[rockdoc123]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'Y')ou did not follow my link to literally thousands of papers on climate modelling and comparison in all their beauty by actual scientists. Pay attention. This is new work that must be explicitly contradicted or your 'hockey stick' rant must end.

And then... you start with Crichton. Holy Jesus, you CAN NOT BE SERIOUS, you are doing yourself a huge disservice

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rockdoc123', '
')This is complex stuff.....seems to me It makes more sense to understand all the hard evidence for the paleoclimatic record....start to put together the puzzle of how different factors interact prior to jumping in and buying into any given model.

[Keith_McClary]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rockdoc123', '
')
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')hey say:
Natural additions 68,520
Man-made additions 11,880

[gary_malcolm]

Let me clarify,

It is stunningly apparent after two full days of reading Climate Modelling papers that the discussion here is woefully lacking in accurate representations (myself included). Turns out that 'modelling' the climate is a layman's catch-all term for literally THOUSANDS of means by which scientists from a wide variety of fields including paleo-climatology, fluid dynamics, atmospherics, biology, paleo-biology, etc., understand very SPECIFIC and necessarily limited apects of their studies.

For instance I've read studies on:

The effect of variablility on CO2 in the troposphere over Antarctica.
The yearly variation in the thickness of ocean ice in the Arctic Ocean.
The effect of % of cloud cover in humidity in the mid tropics.
Water table depth variation due to desertification in the Gobi Plain.

I could go on...

Then I look back over what has been written here.

Folks can't even get a grasp on the fact the green house gasses can be (and must) be both naturally occurring, man-made, and variable all at the same time. Arguments are made that since H20 is responsible for most of the green house effect then it follows that C releases from man have no measurable effect, or that the effect is negligible?!?! This shows such a tremendous lack of understanding that continued discussion is probably an exercise in futility.

Then the generalizations start about model error this, margin of error that... We don't even know what models we're talking about... much less what error is possible and what those errors on those specific studies have to say about the actual results of the study. It's like walking in quicksand.

The point, if there is one, is that much like the ridiculous arguments over Intelligent Design, I suspect that the FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) arguments about global warming/green house gasses are trojan horses for those who have a political agenda to bring to the table of science. Since tha facts don't fit neatly into the appropriate world view then it's time to spread pseudo-science until the general public is so confused that they do a FOX NEWS 'throw your hands up' and just tell themselves that there are two sides to every argument.

If only the real world was as simple ;7)

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gary_malcolm', '
')For instance I've read studies on:

The effect of variablility on CO2 in the troposphere over Antarctica.
The yearly variation in the thickness of ocean ice in the Arctic Ocean.
The effect of % of cloud cover in humidity in the mid tropics.
Water table depth variation due to desertification in the Gobi Plain.

The point, if there is one, is that much like the ridiculous arguments over Intelligent Design, I suspect that the FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) arguments about global warming/green house gasses are trojan horses for those who have a political agenda to bring to the table of science. Since tha facts don't fit neatly into the appropriate world view then it's time to spread pseudo-science until the general public is so confused that they do a FOX NEWS 'throw your hands up' and just tell themselves that there are two sides to every argument.

[rockdoc123]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'S')ince tha facts don't fit neatly into the appropriate world view then it's time to spread pseudo-science until the general public is so confused that they do a FOX NEWS 'throw your hands up' and just tell themselves that there are two sides to every argument.

[Antimatter]

This is something thats been bugging me for a while. This image from Devil's site used by the IPCC shows anthropgenic and natural forcings as modeled:



Anthropogenic forcings are only significant after 1950 or so, as would be expected as the majority of the build up in GHGs has been since then. Therefore it seems that the warming up to 1940 was almost all natural in nature. Although the model does seem to show a slight anthropogenic increase to 1940 then a decrease to 1950-60... However when we look at the "hockey stick" climate reconstruction as used by the IPCC, which has been criticized by some for understating past climate variations:



Why does the apparently natural warming up to 1940 stick out like a sore thumb?

Also when we look at sea level rise:





The sea level rise trend was well established in 1940 according to this, however again it sticks out above the reconstructed trend. To me this suggests either the model is missign some early anthropogenic forcings, which seems unlikely, or the paleoclimate reconstructions are underestimating natural variability, particularly the hockey stick graph.

[Keith_McClary]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rockdoc123', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')The whole issue was more eloquently summarized by Michael Crichton in his testimony to the US Senate in September of this year:

[PenultimateManStanding]

Now that this thread is about wrapped up, I have some observations: I sent pm's to both of the main PhD players here and neither of them bothered to reply. I would say that it casts a negative light on PhDs except for the fact that I sent Graeme a pm too, and he's also a PhD, and he was gracious enough to answer. PhD's do seem to have an attitude against the hoi polloi of which I am a member. That attitude was laid out clearly by Gary Malcom My message to rockdoc was that he shouldn't be concerned about the reactions of his adversary, but rather, the effectiveness of his arguments on the third party readers. I have no idea what he thought about that because he didn't respond. This thread brings up an interesting question: how does the general public view scientific arguments?

