Bill Glasheen wrote:
Quickly disproved? That's a strong word, Glenn. Sorry... there is no "proof" of any projection.
The body of evidence supported global warming and not global cooling. Hypotheses and theories can never be proved but can be disproved, that's basic science.
Bill Glasheen wrote:
And yet you show no understanding of the concept, Glenn.
Chaos Theory: A Brief Introduction wrote:Lorenz stated that it is impossible to predict the weather accurately.
What part of that statement do you not understand, Glenn?
No matter how many times you post, and how many times you declare yourself right, nonlinear mathematics don't care. Lorenz showed this over 50 years ago. Mathematics doesn't fall in and out of fashion like short skirts or handlebar mustaches.
Strawman alert! Once again you are off on a distraction tangent that has nothing to do with the point I made or the discussion at hand. The discussion was about whether atmospheric scientists understand and incorporate current mathematical tools and scientific concepts, and as you well know I was countering your claims about them not being up to date. You may want to look into what training in math, physics, and chemistry atmospheric scientists actually receive, they being the specialists in the mathematics, physics, and chemistry of the atmosphere after all.
Regarding your quote and attempt at painting atmospheric scientists as overlooking the obvious however, you fail to mention that Lorenz was an atmospheric scientist himself and that he was working on the then already well-know problem of inaccuracy in weather prediction. I will see your Lorenz and raise you a quote from a copy of a 1894
Elementary Meteorology textbook that I have (pp. 324-325, emphasis added)
William Morris Davis wrote:
...one cannot avoid a certain feeling of disappointment that all of the labor that has been bestowed on the subject of weather prediction in this country during the last twenty years has not led to greater advances beyond the methods employed and the results gained at the outset of the undertaking. The number of stations has grown, and their equipment has been materially improved; the accuracy of various processes preparatory to charting has been increased; a vast body of information has been accumulated for the study relative to the kinds and changes of weather; various predicting officers have had extended practice in their art; and while the forecasts are truly made for longer periods than they were at first, and are certainly superior in definiteness and accuracy to those issued twenty years ago, their improvement is not so great as was hoped for. It is still often impossible to predict the weather changes for more than twenty-four hours in advance with a desirable degree of certainty.
Our understanding of
why it is impossible to predict weather accurately has changed due to atmospheric scientists such as Lorenz, but the basic elements of what you are trying to point out with your quote was part of Meteorology 101 way back in the 19th century. And by the way, Davis' book also contains a section on "Changes of Climate".
Bill Glasheen wrote:
Why? Did mathematics change when the clock hit Y2K? Do Einstein's theories, Maxwell's equations, and the dual nature of light change every century?
Sigh...again with the selective, out-of-context quoting and strawman argument. Too many distractions interfering with your focus? Seriously, do you in your work today only use techniques you learned in graduate school 30 years ago?
Bill Glasheen wrote:
Climate DATA show that temperature leads rather than lags CO2. Nature doesn't care what naive models say.
This naïve statement is surprising coming from you Bill. Could it be that the atmosphere is a complex, dynamic system that cannot be summarized by your ultra-simplistic statement? Trusting this misuse of data from climate science is like you trusting attorneys leading a lawsuit against an insurance company for their interpretation of your health data. From
Why does CO2 lag temperature? (emphasis added)
Over the last half million years, our climate has experienced long ice ages regularly punctuated by brief warm periods called interglacials. Atmospheric carbon dioxide closely matches the cycle, increasing by around 80 to 100 parts per million as Antarctic temperatures warm up to 10°C. However, when you look closer, CO2 actually lags temperature by around 1000 years. While this result was predicted two decades ago (Lorius 1990), it still surprises and confuses many. Does warming cause CO2 rise or the other way around? In actuality, the answer is both.
Interglacials come along approximately every 100,000 years. This is called the Milankovitch cycle, brought on by changes in the Earth's orbit. There are three main changes to the earth's orbit. The shape of the Earth's orbit around the sun (eccentricity) varies between an ellipse to a more circular shape. The earth's axis is tilted relative to the sun at around 23°. This tilt oscillates between 22.5° and 24.5° (obliquity). As the earth spins around it's axis, the axis wobbles from pointing towards the North Star to pointing at the star Vega (precession).
