Originally posted by JonF
View Post
Announcement
Collapse
Natural Science 301 Guidelines
This is an open forum area for all members for discussions on all issues of science and origins. This area will and does get volatile at times, but we ask that it be kept to a dull roar, and moderators will intervene to keep the peace if necessary. This means obvious trolling and flaming that becomes a problem will be dealt with, and you might find yourself in the doghouse.
As usual, Tweb rules apply. If you haven't read them now would be a good time.
Forum Rules: Here
As usual, Tweb rules apply. If you haven't read them now would be a good time.
Forum Rules: Here
See more
See less
Warming Then And Now?
Collapse
X
-
Last edited by seer; 07-02-2014, 01:14 PM.
-
Originally posted by Leonhard View PostSorry for the pause in writing, I'm super busy with my thesis writing. Had to pull an all nighter.
Its true that the inevitable change from fossil fuels to solar power is going to be costly, but it'll be amortized over a three quarters of a century. Its something we'll have to do anyway, and the sooner we start doing it, the cheaper its going to be. Even if there's a hundred more years of cheap oil (which there isn't), then why wait until the last moment? Putting in research today, and moving forward will allow us elbow room to do it gracefully. Currently a lot of companies are starting to figure out how to do this more cheaply, but in the beginning the initial research came from government investment.
That time is starting to be over though. In roughly ten years solar power is projected to be significantly cheaper than coal power (even without government subsidies) and at that point market forces will drive home the changes. We'll be doubling world production of batteries in five years time. Its starting to become affordable.
Unlike fossil fuels whose prices are only ever going to rise, solar power doesn't have a lower limit to how cheap it will be. Some of the solar panel designs coming out now can in principle run for half a decade producing 80% of the power it did when it was originally installed. No maintaince cost once installed, they earn themselves home more than a dozen times, which is better the oil EROEI (Energy Returned On Energy Invested). It takes one barrel of oil worth of energy to dig up seven.
The fact that we might also save untold trillions of dollars in environmental damage is an added reason to do it. You (seer) say that it might not be bad, but why take the gamble?
Leave a comment:
-
Sorry for the pause in writing, I'm super busy with my thesis writing. Had to pull an all nighter.
Originally posted by seer View PostThen there is the idea of us in the west hobbling our economies when those in Asia, India, Africa refuse to do so. No only will that undermine our economy, our efforts, from what I read, will have little or no effect without these other countries coming aboard.
That time is starting to be over though. In roughly ten years solar power is projected to be significantly cheaper than coal power (even without government subsidies) and at that point market forces will drive home the changes. We'll be doubling world production of batteries in five years time. Its starting to become affordable.
Unlike fossil fuels whose prices are only ever going to rise, solar power doesn't have a lower limit to how cheap it will be. Some of the solar panel designs coming out now can in principle run for half a decade producing 80% of the power it did when it was originally installed. No maintaince cost once installed, they earn themselves home more than a dozen times, which is better the oil EROEI (Energy Returned On Energy Invested). It takes one barrel of oil worth of energy to dig up seven.
The fact that we might also save untold trillions of dollars in environmental damage is an added reason to do it. You (seer) say that it might not be bad, but why take the gamble?Last edited by Leonhard; 07-02-2014, 11:51 AM.
Leave a comment:
-
Originally posted by rwatts View PostThe link under the "not born out by the observations" comment, does not work.
Note as well that he does accept that this could be a partial explanation.
Leave a comment:
-
Originally posted by seer View Post
Note as well that he does accept that this could be a partial explanation.
Leave a comment:
-
Originally posted by rwatts View PostI think the hiatus has been put down to an increase in heat take up by the oceans - a problem in its own right:-
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articl...10/3941061.htm
I don't know if you are aware of this, because I have not read all of your's and seer's exchange. I just noted some questioning about the importance of the slowdown.
http://www.thegwpf.org/pacific-pause/
One of the problems with the conclusions drawn from the output of England et al’s climate models is that their predicted increase in sub-surface ocean temperature between 100m and 300m below sea level is not born out by the observations. Another interesting question is, why did the Pacific winds change just after the strongest El Nino seen? Another question is if the rise in global surface temperature seen between 1910 – 40 is also related to the Pacific trade winds.
