 1.0C so to think that they could have missed it is clutching at straws a bit. Rephrased: a lot.

I still don't see how windshear could possibly be more accurate at measuring temperatures than satellites and thermometers. Thermometers are designed to measure the temperature forgoodnesssake. It's wishful thinking to assume that windshear could accidentally be better at it, and a little desperate. Still, Sherwood gets top marks for imagination.

And no, there isn't total homogeneity, but that isn't really the point, and it's hardly surprising. None of the RSS, UAH or ERBE data agrees with the models anyway, so it makes no difference if there is homogeneity or not.

We would still expect to see this tropospheric hotspot - it's a consequence of adiabatic lapse rate theory.

Too bad there's no sign of it. And the adiabatic lapse rate is simply a measurement. It sounds impressive, but it's meaningless. Here's a good article explaining what's wrong with Santer's paper: climateaudit.org...

You should read up on Spencer, Lindzen, Douglass and Partridge, all independent studies showing that feedback factors are missing or negative. Oh, and here's another 450 peer-reviewed papers all contesting the AGW theory: wattsupwiththat.com...

It was to compare data and models and show they were not inconsistent for tropical

And the best he could come up with is that the error bars were wider than they thought.

[edit on 15-7-2010 by Nathan-D]

Originally posted by Nathan-D

I've already answered the lag fallacy here. I'm not going there again. CO2 is both cause and effect.

Any evidence for this?

Yeah, it's a greenhouse gas. This has been known since Fourier, Tyndall, and Arrhenius in the 19th century.

You enjoy throwing the word 'denier' around, don't you?

If the shoe fits...

Typical warmest. When the models don't mirror observations you immediately assume that the likely problem is with the observations and not with the independently unaudited climate models.

Bah. I said earlier that when such a conflict is apparent we can look to either data or model, or both.

It's not my simplistic thinking saying it must be one of them. And, furthermore, it's not an assumption. The evidence clearly shows that the data is problematic - even the CCSP report you provided earlier takes this line.

but I think the last thing we should be doing is basing economical polices on computer models.

Ding Ding!

Come on, are we really to believe that thousands of radiosonde observations from 1979 to 1999 are all somehow instrumentally flawed? Radiosondes are individually calibrated to 0.1C and the hotspot should be at least 2.2C so to think that they could have missed it is clutching at straws a bit. Rephrased: a lot.

Yes, that is the current scientific understanding. At this point you just seem to think that just repeating your opinion about their supposed reliability carries any weight. It doesn't, sorry.

I still don't see how windshear could possibly be more accurate at measuring temperatures than satellites and thermometers. Thermometers are designed to measure the temperature forgoodnesssake. It's wishful thinking to assume that windshear could accidentally be better at it, and a little desperate. Still, Sherwood gets top marks for imagination.

Your incredulity is not a persuasive argument. I've already said that it would obviously depend how it was measured - just wielding a 'thermometer' isn't indicative of reliable measurement. Various issues have been noted that readily question the reliability of the data, and they were noted earlier. Hence, we have better datasets that attempt to correct for biases.

And no, their isn't total homogeneity, but that isn't really the point, and it's hardly surprising. None of the RSS, UAH or ERBE data agrees with the models anyway, so it makes no difference.

It is the point. When the radiosonde data is suitably homogenised it is no longer inconsistent with the models.

Too bad there's no sign of it.

Apart from Allen & Sherwood (2008), Fu et al. (2005) and others.

And the adiabatic lapse rate is simply a measurement. It sounds impressive, but it's meaningless. Here's a good article explaining what's wrong with Santer's paper: climateaudit.org...

The adiabatic lapse rate is meaningless? lol

McIntyre is free to submit what he believes are the problems with Santer et al. to a scientific journal whenever he wants. So far he's had two years to do so. His main problem appears to be a preference to use a log-likelihood method of examining the uncertainties. Fine. He's free to publish using such a statistical approach.

It doesn't negate Santer's work.

