Your views on climate change

[Great Darthidium]

Basically as we all know climate change is a real occurance... however this is where most opinions stop, I personally beleive climate change has a small portion to do with human activity and is merely being exploted by governments as a way of incresing tax revenue and marketing for corporations.

I beleive we should be investing in newer fuel technology, better standards of living however i also beleive we should be doing this now, its obvious to see the whole carbon trade thing is a load of s**t and just a way of making money out of a problem, it generates billions a yeasr and for what? carbon emmmisions have actually gone up.

Then we have the issue with who actually makes carbon, my guess is that most of you think we make around 80% of the earths CO2, well...no, we actually make around 5% of the total global output of CO2, the majority comes from animals, decaying matter such as dead animals and plants and that in the ocean being re released, infact fossil fuels are as said a very small proportion of te total co2 output, then we have the next issue, co2 is not the worlds statistically speaking biggest greenhouse gas and one most effecting the planet, its actually water vapour which as you all know is beyond any humans control as we have giant factories emmiting this steam all the time... oceans covering 2/3 of the planet, of corse scientists would much ratehr focus the public on the small 5% of co2 we make and try to forget about the fact 95% is made from uncontrolable sorces and the fact we cant even control the biggest emmiter.

The whole take on climate change appears to be similar to someone lying on the floor after being shot in the neck then trying to bandage his foot because he cut it while falling... thats really going to help in the long run...

Personally I feel what governments should be doing is activly investing in alternative fuels and trying to simply outlaw fossil fuels as a fuel sorce, its been shown that within 20 years they could remove fossil fuels from use if correctly done so. They have done so for many other fuels for public use or under strict control why not fossil fuels (obviously this is due to the very wealthy multi billion oil corporations not being very happy about doing so).

Climate change is firstly not as bad as they made out about 5 years ago, now predictions are almost laughable to what they originally said (such as a very large sea level rise by 2050), governments are simply using it as a way of taxing people and generating extra income such as with the multi billion dollar carbon business and then lastly they seem to almost delibretly neglect obvious ways of fixing the supposed issues, if the planet will in effect be badly damaged as a result of this climate change why not ban fossil fuels, set up an international body to invest and support the development of alternative fuels or even do things as simple as supporting nuclear fuels or things that WILL be widely used, some crappy expensive wind turbines are not the answer, no really they are just apauling peices of technology.

[Xsyne]

I, too, do not understand the difference between sequestered carbon and carbon that is already part of the cycle.

[Vellosia]

I'm highly sceptical of human-caused climate change.

In fact, I'm sceptical the world is even warming...I'm thinking more of a global cooling to come.

[Free Luve]

I'm highly sceptical of human-caused climate change.

In fact, I'm sceptical the world is even warming...I'm thinking more of a global cooling to come.

^this

[Farnhamia]

I'm highly sceptical of human-caused climate change.

In fact, I'm sceptical the world is even warming...I'm thinking more of a global cooling to come.

^this

Based on what science?

[Vellosia]

^this

Based on what science?

The temperature fluctuations of the Pleistocene.

[Farnhamia]

Based on what science?

The temperature fluctuations of the Pleistocene.

Uh huh. The Pleistocene Era ended 12,000 years ago. The world is a bit different now.

[Avenio]

In fact, I'm sceptical the world is even warming...I'm thinking more of a global cooling to come.

(Spoilered for space, see below)

(dark blue 1000-1991): P.D. Jones, K.R. Briffa, T.P. Barnett, and S.F.B. Tett (1998). , The Holocene, 8: 455-471.
(blue 1000-1980): M.E. Mann, R.S. Bradley, and M.K. Hughes (1999). , Geophysical Research Letters, 26(6): 759-762.
(light blue 1000-1965): Crowley and Lowery (2000). , Ambio, 29: 51-54. Modified as published in Crowley (2000). , Science, 289: 270-277.
(lightest blue 1402-1960): K.R. Briffa, T.J. Osborn, F.H. Schweingruber, I.C. Harris, P.D. Jones, S.G. Shiyatov, S.G. and E.A. Vaganov (2001). , J. Geophys. Res., 106: 2929-2941.
(light green 831-1992): J. Esper, E.R. Cook, and F.H. Schweingruber (2002). , Science, 295(5563): 2250-2253.
(yellow 200-1980): M.E. Mann and P.D. Jones (2003). , Geophysical Research Letters, 30(15): 1820. doi:10.1029/2003GL017814.
(orange 200-1995): P.D. Jones and M.E. Mann (2004). , Reviews of Geophysics, 42: RG2002. doi:10.1029/2003RG000143
(red-orange 1500-1980): S. Huang (2004). , Geophys. Res Lett., 31: L13205. doi:10.1029/2004GL019781
(red 1-1979): A. Moberg, D.M. Sonechkin, K. Holmgren, N.M. Datsenko and W. Karlén (2005). , Nature, 443: 613-617. doi:10.1038/nature03265
(dark red 1600-1990): J.H. Oerlemans (2005). , Science, 308: 675-677. doi:10.1126/science.1107046

