Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide - Latest WMO figures

[madbadgalaxyman]

The World Meteorological Organization has just (9 Sep 2014) released its latest report on the atmospheric concentration of Carbon Dioxide (and other greenhouse gases). The recent annual increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration (mole fraction) that has been widely reported on in today's media headlines is 2.9 parts per million between 2012 and 2013, reaching a record high CO2 concentration of 396 parts per million in 2013.

Here is the executive summary of the report:
https://www.wmo.int/pages/mediacentre/press_releases/pr_1002_en.html

And here is the WMO report itself:
https://www.wmo.int/pages/mediacentre/press_releases/documents/1002_GHG_Bulletin.pdf

While the headline figure of an 0.74 percent annual increase in CO2 concentrations in 2012-2013 is important, and this annual increase is more than previous annual increases, the broad trend with time of atmospheric CO2 concentrations since 1985 has been a steady and roughly linear increase in atmospheric concentration of CO2. The media has made much of the fact that the annual increase of CO2 concentration may have got slightly larger since 2010, but to some degree the truth (or falsehood) of this result depends on how the data is analyzed.

The report notes that the increased radiative forcing since 1990 due to the increased atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases since 1990 is very significant; it can be thought of as the equivalent of an increased energy input of about 0.7 watts per each square meter of the Earth's surface. However, I note that the actual globally-averaged surface temperature has not increased meaningfully since year 2000.

While this thread is about science, and not about politics and policy, it should be noted that costly (that is, heavily subsidized by taxpayers and consumers) CO2 emissions mitigation efforts in the economically developed countries have so far had no effect whatsoever on reducing the annual increases in atmospheric CO2 concentration.

cheers,
Robert

[Robert9]

Hi Robert,
Very interesting figures. When I was a boy back in the 1940-50s, the CO2 concentration was 0.03% or 300ppm. If we say that was 60 years ago, then the latest figures indicate a rise of ~30% in that time or, if we average it out, increasing by 0.5% pa. or 50% every 100 years. Extrapolating that number, the world could expect a CO2 concentration in ~2050 of ~0.045%.:eyepop:
(Hope my maths measures up ok :lol:)
Robert

[Renato1]

Hi Robert,
Sort of right. The USA which doesn't have much by way of emission mitigation programs, has cut its emissions significantly - mainly by using all that newly found fracking gas.

Which is kind of ironic.
Cheers,
Renato

[madbadgalaxyman]

Too right, Renato!

I don't really want to talk about the practicalities of energy generation and their consequences in this thread, but I totally agree with you.
(When I was talking of mitigation, I actually meant primarily solar, wind, and hydro)

As you say, some of the much despised and derided fossil fuels (which we are told are creating a "serious pollutant" that is apparently sending the biosphere rapidly towards its doom ) are the only energy option that have actually reduced greenhouse gas emissions so far (by burning gas instead of coal), because the 'renewables' are currently so costly that they too often end up producing a small amount of energy for a vast expenditure of money.

To give one example of a super-expansively financed green boondoggle, here is a two billion dollar facility that produces 'green' renewable energy, all very nice and none of those horrid fossil fuels, but note that it produces very little energy for the money expended:
http://www.ivanpahsolar.com/
(compare the energy output of this facility with its enormous cost)
(only 140,000 homes serviced, for a cost of two billion dollars)

But I will say no more about the politics and economics of energy, because to enter the realms of the political/moral/economic/'environmental' debate about global warming is to enter a world of zealotry, vested interests, passionate end-of-the-world believers, and also much more subtle biases, which is why I intend to keep to the climatic science itself in this thread!

cheers, Robert

Note 1:
Without the "pollutant" in question (CO2), all of the plants on our planet would die, and all the animals too, including all humans. The Carbon Dioxide "pollution" is what is essential for photosynthesis!

Note 2:
A further problem with concentrating solar thermal plants like Ivanpah, is that they literally cook many many thousands of birds (just wait for your dinner to be cooked as you stand by the mirrors in the plant, and it falls out of the sky, ready for eating)

[avandonk]

I will not argue with this as it is pathetic thoughts of people who do not know any science.

I honestly do not care as I turned 65 today.

We are trashing Our Planet. Yes even me!

Anecdotal 'evidence' is just that absolutely worthless.

If you do not believe what the experts in the field of climate science are telling you, you have a major problem with cognitive reality.

Cherry picking just does not cut it. See anecdotal.

Bert

[AstralTraveller]

Oh wow!! It's a fracking miracle; burning methane doesn't produce CO2. Either that or there is some slight-of-hand accounting.



A revelation!! Well let's increase the conc to 1% .. no let's make it 10%. If a little bit is good then more must be better. And by the same 'logic', that faint red light in the observatory might as well be a floodlight.

[madbadgalaxyman]

I wasn't really making a silly point about photosynthesis and CO2, in fact I was only criticizing the sort of people who talk about Carbon as being pollution.
However, my point about solar thermal plants cooking large quantities of birds was a serious one.

This thread is already getting people too "heated up", even though I originally hoped to have a calm discussion limited only to atmospheric science.
I thought that I had actually raised one or two serious issues, but someone in this thread has already accused me of "not knowing any science", which seems an absurdity when you look at the contents of my other posts.

[AstralTraveller]

Sorry, it didn't come across that way. It all sounded very serious.




And you're surprised ;).

[avandonk]

Here is a simple question. How much would sea level change on the shores of Greenland if all the ice on Greenland melted.

Note this is a trick question


Bert

[avandonk]

The sea level would drop on the shores of Greenland by about 200 feet due to isostatic rebound. The loss of the huge weight of the ice on Greenland would cause the land mass to rise.

The resultant melt water would flood London and all low lying regions in Europe. The USA would just say this is not happening.

Our Earth is not a bathtub. It is a very complex system.

When charlatans that claim that all the scientists in the world are part of a so called conspiracy with glib hand waving arguments that are not backed by any evidence let alone real Physics or logic. You have been had by a con artists. I call them out and out liars.

