The observational basis is that in the past we know that temperatures have been warmer. I was responding to your point about negative feedbacks. We know with absolute certainty that whatever the negative feedbacks are they do not restrain temperatures to the level that we are at now. We know that positive feedbacks overwhelm negative feedbacks for at least another six degrees or so, given that that is the kind of temperature level that has been reached in the past. That was the only point that I was making.
Ok, I misunderstood what you were saying thanks for the clarification. I would point you again to the deuterium temperature profile of the Vostok core for the past 12,000 years.
You can get a bigger version of this at
WeatherVostokPostglacialTemp.jpg (image)
I disagree strongly that there are no feedbacks which can stop our present temperature rise. Look at the last 2000 years of the Vostok curve. I count 6 periods where the temperature rose only to fall back from 2000 years ago to the 19th century. We are now in the 7th period of rise. Whatever feedbacks turned each of those 6 previous rises around did the job. So, I don't think you can make the claim you do looking at the past history of temperature.
As to models not being able to predict 10 years ahead, I agree: the models cannot predict 10 years ahead. However, given that that is not what they are designed to do, it is a bit unfair to judge them on that fact. The models produce many runs and then average those runs. This average is not going to look anything like the short-term earth climate - the earth's real climate will fluctuate above and below this average. However, over the course of the century, the average should match the overall real trend. This is what the model is producing.
Having made and managed petroleum reservoir models, one can run a model all you want and come up with an average production rate and recovery rate. But most of the time they don't match reality. They can't predict successfully because fluid flow through the pores of rocks is such a complicated problem that we can't get the right answer. We run the models because we have to have some basis upon which to make predictions.
As to long term predictions, the problem is that philosophically it is a statement of faith that the models are correct. One can say that a certain model correctly predicts the temperature in 2075 but neither of us is likely to be here to collect on a steak dinner bet in that year. Any claim that the models are better further out than they are close in, is based not on observational verification, but upon faith--belief in things unseen.
Then how do you explain the increases in temperature in the United States? It was paved over and airconditioned by the 1970s. And yet the greatest temperature rise over the lower 48 has occurred since that time.
I have several times posted the difference between the raw data--the real observations, and the final edited data output by NOAA.
Now this is merely the subtraction of the final minus the input to the editing. The difference is what the editing does. There are many disturbing things about this chart. First in 1900, they make no correction to the temperature. That means that they think the temperature doesn't need correction. Some have tried to say that they don't know the amount of correction to make, but if that is true, then we also wouldn't know if or how much the world has warmed. Such an approach to this chart is self-destructive to the global warming position.
If the thermometers in 1900 don't need to be corrected, but the modern ones, which are next to heat sources do need correcting and need to be corrected HOTTER than they read, then they are implicitly saying that the modern thermometers are crap.
I think our technology should be better even if our siting of the thermometers is worse than in 1900.
Given all the stations I have shown which are next to heat sources, one has to wonder why editing has to add even MORE heat to the modern thermometer record. That makes absolutely no sense to me.
You asked where the temperature increase comes from? Part of it has to come from the gradual increase in heat input to the thermometer record by the editing process alone. Note that half a degree C of warming is due simply to guys in a computer lab deciding that modern thermometers are reading the temperature too low and need to be corrected upwards towards hotter temperatures.
I am not advocating either of those things. I am advocating reducing our CO2 emissions - hopefully to zero by the end of the century.
Well, if you can find an energy that doesn't require CO2 emissions go for it. A solar cell requires a 1400 deg C oven, usually heated by the CO2 emitting natural gas which is burned to heat the oven. Wind turbines, are made or imported to Houston cause I see them leaving in all directions from here (including one that got stuck trying to navigate the Crockett TX town square--the blades were too long). But they are made of composites--which means petrochemicals. To get those petrochemicals you emit CO2.
If you think nuclear will do it, please tell me when we will start building them? We have to build these CO2 free energy plants before we can use them.
