Global Warming, Full Quivers, and Social Irresponsibility

[Bravus]

Can I be bothered even taking these on? Yeah, it's a slow Sunday afternoon, I already did some work this morning, we have guests coming over this evening, and my girls are watching a movie, so yeah, I have time. And a cool drink. Here goes (for those who are still listening rather than cutting and pasting what supports their position):

The cause is oceans heating, not greenhouse gases.

This is the heading and thesis statement, so I won't argue with it a lot, except to say that it's tautological: the cause of heating is heating? Nup, sorry. He claims in the more detailed article that the cause of the heating is geothermal energy from the earth's core, which it least is a testable hypothesis.

OK, so before I address these points one by one, please read this page from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. These are the people who have the actual data, and the people who really understand climates. And they're an arm of the US government, under Bush, so I think we can fairly safely say that they're not going to have a pro-environmental axe to grind. I'm assuming they're impartial scientists. (The author of these 13 points that Cyberguy posted come from is a biologist, not a climate scientist.)

http://lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/globalwarming.html

1. How could oceans be heating so much, and the air so little, if carbon dioxide were the cause?

The air *is* heating and so are the oceans. Both sea surface temperatures and atmospheric temperatures are rising. The climate models predict some cooling in the upper atmosphere, and we're also seeing that. In other words, this first point is simply wrong on fact.

2. All ice ages begin exactly as the present warming of the globe, and the process has nothing to do with carbon dioxide.

Not sure where the evidence for this claim arises. The author does not adduce any or explain the claim further, except to show a graph of ocean temperatures, that does indeed show cycles of heating and cooling. The graph does not provide any causal explanation, however.

3. There is not a scientifically valid mechanism for carbon dioxide causing global warming. A lot of scientists tried to say so, but they were silenced by frauds.

'Silenced by frauds' or 'silenced as frauds'? I suspect the latter is what he meant, and the former is just a happy Freudian slip. Yes, there is a scientifically valid mechanism for carbon dioxide causing global warming: absorption and re-radiation/release of UV rays from the earth that would otherwise move out into space. The calculations that the author goes through in his full article are badly flawed... but I'll get that in a minute.

4. The reason why CO2 levels in the atmosphere have been increasing is because warmer oceans release more.

It's quite possible that this is *a* reason for increased levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. There are a number of possible contributing factors, and it is true that warmer water can hold less dissolved CO2 (try opening a warm bottle of fizzy mineral water and see what happens). But the gigatons of carbon dioxide added by humans every year, combined with massive deforestation, also add dramatically to atmospheric CO2: as the NOAA site says, we are already at levels of CO2 in the atmosphere not seen in the past 420,000 years (if you believe in those time spans), which blows the author's theory that this is part of a regular cycle repeated many times in that period out of the (ocean) water.

5. The hottest years on record are localized effects due to ice melting in the Arctic plus unrelated high pressure parked over the Rockies. The total global average air temperature, as measured by satellite, is slight cooling due to increased cloud cover.

Umm, that's a bit Americocentric isn't it? So the high pressure over the Rockies caused the record hot summers in Europe last year? Anyway, weather is not climate, and a single summer does not make us swallow (sorry). No-one who understands climate is claiming that 'this summer is hot so therefore climate change is real'.

On the satellite data there are a couple of things. As noted above, some upper atmospheric cooling is predicted by the model - as heat is kept closer to the surface by greenhouse gases it doesn't get away from the surface to satellite level. The other point is that there was a myth about satellite readings that went around for a long time among climate skeptics, but has been thoroughly debunked.

6. Everything in the atmosphere is a greenhouse gas including water vapor which is a hundred times more prevalent than carbon dioxide. People are given the false impression that it's all about CO2.

Absolutely true. A major failing of climate change education and science education, which we're trying to fix. Water vapor is a significant greenhouse gas. Methane is an even scarier one, because it's a much stronger greenhouse gas than CO2, and because melting tundras may well release a lot of it as climate change goes on, leading to 'positive forcings' and accelerating the effects.

