[rockdoc123]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'C')O2 is up from about 290ppm in pre-industrial times to 380ppm now...I don't know where both the claims of 3% and the claim of quadripling come from!

[rockdoc123]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'C')O2 is up from about 290ppm in pre-industrial times to 380ppm now...I don't know where both the claims of 3% and the claim of quadripling come from!

[PenultimateManStanding]

If the proponents of quick global action to address global warming finally come to discover that our fossil fuel burning civilization has done and is doing far more damage to the biosphere than to the atmosphere and climate, I see no reason why they could not remain committed to whatever it is they are saying or doing. It isn't wise to attach oneself to a theoretical danger (CO2) which may not be all that it's made out to be. Sure the temperature rises, sometimes it falls, too, radically. The science is thin and inconclusive with plenty of solid evidence that CO2 is not a trigger, but a rather minor player. We still have serious problems anyway.

[PenultimateManStanding]

Here's a good summary of the situation:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'B')y the turn of the new millenium, finally the idea of abrupt change had reached some kind of critical mass among climate scientists. In a coming of age for the science, the National Research Council appointed a special committee to conduct a comprehensive review of the subject. Some of the brightest climate scientists in the business were asked to identify "critical knowledge gaps" and to recommend a research strategy. In 2002, the NRC committee issued its report Abrupt Climate Change: Inevitable Surprises.
"We do not yet understand abrupt climate changes well enough to predict them," Richard Alley, who chaired the NRC committee, wrote in a preface to the report. "The models used to project future climate changes and their impacts are not especially good at simulating the size, speed, and extent of the past changes, casting uncertainties on assessments of potential future changes. Thus, it is likely that climate suprises await us."
A problem that Alley and other paleoclimate scientists refer to as the "insensitivity of models" or the "model-data gap" sounds like a technical issue but really is more fundamental. It means that the models are unable to reproduce accurately the numerous epidodes of abrupt change that show up clearly in many environmental archives around the world. The reasons for this failure are not yet known, but the implications are plain enough. Until these highly sophisiticated numerical representations of Earth's climate system - running on the world's most powerful computers - are able to get the past right, what reason is there to believe they can get the future right?

[gary_malcolm]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PenultimateManStanding', 'I')t isn't wise to attach oneself to a theoretical danger (CO2) which may not be all that it's made out to be. Sure the temperature rises, sometimes it falls, too, radically. The science is thin and inconclusive with plenty of solid evidence that CO2 is not a trigger, but a rather minor player. We still have serious problems anyway.

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gary_malcolm', '
')
Which science is thin and why? Sources please, as in the names of the papers that you dispute. The troubled aspects of your dismissal of manmade green house gasses correlating to temperature rise comes from a lack of alternative theory. I am curious as to exactly where you diverge from the accepted science.

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gary_malcolm', '
')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'D')o you, in fact, believe that green house gasses effect global temperatures at all?

[Keith_McClary]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rockdoc123', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'C')O2 is up from about 290ppm in pre-industrial times to 380ppm now...I don't know where both the claims of 3% and the claim of quadripling come from!

[PenultimateManStanding]

Yeah, antimatter already showed us another chart with the same data. This CO2 spike is pronounced. But do we know what it entails if the climate models aren't functional? Will it put Europe in the freezer? the start of a precipitous down turn in temperature for all we know. We can measure events, but no luck predicting them is the message I'm hearing.

[PenultimateManStanding]

Rockdoc, can you explain this discrepancy? The current level of CO2 does appear to be more like 30% above anything in the last 400,000 years. Regardless of the question of what it means for the future, it certainly would seem to reflect a considerably larger increase in CO2, at least, due to human activity than you are saying.

[geronimo]

Now you can play too!

[rockdoc123]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'R')ockdoc, can you explain this discrepancy? The current level of CO2 does appear to be more like 30% above anything in the last 400,000 years. Regardless of the question of what it means for the future, it certainly would seem to reflect a considerably larger increase in CO2, at least, due to human activity than you are saying.

