The Most Extra New Super Global Warming Thread

[bkelly]

Originally Posted by Kerostasis

The Polar Ice cap, for example, has actually been smaller than its current state just in the last century.

*boggles* Um, that is news to me. Source?

bkelly

[Kerostasis]

The most precise data we have on Polar Ice comes from satellite readings, which only date back to the 70's. Current ice levels are noticeably lower than they were in the 70's when we began satellite readings. However, last I checked, they are still higher than they were at the low-ebb of ice coverage in the 30's.

Finding a concrete data-source to re-affirm that may be difficult given that 30's ice coverage is not recorded in any satellite data, contemporary 30's data sources were not internet-based, and I don't have access to private databases that contain things like old newspaper or research paper reports from the 30's. Also, modern day reporting tends to shy away from making comparisons to predictions of environmental catastrophe of years past which didn't come true, as that makes it more difficult to acheive the proper emotional support for today's predictions of environmental catastrophe. So you won't see 1930's reports of global warming being cited much in today's reports on global warming. You may have to do some digging to find any source data on our climate older than the last local temperature minima in the 1970's.

[bkelly]

Originally Posted by Kerostasis

However, last I checked, they are still higher than they were at the low-ebb of ice coverage in the 30's.
Finding a concrete data-source to re-affirm that may be difficult...

With my bull-patties alarm sounding, I went to Google in the hopes of finding some evidence to contradict your assertion. It seems you were right- concrete data for that time is difficult to find.

However, in one of those bizzare mysteries of the Universe which if you understood would cause your head to explode, research facilities tend to conglomerate and the National Snow and Ice Data Center (http://nsidc.org/) is remarkably close to the National Center for Atmospheric Research. I snuck out of work early and paid them a visit.

After explaining I had some questions about the history of ice coverage in the Arctic and offering a bribe of a soda, I was brought to see Mark Serreze, a senior research scientist at NSIDC (http://cires.colorado.edu/people/serreze/). I asked him about ice coverage in the 30s and my reasons for the question. He rubbed the bridge of his nose as if a headache was coming on but gave me an answer.

There was a warming period in the 1930s and it did lead to reduced ice cover. He was confident that the Arctic was warmer now than it was then. The question of ice cover before 1979 (when Arctic satellite images became available) is more difficult to answer as there just isn't a lot of data. Recent expeditions have attempted to determine how much ice there was but it is very difficult, especially with no land mass supporting the ice and the further back you go, the less accuracy the information has. His bottom line- the spread of the Arctic ice cap in 2007 was "probably the least in the last century".

So Kerostasis, to your assertion to there being less Arctic ice in the '30s than today, I say "probably not" but I walk away knowing that there are much bigger fluctuations in the quantity of ice up there than I originally believed.

bkelly

[Kerostasis]

Eh, sounds good enough for me. Seems like you have access to better first hand information than I do on the topic. Bravo for making a stronger effort than just Googling.

[bkelly]

Originally Posted by Kerostasis

Bravo for making a stronger effort than just Googling.

Thanks. Oh, and he didn't take the soda.

bkelly

[xTYBALTx]

Originally Posted by bkelly

Oh, and he didn't take the soda.

I see that you're adhering to the Sandbox's strict disclosure rules ;]

So what's your thinking on the issue at hand? (And by "the issue" I'm speaking broadly)

[bkelly]

Originally Posted by xTYBALTx

So what's your thinking on the issue at hand?

I am certain that the Earth is getting warmer and I consider it very likely that humans are a significant cause. Even Bob Carter from Lucky Shot's videos admits that a doubling of CO(2) concentrations would cause a 1 degree temperature rise.

What the Arctic ice cap debate showed me is that, if global warming is true, the effects we've seen so far are not exceptional enough. Kerostasis is asking for "beyond a reasonable doubt" evidence and I may not be able to provide it.

I was waiting for Lucky Shot and CingularDuality to share a little bit more on their thoughts regarding long term models. Either way, in the next couple of days I'll probably share why I think models still have value despite all the unknowns they face.

bkelly

[GlobalWarmin]

UN Panel: Global Warming Accelerating

By The Associated Press

posted: 17 November 2007 08:51 am ET

ALENCIA, Spain (AP)—The Earth is hurtling toward a warmer climate at a quickening pace, a Nobel-winning U.N. scientific panel said in a landmark report released Saturday, warning of inevitable human suffering and the threat of extinction for some species.

As early as 2020, 75 million to 250 million people in Africa will suffer water shortages, residents of Asia's megacities will be at great risk of river and coastal flooding, Europeans can expect extensive species loss, and North Americans will experience longer and hotter heat waves and greater competition for water, the report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said climate change imperils "the most precious treasures of our planet.''