But the bottom line is, CO2 is the one we're responsible for - we caused it, we control it, we can do something about it. That's not true for any of the other greenhouse gasses.

7. The latest claim is that humans are putting 8.3 giga tons of carbon into the air per year, which is one percent of the 750 giga tons in the air. If one percent per year were relevant, natural variations would have been catastrophic long ago.

What does NOAA say?

"There is no scientific debate on this point. Pre-industrial levels of carbon dioxide (prior to the start of the Industrial Revolution) were about 280 parts per million by volume (ppmv), and current levels are about 370 ppmv. The concentration of CO2 in our atmosphere today, has not been exceeded in the last 420,000 years, and likely not in the last 20 million years. According to the IPCC Special Report on Emission Scenarios (SRES), by the end of the 21st century, we could expect to see carbon dioxide concentrations of anywhere from 490 to 1260 ppm (75-350% above the pre-industrial concentration)."

One percent per year doesn't seem like a lot... until you do it for a lot of years. We've had cars for over 100 years, and electric power, and lots of sources of CO2. 280 ppm to 370 ppm is a 32%, and without change we're looking at a 100% increase some time this century. That's significant, not insignificant.

8. The amount of CO2 presently in the air absorbs nearly all available radiation at its peaks of 2.7, 4.3 and 15 µM; so more CO2 cannot absorb more radiation.

Nope, this is just scientifically flawed too. It's a claim without evidence. His discussion comes back to his (already discredited) claim that humans are only responsible for 3% of the CO2, when the figure is over 30%, and he assumes that once a CO2 molecule has absorbed a heat photon it holds it indefinitely. In fact it re-radiates it, or else loses the energy by collision, very rapidly. He also uses a statistical measure of absorption (the 10m figure) to make an argument about convection... but all convection does is move the heat around, not dissipate it.

9. The oceans regulate CO2 in the atmosphere to the minutest detail, as indicated by an El Nino in the Pacific Ocean, which causes CO2 measurements in the air to increase, and then they renormalize when the El Nino disappears.

The earth is definitely fearfully and wonderfully made, and its systems, including those in the ocean, are astonishing. But there's no evidence that the oceans are able to completely absorb the kind of shock we're giving them. What they will tend to do, rather than come back to status quo, is find a new equilibrium point, likely at a higher atmospheric CO2 concentration. That will still be adaptive for life on earth and in the oceasns, but will dramatically change land use patterns across the globe.

10. The oceans are heating up, and the atmosphere is not. The result is polar ice caps melting and increased rainfall. This points to a hot spot in the earth's core heating the oceans, not human activity.

Already debunked about the atmosphere not heating up - it is. Net rainfall/precipitation, as far as I know, has not changed, but the distribution has changed dramatically, leading to more droughts in some areas and more floods in others. This is as predicted by global climate change models.

11. Measurements show ice increasing over land, but not over oceans, at Antarctica and Greenland due to increased precipitation as snowfall. This means sea levels will soon be falling, not rising.

Wrong for a couple of reasons. Firstly, ice over land in some areas is increasing but in others it's decreasing. Seen some glacier photos from Europe and the US and even the Himalayas lately? And the Antarctic sea ice is decreasing rapidly, faster even than the models predicted. But secondly, most of the increase in sea level that is predicted is not predicated on melting ice at all, but on the expansion of the ocean water itself as it warms. If this guy's model *were* correct (ocean heating from a geothermal hot spot) it would predict rising ocean levels too.

12. Science is not an opinion, it's a measurement. But no one is describing the measurements which have been solidifying the claim that humans cause global warming through carbon dioxide, because there is none. Solidifying opinions without measurements is propaganda, not science.

Um, no, science is not 'a measurement'. (I publish academic articles on the philosophy of science, so I'm happy to debate this one any day.) Science is the human activity of the development and testing of theories based on empirical evidence. Measurements contribute to science, but they don't constitute it.