Bert

[clive milne]

Robert,
Prefacing a discussion with the terms 'scientific' and 'non-political' does not necessarily make it so. It is quite transparent that what followed was political commentary supported by inductive reasoning and was incorrect on many levels.
Frankly, I am surprised and disappointed to see it come from you of all people on this forum.

[casstony]

There's a series available on SBS on demand called 'Tipping Points' that outlines in simple terms some of the problems associated with a warming planet. The series has been aired for the last five weeks.

[madbadgalaxyman]

A Very Interesting prediction, Bert.

A situation somewhat analogous to that when an overloaded ship floats low in the water, but then it bobs up when the excess load is removed?
(with the Continental Crust "floating" on the more plastic Mantle)

Isostasy was mentioned in an introductory geology course that I did, but that discussion was in the context of the uplift and sinking of large sections of continental crust due to non-glacial events , for instance due to events occurring in the mantle (e.g. a classic case of uplift is the colossal uplift of the Colorado Plateau).

Now that I start to look through some of my geology notes, I see that there might potentially be some complicating factors in the process of modelling and predicting the future vertical response of the crust in Greenland:
(1) there may already be some existing (as of now) upwards rebound of the Greenland crust, due to the removal of significant amounts of ice at the end of the last Ice Age. I am given to understand that the so-called "post-glacial rebound" of the crust that was under an ice sheet can continue for many thousands of years after the ice sheet has melted.
(2) Because the ice sheet in Greenland varies in thickness from place to place, the amount of depression of the underlying crust should also vary; so the amount of upwards rebound should also vary from point to point in Greenland.
(3) As I mentioned above, there could be ongoing asthenosphere and mantle events that act to further modify the amount of vertical uplift.

On the one or two occasions when I did look, in detail, into the physical modelling that was done of a geological event on a very large physical scale, I was amazed what a small amount of data geologists actually had to work with; indeed it seems to be harder to get data on the physical conditions within the Earth than to figure out the physical conditions within the Sun! [ It seems to be extremely hard to figure out exactly what's going on "down there"; an example of this is the ongoing controversy about "mantle plumes" ]

Robert

[madbadgalaxyman]

In the paper: 2014, Solar Physics, 289, 3961,
Chapman & de Toma & Cookson report an observed decline in the amplitude of the peaks of the solar cycle between Cycles 22 and Cycle 24.

[[ Incidentally, this is a well-respected journal which is known for stringent peer review.
There also exist many "free public access" science journals that are funded by the researchers themselves paying for their paper to be put in, and many of these journals have turned out to be corrupt, in that they claim to be peer-reviewed but in fact they are willing to publish just about anything. ]]

I quote here the abstract of this paper:
There has been much speculation about the extended minimum between Solar Cycles 23 and 24. Cycle 24 itself has been unusually weak compared with recent cycles. We present quantitative evidence for the weakness of both Cycles 23 and, particularly, 24. The data are objective indices derived from precision photometric images obtained on a daily basis at the San Fernando Observatory. These data form the longest running, homogeneous photometric record known to us. We show sunspot areas from red images and facular/network areas from Ca ii K-line images. Spot and facular area are a simple and direct measurement of the strength of solar activity. The data clearly show the decline in the amplitude of sunspot maxima for Cycles 23 and 24 compared with Cycle 22. The relative amplitudes of mean spot area for Cycles 22 through 24 are 1.0, 0.74, and 0.37, respectively. There is also an indication that the facular-to-spot area ratio has increased in Cycle 24.

Here is the paper itself:
170200

Of course there does not have to be any causal relation whatsoever between declining solar activity and the current decline in the rate of global temperature increase, though this question does deserve investigation. The results published in this paper suggest to me that global climatic modelling is a complex problem with large numbers of incompletely-understood components that must be accounted for.

Apparently, if I say that climate scientists don't fully understand every aspect of global climate, that makes me some sort of heretic who should be shouted down and even called a scientific ignoramus. I have no trouble accepting the broad thrust of the most recent IPCC report, but I think that a little more humility should be shown in the face of a complex problem in which even the best predictive models for Global Temperatures produce very large discrepancies between the various forecast temperatures for each and every year in the 21st Century.

cheers,
Robert

[tonybarry]

Hi Robert,

It's the way with religion. Doesn't matter whether it's Catholics versus Protestants, Mac versus Windows, or global warm versus global cool.

When it's faith based, it seems to get ugly really quickly. Don't know why, but it appears to be a common reaction for many people.

Alas.

Regards,
Tony Barry

[madbadgalaxyman]

G'day Tony,

I wouldn't say this of all my critics in this thread!

I have had my critics in this thread;
some of them had a logical point to make, while others of them resorted to what amounts to a variety of argumentum ad hominem.
Nonetheless, some of my posts did helpfully provide the results of some peer-reviewed scientific research that had been published in respected journals.

Thank you for your support.

cheers,
Robert

[Tropo-Bob]

Two points here. First: water in the form of oceans acts as a heat sink. Secondly, BOM reports say the last decade was the hotest decade and this is consistent with the reports of other weather agencies.

[madbadgalaxyman]

Thanks for your comments.

Sometimes the derived 'trend line' on a graph depends on how the data points are analyzed. There is more than one way to draw a trend line on a graph, as we all found out when we did science experiments at school and university and we graphed data points of the measured quantities "all over the place" instead of along the particular mathematical function (curve or line) that we had hoped for.

Numerous tools of statistics and error-analysis have been developed to try to extract meaningful trends from the mass of messy data, and to estimate the error budget of each measurement that scientists make, but when there is only a slight trend on a graph, it is easy enough to draw two different trend lines, one in each direction (increasing and decreasing) through the data points.