(black 1856-2004): Instrumental data was jointly compiled by the Climatic Research Unit and the UK Meteorological Office Hadley Centre. Global Annual Average data set TaveGL2v ^[2] was used.

Documentation for the most recent update of the CRU/Hadley instrumental data set appears in: P.D. Jones and A. Moberg (2003). , Journal of Climate, 16: 206-223.

The Global Cooling Myth

Every now and again, the myth that “we shouldn’t believe global warming predictions now, because in the 1970′s they were predicting an ice age and/or cooling” surfaces. Recently, George Will mentioned it in his column (see Will-full ignorance) and the egregious Crichton manages to say “in the 1970′s all the climate scientists believed an ice age was coming” (see Michael Crichton’s State of Confusion). You can find it in various other places too [here, mildly here, etc]. But its not an argument used by respectable and knowledgeable skeptics, because it crumbles under analysis. That doesn’t stop it repeatedly cropping up in newsgroups though.

I should clarify that I’m talking about predictions in the scientific press. There were some regrettable things published in the popular press (e.g. Newsweek; though National Geographic did better). But we’re only responsible for the scientific press. If you want to look at an analysis of various papers that mention the subject, then try http://www.wmconnolley.org.uk/sci/iceage/.

Where does the myth come from? Naturally enough, there is a kernel of truth behind it all. Firstly, there was a trend of cooling from the 40′s to the 70′s (although that needs to be qualified, as hemispheric or global temperature datasets were only just beginning to be assembled then). But people were well aware that extrapolating such a short trend was a mistake (Mason, 1976). Secondly, it was becoming clear that ice ages followed a regular pattern and that interglacials (such as we are now in) were much shorter that the full glacial periods in between. Somehow this seems to have morphed (perhaps more in the popular mind than elsewhere) into the idea that the next ice age was predicatable and imminent. Thirdly, there were concerns about the relative magnitudes of aerosol forcing (cooling) and CO2 forcing (warming), although this latter strand seems to have been short lived.

The state of the science at the time (say, the mid 1970′s), based on reading the papers is, in summary: “…we do not have a good quantitative understanding of our climate machine and what determines its course. Without the fundamental understanding, it does not seem possible to predict climate…” (which is taken directly from NAS, 1975). In a bit more detail, people were aware of various forcing mechanisms – the ice age cycle; CO2 warming; aerosol cooling – but didn’t know which would be dominant in the near future. By the end of the 1970′s, though, it had become clear that CO2 warming would probably be dominant; that conclusion has subsequently strengthened.

George Will asserts that Science magazine (Dec. 10, 1976) warned about “extensive Northern Hemisphere glaciation.”. The quote is from Hays et al. But the quote is taken grossly out of context. Here, in full, is the small section dealing with prediction:

Future climate. Having presented evidence that major changes in past climate were associated with variations in the geometry of the earth’s orbit, we should be able to predict the trend of future climate. Such forecasts must be qualified in two ways. First, they apply only to the natural component of future climatic trends – and not to anthropogenic effects such as those due to the burning of fossil fuels. Second, they describe only the long-term trends, because they are linked to orbital variations with periods of 20,000 years and longer. Climatic oscillations at higher frequencies are not predicted.

One approach to forecasting the natural long-term climate trend is to estimate the time constants of response necessary to explain the observed phase relationships between orbital variation and climatic change, and then to use those time constants in the exponential-response model. When such a model is applied to Vernekar’s (39) astronomical projections, the results indicate that the long-term trend over the next 20,000 years is towards extensive Northern Hemisphere glaciation and cooler climate (80).

The point about timescales is worth noticing: predicting an ice age (even in the absence of human forcing) is almost impossible within a timescale that you could call “imminent” (perhaps a century: comparable to the scales typically used in global warming projections) because ice ages are slow, when caused by orbital forcing type mechanisms.