He's correct that there is not a single measurement that says 'humans cause global warming through carbon dioxide'. There are, however, measurements that say 'humans are releasing large amounts of carbon dioxide', 'carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are increasing' and 'the earth's mean temperature is rising (i.e. global warming is occurring)'. There is a plausible body of theory, currently being tested, that correlates those different measurements. That body of theory also takes in other measurements such as those of sunspot activity and incoming solar energy, movement of ocean currents and climatic phenomena such as El Nino and La Nina.

The other point to be addressed here is that climate change is not purely science, but on the cusp between science and technology. Technology essentially is causing the problem, and technology will be crucial in solving it. Technology is about optimisation... and our best assumptions, and best chance of doing something positive about climate change, is to address our CO2 emissions in a serious way.

13. Seventeen thousand scientists signed a petition saying humans producing carbon dioxide is not the cause of global warming.

This is an interesting point to make when juxtaposed with the author's preceding point. Does this petition count as a scientific measurement? Or is it propaganda?

The article linked to is from 1998, nearly a decade ago, when the science had progressed much less far than it has now. The petition was specifically in opposition to the (economic effects of) the Kyoto Protocol, which was one particular political attempt to address climate change. It would be interesting to go back to those 17,000 scientists now and see whether they still feel the same way... but even if they do, they need to provide some strong evidence and a plausible mechanism.

Incidentally, while you're at the author's site, have a look at some of his views on other parts of science... He doesn't believe in relativity, for example.

[bevin]

Thanks for all the effort, Bravus

/Bevin

[Dr. Shane]

No computer crashes during that? Thanks, looks like it took a lot of time.

[there buster]

Quote:

Does this petition count as a scientific measurement? Or is it propaganda?

Quote:

When a religious person says "I believe" it means "regardless of the evidence I won't change my mind ..."

When a scientific person says "I believe" it means "my understanding of the currently available evidence, subject to change as the evidence or the analysis changes, is ..."

Apparently, it depends upon which position they support.

[CyberGuy]

The point is that other planets Mars and Jupiter are also going through a global warming phase as well. We have space probes at both these planets and they are heating up as well. Solar wind activity is also way up as the sun spews out more solar activity.

The evidence is strong that the sun is behind the warming up of the planets as well as earth. It has happened in the past and it is happening now. To blindly saw man is solely responsible for that is foolish. Partly maybe but not enough to account to the rapic heating up that has happened in the past 20 years.

It will not last. The planet will go back into a mini ice age and then people will be screaming for us to do something to stop that. Our planet is on a warming trend. It will go back to a cooling trend. How long this warming trend will last only God knows. However if you read Revelation and one of the plagues is that the sun was given power to scorch men with fire tells us that this warming trend will only get worse.

Revelation 16

16:8 And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun; and power was given unto him to scorch men with fire.

16:9 And men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the name of God, which hath power over these plagues: and they repented not to give him glory.

[Dr. Shane]

I think the point of environmentalists isn't to deny the role the sun plays. Rather it is to emphasis the role man plays because that is the only thing we can do anything about.

I am in favor of limitted CO2 emissions but in a fair way that will spread the burden accross the world fairly and not punish selected nations.

[Bravus]

Cyberguy - did you read the NOAA page? They looked specifically at the solar activity question, and said that it is a real but small factor and that carbon dioxide increase is a far larger factor. At this point, in the face of the evidence, it looks as though you're clutching at straws.

Ed - I'm sure you know you've taken quotes from both me and bevin in that post... and I want to add that I don't hold bevin's views on that point. I do believe scientists change their views in accordance with the evidence, however, which is why I wondered what those 17,000 scientists would say now. Reading their statement, they did not say 'global warming is definitely not caused by carbon dioxide'. They said 'there is no evidence that is compelling enough to make the necessary sacrifices worthwhile' (my paraphrase). But the preponderance of the evidence has changed in the past decade.

