Climate change

[ngcles]

Hi Peter & All,

Originally Posted by Peter Ward

eg: It would be agreed that apples are good for you, but did you know if you eat an egg-cup full of apple seeds you'll probably end up dead ...

Apologies in advance to readers and the mods for this mildly off-topic post (just couldn't resist) but Peter's quip prompted it (so I blame him):

This is in fact absolutely true: I was one of the Sergeant Prosecutors assisting the Coroner at Glebe Coroner's Court about 1987 when there was an inquest into the curious circumstances of a particular man's death. He especially loved apple-seeds and had been saving them up for months in a finger-bowl as a special treat for himself at Christmas. On Christmas morning he ate the whole bowl in one hit and ... Say Goodnight Gracie.

Apparently it is only really a problem if you crunch and chew them up. Intact, they pass through the tract. It is estimated he ate about 300-400.

Cyanide poisoning is a nasty, nasty way to go.

Bizzare but true ...


Best,

Les D

[sjastro]

Originally Posted by Argonavis

How does this constitute "compelling" evidence?

GW cannot explain stratospheric cooling, AGW does.
GC doesn't exist as I will explain to you below.

....In fact, the proposition that a minor trace gas in the atmosphere can influence climate is absurd, if you care to think about it.

Yes I do think about it. I think in terms of blackbody radiation, thermodynamics and quantum mechanics.

Why is it absurd for a trace gas to effect climate? What is the technical basis behind this remark? Consider the case with Ozone.

Ozone levels are less than 1/10 than CO2 yet this trace gas forms a layer in the stratosphere which has a far greater effect on climate than CO2. Without this trace gas there would be a catastrophic increase in temperature not to mention the end of life due to the sterilizing effects of UV-C.

If you bother to look at the evidence, rather than quote the narrative, you will find that average global temperatures are falling whilst atmospheric CO2 is rising - there is clearly much more important factors influencing "climate".

Ever heard of terms such as signal to noise ratio, temperature anomaly, 5 or 11 yr running averages?

Let me explain. If you were to simply plot average temperature versus year or temperature anomaly (against a baseline) versus year you would obtain a curve that is not very smooth. In other words the signal to noise ratio is low. In this case the signal is climate change, the noise is temperature variation.

The danger when dealing with data with a low signal to noise ratio is that any trends in climate change is lost in the noise.

One way of reducing the noise is to take a 5 yr running average which includes the year in question and 2 years on either side.
The running average is then subtracted from the average temperature for that year.

The result is a much smoother graph (higher signal) which shows global warming trends in much greater clarity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:In...ure_Record.png

The 5 yr running average graph clearly an upward trend in climate change.

Steven

[sjastro]

Originally Posted by Argonavis

How can the same argument be made for "acid" rain? (I think you mean mildly acidic).

There was some right wing think tank group in the States (the name escapes me) that acid rain was beneficial as it promoted crop growth.

Steven

[Argonavis (William)]

Originally Posted by sjastro

Yes I do think about it. I think in terms of blackbody radiation, thermodynamics and quantum mechanics.

quantum mechanics?

Theory doesn't always translate well into the real world. I would suggest that the radiative transfer mechanisms of CO2 are not well known, and are the subject of controversy. This is why climate models are so poor at predicting climate.

Originally Posted by sjastro

Why is it absurd for a trace gas to effect climate? What is the technical basis behind this remark? Consider the case with Ozone.

Ozone is created by dissociation, converting UV into IR. CO2 doesn't dissociate. Wrong example.

There is no evidence whatsoever that CO2 is anything but a minor climate forcer. There is no correlation between temperatures and atmospheric CO2 levels either in the recent record or in the paleoclimate record. Global circulation models that have assumed CO2 to have any forcing value have failed to predict climate.

[Argonavis (William)]

Originally Posted by sjastro

The danger when dealing with data with a low signal to noise ratio is that any trends in climate change is lost in the noise.

I would suggest that pulling data out of noise is fraught with problems. For example, you end up with a fraudulent hockey stick.

I prefer this graph, if we are going to start throwing graphs at each other. It puts it into prespective. You will note that the graph ends in early 2000's, since then the global temperature anomalies are down to close to zero. No warming.

The few tenths of a degree increase in "average" global temperatures is noise. To pull a trend out of it, to predict the future with it, and to promote hysteria with it is not science. It is not even very smart.

To damage the economy with it, including making the poorest members of our society pay more for a basic needs like heating and cooling, is criminal.

[Argonavis (William)]

Originally Posted by sjastro

There was some right wing think tank group in the States (the name escapes me) that acid rain was beneficial as it promoted crop growth.

