Why Climate Change Won't Matter in 20 Years

[fryewe]

Stu, thanks for the link to the ASU Atmos Science course...

[StuM]

Originally Posted by Reefmagnet

To put that into context, average global temperatures have "soared" 0.6 to 1.0 deg C (depending on the source) in the last 150 years or so whilst seasonal temperature extremes can often enough exceed around 120 deg C (I believe the actual record is about 150 deg C).

And one little known fact which is hidden by the constant use of "temperature anomalies" is that global temperature is nowhere near constant on an annual basis.

The "accepted estimate"* is that it varies by nearly 4°C throughout the year. It is believed to range from around 12°C in January to 16°C in July

*No one knows for sure. No one can actually measure it. They use models to estimate it from available data. NASA puts a margin of error of +/- 0.6°C on their model based estimate. The range in the CIMP5 GCMs (the climate models which form the basis of the IPCC's last round of predictions) is much wider. They give anywhere from 12 to 15°C as the annual average.

The science is nowhere near settled even on this basic fact.

[StuM]

Originally Posted by conachair

What do you think about the gaia hypothesis, life has self limiting long term effects on the climate to keep it within extremes.

That's a very glib explanation of the hypothesis.

The hypothesis makes sense at the level of tending towards homeostasis (that is after all what net negative feedbacks are all about).

But the teleological concepts embedded in the idea of a global superorganism are New Age poppycock.

[transmitterdan]

Originally Posted by GordMay

Well written post, as always.
But, I don't understand why Net climate feedbacks must always be negative in the long run. Could you please explain?

StuM already answered this question. It is proven by the simple fact we exist. But it is something that many people seem unable (or unwilling) to consider. In fact, given the long history of the earth it seems more likely than not that the negative feedback mechanisms are extremely strong and overwhelm any positive feedback over long periods of time. What makes me a bit skeptical is that "scientists" don't even try to explain why they believe millions of years of evidence that there is strong negative feedback will be negated by a delta of one hundred ppm of CO2. You have to turn statistics on its head to balance that equation. I would love to read even one paper that can explain how the extreme negative feedback will suddenly "stop".

There are examples where negative feedback failed. Mars for example had an atmosphere and running water at one time. But the feedback wasn't strong enough to maintain them. But few climate scientists are interested in why or how that happened.

[conachair]

[QUOTE=StuM;2049323But the teleological concepts embedded in the idea of a global superorganism are New Age poppycock.[/QUOTE]

There aren't any, it was just a metaphor from Lovelock. The "mother earth" being real was jumped on afterwards by some crystal gazers.

Anyway. enough, time to go.

There's nothing positive to come out of these threads. IMHO.

[Ribbit]

Originally Posted by conachair

Looking at it a different way and starting from the very bottom- the heat content of the planet has increased extremely rapidly in the past 150 odd years, that isn't contentious. - why?

If that was true, why can't that heat be found?

From someone who puts it well (a scientist that can do statistics, unlike so many so called 'climate' scientists) :

"The DoomSayers Of Climate Change"

https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=231120

"As I've pointed out repeatedly in this column the so-called "predictions" of "Global Warming" have proved incorrect. This has not stopped the screaming, or the amount of money being forcibly removed from people at gunpoint to "give" to those who run this crap or profit from it, irrespective of the economic harm it does to the economy of the world."

Reality is, that just like the so-called "lipid hypothesis" that has been roundly disproved in the medical field, "global warming" is bunk. If CO2 is the cause of "global warming" and it's man's contribution to it (which is a low single-digit percentage of the total of CO2, by the way) then there are certain facts that are very hard to reconcile.

Among them are the fact that the upper atmosphere hasn't warmed to any material degree. Nor has the middle-atmosphere band that were told was where all the CO2 effects would concentrate and thus force the warming downward toward us.

Further, the ground datasets have been altered; the people doing it claim they have to adjust for "various factors", but if that data is inaccurate how about the satellite observations of the upper atmosphere, and the dropsonde and balloon observations of the middle layers? Neither of them show warming either, and the gap keeps widening -- which certainly looks like intentional tampering, doesn't it?


