Thursday
Feb212013
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Ingratiating interactions
Feb 21, 2013 Climate: other Paul Hardaker has moved from running the Royal Meteorological Society to the Institute of Physics, an august body that has attracted the attention of yours truly from time to time.
Interactions is the institute's magazine for members, and although some have unkindly suggested that its title is facetious, I'm sure it's a gripping read. The current edition (attached below), shows that Hardaker will fit right in with his new colleagues.
Reader Comments (76)
Dear Kim (Feb 21, 2013 at 3:57 PM ), Thanks for your kind words, and may I say I have enjoyed your haikus and insights over the past years.
However, my comment was meant slightly differently than you suggest. I'm not yet convinced by the Ruddiman hypothesis (that human caused CO2 emission were significant enough centuries ago to cause warming, and that in fact man-made CO2 is saving us from the next ice age). It's not clear how much warming the added CO2 has caused, if measureable. So I'm not yet ready to give thanks for the added CO2 to ward off the coming ice age.
My point was that unless you can demonstrate that you know what the temperature would be in the absence of any warming you think was caused by CO2, you cannot say what the added warming from CO2 has been. Also, if Hardaker thinks that CO2 has raised temperatures by 0.6 deg C in the last 30 years, but not at all in the past 16 years, then he must believe the CO2 was able to raise temperatures by 0.6 deg C from 1980 to 1996 and that natural variation has accounted for the lack of warming for the past 16 years. If natural variation could lower global temperatures by 0.6 deg C, could similar natural variation raise the global temperature by 0.6 deg C?
If Hardaker believes that natural variations have offset the effects of the added CO2 since 1996, what does he think caused the natural variations?
So much for CO2 "driving" the climate. Once again it has shown itself a passive follower (see 3).
This is for all times scales;
1) The last 550 million years (Rothman, D.H., Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels for the last 500 million years. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 99 (7): 4167-4171, (2002).
2) During the Ice ages (Monnin et al (2001). Atmospheric CO2 Concentrations over the Last Glacial Termination. Science, 291, p.112-114.)
3) And last but not least- over the last 30 years (Humluma, Stordahlc & Solheimd (2013) The phase relation between atmospheric carbon dioxide and global temperature. Global and Planetary Change: 100, 51–69)
Just how much more evidence is needed??
Richard Betts- care to comment?
Kim wrote "He might learn a little about the natural variability of the earth."
There is a huge amount of ignorance among people from many backgrounds, about what you find when you dig a hole in the earth. Most worrying and widespread is the movie recreation?Verne style of earths within the earth, with rivers, vegetation, communities - some say invented by underground German miners to scare children away from going underground dangerously. Grimm Bros style.
This shows itself as I write, with vigorous anti-frakking (or however they spell it) movements, often composed of well-meaning but ignorant people driven by an agenda penned by others who want to prosper by competing methods.
Physicists, from time to time, are forced into major theoretical revisions after they dig holes and compare results with other indirect measures like seismic. It would not surprise me to find polling results that show half of todays' graduate physicists cannot describe with acceptable accuracy what has already been observed from digging holes, let alone their imagination of what might be present at greater depth.
I'd imagine fewer than 5% of school children have any interest or knowledge to help them in later life. Simply peruse the titles in school libraries.
Thanks, Geoff, for the clarification. Nor do I accept Ruddiman, though it is tempting.
The point remains that however much man has warmed the earth, by that much the earth would be cooler were not man here. Yeah, there might be more ice in the north, there would be less food grown, too.
I work from the proposition that warmer is better than cooler, as warmer sustains more total life and more diversity of life. From the apparent warming effect(small) of CO2 and the amount of hydrocarbon bonds accessible to man, it doesn't seem that man can add more than a couple of degrees of heat. Compare that with the eight or so degrees for the change to an Ice Age.
The Holocene is senile, possibly kept on a respirator by our addition of CO2. Shall we take off the respirator?
==============
Rhoda, unless abstemious was added as an English word after 1971, then I was lied to in grade school.
Maybe that's why that word does not describe me very well.
"Hardaker (kind of him) admits that there is no "factual proof" that greenhouse gases warm the earth and then instantly claims "a range of compelling evidence" that they do.
Which is it to be?"
Feb 21, 2013 at 11:39 AM | Mike Jackson
Both.
If I asked Latimer Adler to "prove" that sodium chloride was a salt , he would carry out standard laboratory procedures and claim saltness on the basis of his results.
If I asked a physicist to "prove" that the period of a pendulum was controlled by its length and gravity , he would be able to demonstrate by direct experiment that period varied with the square root of the length but would be unable to demonstrate in his laboratory that g was a factor, except by reference to theory.
As the questions get harder and more complex, the ability to determine their validity by direct experiment becomes more difficult.