Steven

That may well be true. Talking to researchers in this area, soil pH has an impact on plant growth, as do may other factors. Mild stress also may promote growth.

It was to no doubt counter the hysteria surrounding so called "acid" rain. That doesn't mean that simple measure at modest cost to scrub SO2 should not be taken. It just means that the cost and benefits should be fully understood in formulating public policy. It should not be driven by hysteria and misinformation.

With AGW, we have hysteria and misinformation.

[sjastro]

Originally Posted by Argonavis

quantum mechanics?

Ozone is created by dissociation, converting UV into IR. CO2 doesn't dissociate. Wrong example.

So what? Whether a molecule disassociates or not is immaterial, the keypoint is the molecules ability to absorb radiation. From that aspect ozone is similar to CO2.

UV is absorbed by ozone which disassociates into oxygen molecules and atoms. These can recombine to form ozone.
UV is not converted into IR. The disassociation of ozone is an exothermic reaction and doesn't involve IR.

Steven

[sjastro]

Originally Posted by Argonavis

I would suggest that pulling data out of noise is fraught with problems. For example, you end up with a fraudulent hockey stick.

You're not pulling data out of noise. Noise is not data that is excluded.
Noise is treated as the standard deviation of the data.
The use of moving averages smooths out the data.

It is a common procedure used in many disciplines.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moving_average

I prefer this graph, if we are going to start throwing graphs at each other. It puts it into prespective. You will note that the graph ends in early 2000's, since then the global temperature anomalies are down to close to zero. No warming.

Yes a very interesting graph which the author has tried to turn into a horizontal line by using an excessive large vertical scale for small variances. The thick lines add to the effect.

If someone handed me any form of information in this format, I'd promptly discard it in the rubbish bin.

Steven

[ving (David)]

another interesting link...

http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/press/pr...ase.php?id=838

[Allan_L (Allan)]

Originally Posted by Argonavis

Theory doesn't always translate well into the real world. I would suggest that the radiative transfer mechanisms of CO2 are not well known,...

Anyone seen this interesting article.
Seems to be a slightly different side to this coin

http://aap.newscentre.com.au/macgen/.../20810312.html

Cheers
Allan
"you're going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view"

[Marclau (Marcel)]

Would love to read it Allan but it asks for a User Name & Password......!!!

[KenGee (Kenith Gee)]

Gee I really love how these denialist continue to cherry pick data, and try to tell us that whole fields of physics and chemistry are all wrong, simply because they can’t except reality. Always makes me think of Fred Hoyle, great scientist that spent the last forty years of his working life telling the rest of the astronomy world they were wrong about the big bang. He just continued to come up with sillier and sillier ideas to keep hold of his world view.
Argonavis can you just except that fact that a trace gas (ozone) can affect the climate of the earth, no matter how it does it. Grasp the idea it is present in small amounts and it does effect the climate of the earth. Go on you know you can do it, just take the step, say yes it can. Then we can try to help you with the next step toward reality.
Oh and maybe all those measurement of Venus temp were wrong, seeing as CO2 can cool atmospheres so well.

[Argonavis (William)]

Originally Posted by sjastro

Yes a very interesting graph which the author has tried to turn into a horizontal line by using an excessive large vertical scale for small variances. The thick lines add to the effect.

"excessively large" means it doesn't show the few tenths of a degree smoothed "average" temperature variations to a sufficiently scary scale?

If you would like to draw trend lines, they are down.

The facts remain that temperatures have not moved in about 10 years whilst atmospheric CO2
increases. Hypothesis falsified.

There is no evidence, either in the recent record or in the paleoclimate record, that the levels of atmospheric CO2 has any influence over climate.

[sjastro]

Originally Posted by Argonavis

"excessively large" means it doesn't show the few tenths of a degree smoothed "average" temperature variations to a sufficiently scary scale?

Yes I agree with you.

If you would like to draw trend lines, they are down.

I gather from the graphs that multiple measurements are taken per year.
Since the graphs provides up to date data and is inherently noisy (mainly due to seasonal variations), a moving average is not being used to calculate the temperature anomalies on the Y axis.

The anomalies are therefore calculated using a baseline value.
The obvious question is how has the baseline value been determined?

Steven

[Allan_L (Allan)]

Originally Posted by Marclau

Would love to read it Allan but it asks for a User Name & Password......!!!