The potential impact of global warming is "so severe and so sweeping that only urgent, global action will do,'' Ban told the IPCC after it issued its fourth and final report this year.

The IPCC adopted the report, along with a summary, after five days of sometimes tense negotiations. It lays out blueprints for avoiding the worst catastrophes—and various possible outcomes, depending on how quickly and decisively action is taken.

The document says recent research has heightened concern that the poor and the elderly will suffer most from climate change; that hunger and disease will be more common; that droughts, floods and heat waves will afflict the world's poorest regions; and that more animal and plant species will vanish.

The Summary for Policymakers, and the longer version, called the synthesis report, distill thousands of pages of data and computer models from six years of research compiled by the IPCC.

The information is expected to guide policy makers meeting in Bali, Indonesia, next month to discuss an agreement to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.

The panel was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize this year along with former Vice President Al Gore for their efforts to raise awareness about the effects of climate change.

The report is important because it is adopted by consensus, meaning countries accept the underlying science and cannot disavow its conclusions. While it does not commit governments to a specific course of action, it provides a common scientific baseline for the political talks.

The U.N. says a new global plan must be in place by 2009 to ensure a smooth transition after the expiration of the Kyoto terms, which require 36 industrial countries to radically reduce their carbon emissions by 2012.

"There are real and affordable ways to deal with climate change,'' Ban said. He said a new agreement should provide funding to help poor countries adopt clean energy and to adapt to changing climates.

The report says emissions of carbon, which comes primarily from fossil fuels, must stabilize by 2015 and go down after that. Otherwise the consequences could be "disastrous,'' said IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri.

In the best-case scenario, temperatures will continue to rise from carbon already in the atmosphere, the report said. Even if factories were shut down today and cars taken off the roads, the average sea level will reach as high as 4 1/2 feet higher than the preindustrial period, or about 1850.

"We have already committed the world to sea level rise,'' said Pachauri. If the Greenland ice sheet melts, the scientists couldn't even predict by how many meters the seas will rise, drowning coastal cities.

Yet differences remain stark on how to control carbon emissions.

While the European Union has taken the lead in enforcing the carbon emission targets outlined in Kyoto, the United States opted out of the 1997 accord.

President Bush described it as flawed because major developing countries such as India and China, which are large carbon emitters, were excluded from any obligations. He also favors a voluntary agreement.

Sharon Hays, a White House science official and head of the U.S. delegation, said the certainty of climate change was clearer now than when Bush rejected Kyoto.

"What's changed since 2001 is the scientific certainty that this is happening,'' she said in a conference call to reporters late Friday. "Back in 2001 the IPCC report said it is likely that humans were having an impact on the climate,'' but confidence in human responsibility had increased since then.

"What's new is the clarity of the signal, how clear the scientific message is,'' said Yvo de Boer, the U.N.'s top climate change official. "The politicians have no excuse not to act.''

Opening with a sweeping statement directed at climate change skeptics, the summary declares that climate systems have already begun to change.

Unless action is taken, human activity could lead to "abrupt and irreversible changes'' that would make the planet unrecognizable.

Advocacy groups hailed the report as indispensable for the 10,000 delegates expected at Bali.

"We expect to see their personal copies of the Synthesis Report return from Bali, battered and worn from frequent use, with paragraphs underlined and notes in the margin,'' said Stephanie Tunmore of Greenpeace.


Personal Comments:
It still baffles me how skeptics here keep missing the point about global warming. The point is not that the planet is just getting warmer, but it's the unprecedented RATE that it is happening that is so extremely alarming.

[mentholated]

Poor scared little sheep.

[bkelly]

Lucky Shot appears to have gone quiet for now leaving this thread a bit less active. I thought I'd take the opportunity to start chipping away at the arguments he made before he left. I hope you're lurking Lucky, I think you'll find this interesting.

Originally Posted by Lucky Shot

I believe that Mann's Hockey Stick theory was a leading component of the IPCC's 2000 report. (http://www.climatechangeissues.com/f...5mckitrick.pdf) It certainly was until it was pointed out that it smoothed out the Little Ice Age in effect misrepresenting previous temperatures.

If by "leading component" you continue to assert that it had "underpinnings" then your source it doesn't support you. The only thing the paper has to say about the graph affecting the conclusions of IPCC's 2001 report is that its prominence "...suggests the possibility of bias in the Report-writing process" and offers no sources for this assertion. So if you want to continue to believe that this graph is one of the foundations of the IPCC 2001 conclusions and not the laundry list of reasons they provided, your conclusion is based on the opinion of one person that the hockey stick graph maybe, perhaps, could have been an influence.

