First, off, the earth can warm without it having anything to do with CO2. ARe you aware that the sun has been more active in the past 20 years than at any time in the past 8000 years? From that rag of anti-science, Nature magazine.
Solar irradiance data is something I am relatively unfamiliar with. From what I've read and information based on data from the Physikalishe-Meteorologishe Observatorium Davois World Radiation Center (PMOD) (
HERE) there has been negligible increase in solar irradiance since 1978, as opposed to the last 30 years when the global temps have been rising fastest.
According to the Max Plank Institute it looks as if the solar irradiance has been relatively constant since the 1940's
(
SOURCE)
Again, I must claim some ignorance of this topic since I am not a radiation physics person.
The folks at RealClimate.org take a measured approach:
This is not to say that there is no solar influence on climate change, only that establishing such a link is more difficult then many assume. What is generally required is a consistent signal over a number of cycles (either the 11 year sunspot cycle or more long term variations), similar effects if the timeseries are split, and sufficient true degrees of freedom that the connection is significant and that it explains a non-negligible fraction of the variance. These are actually quite stiff hurdles and so the number of links that survive this filter are quite small. In some rough order of certainty we can consider that the 11 year solar cycle impacts on the following are well accepted: stratospheric ozone, cosmogenic isotope production, upper atmospheric geopotential heights, stratospheric temperatures and (slightly less certain and with small magnitudes ~0.1 deg C) tropospheric and ocean temperatures. More marginal are impacts on wintertime tropospheric circulation (like the NAO). It is also clear that if there really was a big signal in the data, it would have been found by now. The very fact that we are still arguing about statisitical significance implies that whatever signal there is, is small.
(
SOURCE)
The relative importance of solar forcing in the debate may be overstated. Certainly in light of any claims around the role of radiance over the past 3 to 4 decades during a notable increase in temperature.
Well, I quoted some scientific hysteriacs in my reply to Split Rock. I loved Hansen's claim that if we don't do something the climate will slip out of human control.
Well, indeed, if we are directly reponsible for a major
forcing in the equation, then most assuredly we must do our part. If we are directly responsible for the unprecedented release of a known greenhouse gas at a rate thousands or millions of times its original
sequestration in the fossil fuels, we must take responsibility. "Human control" is possible in that we can
ameliorate our impact.
Nothing more. Hansen and others don't mean humans can control the weather, but we can control the parts that
we are responsible for.
That's kind of the point, isn't it?
Mixed metaphor. Tsunami's are wave phenomenon, and one doesn't always have a withdrawal before the water comes ashore.
But one often does (and that was my point "metaphor about warning", nothing about the "cyclicity" of CO2 or anything like that:
leading-depression wave: Initial tsunami wave is a trough, causing a draw down of water level. (SOURCE:
NOAA National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program History 1995-2005)
Tenacatita Bay minutes before a tsunami struck. Normally, the entire area is covered with water, but the bay was sucked dry by a leadling-depression tsunami. [Courtesy of Josef and Helga Lehemen] A family eating breakfast on their patio felt the earthquake and reported that 15 minutes later, the bay began to empty. The son, who frequently dives for shellfish near the exposed rocks, reported that the "normal" depth at the point of largest withdrawal is 56 m.
(SOURCE:
American Geophysical Union)
The first wave arrived as expected but it was not noticed by the harbor control. Mr. Macee said he was in his boat when he first noticed the withdrawal. He was able to watch the tsunami from his boat looking at the water elevation change at the piling and breakwater.
(SOURCE:
Tsunami Research Center)
Sorry 'bout the aside there. Just defending my "metaphor".
Climate warming is not subject to wave-like behavior. If CO2 is heating us up, it will not cool us down first. Something else must do that.
I did not in any way mean to imply this is "cyclical" in nature. I was merely using the metaphor as "warning". That's all.
We agree on that, which is why the hysteria I see in the media, driving those who don't know anything about geological past, to do things that might be ill-advised.
Well, to be fair to my point, I meant that life and the earth will go along just fine as it has for many giga annum, but
we likely won't. I'm rather more concerned for
us . Even moreso when I think there is a real possiblity
we will be directly responsible for our own demise and the demise of countless other species who, like us, may not adapt quickly.
I am in the oil industry. I also own a ranch. I will tell you that efforts to curb fossil fuels is so incredibly short-sighted from an agricultural perspective as to be suicidal or auto-genicidal.
Believe me I come from a training that set me on a course to wind up in petroleum or coal. I specialized in those areas in my grad school work. I have a soft spot in my heart for all things fossil-fuel, but I am also not looking at this from an economic point of view primarily. I worry that since we :
1. Know CO2 is a greenhouse gas
2. Know we are liberating CO2 at a rate much much faster than it was originally sequestered (balances and rates)
3. Know much of the recent rise in CO2 can be
isotopically traced right back to our burning of fossil fuels
we really need to act and, if the climate scientists are correct, then we need to do something.
When you pile on the additional need to deal with limited resources of a finite extent (oil and to a lesser extent coal for the immediate future) it is an excellent time to take note and start turning the ship around. It won't happen over night and there'll always be a role for petroleum and organics in our industries. Maybe just not in a way that it generates huge CO2 loads into the atmosphere.