To demonstrate the effect of increasing CO2 on Earth's climate by direct experiment would need control of atmospheric CO2 concentration, centuries of time to allow each experiment to reach equilibrium and multiple Earths to act as controls. If by "factual proof" this is what you mean, then you will be disappointed.
However, there is laboratory evidence regarding the behaviour of CO2 , which can be extrapolated to the atmosphere. Measurements of temperature, incoming and outgoing radiation etc. in the Earth's climate system can be shown to be consistent with the laboratory observations. This is the "compelling evidence" to which Hardaker refers.
The closest you can presently get to direct experiment is to compare an Earth with 280ppm of CO2 with the current state of an Earth with 394ppm. To do this, compare the instrument records for the latter 1800s with those of today.
The real question is: "Where is the scientific basis for UNFCCC?"
Kim,
We all know that a warm planet is better than a cold one. Just ask the 40,000 people who due due due cold related incidents between December and match every year here in the UK.
But never fear the catastrophiliacs have a convenient excuse...you see, apparently storms and such become much MUCH worse in that warmer planet therefore a warm planet is not better than a cold one!!!
Never mind the fact there is no evidence to back this claim up but the science of Mann Made Global Warming (tm) isn't exactly based on evidence is it?
Regards
Mailman
Entropic man
Quite possibly the best test we have (but not an experiment). There is an unknown in the equation: the "natural variability" which has caused plateauing of global temperature, despite the increase in CO2 concentration. "Natural variability" carries that name because RealClimateScientists (TM) don't know what's going on. They don't understand the physics of the system. It must be terribly frustrating to dedicate one's life to studying the Big Control Knob In The Sky (CO2), only to find it doesn't work as advertised.
"The closest you can presently get to direct experiment is to compare an Earth with 280ppm of CO2 with the current state of an Earth with 394ppm. To do this, compare the instrument records for the latter 1800s with those of today."
Or.... compare the 280 ppm CO2 measurements (from possibly flawed ice core analysis) with Beck's data, compiled from contemporary chemical anlysis by leading scientists (or even the analysis of stomata data),
or.....compare current temperatures with inferred temperature data from anthropogenic records (last ice fair on Thames in 1814, red wine in Yorkshire and farming in Greenland 500 years before...., etc.).
We are midway between LIA and MWP temperatures. Nothing unusual, no cause for alarm. We are exactly where we would expect to be...
Hector Pascal
Roger Longstaff
I had hoped for more than the usual vague babble about unreliable data and uncertainties.Good Popperian scientists that you are, I look forward to your experimental design for falsifying cAGW.
An experimental design is needed that would
1) If cAGW was correct, demonstrate the alternate hypothesis to p>0.95 or sufficient to convince the sceptics.
2) If cAGW is incorrect, demonstrate the null hypothesis to p<0.05 or sufficient to convince the cAGW acceptors.
3) Be able to generate results over a timescale acceptable to both parties.
"I look forward to your experimental design for falsifying cAGW."
As there is no empirical evidence to support the CAGW hypothesis, it is up to you to justify it. It is not up to me to falsify every lunatic hypothesis that comes along - Occam's Razor tells us how to deal with them. For example:
"When I woke up this morning all my stuff had been stolen and replaced with identical replicas"
It can't be proven or disproven, but it is obviously bollocks.
Why invent CAGW when natural variation (midway between LIA and MWP climates) tells us that nothing out of the ordinary is going on?
It's entropy, man.
Roger Longstaff
Please define your useage of the word "empirical" in this context.
What would empirical evidence for or against cAGW look like and how would you collect it?
Remember Popper's approach to science was that it was impossible to prove the validity of a hypothesis beyond doubt, but if it was invalid it should be possible to prove it wrong.
I notice a tendency among sceptics to distort this by insisting that the cAGW acceptors prove their case, something we both agree is impossible to achieve with complete certainty. The same sceptics always dodge any attempt to falsify it. If cAGW is "obvious bollocks", you should be able to prove it wrong.
Unlike a psychotic fantasy the validity or otherwise of cAGW has considerable implications for society's decision making. Dismissing it out of hand is itself dodging the issue.
Roger Longstaff
As an aside, you mentioned possibly unreliable ice core data.
This is the Law Dome ice core CO2 data.
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/graphics/lawdome.smooth20.gif
This is the corresponding measured CO2 data from the South Pole.
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/graphics/South_Pole_CO2.jpg
For an "unreliable " technique, the fit between the CO2 concentrations derived from the two independant techniques is good.
EM,
Empirical evidence is a source of knowledge acquired by means of observation or experimentation.
If you look at the work of Ernst Beck (widely referenced on the web) you will see very different conclusions about historical levels of CO2. You can also find a debate amongst scientists about the validity if ice core methodology. Contemporary chemical analysis or modern ice core analysis - they can't both be right.