[gary_malcolm]

I can't get over the water thing. Does it not seem obvious that the 'Green House Effect' itself is a necessary part of our environment. Space is cold...

So we can expect to have a baseline of rentention from solar radiation. Which, of course, we do.

So the question is most definitely NOT if water or C gasses effect temperature, since they must or we would all be popsicles. The question is has there been a delta (change) in the amount of such gasses, especially in proportion to each other.

Flat percentages like 98%, 90%, 3% are very silly numbers indeed. What percentage of store bought vinegar is acetic acid and what part is water? Would you use vinegar to quench your thirst? The important numbers are in the percentage CHANGES that point to non-equilibrium states.

And a separate point about chaotic systems: Equilibrium is a very hard thing to predict given changing input. Imagine a ball bearing swirling around the bottom of a bowl. (This turns out to be a very chaotic version of a pendulum). Then suppose input is the act of moving the bowl gently from side to side. Much like a Hula-Hoop the bearing will roll around the bowl faster and faster in a very stable manner. Now change the angle of your input movement and the bearing flies out of the bowl. At what point can we say that our input to the climatological system is having an impact beyond the equilibrium point?

The scariest hypothesis I've read recently proposes that permafrost acts as C sinks and that the thaws currently acting out across the Northern Hemisphere are cascading the effect of C reflection of infrared radiation.


And by the way, I'm not so much a science guy as a math guy .

Something to chew on,

G

[basil_hayden]

There are plenty of other bits of evidence that have not been synthesized properly to answer this question, but these bits often come from other diciplines besides geology or climatology.

Take for instance the way a plant reacts to increases in heat and CO2 - they grow faster. This seems to me to be a result of eons of genetic selection, developed over larger time spans than the ice age cycle. Can't this be looked at for hints and clues to how life handled climate change in the past, and therefore the future?

There are numerous types of "records" to look at on this planet, some are more complete than others. Stromatolites are given credit for producing the oxygen in our atmosphere that we breath. I think this is also something to look at.

We may be looking at the problem the wrong way. If we assume that global warming is due to solar activity, this is the mechanism, or the earth's procession is the mechanism, then all the ice core data and CO2/Temp data, as well as the models, are indicators of how the mechanism affects life on earth, instead of how life on earth affects the solar activity. This is a buffered system we live in, very complicated but I feel the clues are all around us just waiting to be pulled together.

[rockdoc123]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')his is a buffered system we live in, very complicated but I feel the clues are all around us just waiting to be pulled together.

[gary_malcolm]

The disparaging comments about climate modeling seem overcooked.

The absence of real world data, the lack of model testing and validation, and the lack of independent assessments of model performance have all been raised on this thread.

The discussion seems to be unaware that climate model validation is a common feature of publications utilizing these models and model errors and biases are often explicitly quantified and described. Similarly, the disparagers are seemingly unaware of the various model comparison, evaluation, and validation projects that currently exist. For example, the Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has been conducting model comparison and validation tests since 1989, and published a publicly available report of its research in the summer of 2004. See Actual Science!

[rockdoc123]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he discussion seems to be unaware that climate model validation is a common feature of publications utilizing these models and model errors and biases are often explicitly quantified and described.

[gary_malcolm]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rockdoc123', '
')Not according to McIntyre and McItrick who point out that the classic "hockey stick" paper that pretty much started the whole modeling thing was never properly validated.

[gary_malcolm]

For your education:

Handy link to papers on climate modelling

and another

Have fun.

[PenultimateManStanding]

Thanks Gary. I'll look at it. BTW, I looked into the National Research Council. Seems it's sponsored by the National Academy of Sciences. Very legit. I'm curious of your opinion of the stated views on climate modeling which I have brought to people's attention contained in that 2002 report of the NRC which I have been posting about here. You seem to regard it as not worth commenting on beyond calling it 'disparaging remarks'. Why is that?