[gaa_ian]

The evidence on the ground for a global climate shift is pretty overwhelming. How much is anthropogenic and how much is part of some as yet unseen natural cycle is semantics. The real question is how do we as a species, the Future Eaters of the planet, adapt to the environment that we have been steadily modifying for the past 10,000 years and rapidly modifying for the past 50-100 years. Any system that is out of equilibrium will seek to right it self (simple physics) & in this adjustment we will clearly come off 2nd best. So what do we do about the part of the change that we have been demonstrated to clearly have induced, how can we change the environment in a way that is clearly to OUR benefit ?

[Shiraz]

Robert, I think the reason that you have stirred people up is that you restated some of the old and discredited ideas that the sceptics continue to use:
- CO2 is not pollution. Semantics - if pollution is "something that we put into the environment at levels that will cause harm", then CO2 is right up there
- the data can be analysed to get any result. This was recently tested by a group with sceptics leanings. To their surprise and credit, their published analysis showed that the temperature data are very robust and that the atmosphere really has warmed by 1C, no matter how you analyse it.
- it could be the sun. the models include solar influx, but by far the most telling result is from satellites that measure the incoming and outgoing radiation from the earth - more radiation is currently going in than is going out. This result is independent of sunspots, historical proxies, modelling etc etc - it is a direct measurement that shows that the earth is currently a net absorber of energy (ie it is warming up), independent of variations in solar flux.
- it hasn't warmed since 2000. (Actually it has warmed a lot in that period - your start point needs to be moved to 1998...). Variability can be expected - the temperature will not be always upwards on all timescales - but the long term trend certainly is.

Rather than revisit these old controversies, could you accept what seems to be the overwhelming advice of the experts and go to the next question - what do we do about it? It would be great to have a discussion of what we could do to maximise current benefits and minimise the downside to future generations - provided that political sound-bite thinking could be kept out of it. For example, it would be great to have other opinions on the prisoner's dilemma, the economics concept of future discounting and strategies for adaptation. As your original post shows, we are currently doing nothing at all - I would like to understand why we have chosen that and also what action makes sense.

[Dave2042]

Here's my two cents' worth, as someone with a Physics degree, followed by a long commercial career (finance).

I see two problems with the so-called debate.

The first is that much of the 'debate' focuses on stuff that is known to be complex and messy, and relates to how heat flows around inside the climate system rather than the aggregate flows in and out of the system. We argue about how long it will take for the ice caps to melt, or about whether some regions will get colder rather than hotter, and non-scientists get the mistaken impression that this reflects uncertainty in the basic proposition of global warming. The fact is, the greenhouse effect, plus historical fossil fuel consumption makes the basic proposition (that the system's getting hotter because of us) 100% certain. The details (how long, regionality etc) are still uncertain and being researched, but that has nothing to do with the basics. To be fair, I don't think scientists make this point clearly or often enough.

The second problem is that most non-scientists (and sadly some scientists) do not seem to appreciate the fact that science now (since Newton) is an integrated body of knowledge. I see a lot of stuff where people seem to feel that if they can just 'disprove' some empirical observations, then the whole thing is wrong. In fact, that's not how science is structured any more. At rock bottom, science is really just 3 theories (General Relativity, Quantum Mechanics and Statistical Mechanics), which have been tested in 'normal' conditions so well they are certain. Everything else is really just an approximation or limiting case of these. The uncertain bits left are extreme stuff like what goes on inside a black hole. The ulitmate test of this is, of course, technology. If you think there is something wrong with SM and QR, then why does your fridge work? If you think there is something wrong with GR, why does your satnav work? Of course, complicated things (like weather) are difficult to model in practice, but basic stuff like the greenhouse effect and fossil fuels producing CO2 is simply not open for debate, not out of closed-mindedness, but just because it's fully understood, and if we are wrong about it then every piece of technology we have must be running off magic.

As commented earlier, the only real debate is about what to do. Of course that's economics, politics and ethics, which are really complicated. Maybe the answer is to do nothing, but pretending it's not happening is just silly.

[xelasnave]

Excellent summation Dave.
It is already too late.
Whatever the cause we can expect the planet to become uninhabitable in a century or two.
If man made we are doomed cause you won't change human behaviour.
If we stopped human input today the problem is the damage is already done...so I would plan how to exist on a planet with average temps so high growing food in the open is no longer possible..
I formed my opinion from much reading and reflect only the views of folk who appear to know what they are talking about.

[madbadgalaxyman]

G'day there, Ray,
I keep trying not to talk about the optimal response to global warming and to other environmental problems, but people keep moving the discussion in this direction.
Oh well, this seems to have morphed into an environmental policy forum!
And politics always comes into it; in every Australian environmental forum that I contribute to, the obligatory comment in each and every post seems to be to criticize one particular side of politics!
(And such is the nature of environmental issues that one gets mercilessly attacked from all sides, no matter what one's opinion!)

(the following para. has been extensively edited)
In my opinion, the first question about Global Warming, insofar as figuring out what to do, and equally importantly when to do it, is to ask: "How urgent is the Global Climate Change problem compared to the multitude of other environmental problems that exist?" This is a necessary first analysis, because there is a need to prioritize the relative degree of urgency of fixing the many and various types of environmental degradation.
Why is it necessary to prioritize?
Firstly, because a lot of time and money and energy can be (and is) wasted by people on addressing problems which are of relatively low priority or which are not urgent, for instance, here are two examples of 'problems' on which environmentalists have expended vast reserves of money and committment on issues that I regard as minor problems or non-problems : :
- well-funded campaigns against the so-called 'evil' of the genetic engineering of plants
- ongoing campaigns against the small amounts of residual agricultural chemicals that are found in our food. (which cause much fewer cancers than the food itself!)
Secondly, while a specific environmental remediation effort often assumes the passionate "feel good" emotion of a crusade and thereby acquires a certain nobility, it often diverts limited resources from more important issues. One good example of this is when people will devote entire lifetimes to trying to save every last whale (and who can argue with saving such a cute animal.....), but, as a result of this effort, the much more important effort to preserve the krill & fish stocks (and the Marine Food Chain) suffers neglect in comparison to their favoured environmental cause. There are too many other examples of environmental 'crusades' that perhaps made a minor difference, but distracted attention from the most pressing environmental problems.