Will also quotes “a full-blown 10,000-year ice age” (Science, March 1, 1975). The quote is accurate, but the source isn’t. The piece isn’t from “Science”; it’s from “Science News”. There is a major difference: Science is (jointly with Nature) the most prestigous journal for natural science; Science News is not a peer-reviewed journal at all, though it is still respectable. In this case, its process went a bit wrong: the desire for a good story overwhelmed its reading of the NAS report which was presumably too boring to present directly.

The Hays paper above is the most notable example of the “ice age” strand. Indeed, its a very important paper in the history of climate, linking observed cycles in ocean sediment cores to orbital forcing periodicities. Of the other strand, aerosol cooling, Rasool and Schneider, Science, July 1971, p 138, “Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide and Aerosols: Effects of Large Increases on Global Climate” is the best exemplar. This contains the quote that quadrupling aerosols could decrease the mean surface temperature (of Earth) by as much as 3.5 degrees K. If sustained over a period of several years, such a temperature decrease could be sufficient to trigger an ice age!. But even this paper qualifies its predictions (whether or not aerosols would so increase was unknown) and speculates that nuclear power may have largely replaced fossil fuels as a means of energy production (thereby, presumably, removing the aerosol problem). There are, incidentally, other scientific problems with the paper: notably that the model used was only suitable for small perturbations but the results are for rather large perturbations; and that the estimate of CO2 sensitivity was too low by a factor of about 3.

Probably the best summary of the time was the 1975 NAS/NRC report. This is a serious sober assessment of what was known at the time, and their conclusion was that they didn’t know enough to make predictions. From the “Summary of principal conclusions and recommendations”, we find that they said we should:

Establish National climatic research program
Establish Climatic data analysis program, and new facilities, and studies of impact of climate on man
Develope Climatic index monitoring program
Establish Climatic modelling and applications program, and exploration of possible future climates using coupled GCMs
Adoption and development of International climatic research program
Development of International Palaeoclimatic data network

Which is to say, they recommended more research, not action. Which was entirely appropriate to the state of the science at the time. In the last 30 years, of course, enormous progress has been made in the field of climate science.

Most of this post has been about the science of 30 years ago. From the point of view of todays science, and with extra data available:

The cooling trend from the 40′s to the 70′s now looks more like a slight interruption of an upward trend (e.g. here). It turns out that the northern hemisphere cooling was larger than the southern (consistent with the nowadays accepted interpreation that the cooling was largely caused by sulphate aerosols); at first, only NH records were available.
Sulphate aerosols have not increased as much as once feared (partly through efforts to combat acid rain); CO2 forcing is greater. Indeed IPCC projections of future temperature inceases went up from the 1995 SAR to the 2001 TAR because estimates of future sulphate aerosol levels were lowered (SPM).
Interpretations of future changes in the Earth’s orbit have changed somewhat. It now seems likely (Loutre and Berger, Climatic Change, 46: (1-2) 61-90 2000) that the current interglacial, based purely on natural forcing, would last for an exceptionally long time: perhaps 50,000 years.

Finally, its clear that there were concerns, perhaps quite strong, in the minds of a number of scientists of the time. And yet, the papers of the time present a clear consensus that future climate change could not be predicted with the knowledge then available. Apparently, the peer review and editing process involved in scientific publication was sufficient to provide a sober view. This episode shows the scientific press in a very good light; and a clear contrast to the lack of any such process in the popular press, then and now.

Further Reading:

Imbrie & Imbrie “Ice Ages: solving the mystery” (1979) is an interesting general book on the discovery of the ice ages and their mechanisms; chapter 16 deals with “The coming ice age”.

Spencer Weart’s History of Global Warming has a chapter on Past Cycles: Ice Age Speculations.

An analysis of various papers that mention the subject is at http://www.wmconnolley.org.uk/sci/iceage/.

[Thalam]

Saying that the human contribution of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases is relatively small is a red herring. The natural release of carbon dioxide is offset by carbon sinks. The human contribution pushes the amount of carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere over that which natural carbon sinks can effectively handle, and is more than enough to cause significant environmental change.

Edit: To use an analogy, imagine you have filled up a bathtub with water to the very brim. Adding a gallon of water, a relatively small amount, will still cause it to overflow.

[Vellosia]

The temperature fluctuations of the Pleistocene.

Uh huh. The Pleistocene Era ended 12,000 years ago. The world is a bit different now.