Run the logic with me. 1.5 million wheat plants are planted per acre on a wheat farm. 30,000 corn plants, likewise. How do you expect to run a 20 sq mile farm planting all those plants without a mechanized tractor? The tractor won't run without liquid fuel. One can't attach an extension cord to a combine. And 1% of world energy use goes to the manufacture of fertilizer. Mostly that energy is oil and natural gas. Cut out the oil and natural gas, and we have no fertilizer.
Don't just limit yourself. You have no plastics or polymers (with the exception of some newer biopolymers). No one is advocating the total elimination of petroleum. But, again, if something can be powered to move around, it can presumably, with the appropriate battery technology, be done using electricity which can be produced any number of ways
without carbon combustion (nuclear, wind, solar).
That will mean a 40% drop in crop yields.
ONLY if we wait until the last minute and have no alternative systems in place. If we don't start the process of weaning ourselves off of transportation fuels from carbon we will
never get to that point.
Then, ultimately we are at the beck and call of the suppliers and the vagueries of world politics or, ultimately, the depletion of a non-renewable resource.
We will face the issues sooner or later. Who better to do it than the most technologically advanced society the world has ever seen, and when better to start than
now?
And my real worry is that we are on the very verge of a plummeting oil supply. I have spent my life looking for oil and have found a billion barrels (with my colleagues). That lasts the world 2 weeks.
Doesn't that shock you? The figures there. All the oil you've been involved in finding burned up in 2 weeks.
We find 3 barrels for every 10 we burn, so not to fear, soon we will begin to have a world without at least one of the carbon fuels. Hope you like not having those tractors
"Peak Oil" or the more prosaic "depletion of a non-renewable resource" is very important to me. I suggest we get off carbon for transportation and energy production as soon as possible if only to allow this precious commodity to last longer. We need it for higher value things like the infrastructure of our chemical industries (plastics, polymers, etc.) rather than merely burning it up so we drive the Hummer the grocery store.
It won't collapse because of heat. It will collapse because we pull too much water from the aquifers (which has nothing to do with CO2) or because we run out of energy. I have yet to see any reason to think that warming will hurt agriculture. Precipitation is up as the earth warmed over the past few years.
It may not hurt agriculture
overall, but it will most assuredly hurt
our agriculture.
We are not the cause of the sea's rise. Are you aware that 125,000 years ago, Greenland was nearly devoid of ice and the CO2 level was quite low?
Not necessarily germane to the present point. 125,000 years ago I'm sure the sea levels were quite different. Denude Greenland today of all its ice and I'm sure there's a massive impact to U.S. and world population centers.
That's the point. We are not talking about earth 125,000 years ago when mankind was little more than wandering group of grunting primates. We are talking about present day earth when mankind has a vested interest in forestalling the effects of his direct actions.
CO2 is a
known greenhouse gas. That is incontrovertible. The relative forcings and the relative "lifespan" of CO2 in the atmosphere once emplaced make it a serious concern. We are directly responsible for planting the seeds of what
could be our own demise.
You are correct about the 100th Meridian--the western border of Oklahoma, but population densities have nothing to do with CO2 in the atmosphere. Other activities cause lots of babies.
No, that wasn't my point. My point was that sustainable agriculture, in a highly stressed environment, will be where the largest populations will be required to live. Hence it would make California what it once was, a semi-populate desert. And sustainable agriculture will only be of any measurable size east of the 100th Meridian. Populations will shift which will, by definition, carry a cost and will further strain infrastructure in the now more highly densely populated eastern half of the U.S.
I know what a model is. I was in charge of reservoir simulation for Kerr-McGee for 5 years. Models are only as good as the set of assumptions that go into them.
Then you will agree that any model
can be assessed for bias and the relative strength of the model lies in full assessment of the residuals as well as an appreciation of the Gauge studies underlying the inputs.
When I got into science, the monolithic response to someone saying that there were thrust faults in the Gulf of Mexico would have been termination of employment. Today we know they are there having drilled them. When I got into science, the monolithic response of doctors to the claim that H. pylori was the cause of ulcers, was that that is stupid because it is known that it is stress. Before I got in science, in the 1920s, there was a monolithic consensus in geology that there had been land bridges and continental drift was ridiculous. Monolithic response is a herd mentality. I do a lot of investing. Don't do what the herd is doing or you will get crushed.
I am fully aware of how science can be mistaken. I, too, know that from being in science since stepping into undergrad 26 years ago. I know it from a solid reading of the history of science. However, I am also aware that, as an earth scientist, as a former oceanographic chem tech, as someone who spent years studying coal and kerogen as well as environmental applications of carbon materials, that there are things we need be mindful of in regards to these things.
I assure you, I am not
merely doing what the herd does. I am hardly a complete barefoot pilgrim in these woods.
They are ignoring the error. Answer this. Is it competent to approve the location of a weather themometer next to an air conditioner exhaust? Tell me that.
Not, it is not. But again, as you must surely know from your years as a scientist, models are built from gauge inputs that contain errors. Both human and pure noise. The best we can do is be mindful of those errors so we can better assess our p-values when running the F-tests on the statistics.