In other words: is global warming the first problem that needs to be addressed? Or are there other environmental problems that should be addressed before Global Climate Change? Ignoring for the moment the inherent difficulty and the enormous multi-disciplinary intellectual complexity of planetary management, the setting of priorities is a very difficult real-world problem, because human beings have available only finite reserves of time, physical and intellectual energy, and resources. This lack of energy and time and resources is, in my opinion, particularly notable in respect of environmental issues, because most people prefer to get on with day-to-day activities that are much easier and less challenging than addressing the difficult and complex issue of the ongoing management of the biogeochemical systems on the surface of our planet.

To restate my position once again, there are a vast range of environmental problems, and a vast number of possible actions to remediate them, so the various courses of action need to be weighed up, and the various environmental problems need to be prioritized:
(1) How good is the data and the evidence for each identified environmental problem?
(2) Can the problem be quantified and/or understood in a structured manner, and can effective remedial action be identified?
(2) How reliable and accurate are the predictive models for the future behaviour of the environmental system we are trying to fix?
(3) Which environmental problems ought or ought not to be addressed first, and what is the level of urgency for a societal response to each specific problem? Which environmental problems should not be addressed?
(4) What is the social and economic cost of action on a problem, compared to the social and economic cost of inaction?
(5) Is it even feasible to remediate a particular environmental problem, or do vested interests, and/or economic costs, imply that a particular problem is inherently intractable.

The following is a random list of examples where there are several alternative environmental issues or courses of action that need to be weighed up and prioritized. It is not possible to address every problem at once.


Do I try to save the whales (which are "cute and cuddly and remarkably smart") or should I instead be trying to preserve the base of the food chain (e.g. krill and plankton and small fish) and the keystone species?
Should I regard marine conservation as a lost cause, and instead address the conservation of terrestrial ecosystems instead?
Should human population control be addressed before addressing some of the direct environmental concerns? A planet which will soon have 10-12 billion people will inevitably have a more degraded environment and will also suffer a greater degree of resource depletion. Indeed, in Africa there are countries which already have 80-150 million people, and their fertility rate is still so high that the total population of some of these countries could double in a matter of 30-40 years....thereby destroying an already degraded environment.
Should the most urgent effort go into addressing deforestation and land degradation and the loss of soil fertility, or should the major current effort go into addressing longer-term concerns such as climate change?
A tradeoff that I often strike in my own studies of environmental remediation and restoration ecology is: do we emphasize conservation reserves and national parks, or should we conclude that these will always be of insufficient area to save sufficient numbers of species, instead putting our major effort into restoring the vast areas of already partially-degraded landscapes into conservation-capable form?
Are some problems, for the moment, impossible or too expensive or too time-consuming to solve? For instance, strenuous efforts to preserve meaningful amounts of native vegetation on the fringes of big cities have too often failed, despite a lot of effort by a lot of people. As another example, is money that is currently spent on 'renewable energy' wasted because of the current low capacity and high cost of wind & solar generation and the consequent small effect on CO2 mitigation, and therefore should the money instead be saved and spent later on when these technologies have developed further?
Nuclear power vs. coal-fired energy generation? This is a particularly harsh conundrum, as both technologies have some adverse effects.
Is bad governance the first problem that needs to be addressed? In other words, is environmental degradation actually a result of corrupt and unresponsive and poorly-advised governments together with an ill-educated human population? (for instance, I once wrote to a senior government advisor on energy policy, and he did not know some of the basic information that you would get from reading New Scientist and Scientific American for a decade!)
Should we be equally concerned about the loss of each and every species due to habitat degradation, or should we look at trying to maintain the entire landscape in habitable form? (this gets into very difficult territory, such as the question "to what degree do we assign rights to animals?")
Is resource depletion (e.g. fish stocks, fossil fuels, phosphates, limestone, economically useful minerals, etc.) a bigger problem than the other conservation problems?

[KenGee]

You should have stopped there Bert. There is no point in arguing foolish people, People with no ideal about the science but feel embolden to cut and paste trash from "whatsupwithat" because a shock jock on 2GB says he doesn't believe.

Its lucky there was no internet when smoking was linked to cancer or when lead in petrol was linked to health problems. These foolish people would have been rushing to their keyboards in support of their cash for comment demigods....

Pathetic really, but you know today's world way do actual science when ctrl+v is so much easier.

[madbadgalaxyman]

"foolish people"
"no idea about science"
"people who cut and paste trash"

How does this sort of language help the cause of rational argument and of the public understanding of science?

Also, I suggest that you fix good numbers of grammatical and spelling errors in your post.

Thinking yourself to be much much cleverer than madbadgalaxyman saves you the trouble of having to put up a logical argument to counter my arguments.

Most people who read my posts in IIS would agree that they show evidence of a rational mind and of substantial scientific knowledge. Moreover, I have never "cut and pasted" anything except peer reviewed scientific research that is published in widely respected journals!

I put a lot of work and thought into my last post in this thread, so I do not appreciate being called a scientific ignoramus.
As such, my last post in this thread deserves a considered response.

[madbadgalaxyman]

Please note that I have substantially edited paragraph 2 of my long post about the need to rank environmental problems in order of importance and/or urgency.

[multiweb]

Great post.