No idea about Popper, but Occam's Razor has stood the test of time. If you look again at the example I gave you will see that it was constructed in a way that it could neither be proved nor disproved. CAGW is the same. However, when there is no empirical evidence at all to support it OR tells us that the simplest explanation is most likely true - natural vatiability.
Look in the literature and you will find considerable evidence from observation and experimentation to support cAGW.
Your own explaination , natural variability, is produced regularly by sceptics such as yourself, but evidence to support other drivers than CO2 is not presented.
Solar intensity variations , ocean cycles, cosmic rays and various other hypotheses have been suggested, but none of them have been empirically demonstrated to be sufficient to explain the empirically observed changes.
Since you expect the propounder of a hypothesis to prove it, your own rules now require you to prove empirically that natural variability is sufficient.
I've read Beck's work. His work is of considerably poorer quality than the work he criticises.
"Look in the literature and you will find considerable evidence from observation and experimentation to support cAGW"
Where? Give references.
Look at WUWT, today, in the paleo post. Look at all the temperature graphs over the various timescales. Note that these have not been produced by sceptical laymen, they are all from published papers in some cases by hockey team scientists. Look at those extremes from the past, both high and low, and tell me seriously that what is happening right now is something special. Rhoda's hypothesis, that nothing much is happening, holds up.
"your own rules now require you to prove empirically that natural variability is sufficient"
Use any search engine and look for LIA and MWP references. Hundreds of them showing hotter and colder cliamates than today - and all before humanity started injecting industrial quantities of CO2 into the atmosphere. QED.
rhoda
Roger Longstaff
Thanks for the paleoclimate graphs. The do indeed show higher and lower temperatures than today. I do not dispute it. The paleoclimate data is a valuable indicator of how the world functioned under different conditions of temperature, orbital mechanics and CO2
That is not the issue. The real problem is that we have built an industrial civilization on coastal plains. That civilization depends on stable sea levels, water supplies and biogeography.
The paleoclimate data indicates that we are rapidly moving towards CO2 concentrations associated with radically different biogeography, different climate zones, and much higher sea levels.
The real question is not "Has the planet had high CO2 before? " It has.
The question is "Can we adapt to the conditions that prevailed last time it got this high, without losing our civilization in the process?"
"Can we adapt to the conditions that prevailed last time it got this high, without losing our civilization in the process?"
As far as I am aware, sea level rise (happening since the last ice age) has not been accelerating with the modern day increase in CO2. I saw a report on this recently, but haven't got time to look for it today. Anybody got a reference?
"Can we adapt to the conditions that prevailed last time it got this high, without losing our civilization in the process?"
The question I'd like to know is why would anyone think that man-made CO2 is the control knob? We will have to adapt or be darwinned out. We will have to adapt to whatever comes, it is no use trying to anticipate what that will be or impoverish ourselves by lowering CO2 emissions in a few countries. Might as well sacrifice virgins to the volcano. A fruitless gesture. These paleo figures indicate (they do not prove) that what we do will not stop excursions of temperature colder or hotter than what we have now.
Roger Longstaff
This is a current sea level record.
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/
If you are remembering a sea level discussion from a sceptic source, this might be it.
http://judithcurry.com/2011/07/12/historic-variations-in-sea-levels-part-1-from-the-holocene-to-romans/
rhoda
In a recent "In our Time" broadcast on ice ages a geologist made the point that the CO2 concentration is approaching levels last seen before the last Greenhouse Earth / Icehouse Earth transition; a time when Earth was too warm to support polar icecaps.
Whether the temperature rise we see is driving or is driven by the CO2 change, the two are seen in the paleoclimate data to change together in a positive feedback loop. This raises the possibility of rapid change. To falsify this possibility needs a lot more evidence than your belief that nothing will happen as we raise CO2.
Thanks for references EM, very interesting.
I heard the In Our Time broadcast. The geologists did not seem too ken on the CO2 feedback mechanism, probably because it isn't there, or maybe because all our ideas of what causes the sharp changes are speculation. The geologists did not mention that CO2 follows warming. They did not mention that any strong positive feedback mechanism was likely to give a bistable system about which man could do nothing. But a hot earth we can survive. The last ice age whittled us down to a few thousand. Warmer is better, but we do not get to choose.
If you dont mind Wilipedia this gives a respectable summary of the Greenhouse Earth / Icehouse Earth changes and the driving forces.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_and_icehouse_Earth
This is one of the references from that article, considering the possibility that our CO2 emissions might trigger a transition.
http://www.geotimes.org/mar06/feature_deeptimeiceages.html
From the viewpoint of our species, I doubt that such a transition would be an extinction event. Whether our civilization survived would depend on the speed and violence of the transition.