In any case, the trade winds theory is only a partial explanation for the pause giving a modelled cooling of 0.11 deg C by 2012 whereas it would require 0.2-0.3 deg C to explain the pause completely...
...The best thing about this paper is that it leads to a specific prediction: When the Pacific winds desist global temperature should increase rapidly, by about 0.5 deg C in a decade – an unprecedented amount.
Leave a comment:
-
Originally posted by Leonhard View Post...
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articl...10/3941061.htm
I don't know if you are aware of this, because I have not read all of your's and seer's exchange. I just noted some questioning about the importance of the slowdown.
Leave a comment:
-
Originally posted by Poor Debater View Post.....................
A few days ago (post #23) you wrote (with a tone of disbelief and sarcasm, I might add):
"Nothing I have seen proves that at all. Please enlighten us with the exact nature of your evidence."
I provided for you some of that evidence (there's much more).
How do you respond?
You carry on as if the evidence did not exist, that's how.
Yup, "Poor Debater" indeed!
Jorge
Leave a comment:
-
Originally posted by Poor Debater View PostAnd we have, in the long term. Temperatures have risen markedly over the 20th century, and over the latter half of the 20th century. But surface temperatures are, as I said, a noisy dataset. It's a mistake to think rising CO2 will mean rising temperatures every single year. Think of it as a man walking a dog on a long leash. The straight path of the man is CO2; the wandering path of the dog is surface temperatures. In the short term the dog can wander all over the place, but in the long term, the dog has to go where the man goes.
So, considering the possibility of having a car crash is uncertain, would you feel comfortable buying a car without airbags or seat belts? Because you could save money that way. Or maybe that's just false economy, when you consider that that consequences of being wrong are so incredibly disastrous. And I would also be very interested to know why you believe a Pigovian tax undermines free market principles, when even conservative economists admit that it does not.
The overall rise in ocean heat content is due to increased greenhouse effect caused by increased CO2 in the atmosphere. If ocean cycles like La Niña are removing heat from the surface at a more rapid rate than usual, OCH will increase faster and surface temperatures will increase more slowly. We have been seeing both of those things recently, at just the same time as we have been seeing unusual La Niña activity. It's not rock-solid proof, but it seems to be a likely explanation.
The obvious way to do that is with a revenue-neutral fossil carbon tax. The overall effect on GDP would be close to zero or slightly positive. As the tax takes hold and fossil fuels are priced out of the economy, revenue from the tax would gradually drop close to zero. So the tax would be essentially self-repealing once its work was done.Last edited by seer; 06-30-2014, 12:58 PM.
Leave a comment:
-
Originally posted by seer View PostOk slow down. But we see increased Co2 from countries like India, China and Asia in general, so we should have seen a marked increase in temperature- correct?
Originally posted by seer View PostAnd I would think that we need to be more certain than you are suggesting before we start undermining free market principles and economies in general.
Or maybe that's just false economy, when you consider that that consequences of being wrong are so incredibly disastrous.
And I would also be very interested to know why you believe a Pigovian tax undermines free market principles, when even conservative economists admit that it does not.
Originally posted by seer View PostFirst, I don't know why you would link raw numbers like that.
Originally posted by seer View PostSecond, that does not answer the question. You suggested that unusual La Nina activity was the cause for the rise in ocean temperature, yet in you own chart we see a marked increase of ocean temperature before this 20 year period. Without unusual La Nina activity. If this is the reason for the "slow down" what was the cause of ocean temperature increase between the late 60s and early 90s? And the increased heating of the oceans between the late 60s and the early 90s didn't seem to offset the rise in surface temperature.
Originally posted by seer View PostWell given what you have said, it doesn't see that we have good understanding of any of this. And I'm not saying that this does make some sense. I guess the real question is, would a warmer planet really be such a bad thing or is there anything we could really do about it now - that would make a real difference, without destroying our economies.