[xelasnave]

Robert I have said many times I enjoy your posts.
Your long post raised many issues but seems to suggest you are sceptical about the climate change science basic premise which is ...we have a very serious problem that potentiallymay see the planet become uninhabitable ... Such a proposition seems to me to be worthy of attention over every other issue.
Certainly there are many problems but the prospect of the planet potentially being unable to support life needs to be addressed and given priority over all else.
The modelling may not be complete and the data incomplete but the consensus is clear. Could we have better models and more comprehensive data ..of course we could but at the moment what we have suggests strongly the problem is real .
So perhaps you will understand that your questions will been seen as somewhat missing the point. I don't approve of personal attacks but suggest that folk who grasp the serious prospect we face could become frustrated and resort to name calling etc.
Should not be that way so never take attacks personally when talking about emotive issues.
If it turns out that we had nothing to worry about that will be wonderful but certainly even though our models could be better and data more extensive the pointer strongly suggests the problem is real and very serious.
The question is can humanity survive in two or there centuries from now.
Addressing such a question is not a waste of money.
I don't think you are a fool or in anyway lacking intelligence and say I do hold you in the highest regard.

[AstralTraveller]

Uninhabitable is a difficult term. What do we mean by it?



Everything dies. Not going to happen. The Earth has been hotter than we are likely to make it and life endured.
All humans die. Unlikely. Even on the worst case, some people will hold on somewhere. I suspect that actually quite large numbers (billions) will survive.

The most likely disaster IMHO is that food production slumps/collapses. Also, sea level rise floods most of our major cities and disrupts distribution networks. The result is mass starvation. The starving people go looking for food - carrying guns. Food wars are a real possibility and that is a very nasty scenario. However, total extinction of humans is overstating the situation.

[xelasnave]

David I like your more specific views of the possible future.
I also doubt if everything will die, in the past extinctions something survived hopefully this will remain the case.
I use the term uninhabitable loosely I admit and really seek to describe a possible situation where it is too hot for vegetation to survive.
I believe the planet has endured hotter times and life survived .. How hot can we go?
Well there are various levels from bad to worse but no doubt there is a level which could see a situation where wild life, animals and plants, no longer exists and we live underground or in cities under domes so as to create localised acceptable conditions for humans, animals and plants. I don't know what the future holds but certainly there is a point where by todays measure the planet could be described as uninhabitable.
If we extrapolate the trend the data suggests to those interpreting it we can suggest the future may see the planet so hot life will be markedly different to what we consider the norm today.
How high can temps go? We don't know really but to model a scenario of absolute disaster would not be difficult I suspect.
I believe, unscientific approach but not unrealistic, that we are powerless to change the future. Everyone will have answers but nothing will be done..goodness we can't solve so many smaller problems ..drugs war religious intolerance, so to presume the whole world can magically sit down and formulate a plan to me is simply nonsense..However governments will tax the problem and corporations will profit from this fix or that but really nothing will change..Some think that we are even now powerless to stop anything and who knows if that view is realistic or not.
So I say do nothing other than prepare for the worste case outcome stop arguing about energy pollution etc and get thinking about living in a world different to today...
Maybe consider that populations may have to relocate before the bands of displaced people demand recognition at fun point..Envisage a world where Vennis is for subs diving and Greenland is the new food bowl.

[xelasnave]

I tried to edit...fun point should read gun point..and scuba diving in vennis..anyways I hope spelling etc does not detract from my meaning...

[Tropo-Bob]

If medicine makes a major advancement that extends life-expectancy to 200+ years, I wonder if that would be enough of a self-interest stake for most people to soberly ponder climate-change issues.

However for too many, I suspect climate-change is like a little toothache that will be ignored unless the pain really kicks-in.

And it may not happen during my lifetime so ... Don't Worry; Be Happy!!

Lol, just joshing. Tomorrow is a new day, where these issues will be discussed again at the UN, and strangely, I don't think they will be taking any notice of what we say here!

[madbadgalaxyman]

Alex,

thank you very much for your considered and thoughtful post. It is a real relief to get a calm response to my posts in this thread.

I am also grateful to Dave2042 and AstralTraveller for calmly explaining some of the science, and for explaining some of the uncertainties and sources of error.

Just to clarify my position on Global Climate Change, I completely agree that there will probably continue to be ongoing increases in mean global temperature, as this is just straight physics. (I happened to have a lot of time on my hands at one time, and I read most of the papers that established the reality of Global Climate Change in Science and Nature)

However, the existing global climatic simulation models give a large range of possible output temperatures (for the planet) for each of the next 100 years, and they also yield a large range of predicted timescales for the warming which will occur.

Do have a look at the latest IPCC Report's temperature projections, and also have a look at the global temperature predictions of various well-known numerical models that have been published by accredited scientists who have an impressive citation record;
the large range of output values of these models, for the 'timescale'(duration) parameter of the temperature increase and for the 'predicted temperature' parameter, suggests to me that the models are not, as yet, good enough to tell us whether global warming in the next 100 years is a minor-to-moderate problem or a serious problem.

Given the uncertainty about whether the best case or worst case Climate Change scenario will occur, I do believe that it is prudent to stop pouring ever more anthropogenic Carbon Dioxide into the atmosphere, but if the technological options do not currently exist to affordably enable 100% replacement of the current fossil-fuel based power generating capacity, then the major current investment of funds should be into research and development of alternative energy sources, and major financial investments in "non CO2 emitting" power generation capacity should be postponed until the alternative technologies are mature.
[What I mean by a 'mature' technology for generating electric power is a technology that can provide power at the same cost as coal-fired power , and one that can provide the same amount of power as coal-fired generation can. Both solar and wind generation fail to do this, at the current level of technology]

In the interim, as I have described at length in a previous post in this thread, there are a number of extremely urgent environmental problems that must be addressed right now.

Best regards, and thanks again for your input,

Robert

P.S.
It was a little much, was it not, for someone in this thread to say that I had been "cutting and pasting" from the "shock jocks" when I had actually been cutting and pasting from peer-reviewed scientific research.

I know of several specific IIS members who refuse to contribute to the IIS Science forum, because of a lack of courtesy and civility on the part of some posters.

[xelasnave]

Robert you are most welcome.
On the news today it was reported that the Rockefeller,s have moved 50 billion of their money out of fossil fuel investment..what that means I have no idea but it will be interesting to hear the various interpretations of their move.
I have studied global warming for over a decade and was indeed a sceptic...not of the science but of the motivations of those presenting the issue..I fear the prospect of a run away situation which is a prospect neither side of the debate entertains strangely..