You should read up on Spencer, Lindzen and Douglass, Partridge, all independent studies showing that feedback factors are missing or negative. Oh, and here's another 450 peer-reviewed papers all contesting the AGW theory: wattsupwiththat.com...

Not interested, sorry. As I have said numerous times, I'm not interested in getting tied up in a web of denialist bullshine.

It was to compare data and models and show they were not inconsistent for tropical

And the best he could come up with is that the error bars were wider than they initially thought. Me? Not convinced. Just yet.

No, they used the common statistical convention to assess the hypothesis of no difference: 95% CI.

lol, and I doubt you would ever be convinced. If you still have issues with CO2 being a GHG, not much prospect of being convinced by the science. Perhaps you should read Spencer, Lindzen et al. - even they can help you with you ignorance as to the GHG nature of CO2.

Ciao.

[edit on 15-7-2010 by melatonin]

Yeah, it's a greenhouse gas. This has been known since Fourier, Tyndall, and Arrhenius in the 19th century.

Good job misrepresenting my point. I didn't say it wasn't a greenhouse gas. The issue here is whether CO2 can strongly amplify temperatures and the geological record shows us that temperature has shifted consistently throughout earth's history without any abrupt change in CO2 levels. There's a very good reason why adding more carbon to the atmosphere won't make much difference. Because CO2 has a very strong logarithmic effect. The largest effect of CO2 has already happened. Whatever we add now makes less and less difference, like painting another coat of paint on the wall.

even the CCSP report you provided earlier takes this line.

So, it's okay for you to quote things out of it, as long as it agrees with your belief-system, but when other people take information out of it you say "it's too old". Double-standards, anyone?

Ding Ding!

Pointing out grammatical errors are we now? How sophisticated.

At this point you just seem to think that just repeating your opinion about their supposed reliability carries any weight. It doesn't, sorry.

No, I make a perfectly reasonable argument. The radiosondes are individually calibrated to 0.1C and the hot spot should be at least 1.0C at the very least. The only conceivable way for the radiosondes to not have detected the hotspot is if they all occurred some sort of equipment malfunction for 20 successive years. And the chances of that happening are so slim, it's barely even worth thinking about.

Your incredulity is not a persuasive argument.

Neither is yours.

wielding a 'thermometer' isn't indicative of reliable measurement.

I guess we may as well just throw thermometers away now since they apparently aren't reliable anymore and start measuring temperatures by windshear.

Hence, we have better datasets that attempt to correct for biases.

Quoting from a report saying that data is questionable doesn't qualify as proof. Anyone can string a sequence of words together. What evidence do they have specifically that these thousands of thermometer observations and numerous sets of satellite data are unreliable and shouldn't be trusted?

t is the point. When the radiosonde data is suitably homogenised it is no longer inconsistent with the models.

No two sets of data is ever going to be completely homogenised in an ever-changing climate. The point is, regardless of homogeneity, the observations still don't agree with the models.

Apart from Allen & Sherwood (2008), Fu et al. (2005) and others.

As I said, Sherwood himself admits that thermometers aren't detecting any hotspot, so he thinks we should just completely ignore them and start measuring temperature via windshear. You can't just throw 20 years of thermometer readings out the window, which is a reliable and tried-and-tested method of measuring temperature, and start measuring temperature by a highly unorthodox, untried method and expect anyone to take you seriously.

The adiabatic lapse rate is meaningless?

I'm afraid so.

Not interested, sorry. As I have said numerous times, I'm not interested in getting tied up in a web of denialist bullshine.

450 peer-reviewed studies casting doubt over the AGW theory, every single one of them "denialist bullshine?"

No, they used the common statistical convention to assess the hypothesis of no difference: 95% CI

If you say so.

If you still have issues with CO2 being a GHG.

Never once claimed that it wasn't.

It's clear we probably won't ever see eye-to-eye, so I guess we'll just agree to disagree. Still, it's been fun.

[edit on 16-7-2010 by Nathan-D]

Originally posted by Nathan-D

Yeah, it's a greenhouse gas. This has been known since Fourier, Tyndall, and Arrhenius in the 19th century.