The obvious way to do that is with a revenue-neutral fossil carbon tax. The overall effect on GDP would be close to zero or slightly positive. As the tax takes hold and fossil fuels are priced out of the economy, revenue from the tax would gradually drop close to zero. So the tax would be essentially self-repealing once its work was done.
Leave a comment:
-
Originally posted by Poor Debater View PostFirst off, you've been misinformed. The surface temperature has NOT remained flat for 17 years. The regression slope is still positive, just lower than it had been. Regarding the question of whether we "really" know or not, the scientific answer to that one is ALWAYS "no". There is no absolute proof of anything in science, and scientists are a lot more comfortable with uncertainty that the general public. In this particular case, the regression slope for the last 17 years is positive, but the 95% confidence interval for that regression slope (which is the usual limit for statistical significance) contains BOTH zero AND the previous, higher slope of the previous 17 years. For that reason I like to call it an "apparent slowdown".
But even though the apparent slowdown isn't statistically significant, it's still scientifically interesting. And yes, the reason for the apparent slowdown seems to be that the heat has been stored in the ocean. And that means it will very likely be temporary.
Normally, there is a balance between El Niño and La Niña conditions that transports surface heat at an overall rate that is predictable over the long term. During the past 20 years, ENSO has been unusually on the cool side for an unusual length of time.
Data for that chart can be found here. For the period 1967.5 to 1990.5, the increase (using linear regression) was 4 x 10^21 Joules per year. During the period 1997.5-2011.5 (the last year available), the rate of increase was twice as high.
No, simple mass balance computations prove that to be wrong. Humans have dug up, or pumped up, and burned, 360 billion tons of fossil carbon since the start of the Industrial Revolution until 2012. Those numbers come from industrial records and are not in dispute (at least as far as I know). If you burn 360 billion tons of carbon, you get 1.32 trillion tons of CO2. Divide that by the total mass of the atmosphere (5.14 x 10^9 gigatons) and you get 257 parts per million by mass, which is 169 parts per million by volume. That's what we know we've added to the air.
But when we look at ice core records from before the industrial revolution, that's not what we see. Instead of seeing an increase of 169 ppmv of CO2 in the air, we only see an increase of about 115 ppmv. So, we emitted 169 ppmv, and only 115 ppmv is still in the atmosphere -- what happened to the other 54 ppmv? It can't just vanish. And of course the answer is that the rest of it was absorbed by the soils and the oceans. BUT -- and this is the critical point -- since the soils and oceans are acting as a net sink for some of the CO2 that we create, they cannot also be acting as a net source. In other words, ALL of the CO2 increase is down on the human ledger. None of it is natural.Last edited by seer; 06-30-2014, 09:47 AM.
Leave a comment:
-
Originally posted by seer View PostFirst, I'm not quite understanding you. Are you saying that the surface temperature has remained flat these past 17 years because the heat found its way into the deep oceans? Or that we don't really know?
But even though the apparent slowdown isn't statistically significant, it's still scientifically interesting. And yes, the reason for the apparent slowdown seems to be that the heat has been stored in the ocean. And that means it will very likely be temporary.
Originally posted by seer View PostSecond, again, if so, the question arises why didn't the oceans absorb the heat of the other two warming trends in the last century? Are you suggesting that we didn't have similar El Niño or La Niña conditions in the 1930s + 40s or the 1980s and early 90s?
Originally posted by seer View PostAnd your charts don't really seem to correlate since you have a significant rise in ocean temperature from the late 60s to 1990 before your "very unusual La Niña pattern." So it seems that that increase in ocean heat had nothing to do with unusual La Nina activity.
Originally posted by seer View PostThird, your analogy on the 3% of Co2 being man made is 100% of the profit - If the 3% is a tipping point we could have not reached that point without the previous precentage of natural Co2 being added. Not that the 3% is necessarily a tipping point.
But when we look at ice core records from before the industrial revolution, that's not what we see. Instead of seeing an increase of 169 ppmv of CO2 in the air, we only see an increase of about 115 ppmv. So, we emitted 169 ppmv, and only 115 ppmv is still in the atmosphere -- what happened to the other 54 ppmv? It can't just vanish. And of course the answer is that the rest of it was absorbed by the soils and the oceans. BUT -- and this is the critical point -- since the soils and oceans are acting as a net sink for some of the CO2 that we create, they cannot also be acting as a net source. In other words, ALL of the CO2 increase is down on the human ledger. None of it is natural.