Sorry. I didn't realise:

It said something like:

Reason clouded by carbon obsession


Author: Peter Schwerdtfeger
Publication: The Australian (12,Tue 23 Jun 2009)
Edition: 1 - All-round Country
Section: Features
Scientists prone to group-think are ignoring crucial research, warns Peter Schwerdtfeger



ALTHOUGH there are many doubters of man-made climate change, I am not yet one of them. But I remain unconvinced that carbon dioxide is the sole bete noire. Two decades ago, I pored over the spectral properties of the infra-red radiation of this gas, which is essential to plant life, and found that it was almost completely overshadowed by the radiative properties of water vapour, which is vital to all forms of life on earth.

Repeatedly in science we are reminded that happenings in nature can rarely be ascribed to a single phenomenon. For example, sea levels on our coasts are dependent on winds and astronomical forces as well as atmospheric pressure and, on a different time scale, the temperature profile of the ocean. Now, with complete abandon, a vociferous body of claimants is insisting that CO2 alone is the root of climatic evil.

I fear that many supporters of this view have become carried away by the euphoria of mass or dominant group psyche. Scientists are no more immune from being swayed by the pressure of collective enthusiasm than any other member of the human race. I do not believe for one moment that undisciplined burning of fossil fuels is harmless, but the most awful consequence of the burning of carboniferous fuels is not the release of CO2 but the large-scale injection ofminute particulate pollutants into the atmosphere.

Detailed studies led by internationally acclaimed cloud physicist Daniel Rosenfeld of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have revealed that the minute water vapour droplets that form around some carbon particles are so small as to be almost incapable of being subsequently coalesced into larger precipitable drops. In short, the particulates prevent rainfall.

Rosenfeld's research group has shown that humans are changing the climate in a much more direct way than through the release of CO2. Rather, pollution is seriously inhibiting rain over mountains in semi-arid regions, a phenomenon with dire consequences for water resources in the Middle East and many other parts of the world, including China and Australia.

Rosenfeld is no snake-oil salesman. As an American Meteorological Society medallist, he has an internationally endorsed research record in cloud physics that no living Australian can claim to emulate. It is more than 20 years since Australia was a knowledgeable force in cloud physics and cloud seeding. CSIRO's relevant division has long been disbanded and its cloud-seeding techniques based on the use of expensive silver iodide have been superseded by the Israelis using an inexpensive and far more natural product: sea salt.

Chinese and Israeli researchers have shown that the average precipitation on Mt Hua near Xi'an in central China has decreased by 20per cent amid increasing levels of man-made air pollution during the past 50 years. The precipitation loss was doubled on days that had the poorest visibility because of pollution particles in the air. This explains the widely observed trends of decrease in mountain precipitation relative to the rainfall in nearby densely populated lowlands, which until now had not been directly ascribed to air pollution.

Some of the most chilling evidence was presented by Rosenfeld's Australian-based research associate Aron Gingis in a 2002 submission to the House of Representatives standing committee on agriculture, fisheries and forestry concerning future water supplies for Australia's rural industries and communities.

The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's satellite map of southeast Australia, enhanced by Rosenfeld, shows the frightening persistence and longevity of pollutant trails across vast areas, including the all-important Snowy Mountains catchments. It may well be concluded that the increasing emissions from the phalanx of brown coal-burning power stations at Hazelwood and other locations in Gippsland, Victoria, have substantially wrecked the natural precipitation processes over the once hydrologically rich Australian Alps.

If Rosenfeld's scientific interpretations are correct, then southern Australia would greatly benefit from the application of his discoveries. At the very least, Rosenfeld's conclusions should be accorded appropriate evaluation and testing by an unprejudiced panel of peers.

Yet his work so far has been ignored in Australia because it does not fit in with the dominant paradigm that holds CO2 responsible for reduced rainfall in semi-arid regions.

Scientists, like all other people, need to remain open to competing views and avoid the danger of being locked into tunnel vision through group obsession, which is what global warming seems to have become.



Peter Schwerdtfeger is emeritus professor of meteorology at Flinders University in Adelaide.

[Marclau (Marcel)]

Thanks Allan,

A very good read and one that seems to be unbiased.........

[Archy (George)]

Thanks, Alan: food for thought isn't it?

[Solanum]

Originally Posted by Allan_L

The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's satellite map of southeast Australia, enhanced by Rosenfeld, shows the frightening persistence and longevity of pollutant trails across vast areas, including the all-important Snowy Mountains catchments. It may well be concluded that the increasing emissions from the phalanx of brown coal-burning power stations at Hazelwood and other locations in Gippsland, Victoria, have substantially wrecked the natural precipitation processes over the once hydrologically rich Australian Alps.

If Rosenfeld's scientific interpretations are correct, then southern Australia would greatly benefit from the application of his discoveries. At the very least, Rosenfeld's conclusions should be accorded appropriate evaluation and testing by an unprejudiced panel of peers.