On a climatological scale, 12,000 years isn't really that much. Especially when you see that in the Pleistocene, everything happening now happened several times before. And using that as a guideline, we are at the peak of an interglacial.

[Xsyne]

Let's try an analogy. A 70 kilo male human's body contains about 40 liters of water. Now, let's add a bit more than 2 liters of water to his body, or about 1/19 of the already present water. What happens to him?

The addition of water without a corresponding addition of electrolytes results in a phenomenon known as water toxicity. Fortunately, even when consumed in a short period of time 2 liters isn't enough to kill our guinea pig, but it will make his life very unpleasant for quite some time.

[Riakou]

Ahhh its too late to be reading all that, think i'll leave it out. -.-

[Farnhamia]

Uh huh. The Pleistocene Era ended 12,000 years ago. The world is a bit different now.

On a climatological scale, 12,000 years isn't really that much. Especially when you see that in the Pleistocene, everything happening now happened several times before. And using that as a guideline, we are at the peak of an interglacial.

The previous interglacials did not have seven billion humans pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. We've changed the circumstances.

[Xsyne]

Uh huh. The Pleistocene Era ended 12,000 years ago. The world is a bit different now.

On a climatological scale, 12,000 years isn't really that much. Especially when you see that in the Pleistocene, everything happening now happened several times before. And using that as a guideline, we are at the peak of an interglacial.

I'm sure you can find plenty of peer-reviewed studies to support that.

[Storica]

Hippie nonsense

[Farnhamia]

Let's try an analogy. A 70 kilo male human's body contains about 40 liters of water. Now, let's add a bit more than 2 liters of water to his body, or about 1/19 of the already present water. What happens to him?

The addition of water without a corresponding addition of electrolytes results in a phenomenon known as water toxicity. Fortunately, even when consumed in a short period of time 2 liters isn't enough to kill our guinea pig, but it will make his life very unpleasant for quite some time.

And that's analogous to the climate how?

[Farnhamia]

On a climatological scale, 12,000 years isn't really that much. Especially when you see that in the Pleistocene, everything happening now happened several times before. And using that as a guideline, we are at the peak of an interglacial.

I'm sure you can find plenty of peer-reviewed studies to support that.

Didn't Exxon-Mobil pay for some last year?

[Laerod]

Basically as we all know climate change is a real occurance... however this is where most opinions stop, I personally beleive climate change has a small portion to do with human activity and is merely being exploted by governments as a way of incresing tax revenue and marketing for corporations.

Do provide examples of this happening.

[Thalam]

Let's try an analogy. A 70 kilo male human's body contains about 40 liters of water. Now, let's add a bit more than 2 liters of water to his body, or about 1/19 of the already present water. What happens to him?

The addition of water without a corresponding addition of electrolytes results in a phenomenon known as water toxicity. Fortunately, even when consumed in a short period of time 2 liters isn't enough to kill our guinea pig, but it will make his life very unpleasant for quite some time.

And that's analogous to the climate how?

I believe his point is that the addition of a relatively small amount of a substance beyond a balanced level can have large consequences.

[Vellosia]

Furthermore, the amount of times that climate data has been shown to be incorrect (or falsified) really makes it clear that no-one really has any concrete idea of what the future holds climate wise.

[Shinjitai]

-deleted-

[Farnhamia]

Furthermore, the amount of times that climate data has been shown to be incorrect (or falsified) really makes it clear that no-one really has any concrete idea of what the future holds climate wise.

For which you have sources, of course. Of course.

[Farnhamia]

And that's analogous to the climate how?

I believe his point is that the addition of a relatively small amount of a substance beyond a balanced level can have large consequences.

Then he could have been a trifle clearer, methinks.

[Thalam]

Furthermore, the amount of times that climate data has been shown to be incorrect (or falsified) really makes it clear that no-one really has any concrete idea of what the future holds climate wise.

I'm interested to know what data (i.e. observation and quantification) have been "falsified".

[Vellosia]

On a climatological scale, 12,000 years isn't really that much. Especially when you see that in the Pleistocene, everything happening now happened several times before. And using that as a guideline, we are at the peak of an interglacial.

The previous interglacials did not have seven billion humans pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. We've changed the circumstances.

Considering that temperatures actually began to rapidly rise again in the Holocene long before humans had industrial capabilities, I consdier that irrelevant. Even more so when one finds that in many other interglacials, Earth got quite a bit warmer (on the climate level) than it supposedly is now.

Climatology in educated guessing, nothing more.