Leave a comment:
-
Originally posted by Poor Debater View PostHumans are responsible for about 3% of the annual CO2 atmospheric flux, but 100% of the CO2 atmospheric increase. Kind of like a company where one product is responsible for 3% of the revenue but 100% of the profits.
Define exactly what you mean by "excuses" and "pause" and I can give you a more exact answer.
The rate of surface temperature increase is less in the past 17 years than in the 17 years prior to that. But the difference is not statistically significant. The surface temperature record is an inherently noisy dataset, which means that it's essentially impossible to determine statistically significant trends (in either direction, up or down) from time periods as short as 17 years in surface temperatures. That's why climatologists use 30 years as a baseline.
However, there are other climatological datasets that are less noisy than surface temperatures. One of those is ocean heat content (which is where 93% of the heat goes anyway). And OHC does show a statistically significant increase over the past 17 years and even over the past 10 years.
Here's a graph of the Southern Oscillation Index, or SOI, going back to 1866. The SOI is simply the difference in air pressure between Darwin, Australia, and Tahiti.
In the short term, there are substantial swings (red line), which cause El Niño and La Niña conditions. When the pressure at Darwin is lower, trade winds are stronger, which drives the equatorial current, which pulls surface heat to the depths. When pressure at Tahiti is lower, trade winds diminish, which slows the equatorial current, which keeps heat on the surface.
Since both places are at sea level, the long-term average air pressure for both places should be the same, and the long-term difference should be the same. But notice something very odd about the long-term trend (the blue line): it stays pretty flat for decade after decade after decade, until just very recently, when it dips substantially. This is unprecedented in 150 years of records. We've been in a very unusual La Niña pattern for, well, about 20 years now.
If La Niña is driving surface heat into the deeper ocean, then as the rise in surface temperature decelerates, the rise in ocean heat content should be accelerating. And the data shows that is in fact happening.
That's not an excuse. It's an observation.
Scientists, unlike the media, always correct mistakes. That's not a bug, it's a feature. If you would prefer the errors, that's your problem.
First, I'm not quite understanding you. Are you saying that the surface temperature has remained flat these past 17 years because the heat found its way into the deep oceans? Or that we don't really know? Second, again, if so, the question arises why didn't the oceans absorb the heat of the other two warming trends in the last century? Are you suggesting that we didn't have similar El Niño or La Niña conditions in the 1930s + 40s or the 1980s and early 90s? And your charts don't really seem to correlate since you have a significant rise in ocean temperature from the late 60s to 1990 before your "very unusual La Niña pattern." So it seems that that increase in ocean heat had nothing to do with unusual La Nina activity.
Third, your analogy on the 3% of Co2 being man made is 100% of the profit - If the 3% is a tipping point we could have not reached that point without the previous precentage of natural Co2 being added. Not that the 3% is necessarily a tipping point.Last edited by seer; 06-29-2014, 02:57 PM.
Leave a comment:
-
Originally posted by Poor Debater View PostHmmm. Is the observed increase in ocean heat content part of the conspiracy? Is the observed rise in sea level part of the conspiracy? Is the observed loss of ice mass in Greenland and Antarctica part of the conspiracy? Is the observed increase in downwelling infrared in the greenhouse gas bands part of the conspiracy? Is the observed decrease in upwelling infrared from the surface to space part of the conspiracy? That's some big conspiracy you've got there.
These "observations" that you mention may or may not be so - that isn't the point.
What IS the point is what is their cause.
By the way, and to support my position, I've lived in the same city just a few miles from the Atlantic Ocean for the past 31 years. Do you know how much I've observed first-hand the sea level rising? ZERO - that's how much. The very same restaurant a few hundred feet away from the ocean that I visited in 1983 is there 2014 with no changes to it.