Good job misrepresenting my point. I didn't say it wasn't a greenhouse gas. The issue here is whether CO2 can strongly amplify temperatures and the geological record shows us that temperature has shifted consistently throughout earth's history without any abrupt change in CO2 levels.

So you didn't need evidence that it was a cause as well as an effect.

even the CCSP report you provided earlier takes this line.

So, it's okay for you to quote things out of it, as long as it agrees with your belief-system, but when other people take information out of it you say "it's too old". Double-standards, anyone?

To try to use it as a sort of final word on the issue is a tad ridiculous, as science moves on pretty quickly (as the number of studies since then shows clearly). However, the point is that it was the source that you seemed to accept as authoritative, so I thought it might at least be one source you would have little issue with.

Ding Ding!

Pointing out grammatical errors are we now? How sophisticated.

Had nothing to do with grammatical errors. Just thought it would be worth highlighting, as it speaks to an issue you had earlier. I'd mark a notch for ideological.

No, I make a perfectly reasonable argument. The radiosondes are individually calibrated to 0.1C and the hot spot should be at least 1.0C at the very least. The only conceivable way for the radiosondes to not have detected the hotspot is if they all occurred some sort of equipment malfunction for 20 successive years. And the chances of that happening are so slim, it's barely even worth thinking about.

Again, even the CCSP accept the issue is likely due to data biases. If you have an issue with that, perhaps write something about how reliable radiosondes are and get it published. I'm sure they'd find your argument persuasive, lol.

I guess we may as well just throw thermometers away now since they apparently aren't reliable anymore and start measuring temperatures by windshear.

:rolleyes:

Hence, we have better datasets that attempt to correct for biases.

Quoting from a report saying that data is questionable doesn't qualify as proof. Anyone can string a sequence of words together. What evidence do they have specifically that these thousands of thermometer observations and numerous sets of satellite data are unreliable and shouldn't be trusted?

International Journal of Climatology
Volume 15 Issue 5, Pages 473 - 496

Article
Towards a consistent global climatological rawinsonde data-base
D. E. Parker, D. I. Cox
Hadley Centre, Meteorological Office, Bracknell, RG12 2SY, UK
KEYWORDS
rawinsonde data • observing practices • climatic variations
ABSTRACT
An archive of monthly temperatures, dew points, geopotentials, and winds at standard tropospheric and stratospheric levels from about 800 rawinsonde stations has been developed from routinely transmitted monthly data, and supplemented with published or national archive data. Many stations' data commence in the 1950s and the archive is continually updated. The raw data, however, contain both random and systematic errors. Quality control of random errors includes hydrostatic, wind-shear, and climatological checks, and comparisons with neighbouring stations and operational model analyses. Systematic errors in the wind speeds have resulted from the inadequately documented use of knots by some nations and metres per second by others in monthly messages. These errors are being amended by using geopotential height gradients, by comparing wind speeds reported from opposite sides of national borders, by averaging independently coded and transmitted daily data, and by the acquisition of original data from national archives. Other systematic errors result from changes of rawinsonde instrumentation, evolving operationally applied radiation and lag corrections, and changes of ascent times. Accordingly, the archive includes station histories where available, but these are far from complete. If the data are to be used in trustworthy analyses of interannual and longer term climatic variations, adjustments will need to be applied, using fully documented station histories and a knowledge of the effects of instrumental and other changes. Techniques for estimation of systematic adjustments include comparisons between neighbouring stations, comparisons with operational model analyses, the use of extended international radiosonde comparisons, and models of the thermodynamics of radiosonde instruments

Causes of differing temperature trends in radiosonde upper air data sets; Free M, Seidel DJ, JGR-A, 110 (D7): art. no. D07101 APR 6 2005