Shane, I agree about the idea of fairly sharing the sacrifices that need to be made* to combat climate change. I don't think it's about 'punishing' any countries, but it would require more work in a situation where Americans use 25% of the world's energy with 5% of the world's population.

*As it turns out, from lots of other experiences, being forced to innovate and find alternatives may well yield to much *better* lifestyles on earth, if the energy (no pun intended) is channelled energetically into finding better energy alternatives than fossil fuels

[CyberGuy]

You do not consider all the evidence Bevin

[CyberGuy]

Except you are not taking into consideration that Mars and Jupiter are also heating up at the same time as Earth. Since man has not landed on either of these planets we are not responsible for that. Also solar winds are 2 and half times greater now than it was 10 years ago. I think this is not a coinsidence.

Also one of the web sites did point out that the warmer the oceans get the less CO2 they can absorb.

Seaweed do not live well in warm waters. During El Nineos the plantin dies off in the coast of California. I have read where it is estimated that Sea weed produce an estimated 70 percent of the planets oxygen. When one swims though a seaweed forest it is bubbling with Oxygen bubbles. Those plants do die off during warmer El Nineo currents but grow back when the water gets cold again.

Maybe this is why the CO2 levels are higher now.

[Bravus]

This is part of the reason, yes. But what exactly *do* you think is happening to the 8.5 gigatons (8,500,000,000,000 tons) of CO2 that even that skeptical guy above stated humans are releasing a year? It all has to go somewhere.

[CyberGuy]

Then what is heating up the rest of the planets? CO2 as well? And if so where is that coming from?

[Bravus]

It's possible for the answer to be 'both'. That is, I'm not saying extra solar energy is *not* causing heating on earth. It is causing some of the heating, and it is causing the heating on the other planets. But it's not causing all the heating - extra CO2 in the atmosphere is causing some too. And as it happens that's what is causing the majority. It's really not that hard to model the effects and evaluate their relative sizes.

[there buster]

Quote:

One of the most valuable and heavily-referenced "paleoclimate data sets" (data used to infer long-term climate change) is the Vostok ice core data. In January 1998, a collaborative ice-drilling project between Russia, the United States, and France at the Russian Vostok station in East Antarctica yielded the deepest ice core ever recovered, reaching a depth of 3,623 m (nearly 12,000 feet). The ice was deposited in layer upon layer, like dirt where the Grand Canyon intersects, each representing a year. The lowest layers were deposited about 400,000 years ago.

Ice cores are valuable because they contain tiny gas bubbles whose composition can be measured. CO2 is measured directly using a gas chromatograph, while temperature is estimated from concentrations of two gases, deuterium and Oxygen-18.

Early Vostok data analysis looked at samples centuries apart, and concluded (correctly) that there is a very strong relationship between temperatures and CO2 concentrations. The conclusion for many was obvious: when CO2 goes up, temperatures go up, and vice-versa. This became the basis for a number of scary-looking graphs in books by the scientist Stephen Schneider, former Vice President Al Gore, and others, predicting a much warmer future (since most scientists agree that CO2 will continue to go up for some time).

Well, it's not as simple as that. When the Vostok data were analyzed for much shorter time periods (decades at a time rather than centuries), something different emerged. H. Fischer and coauthors reported in Science (283: 1712-1714, 1999) that "the time lag of the rise in CO2 concentrations with respect to temperature change is on the order of 400 to 1000 years." In other words, CO2 changes are caused by temperature changes! Many other recent studies have shown similar results. Studies by Indermuhle et al (2000), Monnin et al (2001), and Mudelsee et al (2001) indicated a lag of 800-1500 years between temperature and CO2.

emphasis added

[Dr. Shane]

Quote:

And as it happens that's what is causing the majority.

I am all for reducing CO2 emissions but how can we measure how much of the heating is beng caused by the sun and how much by CO2 levels?