By the way, did you notice the author's name on this article claiming the IPCC betrayed international trust? It was Ross McKitrick. Sound familiar? Here's a hint. The paper that originally suggested that there were errors in the hockey stick graph was written by two men on February 12, 2005, Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick. So, these two climate outsiders discover problems with climate data and then two months later one of them puts out another paper smearing the IPCC for using the data four years earlier. It also seems Stephen McIntyre left his 30-year career in hard-rock mineral exploration to look over the shoulders of climatologists. He even set up a web site, http://www.climateaudit.org. I smell a hidden agenda here.

A few searches through Google comes up with this:

From http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/journa...ss/pt_wsj.html:

A number of reports have noted strong ties between climate skeptics and oil company, ExxonMobil. In his biography and in news coverage, McIntyre is reported to be a former director of several small public mineral exploration companies. But in 2003, the annual report of CGX Energy, Inc., an oil and gas exploration company, listed McIntyre as a “strategic advisor”.

While investigating this story, ES&T contacted CGX Energy and asked to speak with Stephen McIntyre. A secretary responded that she did not think that he worked in the building but that contact information could be left and McIntyre would call back. McIntyre admits to ES&T that he “occasionally consults” for the company, but he says he is not funded by industry.

Hmm...

As for Ross McKitrick, he is a "Senior Fellow" at The Fraser Institute (http://www.fraserinstitute.org/comme...spx?authID=935). This "independent non-partisan research educational organization" says, "From health care to global warming, read Fraser Institute research on key issues facing Canadians today." However, this group has received $120,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998 (http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/org...eet.php?id=107).

Lucky Shot, these arguments of yours could be oil lobbyist propaganda.


I also wanted to explain why M&M's arguments against the hockey stick graph were either bogus or had no effect on the result, but the math is complicated and I'm already wordy enough plus I don't think it would change your mind. When you're ready to take a skeptical look at their allegations, there are plenty of guides on the Internet that will help. (By the way, the the alleged fixes of the hockey stick graph move up temperatures before 1500. Even in the "fix" the little ice age is still "smooth".)

Instead I decided to supply this:


Click on the image for a larger version

MBH1999 - Mann, Bradley, and Hughes (AKA Hockey Stick) - tree rings, ice cores and historical records
JBB..1998 - Jones, Briffa, Barnett, and Tett - coral, tree rings, ice cores and historical records
DWJ2006 - D'Arrigo, Wilson and Jacoby - tree rings
MJ2003 - Mann and Jones - ice boreholes, ice cores, sediment, tree rings
ECS2002 - Esper, Cook, and Schweingruber - tree rings
HCA..2006 - Hegerl, Crowley, Hydem and Frame - ice cores, tree rings, boreholes
BOS..2001 - Briffa, Osborn, Schweingruber, Harris, Jones, Shiyatov, Vaganov - tree rings
RMO..2005 - Rutherford, Mann, Osborn, Bradley, Briffa, Hughes, Jones - tree rings, coral, ice cores, sediments and historical records
O2005 - Oerlemans - glacier length records
B2000 - Briffa - tree rings
MSH..2005 - Moberg, Sonechkin, Holmgren, Datsenko, and Karlen - sediment, tree rings
PS2004 - Pollack and Smerdon - borehole

This is a graph of twelve different attempts to construct past temperatures, eight of them going back a millennium. The unadjusted hockey stick results are in there (MBH1999) and it's one of the warmer ones; however all of them agree that this decade is the warmest in the last 600 years. For the ones that trace back further, we're still warmer than them all.

So if after all that you still want to dismiss the hockey stick graph as invalid, fine. One down, eleven to go.

bkelly

[CingularDuality]

Originally Posted by bkelly

This is a graph of twelve different attempts to construct past temperatures, eight of them going back a millennium. The unadjusted hockey stick results are in there (MBH1999) and it's one of the warmer ones; however all of them agree that this decade is the warmest in the last 600 years. For the ones that trace back further, we're still warmer than them all.

So if after all that you still want to dismiss the hockey stick graph as invalid, fine. One down, eleven to go.

Can you tell me what the reference line of zero represents?

[Lucky Shot]

This and previous discussions have proven that it's not worth continuing the argument. You say my source didn't claim that the IPCC used the Hockey Stick prominently. The IPCC report in 2001 did post his hockey stick graph in several places. The study I posted went into the methodology with only the information that Michael Mann was willing to release (WHERE IS THE PEER REVIEW?). With his algorithm, they determined that you could throw in junk (red noise) and still provide a Hockey Stick graph (figure 7, page 11).

Next you went into protypical slime the attacker mode and questioned the scietists and not the science. Again, this is a two sided affair where one side receives it's money from a governmental organization who's goal is to provide a reason for global taxes and the other side receives it from the private sector including Donations from companies as well as from individuals. Because they accept donations, you could be funding their research and it wouldn't change their research. Steve McIntyre's studies discovered that Nasa had the incorrect temperatures post 1997 and they admitted it and adjusted it. Not bad for a guy that you incorrectly cast as a lobbyist.