Differences between trends in different radiosonde temperature products resulting from the varying choices made by the developers of the data sets create obstacles for use of those products in climate change detection and attribution. To clarify the causes of these differences, one must examine results using a common subset of locations to minimize spatial sampling effects. When this is done for the Lanzante-Klein-Seidel (LKS) and Hadley Center (HadRT) radiosonde data sets, differences are reduced by at least one third. Differing homogeneity adjustment methods and differences in the source data are both important factors contributing to the remaining discrepancies. In contrast, subsampling the microwave sounding unit (MSU) satellite data sets according to the radiosonde coverage does not generally bring the trends in the satellite data closer to those in the radiosonde data so that adjustments and other processing differences appear to be the predominant sources of satellite-radiosonde discrepancies. Experiments in which we subsample globally complete data sets provide additional insight into the role of sampling errors. In the troposphere, spatial sampling errors are frequently comparable to the trends for 1979 1997, while in the stratosphere the errors are generally small relative to the trends. Sampling effects estimated from National Centers for Environmental Prediction reanalysis and MSU satellite data for seven actual radiosonde networks show little consistent relation between sampling error and network size. These results may have significant implications for the design of future climate monitoring networks. However, estimates of sampling effects using the reanalysis and the satellite data sets differ noticeably from each other and from effects estimated from actual radiosonde data, suggesting that these globally complete data sets may not fully reproduce actual sampling effects.

Luers, James K., Robert E. Eskridge, 1995: Temperature Corrections for the VIZ and Vaisala Radiosondes. Journal of Applied Meteorology, 34, 1241-1253

The National Weather Service VIZ radiosonde and the Vaisala RS-80 radiosondes are used worldwide to obtain upper-air measurements of atmospheric temperature and moisture. The temperature measured by each sensor is not equal to the atmospheric temperature due to solar and infrared irradiation of the sensor, heat conduction to the sensor from its attachment points, and radiation emitted by the sensor. Presently, only the RS-80 radiosonde applies corrections to the sensor temperature to compensate for these heating sources, and this correction is only considered to be a function of solar angle and pressure.

Temperature correction models VIZCOR (VIZ sonde) and VAICOR (Vaisala RS-80 sonde) have been developed that derive the atmospheric temperature from the sensor temperature, taking into account all significant environmental processes that influence the beat transfer to the sensor. These models have been validated by comparing their corrected profiles with atmospheric temperature profiles derived from the NASA multithermistor radiosonde. All three radiosondes were flown on the same balloon during the potential reference radiosonde intercomparison. Excellent agreement has been found between all profiles up to an altitude of 30 km. Since the significant error sources in the VIZCOR, VAICOR, and multithermistor techniques are largely independent, agreement between all profiles implies that the corrected sensor profiles are providing an unbiased estimate of the true atmospheric temperature.

Just a few, there's more.

As I said, Sherwood himself admits that thermometers aren't detecting any hotspot, so he thinks we should just completely ignore them and start measuring temperature via windshear. You can't just throw 20 years of thermometer readings out the window, which is a reliable and tried-and-tested method of measuring temperature, and start measuring temperature by a highly unorthodox, untried method and expect anyone to take you seriously.

You don't even see the contradiction in your approach do you?

"Quoting from a report saying that data is questionable doesn't qualify as proof. Anyone can string a sequence of words together."

Windshear has a relationship with atmospheric temperature, without contamination from some problems.

I'm afraid so.

lol

450 peer-reviewed studies casting doubt over the AGW theory, every single one of them "denialist bullshine?"

Dude, as I said I know the denialist MO. You are already twisting and turning on this one issue, and now also the lag fallacy.

Why the hell would I want to give you more BS to throw?

If you say so.

lol, I guess statistics isn't your forte.

It's clear we probably won't ever see eye-to-eye, so I guess we'll just agree to disagree. Still, it's been fun.

When you have such issues with clear evidence, I doubt we would. And it's always fun to watch denialists twist themselves into knots.

Cheers.

[edit on 16-7-2010 by melatonin]

As I couldn't fit it in...

Alice laughed. `There's no use trying,' she said `one can't believe impossible things.'

`I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. `When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.'

The Evolution of a Denier's Argument

Honestly, dude, I'm not interested in chasing after you. I can't even pin you down on this, why the hell would I want to move on to other zombie memes like the lag fallacy? I'm well-versed on the denier's MO.