[Bravus]

The climate scientists admit there is a lot of uncertainty, which is good science on their part, but the comment on the NOAA site is:

Quote:

Since our entire climate system is fundamentally driven by energy from the sun, it stands to reason that if the sun's energy output were to change, then so would the climate. Since the advent of space-borne measurements in the late 1970s, solar output has indeed been shown to vary. There appears to be confirmation of earlier suggestions of an 11 (and 22) year cycle of irradiance. With only 20 years of reliable measurements however, it is difficult to deduce a trend. But, from the short record we have so far, the trend in solar irradiance is estimated at ~0.09 W/m2 compared to 0.4 W/m2 from well-mixed greenhouse gases. There are many indications that the sun also has a longer-term variation which has potentially contributed to the century-scale forcing to a greater degree. There is though, a great deal of uncertainty in estimates of solar irradiance beyond what can be measured by satellites, and still the contribution of direct solar irradiance forcing is small compared to the greenhouse gas component. However, our understanding of the indirect effects of changes in solar output and feedbacks in the climate system is minimal. There is much need to refine our understanding of key natural forcing mechanisms of the climate, including solar irradiance changes, in order to reduce uncertainty in our projections of future climate change. (my added emphasis)

So their best estimate is 0.09 watts per square metre from solar radiance change compared to 0.4 watts from greenhouse gases. That's just over 4 times as great an effect from the greenhouse gases as from the sun, so even if both estimates were out by 100% in the direction that reduced the difference (i.e. the solar radiance was 100% bigger at 0.18 and the greenhouse effect 100% smaller at 2.0) the two effects would then be about the same size, with the greenhouse effect slightly predominant. On the other hand, if it went the other way, the greenhouse contribution could be 16x the solar. So, on the admittedly limited science we have, yes there is a solar effect (which accounts for the changes on the other planets), but the CO2 effect is larger.

And, as has been said repeatedly, that's the one we can do something about.

[Bravus]

Report on the latest science on climate change

Really, at this point you have to be a conspiracy theorist to keep claiming that either (a) climate change is not happening or ( human activities are not a siginificant cause. Given the level and type of evidence presented, only believing that there is a massive worldwide scientific and governmental conspiracy will explain it otherwise.

[Dr. Shane]

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm, [thinking to himself] Could Bravus be part of this global, scientific conspiracy?

[Bravus]

[there buster]

Yes, we've been warming since the "little Ice Age."

But the cause(s) are unclear.

Most of the warming in the 20th century was before 1950, while most of the CO2 was released after.

Yes, the ice on the western peninsula of antarctica is melting; but the ice on antarctica as a whole is increasing.

No, there's no "conspiracy," but there is an impulse toward government control over people's lives.

The evidence against the popular theory is always ignored or discounted-- like the ice cores that show temperature increase preceding rises in CO2.

We get headlines about melting ice in one spot, while the overall increase is ignored. Public opinion is being herded in one direction for political, not scientific purposes.

THE VERY SAME people trumpeting global warming today were warning of global cooling thirty years ago, using the same data. THE ONLY THING in common with the two predictions is the accompanying call for government to take increasing control of people's lives.

The fact that so-called environmentalists continually need to distort the evidence is enough to discredit them.

For example:2003-2005 were the lowest ozone levels on record in America. 2004 was THE lowest year, 2005 the second-lowest. Did environmentalists celebrate? No.

Headlines--stimulated by press releases--trumpeted the INCREASE (the very slight increase) from 2004 (the LOWEST ON RECORD) to 2005. "Ozone increases, environmentalists warn."

[there buster]

Quote:

Really, at this point you have to be a conspiracy theorist to keep claiming that either (a) climate change is not happening or ( human activities are not a siginificant cause.

Really, that's just a form of manipulation. If you label your opponents, you can ignore their evidence.

[annie]

Here's a thought if the evil are to be destroyed by the brightness of His coming...........maybe things are going to start to "warm up!" Look up your redemption draweth nigh!

annie

[CyberGuy]

So what to do about Global warming? There is a plan to have 10 percent of our fuel for cars be ethanol which is an alcohol from corn. So we turn food into fuel which will take food from the mouths of the hungry world.