The combined effect of these orbital cycles cause long term changes in the amount of sunlight hitting the earth at different seasons, particularly at high latitudes. For example, around 18,000 years ago, there was an increase in the amount of sunlight hitting the Southern Hemisphere during the southern spring. This lead to retreating Antarctic sea ice and melting glaciers in the Southern Hemisphere.(Shemesh 2002). The ice loss had a positive feedback effect with less ice reflecting sunlight back into space (decreased albedo). This enhanced the warming.
As the Southern Ocean warms, the solubility of CO2 in water falls (Martin 2005). This causes the oceans to give up more CO2, emitting it into the atmosphere. The exact mechanism of how the deep ocean gives up its CO2 is not fully understood but believed to be related to vertical ocean mixing (Toggweiler 1999). The process takes around 800 to 1000 years, so CO2 levels are observed to rise around 1000 years after the initial warming (Monnin 2001, Mudelsee 2001).
The outgassing of CO2 from the ocean has several effects. The increased CO2 in the atmosphere amplifies the original warming. The relatively weak forcing from Milankovitch cycles is insufficient to cause the dramatic temperature change taking our climate out of an ice age (this period is called a deglaciation). However, the amplifying effect of CO2 is consistent with the observed warming.
CO2 from the Southern Ocean also mixes through the atmosphere, spreading the warming north (Cuffey 2001). Tropical marine sediments record warming in the tropics around 1000 years after Antarctic warming, around the same time as the CO2 rise (Stott 2007). Ice cores in Greenland find that warming in the Northern Hemisphere lags the Antarctic CO2 rise (Caillon 2003).
To claim that the CO2 lag disproves the warming effect of CO2 displays a lack of understanding of the processes that drive Milankovitch cycles. A review of the peer reviewed research into past periods of deglaciation tells us several things:
• Deglaciation is not initiated by CO2 but by orbital cycles
• CO2 amplifies the warming which cannot be explained by orbital cycles alone
• CO2 spreads warming throughout the planet
You are correct, nature does not care about models, but nature does abide by the processes at work...all of them, not just the ones you like.
Bill Glasheen wrote:
The endpoint becomes the beginning. Is that so hard? That endpoint/beginning was obviously a healthy one since so much organic matter was being produced that ultimately became fossil fuels. Sounds good to me! Could it be that things might actually be better????
At best you are being way too simplistic again. Over those millions of years atmospheric CO2 levels have fluctuated widely, so when is this so-called beginning? Throughout human existence CO2 levels have never been as high as they are today so in that frame of reference the end is far higher than the beginning.
And as for things being better with higher atmospheric levels of CO2, the evidence does not support such a notion. It turns out most extinction events have coincided with spikes in atmospheric CO2 levels, and most CO2 spikes have been associated with extinction events. (Sorry for the large size, how can we make images appear smaller on this forum? The usual HTML commands are not working.)
Interestingly, the most recent extinctions have been associated with shorter spikes and lower absolute levels of CO2, close to where we seem to be headed.
The rate of change factor may be more important than the absolute levels, and there is no known time period when CO2 has been released into the atmosphere as fast as it is in the present. The current rate of CO2 rise is 2ppm per year; the highest known previous rate was 0.4ppm per year during a 1000 year period preceding the Paleocene extinction.
We are conducting an experiment on our life-support system that appears to have no precedence, but that the evidence indicates may not work in our favor. So no, I am not convinced "that things might actually be better". And should we really be taking that risk?
Bill Glasheen wrote:
Why - especially since it may not be largely anthropogenic? And chances are change IS the norm. That is the point I keep trying to make (a.k.a. heterostasis).
Again, the evidence does not support you. Here are some repeat graphs that illustrate the evidence for observed temperature fluctuations being influenced by both natural and anthropogenic factors. From about 1970 on it does appear to be largely anthropogenic.
Sure change is the norm, but not all change is positive for humanity.