Well, I don't know about you, but I think the simplest explanation is usually probably the right one. As I said before, all ice core data, going back 850,000 years shows that CO2 follows temperature change. It follows temperature as it declines and it follows temperature as it increases, on average by 800 years. What does this tell us? Mmm. Can you figure it out? It's a brain-taxer. It tells us that CO2 is an effect of temperature change - not the cause. This simple fact alone invalidates AGW. But hey, I guess I'm just a narrow-minded denier, right?

"It tells us that CO2 is an effect of temperature change - not the cause. This simple fact alone invalidates AGW."

So I respond:

I've already answered the lag fallacy here. I'm not going there again. CO2 is both cause and effect.

Which is answered by:

Any evidence for this? The ice core data is pretty unambiguous - it's clearly an effect. CO2 lags temperature. There's no getting around that fact. As oceans warm they release more CO2 and as they cool they suck in more CO2 - it's simple chemistry and it's the only reason why CO2 levels rise and fall. If CO2 was a major temperature amplifier the world wouldn't have cooled dramatically in the past when CO2 levels were thousands of parts per million higher than they were today. During the Little Ice age 300 years ago CO2 levels were higher than they were in the Minoan Warming Period. Whatever warming effect CO2 has, it's clearly no match for other climatic forcings out there.

So the argument is slowly shifting. I still stick to answering the first question asking for any evidence that CO2 is also a cause (of temperature changes):

Yeah, it's a greenhouse gas. This has been known since Fourier, Tyndall, and Arrhenius in the 19th century.

And then I'm charged with misrepresentation, lol:

Good job misrepresenting my point. I didn't say it wasn't a greenhouse gas. The issue here is whether CO2 can strongly amplify temperatures and the geological record shows us that temperature has shifted consistently throughout earth's history without any abrupt change in CO2 levels. There's a very good reason why adding more carbon to the atmosphere won't make much difference. Because CO2 has a very strong logarithmic effect. The largest effect of CO2 has already happened. Whatever we add now makes less and less difference, like painting another coat of paint on the wall.

So if CO2 is a GHG, then it causes temperature change - it's definitive. Yet what was the original point - the hook?

Honestly, dude, I'm not interested in chasing after you. I can't even pin you down on this, why the hell would I want to move on to other zombie memes like the lag fallacy? I'm well-versed on the denier's MO.

Well, I don't know about you, but I think the simplest explanation is usually probably the right one. As I said before, all ice core data, going back 850,000 years shows that CO2 follows temperature change. It follows temperature as it declines and it follows temperature as it increases, on average by 800 years. What does this tell us? Mmm. Can you figure it out? It's a brain-taxer. It tells us that CO2 is an effect of temperature change - not the cause. This simple fact alone invalidates AGW. But hey, I guess I'm just a narrow-minded denier, right?

So the claim of the lag fallacy is that because CO2 follows temperature in the ice-cores, this means that CO2 is not a cause of temperature change. Indeed, in the minds of some this 'invalidates' AGW.

And by the end of the discussion of this particular point, it is me who has supposedly misrepresented the original fallacious claim which rapidly became part of an shifting and contradictory argument.

As I said, dude, I know the denier's MO. It's like nailing jello to the wall.

Ciao.

[edit on 16-7-2010 by melatonin]

reply to post by melatonin


Looks like your trying to convince yourself now...

Originally posted by ken10
reply to post by melatonin

 

Looks like your trying to convince yourself now...

It was never really an open honest two-way discussion, and that was clear very early on. Although, I just didn't have word space in the last post.

The problem with deniers is that they have little self-awareness. So I thought I'd help the dude out with my perception (the shifting, twisting, contradictory nature) of how he has played this discussion.

A sort of teaching moment. I doubt it will register.

Maybe it'd be best just to answer the question in the op.
The answer is never. People will kill themselves off in other far more efficient ways. weather changes are easily adapted to by those clever enough to notice, there is no reason to beleive the weather will be any more evil than any more benign just cause it's warmer, becasue after all it's been much warmer for millions of years, the dinos having had hybrid powered vehicles from the jump..