Listening to these fear-mongering, agenda-driven people you'd think that this restaurant would be 10 feet underwater by now. Only when we've had a hurricane does the sea "rise" but as soon as the hurricane is over its all back to normal. There's a lot of false, agenda-filled propaganda being fed to the masses, kiddo.
Nothing I have seen proves that at all. Please enlighten us with the exact nature of your evidence.
Or maybe it's just because problems addressed sooner rather than later are easier and cheaper to solve.
Not only is it not funny, it's just not true. Last year, 2013, was the 6th warmest year on record, according to NASA. So it was a top-ten year for warmth. In fact, we've had a top-ten warmest year every single year for the past 28 years in a row. The last time the world had a top-ten coldest year was 1917.
But not climatologists.
That can happen at local levels, which is what they're talking about.
The point is whether this "warming" IS CAUSED BY MAN. What if - just what if - the weather we are experiencing is due to solar cycles that would have occurred even if mankind did not put a single ounce of "greenhouse gasses" into the atmosphere?
The way I see it is that the worldwide temperature is like a mathematical series expansion in which the first term - due to solar activity (something that we cannot influence in any way) - determines 99.9% (figuratively speaking) of the final world temperatures. The next term - atmospheric content due to natural and man-made effects - accounts for the other 0.1% (again, speaking figuratively).
EDITED TO ADD:
Here are a few excerpts and references to support my position - there are hundreds more available:
"The climate change cult is so important to socialist politicians, and so protected by the media, that it survived the massive Climategate scandal, which featured the publication of emails that demonstrated climate scientists were conspiring to suppress inconvenient data. The dirty little secret of the Church of Global Warming is that its apocalyptic warnings are based entirely on computer models that can supposedly predict the future. There is very little empirical evidence to support the notion of man-made climate change, few experiments that claim to prove out any of the key hypotheses linking human activity to disastrous changes in the global environment. Not even the shibboleths taught to schoolchildren about carbon emissions and “greenhouse gas” rest on any conclusive experimental proof. Efforts to “prove” a climate surge due to Twentieth Century industrial technology, such as the famous “hockey stick” graph, have utterly collapsed under sustained inquiry. Everything else is just conjecture based on computer models, which include a variety of assumptions about the interaction of complex forces… and as the intensive data-mining of the past half century moves forward, it becomes increasingly clear that many of those assumptions are dubious, because the climate models have been almost entirely wrong. Nothing predicted in 1980 or 1990 has come to pass. The actual behavior of the real world is overwhelmingly different from what it was supposed to do."
AN EXCELLENT ARTICLE WITH PLENTY OF HARD DATA:
http://blog.heartland.org/2013/07/ex...warming-fraud/
AND HERE'S SOME MORE (AS IF IT WERE NEEDED):
"Climategate 2.0: New E-Mails Rock The Global Warming Debate
A new batch of 5,000 emails among scientists central to the assertion that humans are causing a global warming crisis were anonymously released to the public yesterday, igniting a new firestorm of controversy nearly two years to the day after similar emails ignited the Climategate scandal.
Three themes are emerging from the newly released emails: (1) prominent scientists central to the global warming debate are taking measures to conceal rather than disseminate underlying data and discussions; (2) these scientists view global warming as a political “cause” rather than a balanced scientific inquiry and (3) many of these scientists frankly admit to each other that much of the science is weak and dependent on deliberate manipulation of facts and data."
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestay...arming-debate/
In short, AGW is actually an economic-political agenda!
I'm pretty sure that I can rest my case.
Jorge
Leave a comment:
Related Threads
Collapse
Topics | Statistics | Last Post | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
Started by Hypatia_Alexandria, 03-18-2024, 12:15 PM
|
48 responses
135 views
0 likes
|
Last Post
by Sparko
03-20-2024, 09:13 AM
|
||
Started by Sparko, 03-07-2024, 08:52 AM
|
16 responses
74 views
0 likes
|
Last Post
by shunyadragon
03-08-2024, 03:12 PM
|
||
Started by rogue06, 02-28-2024, 11:06 AM
|
6 responses
48 views
0 likes
|
Last Post
by shunyadragon
03-08-2024, 03:25 PM
|
Leave a comment: