Originally Posted by Justin '77

Um. If you had actually looked into the paper of Mörner's that was referenced, instead of just what the kook wrote who chose to reference him -- like a real researcher would, and unlike a dogmatic ideologue -- you would have seen that the 'underground tension fields' to which he was referring are a fairly unremarkable feature of plate tectonics (that is, 'underground' in the sense of below the surface, 'tension' in the sense of mechanical forces, and 'fields' in the sense of three-dimensional gradients). No dowsing there at all. Just bread-and-butter engineering-type stuff. Since his studies involve sea levels, it makes perfect sense that he'd be interested in plate tectonics and geological forces.

Oh, I did a bit of checking. Wiki has him listed as a dowser. The standard propaganda response to Mörner invokes his interest in water witching. I quoted the dower rebuttal argument rather than one of the anti-Mörner flame articles as it is was a fairly serious article attempting to rebut an extraordinary claim. Still, if you manage to find a copy of the article in question on line, I'd be pleased to see a link.

I could again link you to my own theory of psi, just to show you I am open to considering unusual phenomena and appreciate you need to get creative if you are trying to integrate unusual sciences into the main stream. And, yes, as far as I have been able to figure, that was what Mörner was trying to do.

But I guess we keep coming back to the Einstein story as an illustration of scientific consensus.

"When I was doing Professor Albert Einstein's bust he had many a jibe at the Nazi professors, one hundred of whom had condemned his theory of relativity in a book.

"Were I wrong," he said, "one professor would have been enough."

This does illustrate that science is not a democracy, especially when one mixes in politics. The denunciation of relativity, with its involvement of the Nazi party and Einstein's Jewish heritage, was as political as the current climate debates.

But it would have taken more than just Einstein being wrong to have made a meaningful dent in the theory's acceptance. The single scientist would have to show him wrong.

Anyway, you keep presenting us with dissenting scientists as if the ones and twos can out vote the consensus. Yes, individual studies and gauges can be found at fault. There are folks on both sides who are pushing propaganda more than science in order to achieve political objectives. There are media outlets on both sides who present biased one sided reports that amount to being Big Lies while denouncing the Big Lies on the other side.

But the serious science shows serious trends that are not going away lightly.

Originally Posted by The Rani

First you acknowledge that science is not a democracy, and then in the same post you make it quite obvious that you DO think of scientific fact as determined by number of votes.

That's what it looks to you like he was saying, too? I wasn't sure; I could hardly make a single whole out of his post.

It's kind of funny, Bob. Your long posts are all nothing if not complete and coherent, but your short ones can get really bizarre.

It's also funny how "serious science" somehow automatically excludes actually going out and getting one's hands dirty to check whether reality is tracking one's predictions. It's like the aversion to fieldwork you sometimes find in (bad) engineers or academics. Life is fieldwork.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

That's what it looks to you like he was saying, too? I wasn't sure; I could hardly make a single whole out of his post.

It's kind of funny, Bob. Your long posts are all nothing if not complete and coherent, but your short ones can get really bizarre.

It's also funny how "serious science" somehow automatically excludes actually going out and getting one's hands dirty to check whether reality is tracking one's predictions. It's like the aversion to fieldwork you sometimes find in (bad) engineers or academics. Life is fieldwork.

The point I was reaching for was that there are fringe folk on both sides making extreme claims. Locking Mörner and Gore into a room to see who walks out alive wouldn't advance science. Quoting either as if they are speaking infallibly ex cathedra seems dubious. When I see phrases like 'big lie' or 'epic fail' I tend to view the speaker as a values locked propagandist not interested much in the data.

And, yes, one needs data. There is no doubt the sea levels are rising. The rate of rise is accelerating, but not as much as some of the more extreme models predict. This means we need both more data and better models until the sea models mesh the data as well as the atmospheric ones.

In scanning the Wiki article on sea level rise, I found one graphic kind of interesting.



That's the recent rise / fall of sea level. There is a lot more green than blue, and far more red than purple. It's going up. What's interesting is that the sea isn't as flat as one might think. Hot water is less dense than cold water, so heating water rises. Thus, as various parts of the sea heat and cool, the sea level rises and falls.

And the land is rising and falling as well. Figuring out what is happening isn't as easy as reading the tidal gauges.

There is room in real science for disagreement, especially when so many to the tools are so new. I am interested in more data. I am not interested in conspiracy theories and accusations of Big Lies. There is a surplus of such things on this issue, and many issues.

I have been told that when talking to Xers, I must reduce my arguments to sound byte size. Long articles with more than a few ideas allegedly don't interest them. They haven't a Boomer's attention span or love of ideas I've found that most sound byte sized arguments have little effect either, as they usually have another sound by they are already fond of. Thus, sound bytes are answered by sound bytes with no movement.

But some days I'm in the mood and have sufficient stuff to back a long entry, and other days I don't. I'll continue to experiment with different formats.

Admittedly, I don't know much about this issue. Two questions (though they may have been addressed earlier): Why have CO2 levels, historically, lagged behind temperature increases/decreases? What cause(s) is/are usually attributed to these fluctuations pre-Industrial Revolution?

Wiki image, free use:

Originally Posted by Matt1989

Admittedly, I don't know much about this issue. Two questions (though they may have been addressed earlier): Why have CO2 levels, historically, lagged behind temperature increases/decreases? What cause(s) is/are usually attributed to these fluctuations pre-Industrial Revolution? (Image deleted. See above.)

Global warming alarmists will emphasize that increasing or decreasing levels of CO2 (and other gasses with similar properties) will cause temperature to follow. Global warming denialists will emphasize that increasing or decreasing temperatures will cause CO2 levels to follow. Both observations are true. As the oceans are heated, they can hold less greenhouse gasses, and CO2 is released. CO2 does cause increased temperatures. Should the oceans cool, they can re-absorb the gas.

The result is positive feedback. If a movement in either temperature or CO2 concentrations starts, the other is pulled in, and they boost each other. A small shift in one becomes a somewhat larger shift in both... in either direction.

There are many factors that might cause a shift to start. Volcanic dust will cause cooling. Shifts in the Earth's orbit can allow more or less sunlight to effectively heat. The sun's intensity shifts in semi-predictable ways. Plants take CO2 out of the air, storing the carbon in biomass, oil, and coal. Such substances are burned, and released back into the atmosphere. Increasing levels of cosmic rays might ionize the atmosphere, encouraging cloud formation and thus reflecting light back into space. Continents drift, allowing or preventing the formation of polar ice caps. There are lots of things happening at vastly different time scales, many of which do not start with CO2 levels, but the feedback mechanisms tend to move CO2 levels regardless of the initiating mechanism.

If something that has nothing to do with greenhouse gasses is driving a temperature change, you will see the temperature curve move ahead of the CO2 curve. If a CO2 release is causing the temperature change, you will see the CO2 curve leading. Either way, if either curve moves, the other curve will tend to follow.

The time interval of the graph you show features ice ages coming and going. Ice ages are caused primarily by the Milankovitch Cycles, highly predictable changes in the orbit of the Earth. Thus, on the time scale of the above chart, the primary factor driving the changes is generally related to the amount and angle of arriving solar energy, not related to CO2 changes. Thus temperature generally leads greenhouse in that time scale and era.

The climate system is messy. One curve does not always lead, or always lag. The important thing to note is that the curves do follow one another. where either one goes, the other is apt to follow.

Originally Posted by The Rani

I'll bet a clueless Boomer told you that.

Either that, or countless pieces of data collected from the field resulted in a theory which he passionatly came to believe in. ™

Did I get the length of the last one about right?

Originally Posted by The Rani

Don't forget about observer bias.

Of course. Values effect one's ability to perceive the data.

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

Global warming alarmists will emphasize that increasing or decreasing levels of CO2 (and other gasses with similar properties) will cause temperature to follow. Global warming denialists will emphasize that increasing or decreasing temperatures will cause CO2 levels to follow. Both observations are true. As the oceans are heated, they can hold less greenhouse gasses, and CO2 is released. CO2 does cause increased temperatures. Should the oceans cool, they can re-absorb the gas.

The result is positive feedback. If a movement in either temperature or CO2 concentrations starts, the other is pulled in, and they boost each other. A small shift in one becomes a somewhat larger shift in both... in either direction.

There are many factors that might cause a shift to start. Volcanic dust will cause cooling. Shifts in the Earth's orbit can allow more or less sunlight to effectively heat. The sun's intensity shifts in semi-predictable ways. Plants take CO2 out of the air, storing the carbon in biomass, oil, and coal. Such substances are burned, and released back into the atmosphere. Increasing levels of cosmic rays might ionize the atmosphere, encouraging cloud formation and thus reflecting light back into space. Continents drift, allowing or preventing the formation of polar ice caps. There are lots of things happening at vastly different time scales, many of which do not start with CO2 levels, but the feedback mechanisms tend to move CO2 levels regardless of the initiating mechanism.

If something that has nothing to do with greenhouse gasses is driving a temperature change, you will see the temperature curve move ahead of the CO2 curve. If a CO2 release is causing the temperature change, you will see the CO2 curve leading. Either way, if either curve moves, the other curve will tend to follow.

The time interval of the graph you show features ice ages coming and going. Ice ages are caused primarily by the Milankovitch Cycles, highly predictable changes in the orbit of the Earth. Thus, on the time scale of the above chart, the primary factor driving the changes is generally related to the amount and angle of arriving solar energy, not related to CO2 changes. Thus temperature generally leads greenhouse in that time scale and era.

The climate system is messy. One curve does not always lead, or always lag. The important thing to note is that the curves do follow one another. where either one goes, the other is apt to follow.

I just hope Cape Cod stays above water until 2040 or so, so I can retire and die in my little 700 ft2 cottage-by-the-sea.

Originally Posted by Roadbldr '59

I just hope Cape Cod stays above water until 2040 or so, so I can retire and die in my little 700 ft2 cottage-by-the-sea.

The sea seems to be rising from 2 to 3 mm per year. So, medium worse case, 100 mm? Four inches? Just how far above sea level did you build?

Of course, you will be able to find alarmists suggesting more rapid changes. Recent changes in how various Greenland and Antarctic ice flows are melting and moving seem significant. Still, it seems like Cape Cod ought to be safe for our life times.

If you get in trouble, though, my family's place in Plymoth is on top of a pretty good sized hill. If you need somewhere to go for an emergency evacuation, let me know. ™

You see increasing support on the left for (as opposed to increasingly fatalism about) a carbon tax.

As I see it one of the few things the left could agree on over much of the past century was the idea that taxation should be progressive; this seems like a big betrayal of basic values.

You wonder if it wouldn't create a kind of perverse incentive for government not to get solidly behind technological solutions that would permanently reduce carbon emissions, and even reverse climate change. After all government would become increasingly dependent on revenue from a carbon tax; declining carbon emissions would mean declining revenues. How much of those tobacco taxes go to reducing smoking?

Cnet reports that NASA images show thinning Arctic sea ice.

New satellite data shows that the thickness of the ice is becoming less, as well as the area covered.

The NY Times reports that Third-World Stove Soot Is Target in Climate Fight

In parts of the third world, much cooking is still done burning twigs and dung. The resulting fires do not burn clean. There is lots of soot. Some scientists are now saying this is a significant contributor to global warming, not to mention causing health problems resulting from people breathing the resulting smog.

It is proposed that getting decent stoves out there is a 'low hanging fruit,' something easier to do than building wind farms or mastering fusion power generation.

I'm not sure of the new science. Soot has often been cited as contributing to global dimming. Particles in the air increase cloud formation, and clouds bounce heat from the sun back into space. A large sooty volcanic eruption will cause global temperatures to drop for several years, with the obvious example being The Year Without a Summer. I have read other analysis saying we need to clean up Third World soot as it is a health hazard, but that doing so is going to cause a significant surge in warming.

But perhaps the smoke from cooking fires is different from that of factories without stack scrubbers?

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

... I'm not sure of the new science. Soot has often been cited as contributing to global dimming. Particles in the air increase cloud formation, and clouds bounce heat from the sun back into space. A large sooty volcanic eruption will cause global temperatures to drop for several years, with the obvious example being The Year Without a Summer. I have read other analysis saying we need to clean up Third World soot as it is a health hazard, but that doing so is going to cause a significant surge in warming.

But perhaps the smoke from cooking fires is different from that of factories without stack scrubbers?

I think the real difference is elevation above ground level. Soot from fires near the ground absorbs heat and warms the air. The soot has to get pretty high into relatively cold air before it acts as a condensing catalyst and promotes cloud formation.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

I think the real difference is elevation above ground level. Soot from fires near the ground absorbs heat and warms the air. The soot has to get pretty high into relatively cold air before it acts as a condensing catalyst and promotes cloud formation.

That makes sense.

The NY Times reports Study Finds a Pattern of Severe Droughts in Africa

It seems that decades long droughts existed in Africa before global warming. With modern medicine resulting in much larger populations and global warming also an influence, projecting into the future is hard. Still, global climate does effect African rainfall. The last major African drought corresponded to the Little Ice Age.

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

Cnet reports that NASA images show thinning Arctic sea ice.

New satellite data shows that the thickness of the ice is becoming less, as well as the area covered.

And yet, an interesting counterpoint:

Antarctic ice is growing, not melting away

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

The point I was reaching for was that there are fringe folk on both sides making extreme claims. Locking Mörner and Gore into a room to see who walks out alive wouldn't advance science. Quoting either as if they are speaking infallibly ex cathedra seems dubious. When I see phrases like 'big lie' or 'epic fail' I tend to view the speaker as a values locked propagandist not interested much in the data.

And, yes, one needs data. There is no doubt the sea levels are rising. The rate of rise is accelerating, but not as much as some of the more extreme models predict. This means we need both more data and better models until the sea models mesh the data as well as the atmospheric ones.

In scanning the Wiki article on sea level rise, I found one graphic kind of interesting.



That's the recent rise / fall of sea level. There is a lot more green than blue, and far more red than purple. It's going up. What's interesting is that the sea isn't as flat as one might think. Hot water is less dense than cold water, so heating water rises. Thus, as various parts of the sea heat and cool, the sea level rises and falls.

And the land is rising and falling as well. Figuring out what is happening isn't as easy as reading the tidal gauges.

There is room in real science for disagreement, especially when so many to the tools are so new. I am interested in more data. I am not interested in conspiracy theories and accusations of Big Lies. There is a surplus of such things on this issue, and many issues.

I have been told that when talking to Xers, I must reduce my arguments to sound byte size. Long articles with more than a few ideas allegedly don't interest them. They haven't a Boomer's attention span or love of ideas I've found that most sound byte sized arguments have little effect either, as they usually have another sound by they are already fond of. Thus, sound bytes are answered by sound bytes with no movement.

But some days I'm in the mood and have sufficient stuff to back a long entry, and other days I don't. I'll continue to experiment with different formats.

i can see some red near where i live. beachfront real estate only keeps going up though. and if that graph is to be believed, that accounts for 1 metre in a 100 years.

but y'know, i'll get a life-vest just in case...

Whether or not global warming is happening - and if we're in a sunspot minimum, it will be offset to some extent by solar cooling - we are certainly in a period of crazy weather and almost certainly some sort of climate change.

One reason you can argue about this forever is that the local effects are different wherever you are - I'm in New Mexico and we're just getting out of a spring that's swung from above-normal in mid-March to cold and wet in mid-April and back up to mid-seventies. Notable because this is the latest I've ever not had my swamp cooler set up. Arkansas, where I have a friend, is getting weather the locals never, ever anticipated, and a lot of them where she is are very weather-wise.

It takes a global perspective, which the satellites give us, or else incessant communications between the various locations hit by unusual weather and a horde of data analysts not only putting the current data together and mining it for patterns, but the historical data - going back as far as possible. Yes, even into the Ice Age if need be. Mapped against solar minima and maxima as well.

One way to do that if one distrusts the scientists as politically motivated is to use distributed computing and a horde of volunteers to gather the data and have their home computers churn it at night. However, I'm going to assume that climate change is real and the graphs show what they show. I'm a bookkeeper, not a climatologist. All I want to know is when to set up and close down the swamp cooler and whether the fleece sweater and rain shell will be enough for this morning's duties.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

And yet, an interesting counterpoint:

Antarctic ice is growing, not melting away

Based on my knowledge of climatology a moderate amount of warming would lead to melting on the edge of the continent while at the same time warmer temps inland would increase snowfall. so not surprising.

Of course if it gets warm enough that the West Antarctic ice sheet, which is grounded below sea level, collapses then that changes everything.

The NY Times reports that Industry Ignored Its Scientists on Climate For discussion purposes...

Originally Posted by Andrew Revkin

For more than a decade the Global Climate Coalition, a group representing industries with profits tied to fossil fuels, led an aggressive lobbying and public relations campaign against the idea that emissions of heat-trapping gases could lead to global warming.

“The role of greenhouse gases in climate change is not well understood,” the coalition said in a scientific “backgrounder” provided to lawmakers and journalists through the early 1990s, adding that “scientists differ” on the issue.

But a document filed in a federal lawsuit demonstrates that even as the coalition worked to sway opinion, its own scientific and technical experts were advising that the science backing the role of greenhouse gases in global warming could not be refuted.

Originally Posted by Odin

Based on my knowledge of climatology a moderate amount of warming would lead to melting on the edge of the continent while at the same time warmer temps inland would increase snowfall. so not surprising.

Of course if it gets warm enough that the West Antarctic ice sheet, which is grounded below sea level, collapses then that changes everything.

Before the recent satellite measurements of ice began, a lot of attention went to what was easily accessible and visible. Thus, area was easier to measure than thickness. Melts of glaciers in reasonably accessible regions of the globe got a lot more attention that the high antarctic. Some element of the squeaky wheel getting the grease was in play. A lot more study went to glaciers which were clearly and obviously in trouble.

Ocean levels have been steadily rising, but the rate of rise isn't increasing. It is holding reasonably steady, in spite of what can be so clearly seen and measured in Greenland, West Antarctica and just about every temperate zone mountain glacier system. Increased snowfall in East Antarctica might explain why the acceleration hasn't been taking place. There has been a fear of 'tipping points,' that the further along the warming process goes, the faster it will proceed. The East Antarctica snow increase seems to be one moderating effect, something opposite of a tipping point, one mechanism that is fighting the 'off the cliff' effect that we might be approaching a point of no return, at least in terms of ocean levels.

Still, I don't know that Antarctic climate systems are that well understood. I doubt anyone really knows how strong and enduring the East Antarctic snow effect is.

Another view on what to do about carbon.

http://www.city-journal.org/2009/19_2_carbon.html

Pax,

Dave Krein '42

Missing sunspots.

Originally Posted by Arkham '80

Missing sunspots.

It's so neat to see predictions made by a real scientist according to a scientifically legitimate (that is, objectively testable) hypothesis come to pass. Though not coming to pass is just as good, scientifically speaking, being right is a lot more fun.

Good work, Dr. Abdusamatov.

Chasing down sunspot cycles, I stumbled on a cyclical theory of history. It seems that wars and recessions tend to occur on peak solar cycle years...

The title of this predictive piece? The Coming Economic Collapse of 2006. (pdf) Except the collapse didn't come until 2008... and the expected solar maximum of 2008 didn't develop...