Lastly, you say the math is, yawn, so tiring and getting into science, ho hum boring and then produce a graph hosted on a dungeons and dragon website and post the same Mann study that suffered from a questionable algorithm, poor sampling and the suggestion of irregularities around the bristlecone samples. Placing other studies next to it does not change it's poor methodology. Maybe one bad apple, maybe a bad crop.

Lucky Shot

[bkelly]

Originally Posted by CingularDuality

Can you tell me what the reference line of zero represents?

The zero line for each study is their mean temperature from 1961 to 1990.

[bkelly]

Originally Posted by Lucky Shot

This and previous discussions have proven that it's not worth continuing the argument.

I'm not sure to what you're objecting. I have read your arguments and sources and tried to respond in an informative, entertaining way. If you found a couple of my joke offensive, I apologize. Cutting remarks is not my aim.

Originally Posted by Lucky Shot

You say my source didn't claim that the IPCC used the Hockey Stick prominently.

I did not. I said your source did not support your assertion that "The underpinning of their 2000 IPCC report was tied to Mann's Hockey Stick theory." I agree that the hockey stick graph was prominently displayed but I have seen no evidence that the data was part of the foundation of their conclusion.

Originally Posted by Lucky Shot

Next you went into protypical slime the attacker mode...

Motives are important to me. I thought you might find the possible connection to big oil interesting. Looks like I was wrong.

Originally Posted by Lucky Shot

Lastly, you say the math is, yawn, so tiring and getting into science, ho hum boring

Actually I implied that it is my writing which is tiring and boring and said you could find the refutations yourself when you wanted.

Originally Posted by Lucky Shot

...and then produce a graph hosted on a dungeons and dragon website...

*smiles* The D&D website is a game I wrote ten years ago that's now running on a computer in my house. I could move the image to an NCAR computer if you would then believe it.

Originally Posted by Lucky Shot

...and post the same Mann study that suffered from a questionable algorithm, poor sampling and the suggestion of irregularities around the bristlecone samples. Placing other studies next to it does not change it's poor methodology.

McIntyre and McKitrick's claims are that a principal component analysis (a normalizing and summarization) on the North American International Tree Ring Data Bank was done incorrectly and that missing proxy data between 1400 and 1403 and 1972 and 1980 would significantly alter the results. In other words, they said the data was flawed. They didn't have any objection to the reconstruction method itself and in fact made predictions using it with "corrected" data. If you now wish to show that the method paeloclimatologists use for climate reconstructions using tree rings will never yield viable results - great! Let's hear some arguments.

Originally Posted by Lucky Shot

Maybe one bad apple, maybe a bad crop.

Maybe, but you now have 11 more trees to show as rotten.

bkelly

[xTYBALTx]

So looking at the collection of reconstructions, I have a couple of questions/comments.

The black line, the one featuring the dramatic temperature rise, says that it is "instrumental," so I presume that it would be subject to the criticisms Lucky posted earlier, regarding the positioning of the instruments and how that positioning can affect collected temperatures.

The grey line seems to come out of nowhere, and judging by its' smoothness I assume it's a trend line, but its' low position c.1500 relative to the other graphs seems to suggest that it's not a trend line made from the data available on this chart, which is... strange to say the least.

While it may appear to the naked eye that this chart flattens out the Medieval Warming Period and Little Ice Age, such is not really the case. If you track each line individually, instead of getting your eyes lost in the confusion of several lines intersecting, you can clearly see that some of them show these events. Others don't, or at least not at the same time and/or not with the same severity. This inconsistency is, in my amateur viewings of similarly created graphs covering different time frames, pretty typical: timelines and baselines are probably difficult to determine for any given data source, and you get discrepancies. The question, then, becomes one of which sources are the best sources, which sources are the worst sources, were these simply regional events which affected some sources and not others, were some sources read wrong, etc. People much smarter and knowledgeable than I are working on these questions, and have been for decades - but that doesn't mean that they've been answered properly or at all. One good temperature reconstruction is preferable to a dozen mediocre ones, is it not? So which one(s) do we accept? ECS2002, which shows a 1C change over the 150 years from 850-1000CE and several other .5C changes over spans as short at 50 years? Or JBB1998 which shows no changes over .5C before the 20th century? Or BOS..2001, which appears to be a white line on a white background? Or something in between? Or something more extreme? Or do we just average out all of the sources with a trend line? [I hate that last option. "Accuracy through mob data" is a bit like "Science by consensus."]

Finally, just a style note, but this graph almost seems like it was designed specifically to make past temperature fluctuations appear as noise and current temperature fluctuations as remarkable. But that only appears so if you look at the graph casually - looking with a bit more detail reveals a different story altogether. Interesting, no?