[Keith_McClary]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PenultimateManStanding', ' ')I sent pm's to both of the main PhD players here and neither of them bothered to reply.

[erl]

The article is self-explanatory...and scary.

Article

[backstop]

erl -

For the sake of those members who are saving their mouse-fingers for other forms of self-abuse, here's an exerpt :

Climate change: On the edge

"Greenland ice cap breaking up at twice the rate it was five years ago, says scientist Bush tried to gag
By Jim Hansen
Published: 17 February 2006

A satellite study of the Greenland ice cap shows that it is melting far faster than scientists had feared - twice as much ice is going into the sea as it was five years ago. The implications for rising sea levels - and climate change - could be dramatic.

Yet, a few weeks ago, when I - a Nasa climate scientist - tried to talk to the media about these issues following a lecture I had given calling for prompt reductions in the emission of greenhouse gases, the Nasa public affairs team - staffed by political appointees from the Bush administration - tried to stop me doing so. I was not happy with that, and I ignored the restrictions. The first line of Nasa's mission is to understand and protect the planet.

This new satellite data is a remarkable advance. We are seeing for the first time the detailed behaviour of the ice streams that are draining the Greenland ice sheet. They show that Greenland seems to be losing at least 200 cubic kilometres of ice a year. It is different from even two years ago, when people still said the ice sheet was in balance.

Hundreds of cubic kilometres sounds like a lot of ice. But this is just the beginning. Once a sheet starts to disintegrate, it can reach a tipping point beyond which break-up is explosively rapid. The issue is how close we are getting to that tipping point. The summer of 2005 broke all records for melting in Greenland. So we may be on the edge."



Quite apart from the prospect of X feet of sea-level rise in our lifetimes, (let alone 23ft eventually) several things about this article are entirely new.

First, Hansen, who is of such impecable scientific standing that he is GWB's climate modeller,
calls for the stabilization of global CO2 emissions within a decade if we are to avoid catastrophic change.

Second, he is the first scientist to write outside the scientific press of the non-linearity of collapse of an entire ice cap -
i.e. that it speeds up (through melting and self-lubricated sliding into the sea) to a point where disintegration becomes "explosively rapid"

Third, this news has been carried tonight both on UK BBC 1 & BBC News 24 & on US ABC News,
and what is more they hardly bothered with the lame old caveats and qualifications that have sustained denial for so long.

What price GW + PO as the key twin issues for the US Congressional elections in Novemeber ?

regards,

Backstop


Edit-PS: The 23ft sea-level rise noted above is of course just the potential from the Greenland Ice Cap,
and does not include that of the Antarctic Ice Cap, which is of around 100 metres (~ 330 ft).
Plainly the sea-level rise to which we are already committed (as opposed to that resulting from continued Business-As-Usual)
will be from ice melting off both these caps and from sundry continental glaciers too.

[eric_b]

Yikes!

[seldom_seen]

I glanced at the TeeVee tonight and there was an add for a giant new Chevy Suburban and it was towing a huge powerboat. It's surreal to see that and then read stuff like this.

It seems that we must destroy ourselves to save ourselves.

[coyote]

I keep edging closer to being an all-out doomer. We are so frikking screwed. Destroy ourselves to save ourselves? We'll be lucky to get to that second part or survive the next century. We're too emotionally stupid for such big brains. Like a spoiled and disturbed kid playing with a loaded gun.

[Heineken]

The article identifies Hansen as "Bush's top climate modeler." That's a joke. Bush has no interest in anything Hansen has to say and has exerted pressure to shut him up.

I had the honor of editing some of Hansen's papers for Science magazine back in the 1980s. He's brilliant, not to mention a great human being.

[erl]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('seldom_seen', 'I') glanced at the TeeVee tonight and there was an add for a giant new Chevy Suburban and it was towing a huge powerboat.

[JoeCoal]

Hey, guess what! Same story on the other side of the planet, too!

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he massive west Antarctic ice sheet, previously assumed to be stable, is starting to collapse, scientists warned on Tuesday.

Antarctica contains more than 90% of the world's ice, and the loss of any significant part of it would cause a substantial sea level rise. Scientists used to view Antarctica as a "slumbering giant", said Chris Rapley, from the British Antarctic Survey, but now he sees it as an "awakened giant".

[FoxV]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('backstop', 'E')dit-PS: The 23ft sea-level rise noted above is of course just the potential from the Greenland Ice Cap,
and does not include that of the Antarctic Ice Cap, which is of around 100 metres (~ 330 ft).

[Leanan]

Jim Hansen, a NASA scientist whom the Bush administration tried to silence, wrote this article in The Independent today. He thinks the current climate models are wrong, based on what he's seeing now in Greenland. Climate change, in his view, will be much more rapid and dramatic than expected.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'H')ow far can it go? The last time the world was three degrees warmer than today - which is what we expect later this century - sea levels were 25m higher. So that is what we can look forward to if we don't act soon. None of the current climate and ice models predict this. But I prefer the evidence from the Earth's history and my own eyes. I think sea-level rise is going to be the big issue soon, more even than warming itself.