I doubt if a complete model can be produced given the extreme complexity .
Current models are ridiculed because their predictions have been off the mark and so many want to dismiss the science..but the science will only be able to provide an educated guess really as to timing but the timing is irrelevant.
.what is relevant is we face the prospect of extinction and folk just can not accept such as being possible.
One should remember extinction is the rule not the exception.
Again don't take things personal it matters not what others think about one...folk like you or they don't why worry it has no relevance...Personally I enjoy witnessing folk underestimate me

[madbadgalaxyman]

Bob,

Should we leave it to "the great and the good, and the powerful" to discuss these issues?
The main "emissions" in the climate change area, seem to come from the mouths of policy-makers and opinion-makers!

As a student of history, I note that these constant meetings by high-profile and well-paid jetsetting people on a subject of global concern, strongly resemble the activities of the vigorous European peace movement prior to World War 1...... and we know what happened afterwards....

Robert

Looking at the number of views of this thread, I would have to say that a lot of people are enjoying this acrimonious debate!

[Dave2042]

And a comment on the politics / risk side of things. This is actually closer to what I do for a living than the science in some sense.

There seem to be a few problems in the debate about how bad it's going to be and what ought to be done.

Firstly, a lot of noisiest contributors to the debate seem to assume that either it will all be fine, or humanity or even all life will be totally wiped out. In fact a moment's thought should suggest that the result is more likely to be somewhere in between, and that the extremes are just that, extremes, and really not particularly useful contributions to a practical debate.

Secondly, while there is uncertainty in projections of warming and consequences, I'd intuitively suspect that projections are generally on the optimistic side rather than the pessimistic side, for two reasons. First, scientists in my experience are typically very (intellectually) conservative and acutely aware of the problems of 'scaremongering' and getting disregarded as a result. Also, my understanding is that some of the biggest uncertainties are around positive feedbacks, such as melting icecaps changing the earth's reflectiveness (ie less sunlight reflected back into space) and CO2 release from a heating ocean. If that's the case, then any estimate is far more likely to be an underestimate than an overestimate - it's almost inveitable to underestimate a positive feedback.

Thirdly, a lot of the optimistic contributions are on the theme that humans are ingenious, and all the problems look practically addressable. How hard can it be to relocate people to higher land? Surely we can throw more research efforts at tropical diseases! I agree that we are ingenious and probably can address any given problem if we are organised about it, however this is a very different problem to, say, finding a more efficient way of using a commodity. It involves large-scale population movements in search of very fundamental geographical needs - land, fresh water. The idea that we actually will do this in an organised fashion across national divides strikes me as astonishingly optimistic given a quick look at history - I suspect it will be chaos, and bloody.

Finally, I don't think the optimism factors in that we are talking about multiple problems likely to be occurring simultaneously. Population movements - changes in fresh water availability - rises in tropical diseases - potential food-chain problems from ocean acidification. One thing I've learnt in the commercial frame is that two problems can look easy to deal with individually, but when they arrive at the same time everything goes off the rails.

I confess myself somewhat uninterested in what to do about the problem. I think we've already decided (as a globe) that we simply going to muddle through as it happens without a plan. I don't think this is going to wipe humanity out or anything close to it, but I think it's going to be quite a wild ride.

[KenGee]

You have a basic problem in that you are scientific ignoramus, it's okay so am I. Science is hard and takes a lot of training, you and others show utter contempt for that training. If you wan to join the "debate" about climate change then go get a suitable science degree and get a research job and slave away for 10 20 years.
You can always do what I do and watch with interest and support them. I fact you started this tread on a Astronomy site points to you having a strong opinion, and trying to bait for "discussion".

your comment about my grammar lol your argument is invalid because you missed a comma. If only Fred Hoyle had of thought of that the steady state theory would be on a whole new footing.

[Tropo-Bob]

Looks like some action is comming from those that madbadgalaxyman derides:-

From the ABC News Website yesterday:-

Country commitments


Barbados: 29 per cent of electricity will be green by 2029
Denmark: Aims to be fossil fuel free by 2050
Georgia: Aiming to be carbon neutral by 2050
Ireland: Reduce greenhouse gases by 80 per cent by 2050
Mexico: More than one third of electricity-generating capacity
Ethiopia: Zero net emissions by 2025
France: One billion USD to the green climate fund over the next few years
Iceland: Commitment to become an entirely fossil free economy
Korea: Next year it will become the first Asian country with a national carbon trading scheme
Chile: 45 per cent of energy to be green by 2025
Finland: Phasing out coal in power stations by 2025
Monaco: Goal to reduce carbon emissions by 80 per cent by 2050
Costa Rica: 100 per cent of energy to be green
Indonesia: Will cut emissions by 26 per cent by 2020 and says that will rise to 40 per cent with international help
Brunei: 63 per cent reduction in energy consumption by 2035
EU: Committed to cutting emissions by 80 to 95 per cent by 2050
UK: On track to cut emissions by 80 per cent by 2050
China: Reiterated commitment to cut carbon intensity by 40 to 45 per cent of 2005 levels by 2020, committed $US6 million to advance South-South cooperation on climate change
And from the same Website today:-
Barack Obama to announce world's largest marine sanctuary in Pacific Ocean

Posted 31 minutes agoThu 25 Sep 2014, 3:01pm
http://www.abc.net.au/news/image/5629312-3x2-340x227.jpg (http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-09-25/turtlejpg/5769444)Photo: The marine sanctuary will help protect animals with long migratory ranges such as sea turtles. (R.D Kirkby & B.S Kirkby) (http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-09-25/turtlejpg/5769444)
Related Story: Climate change biggest ever threat to humanity: UN (http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-09-24/un-says-climate-change-biggest-ever-threat-to-humanity/5764636)
Related Story: DiCaprio urges climate action at key summit (http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-09-23/dicaprio-urges-climate-action-at-key-summit/5764120)