Next, if in fact the ocean is going to warm catastrophically and the atmosphere warming is the cause then the upper layers of the ocean must warm first. That's obvious. But.... they don't. In fact the oceanic warming that has been observed has been led from the deeper layers, although the absolute rate of change is shockingly low -- about 1 degree in 400 years, which is hardly a disaster prognostication for the next half-century. Nonetheless the cause can't be atmospheric if the warming is originating in the deep, and it is.

It is not "science" to continue to claim that something that was projected to happen and then didn't is still "inevitable" and "occurring." When your theory is disproved through the fullness of time science demands you modify or throw out your theory.

That's what science is.

Politics and theft, on the other hand, requires no science. It simply requires a gullible population that refuses to lock up the thieves.

Considering that the same sort of claims have been made for the "food pyramid" yet those "recommendations" kill millions in the US every year, not to mention causing a tremendous amount of damage to both health and finances of the common person, is it any wonder that we find it in this area of so-called public policy as well?"


Karl has written very well on the subject for several years now (including analysing the computer code used by the University of East Anglia, and discovering the blatant fraud it contains, confirmed by visitors to his site that are professional coders), and continues to hit it out of the park.

There are a large number of people involved in this climate fraud (and theft of Public Money), that are deserving of very lengthy prison terms.

That doesn't include the penalties they deserve for the suffering and deaths they have caused to the sick and the elderly.

[fryewe]

Originally Posted by StuM

And one little known fact which is hidden by the constant use of "temperature anomalies" is that global temperature is nowhere near constant on an annual basis.

The "accepted estimate"* is that it varies by nearly 4°C throughout the year. It is believed to range from around 12°C in January to 16°C in July

*No one knows for sure. No one can actually measure it. They use models to estimate it from available data. NASA puts a margin of error of +/- 0.6°C on their model based estimate. The range in the CIMP5 GCMs (the climate models which form the basis of the IPCC's last round of predictions) is much wider. They give anywhere from 12 to 15°C as the annual average.

The science is nowhere near settled even on this basic fact.

The puzzle for me is the notion that the energy balance in the Earth's atmosphere can be measured primarily with air temperatures, with short shrift given to the effects of the oceans and lakes (water having a massive relative specific heat capacity), and to the convective heat transfer within the oceans and between the oceans and air, and cloud formation and cloud effects (including the convective heat transfer within the atmosphere).

The models, as far as I can tell, ignore the work being done by (kinetic energy of) wind and waves.

Thermal sensors can't measure energy absorption and emission by water when changing phase...condensing or evaporating...at constant temperature.

Is the assumption made that these effects are, on average, constant? El Nino, La Nina, the recently departed Blob, the chaotic behavior of the ocean currents seem to dispute that they are.

That accepted estimate of the winter vs. summer global temps asserts that the global temperature is higher in northern hemisphere summer than in northern hemisphere winter, yet Earth is about 2 percent closer to the sun in winter than in summer, and the southern hemisphere presents a greater ocean surface than the northern hemisphere with much greater heat capacity. Seems counterintuitive to me that the ENERGY absorption by Earth would be greater in the summer than winter. Is the ocean's greater reflectivity to EM radiation than land surfaces the stated reason?

[Reefmagnet]

I suspect you're on the right path. Perihelion does occur at this time in S hemisphere summer so in theory Jan should be the hottest. This leaves land mass distribution as perhaps the main suspect. I'll take a stab and say it's to do with evaporation rates and cloud cover as a result of the difference between a primarily S hemisphere maritime climate and a N hemisphere continental climate. Basically I'm thinking that there is a lot more evaporation of the oceans occuring during S Hemisphere summer.

Sent from my SGP521 using Cruisers Sailing Forum mobile app

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by transmitterdan

StuM already answered this question. It is proven by the simple fact we exist. But it is something that many people seem unable (or unwilling) to consider. In fact, given the long history of the earth it seems more likely than not that the negative feedback mechanisms are extremely strong and overwhelm any positive feedback over long periods of time...