We could go to more hybrid cars which run on electric and gas motors. But Batteries only last 10 years. To replace those batteries every 10 years would cost about $10,000 which is more than the average family could afford. Not to mention the problem of what to do with those spent batteries.

Consumer reports says that it is not economical to buy a hybrid vehicle. An average driver would not recover the cost in saved cost of fuel vs the additional cost of the hybrid vs a conventional car for five to ten years depending on how much one drives then by then it would be time to replace the batteries.

[Bravus]

Agreed, there are no easy answers, and none that cost the same as present solutions... fossil fuels are an articially cheap form of energy, but are non-renewable, and our current pricing models don't take into effect the environmental costs (estimated as in the trillions).

There are numerous parts to the solution. One is to recognise that transport is only one part of our energy use, and not the majority. Doing something about coal and oil burning power stations, like using lots of wind and solar and perhaps tidal and geothermal power would make a huge difference. Nuclear energy may need to be looked at again.

In terms of cars there is the need for massive research to find better ways of making them more efficient, both short term more efficient petrol burners and longer term electric cars or other solutions. Using the present 'state of the art' of battery technology as an argument against moving forward fails to recognise the dramatic improvements that have already occurred and can occur in future. Hydrogen fuel cells are also a solution that could work in cars if we could find carbon-neutral and sustainable energy sources like solar and wind to make the hydrogen.

The basic problem is that our energy is too cheap, because it has massive environmental costs that we've been ignoring and passign on to our kids. Of course those on the right politically are going to want to keep energy cheap, because they see industry and the economy and growth as virtues. I would say that in many ways those things *are* virtues, but not at the expense of others... which is what it boils down to when the environment is despoiled.

[bevin]

Quote:

massive environmental costs that we've been ignoring and passing on to our kids

The fundamental flaw in the pure-capitalism model is the inability to correctly calculate and compensate for all the costs. That the 5% of the world population in the USA/Australia/... are causing environmental damage is simply ignored. There is no court that a Bangla-Desh farmer can go to to claim for damages caused by some power station in Perth.

For cars, the solution is well known and obvious - live close together in cities with efficient mass transport. Of course that means my wife and I have to move out of our 2 acres semi-rural huge house into some apartment...

Every generation has pillaged the earth, from 40,000 years ago when aborigines in Australia wiped out their big animal species to today where the polar bears face extinction.

But we Christians know that Jesus is coming soon, and He doesn't care how polluted the Earth is, just so long as His people cling fast to their unscientific beliefs about the origins of the Earth and the supreme importance of not drinking coffee.

Christianity in general, and SDA'ism in particular, have a long and proud history of actively attempting to discredit science except when it can be cherry-picked to support some cherished position - if necessary by backing wackos. Don't expect its adherents to treat this issue any differently.

/Bevin

[Dr. Shane]

Capitalism will solve the problem more efficiently than government if there is a financial incentive for them to do so. Government's role to create such financial incentives will make the progress move faster.

The developed world does contribute much more of its share of greenhouse gases than the developing world. However if the governments of these developed countries create laws that overly burden industry, those industries will relocate to developing countries without such laws. The fact of the matter is that developing countries actively recruit industry out of developed countries by enticing them with the lack of regulation. So the effort to decrease greenhouse gases has to be an international effort with international consequences for nations that do not comply.

Solar and wind technology have a long way to go. However som politicians, like George W. Bush get that. When governor of Texas, George Bush began an aggressive wind generation programs that adds more and more wind turbines every year. Thus a financial incentive is created for that industry. Much can be improved in the generation technology of the actual turbines that create the power. Solar power too has a long way to go. It takes hundreds of acres of solar panels to generate what coal or natural gas plant can generate on one city block. In addition, the parts and equipment are more expensive for these alternative energy sources.

It all has potential but needs to be stepped up into mass production to reduce the cost. That will only happen when there are financial incentives. That is one of the benefits of high oil prices. They make other forms of energy more attractive.