Map: Pacific (http://maps.google.com/?q=0,-160(Pacific)&z=5)

United States president Barack Obama will create the world's largest marine sanctuary in the Pacific Ocean in a bid to protect sea life from climate change.
Mr Obama will sign a proclamation designating the marine reserve in the south-central Pacific Ocean, thereby making it off-limits to development and commercial fishing, according to a statement from the White House.
"The administration identified expanding the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument as an area of particular interest because science has shown that large marine protected areas can help rebuild biodiversity, support fish populations, and improve overall ecosystem resilience," the statement said.
Such areas are under threat from climate change because carbon pollution is causing the oceans to acidify, which can damage marine life including corals and harm ocean ecosystems, the statement added.
The proclamation will expand the reserve to six times its current size, resulting in 1,269,094 square kilometres of protected area.
Mr Obama is using his executive powers to make the designation, bypassing the US legislature.
He ordered his administration in June to chart a way to expand the existing sea reserve.
The White House said the move would protect many animals including those with long migratory ranges such as sea turtles, marine mammals and manta rays.
The area "is also home to millions of seabirds that forage over hundreds of miles and bring food back to their rookeries on the islands and atolls," the statement said.
Recreational and traditional fishing will still be allowed.
Mr Obama is able to designate the marine reserve using the country's Antiquities Act, which has been used by 16 presidents since 1906 to protect natural and historic features in America, the White House said.


However, I could not find what Australia is doing!!!

[Solitarian]

Increasing coal production of course.

[Miaplacidus]

I love these threads. If confirmation were ever needed of the Dunning-Kruger effect...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

I's loves you all.

[xelasnave]

A timely reminder.
Infallibility is the mark of a fool...and I am never wrong about that.
;)
I find it hard to understand however why discussions where there is a difference in the beliefs get so personal. There is no point in getting annoyed if someone does not share your viewpoint.

[madbadgalaxyman]

Ah...but does that mean that you are so ultra-competent that you can recognize incompetence in those who post in this thread?

As amateur science enthusiasts, it is consistent with the facts that we may all be incompetent to a greater or lesser degree, but does this mean that people who are not experts in a particular field of science should not discuss it at all?

I think that it is still possible to enjoy a discussion and to be intellectually stimulated by it, and to be stimulated to learn a lot more about the topic under discussion, even if all the participants are wrong about the topic to some extent.

[AstralTraveller]

Is it a lack of training or experience? Or just that people feel they can be rude via email - more rude than they would ever be in person?

I was at (yet another) seminar earlier this week on the causes of the Australian megafauna mass extinction. This debate has gone on for decades. The presenter was completely blaming humans but some in the audience clearly didn't agree. There were some pointed questions and some counter-arguments presented but no one would think of name calling or questioning someone's competency. You stick to the issue and deal with the evidence (or lack thereof).

Some years ago we had a conference here where the past climate of inland Australia, as revealed by studies around Lake Eyre, was discussed. During the debate a local academic and a visiting academic went at each other hammer and tongs. No name calling but they each clearly thought the other's interpretations were completely wrong and each thought the other couldn't see facts that stood out like sore thumbs. You would think they hated each other. Actually the visiting academic was staying with the local academic who had had some BBQs for the visitor and other academics. Personally they got on fine and really had great respect for each other despite their disagreements. A bit more of such maturity would be nice here (and elsewhere!) at times.

[xelasnave]

Back to topic.
It is wonderful China is on board. Considering their plans for more coal powered electricity generating plants their goal seems very ambitious maybe it can be realised by greater efficiency and shutting down less efficient plants. I find it encouraging that at least something is happening.
A question ... How do they get data for the amount of come in the atmosphere.
I tried to find put by goggle but kept getting sceptic sites explaining that all figures were unreliable..so I have up and thought I would ask here.

[xelasnave]

Sorry David I missed your post cause I was posting..give me a moment and I will reply when I have read it

[xelasnave]

David I can only guess as to why it is so.
Maybe antonimity has something to do with it but for myself I would not act differently I would like to think. But even though the experienced you refer to did not see name calling it seems the underlying annoyance was present.
Given that there were no eye witnesses present re the mega fauna extinction it is curious why either side can believe that their view is absolutely correct.
I have experienced many humbling experiences of having all the facts but nevertheless being wrong...No matter how compelling the facts one can be wrong.
So one should be humble in my view. Being humble makes giving respect to others way easier.

[sjastro]

It's not surprising that academics can be fierce rivals at a professional level and civil at a personal level when discussions are based on the exchange of facts rather than opinions.
One of the most famous rivalries was between Einstein and Bohr (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohr%E2%80%93Einstein_debates), yet both maintained respect for each other.

This forum is comparatively tame to others I have participated in.

Steven

[madbadgalaxyman]

I know that this is just extending the long digression from the thread topic, but....

Respected scientists all know that Argumentum ad Hominem is a logical fallacy, but it seems to feel good for them when they engage in it.

Here are some actual (and amusing) real-world examples that I have experienced, in the speeches and writings of scientists, or which I have read about in scholarly accounts of various actual scientific disputes:

"his work has had little impact"
"Most of his work was actually done by his PhD students"
"he is in late career, and no longer very active in the field"
"he is in a different field, therefore he is undeniably poorly qualified to express an opinion on this matter"
"he really doesn't understand the topic, he just doesn't get it"
"he is largely retired"
"He is more of an administrator than a researcher"

Most of these barbs turn out to be substantially untrue, so their low cunning masks what is essentially similar to bad behaviour in the schoolyard!

Scientists, even the very greatest of them, display the same variety of personalities and motivations and moralities that "lesser mortals" do. I can name several who are out and out super-egoistic psychopaths who want to destroy the opposition and hog all of the credit. On the other hand, I can name others who are true gentlemen of humility and courtesy, always willing to share data, and also credit where it is due.