Wouldn't that better explain how humanity (& the climate that fostered & nurtured our growth) survived, and mostly (but not always) thrived until the industrial revolution.
For about 10,000 years, our climate on Earth has been remarkably stable. Since the end of the last ice age, we humans have spent 400 generations taking advantage of this stability to build our civilisation. We have had warm periods and little ice ages; but the changes have been small.
There are a number of factors affecting our climate, that are beyond our reasonable control:
The earth’s orbit
The Sun’s activity
Volcanic Activity
and probably others...
And, we’ve survived (but not always happily) all of them, to date.
Those earlier strong (natural) negative feedbacks didn't have to cope with the (overwhelmingly) positive anthropocentric forcing that our recent industrial activity has added to the equation.
Didn't the natural cycle change (to some extent), when man became a significant player?
The questions seem (to me):
- How fast & to what degree are we changing the balance (& I suppose: what direction: favourable/unfavourable)?
- What are the likely (favourable or unfavourable) consequences of our current activities?
- What are the reasonable responses that we should undertake to foster favourable outcomes, and/or mitigate unfavourable outcomes?
While negative feedbacks can and have had have an important moderating impact, as I understand it, most of the current data and analysis indicates that the overall (net) feedback effect of our current industrial activity/input will be positive. Very few scientists are arguing that the feedbacks may be more negative than currently indicated in the science.

[StuM]

> the (overwhelmingly) positive anthropocentric forcing that our recent industrial activity has added to the equation.

That's the big assumption on which alarmism depends and is the crux of the whole debate.

Where is the physical evidence to support the use of the words "overwhelming positive" when talking about anthropogenic* (not just industrial) activities?

* or as the IPCC defines it "human caused climate change".

[Reefmagnet]

Unless man made CO2 is somehow differentiated from naturally produced CO2 by the climate, then let history be our teacher.



Climate during the Carboniferous Period

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by StuM

... Where is the physical evidence to support the use of the words "overwhelming positive" when talking about anthropogenic* (not just industrial) activities?
* or as the IPCC defines it "human caused climate change".

Is the contention that AG forcing isn’t overwhelmingly (mostly) positive, or that, even if it is (or isn’t) it’s, nevertheless, insignificant to the net climate formula?

While negative feedbacks can and have had have an important moderating impact, as I understand it, most of the current data and analysis indicates that the overall (net) feedback effect of our current industrial activity/input will be positive. Very few scientists are arguing that the feedbacks may be more negative than currently indicated in the science.

Originally Posted by Reefmagnet

Unless man made CO2 is somehow differentiated from naturally produced CO2 by the climate, then let history be our teacher...

So additional Co2 (from whatever source) isn’t likely to promote warming?

[StuM]

If you take "overwhelming" to mean "mostly", I agree with you - for the late 20th Century.
But one of the excuses for the 1945-1975 cooling and the current "pause" is that the direct and indirect effects of such things as sulphur and other aerosol emissions has cancelled out CO2's radiative forcing.


I took your statement "Those earlier strong (natural) negative feedbacks didn't have to cope with the (overwhelmingly) positive anthropocentric forcing" to mean that anthropogenic forcings were overwhelming (i.e. are much larger and more significant than) natural forcings and feedbacks.

[StuM]

Originally Posted by GordMay

activity/input will be positive. Very few scientists are arguing that the feedbacks may be more negative than currently indicated in the science.

What is currently indicated in the science is pretty hazy and is in constant flux. Climate sensitivity is still a major source of disagreement. But estimates are constantly being lowered.

[StuM]

And here's why there is so much uncertainty. (From the UN). Note all the "low" and "very low" levels of scientific understanding (and hence grasp of the magnitudes) and the only natural forcing identified as one "very low understanding" solar input.

Not that the uncertainty range of the negative Indirect Aerosol effects is comparable to the total GHG forcing shown.
Also notable by its absence is the most important GHG of all - water vapour. But if they included that, all those other bars would be so small as to be unreadable.