Yet his work so far has been ignored in Australia because it does not fit in with the dominant paradigm that holds CO2 responsible for reduced rainfall in semi-arid regions.

Scientists, like all other people, need to remain open to competing views and avoid the danger of being locked into tunnel vision through group obsession, which is what global warming seems to have become.



Peter Schwerdtfeger is emeritus professor of meteorology at Flinders University in Adelaide.

Interesting, it may well be true (seems plausible to me) however not much of an argument against climate change as the IPCC predictions are actually for very little change in rainfall over Australia (not really a "dominant paradigm" then). So actually, this work might explain the droughts that climate change doesn't! Unfortunately, a number of people (some of the government included) are apt to blame 'climate change' for everything climate related.

As a 'bone fide' scientist and one with several years of working in this area (though not on climate itself), I have to say I find threads like this one very annoying (I usually try and fail to resist posting in them). It's no doubt patronising and I certainly do not advocate limiting free speech, but if I went up to a civil engineer and told him I had seen on a website how I could make a bridge with 50% less steel and concrete but double the strength do you think he should listen to me?

I do not have the knowledge or understanding of climatology to effectively argue for or against the predicted results of anthropogenic CO2 (and other IR absorbing compounds), therefore I accept the view of the vast majority (but not all) climatologists. I suspect that close to none of the respondents to this thread have that knowledge or understanding either.

I do have the knowledge to make predictions (but obviously cannot state the future as fact) about how vegetation will respond to those predicted changes, therefore I will argue that humanity (but not life in general) has some significant difficulties ahead.

[Argonavis (William)]

Originally Posted by Solanum

if I went up to a civil engineer and told him I had seen on a website how I could make a bridge with 50% less steel and concrete but double the strength do you think he should listen to me?

I do not have the knowledge or understanding of climatology to effectively argue for or against the predicted results of anthropogenic CO2 (and other IR absorbing compounds), therefore I accept the view of the vast majority (but not all) climatologists.

The forces operating on bridges are well known, and generally a 100% contingency factor is used. So you probably could make a bridge with 50% less concrete and steel, but that is not a risk our society is prepared to accept.

Climate is totally different. It cannot be modeled.

So what is the view of the "vast majority" of climatologists?

It is probably recorded in this leaked document from the US EPA. "Natural forces as opposed to human activity are largely responsible for temperature fluctuations, according to a new study. . New scientific data highlighted in the report shows that ocean cycles and solar cycles are probably the most important factors behind temperature fluctuations. Moreover, satellite information now indicates there is little chance of endangerment from greenhouse gases, according to the report. . . .Some of the major developments overlooked by EPA official include a continued decline in global temperatures, an emerging consensus that hurricanes will not be more frequent or intense and new studies that demonstrate water vapor will have a moderating influence on temperature. "

You don't need to be an expert or a climatologist to see that there is no correlation between atmospheric CO2 and temperatures, and very little science to support causation. As Pilmer says in his book "Heaven and Earth", of the 19 variables that influence climate, CO2 is the least important.

There is a real problem with "climatologists" who are running political agendas. This graph is a plot of raw GISS data. "The graph does not even remotely correlate to the shape of the CO2 versus time graph. The warming was greatest in the 1930’s before CO2 started to rise rapidly. The rate of rise in 1920, the early 1930’s and the early 1950’s is significantly greater than anything in the last 30 years. Despite the rapid rise in CO2 since 1960, the 1970’s to early 1980’s was the time of the global cooling scare and looking at the graph in Figure 5 one can see why (almost 2F cooling over 50 years). "

[Solanum]

Originally Posted by Argonavis

The forces operating on bridges are well known,

You miss my point, do you consider yourself knowledgeable enough to assess bridge construction? Would you if you read a few texts on the internet that disagreed with current bridge construction guidelines?

Originally Posted by Argonavis

Climate is totally different. It cannot be modelled.

Huh? It IS modelled, how do you think weather forecasts are made? The whole point of a model is to simplify a complex system. It's the accuracy of those models you are questioning.

Originally Posted by Argonavis

So what is the view of the "vast majority" of climatologists?

It is probably recorded in this leaked document from the US EPA.

Ah yes, a "leaked" report on the internet, that is convincing. Especially when it is hosted by a right-wing pressure group that aims to "overturn government regulations... such as regulations pertaining to drug safety, rent control, and automobile fuel efficiency" and amongst others is funded by Texaco. See http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php...rise_Institute

As oppose to the several thousand original publications, representing the vast majority of climatologists, that come to the opposite conclusion available here: http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/ar4-wg1.htm