_________
sorry about the constant use of 'his' in this post. It would have been ridiculous to constantly say 'her/his'

[xelasnave]

Hi Steven I must say you have always been very certeious with me which I appreciate greatly.
Your help enabled me to move forward in so many respects to seek a better understanding.
I visit a science site where they would and do destroy someone who dares to try and offer a non mainstream view. In fact that site only allows non mainstream views in one section where ideas must be presented with evidence and math otherwise they fry you.
I could tell I frustrated you but your were always polite and very helpful.
I learnt how scientific method works and I believe I am the richer as a result.
So rather than destroy my interest you enabled me to learn.

[xelasnave]

Robert the understanding of logical fallicies
is very useful. I don't think it is only scientists who are aware of them however.

I have been instructing my daughter to recognise their use and fortunately although she does not like the latin titles is starting to get the idea.
I think it is wonderful that members here can be so respectful generally.
Ones position is diminished when one attacks the man rather than his argument.

[xelasnave]

Please forgive my spelling it is not great at the best of times but this phone ours words into my mouth and often it slips by. I try to edit but that does not always work.
One thing as I hinted at above is the alarming number of sceptic sites... Still on the positive at least the matter is causing discussion.

[sjastro]

Hello Alex,

I assume you are referring to the Cosmoquest site and specifically to the "Against the Mainstream" forum.
As a "mainstreamer" myself who basically disagrees with everything presented there, I must admit it I find it quite appalling how individuals presenting non mainstream ideas are subjected to a Spanish Inquisition type environment.

I think the forum should be a free expression of alternative ideas.
If the ideas are presented elsewhere then it should be subject to scrutiny.

Regards


Steven

[xelasnave]

Yes you are correct Steven.
I do like the site.
I now rarely read the..against mainstream posts..because it is so predictable.
I do enjoy the run down on new papers which gives you a hint of what is happening at a glance. I like reading KenGees for whatever reason so far I find his stuff interesting.
They certainly don't suffer anything against climate change as you would be aware.
For those who don't visit there it goes like this...any view on climate change that is not mainstream must be posted in the against mainstream section...
I suspect if Robert tried to post the opening post of this thread it would be moved to..against mainstream..and he would then be carved up...
They ban you in a blink of the eye..nevertheless rudness is not tolerated.
There is a lot I do not understand but I learn somethingsometimes.
Anyways you will be happy to know that these days I see myself as mainstream in that I respect our current best theory..eg big bang..and recognise why it is best this way...So until I can offer a complete better theory...you will recall my push gravity conviction..I will support the mainstream.
There is stuff I don't like re big bang but that is not the point..all I have to do is come up with a but theory that fits observations etc if not shut up.
So how good is that...there is no point in disagreeing if you can not offer better.
I don't like religion but am at a loss to offer the masses a better alternative...same with capitalism..it has problems but what could you replace it with..

[Tropo-Bob]

There has been mention of how scientist suffer have follies that the rest of us suffer. Similiarly, they also have emotional attachment to the debate.

I found letters from researchers on the website: http://isthishowyoufeel.weebly.com/t...el.html#steven (http://isthishowyoufeel.weebly.com/this-is-how-scientists-feel.html#steven)

Following is one of the many letters available on this site:-


"The main things I feel about this are deep disappointment and anger, though I should probably try not to.

People have always faced challenges and adversity. When these are accepted and faced together, it can bring out our best – I believe this is what allows peoples of the world who endure great hardships to remain happy nonetheless.

The opposite is happening with this issue. We face a problem that could be addressed with relatively minor shared sacrifices, but instead there is a mass effort to ignore, defer, deny, and lie. Knowing that it will fall mostly on our own children, and their kids. On the part of people – of a generation – who are farther from hardship than almost any in history.

Global warming doesn’t bother me as much as what it is revealing about humans. Maybe I need to just grow up and get over it!

But that won’t help my kids any."

Steve Sherwood.

[xelasnave]

I felt anger and disappointment tonight because I watched mega cities on tv.
Las Vegas..the energy consumption of the casinos is disgusting..One casino has a power bill of 2 mill a month unless I misunderstood...
$120,000 pa for their spot light...What a waste ...what a huge carbon foot print that place must have...for what..gambling..

[Tropo-Bob]

Scary ... because in 2016, plans are afoot to build an 8 Billion-Dollar Casio complex about 5kms from my place. I hope they have no spotlights!

(PS-8 Billion is not a misprint).

[xelasnave]

Mind numbing numbers.
Of course every dollar spent means more co2.
I wonder what turnover they expect..
Spot light or not I suspect it will add to light pollution.
I know I am grumpy but I hate gambling.

[clive milne]

Robert, the fallacy in the ad hominem argument is due to the irrelevant nature of the appeal made, not to its falsity. There is only one (maybe two at a stretch) of the premises stated above that really fall in to that category.

Incidentally, the converse to the ad hominem logical fallacy is the appeal to authority. An example of that would be if someone were to imply that their capacity to write (or quote others) in one field of scientific endeavour (let's say galaxy morphology) lent substance to an argument they had made in an unrelated science; the economics of adapting to climate change for instance.

[multiweb]

On a brighter note latest observations from NASA about the ozone layer seem to point to a recovery (http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=84382&src=eoa-iotd). Still a way to go but the good news is that it's headed in the right direction now.

[Dave2042]

Absolutely.

Further to this, all the mud-slinging in the world is moot in the face of a paper that clearly and objectively sets out a proposition which can then be examined and tested.

The peer-reviewed publication process is certainly not perfect, but our technological world is a pretty solid endorsement that it gets there over time, and I'm yet to hear any convincing argument that there is a workable alternative (ie other than just refinements of the fundamental process).

Re the topic at hand, both sides go in for a whole lot of name-calling, but only one side has its position set out in a large body of published research that has stood the test of sustained scrutiny and counter-publication.