Climate skeptics exploiting scandal: US envoy

No. Climate change is real. It has been real for millions of years and it will be real for millions of years more to come. Climate is always changing in many places in the world.

It has actually warmed but this warming has been statistically insignificant over the last 15 or so years.

It is just the level of so-called anthropogenic influence over climate change with which I take issue and that I dispute at present. Is it really man, CO2, or is it really something happening that would have occurred anyway? The science is not settled.

I also would like to see the politicians stay out of the science and would like to see more honest reporting and publication of the data.

You dispute it because you have a background in what??

Often it is taken for granted that CO2 has some special properties that other gases do not possess. As of today only 0.038 % of the atmosphere is CO2. So for CO2 to warm the Earth, these properties must be understood by now, right ?

As far as I have read, the physical mechanism behind CO2 and warming is not well explained. It's said that CO2 absorbs infrared and near-infrared and radiates this back to Earth, but the devil is in the details. How can this tiny amount of gas have any measurable influence on the temperature ?

It has been said numerous times, look at Venus and you see what will happen if CO2 dominates the atmosphere, but on Venus the atmosphere is 96 % CO2 and the pressure is 93 times higher than on Earth at sea level. It's the pressure that gives the high temperature on Venus, not the CO2. So if you could swap CO2 out for something else, you would still have high temperatures.

One of a number of things that I do on a regular basis is to monitor atmospheric CO2 levels. I'll let you try and figure out the rest. :)

Give it up guys. It's painfully obvious to all except the zealots and the ignorant that Global Warming, Climate Change, whatever you want to call it this week is a political scam.

How does anyone with even a gram of common sense not know that these facts add up to a change in the climate?

I really don't understand peoples attitudes to this. Even if global warming isn't real surely it is only sensible to take steps as if it were (and preserve our fossil fuels for future use).
Man might not have any effect on the climate but if we go the way we are going we will poison our environment.

@dachpyarvile,

"One of a number of things that I do on a regular basis is to monitor atmospheric CO2 levels."

I'm curious, is CO2 going up?

J.

Ridicoulous. You're asking for details and comprehension of a topic which like much of advanced sciences takes years to master.

I'm sure those references would be unimpeachable, deatopmq.

Give it up guys. It's painfully obvious to all except the zealots and the ignorant that Global Warming, Climate Change, whatever you want to call it this week is a political scam.

"What you do see sometimes is that people who have an agenda that is directed toward undermining action on climate change grab whatever tidbit they can find,"

Give it up guys. It's painfully obvious to all except the zealots and the ignorant that Global Warming, Climate Change, whatever you want to call it this week is a political scam.

Ridicoulous. You're asking for details and comprehension of a topic which like much of advanced sciences takes years to master.

At a Nobel conference at Gustavus Adolphus in the early 80s, a Nobel prize winning physicist stated that if a scientist can't explain his research to a 6th grader, the scientist doesn't understand it either.

Ridicoulous. You're asking for details and comprehension of a topic which like much of advanced sciences takes years to master.

At a Nobel conference at Gustavus Adolphus in the early 80s, a Nobel prize winning physicist stated that if a scientist can't explain his research to a 6th grader, the scientist doesn't understand it either.

Try explaining the General Theory of Relativity to a 6th grader.

If guys like you were alive in the 19th century, you would have been disputing evolution.

And you all have the same profile - Anglo-Saxon right politics.

It is as good as taking DNA.

Give it up guys. It's painfully obvious to all except the zealots and the ignorant that Global Warming, Climate Change, whatever you want to call it this week is a political scam.

Try explaining the General Theory of Relativity to a 6th grader.

I have a couple of questions for the Man Caused Global Warming Alarmist. 1. What is Earth's Normal temperature? 2. Was it not warmer during the Medieval Warm Period than it is now and what caused the earth to warm then, since we did not have the CO2 emmissions?

AGW is a scam.

We need more co2 to put us near this threshold, we have been suffering from a world that is slowly locking away co2 into the carbon cycle...

So, now that you guys are all scientific experts I would like to hear what other theories which are backed by a scientific consensus that you also disagree with? I'm all ears.

...

PS: 2009 was the second warmest year in the history books. Eat your conservative heart out ....

Give it up guys. It's painfully obvious to all except the zealots and the ignorant that Global Warming, Climate Change, whatever you want to call it this week is a political scam.

Ridicoulous. You're asking for details and comprehension of a topic which like much of advanced sciences takes years to master.

Exemple:Do you understand propagation, snell's law, absorbtion, diffraction, refraction, reflection, wave-particle duality, edge effect, wave propagation in urban environment, edge effects, Maxwell's equations, Ohm's Law...and on and on i go. Few people do and those are the simpler intricacies associated with radio waves that move from your cell phone to a tower.

What makes science great is that one person can make a discovery that destroys consensus.
Science should never be about consensus, but finding data to support or refute a theory.

So, now that you guys are all scientific experts I would like to hear what other theories which are backed by a scientific consensus that you also disagree with? I'm all ears.

What makes science great is that one person can make a discovery that destroys consensus.
Science should never be about consensus, but finding data to support or refute a theory.

I agree and most of the data right now supports AGW.

@John:

The only other science where the minority scientific position seems impervious to the data and the facts would be evolution/origins. Climate science denialists that believe that a single case of charges of fraud makes the entire science false is the same thing as those that point to Piltdown Man as an example of how evolution must be false.

Then find another hypothesis and prove it. Write it up and submit it. If it isn't accepted, shove it into Sen. Inhoff's hands and he'll run around like a madman for you, demanding that the journals man up and start publishing the science.

I do actually, but that's because I have three university degrees in Electronics, Physics and Electronic Materials.

It's irrelevant. The moment we start believing everything an expert says "just because" it somehow becomes too difficult for them to explain is the moment we move into dictatorship.

Published papers are necessarily checked to weed out bad science.

Published papers are necessarily checked to weed out bad science.

Not always. We're commenting on an article that speaks to this.

The difference in warmest years by different groups is very easily explained, you just need to read up on the way the sparsity of polar data stations are treated.

That is simply untrue. Any and all academic publishing by established scientific publications is put through a review process which usually takes 6months to a year.

The theories of greenhouse gases and wavelength absorption have been around a long time and haven't gone anywhere,

but when opponents of it say it doesn't exist when its snowing in washington

@John:

The only other science where the minority scientific position seems impervious to the data and the facts would be evolution/origins. Climate science denialists that believe that a single case of charges of fraud makes the entire science false is the same thing as those that point to Piltdown Man as an example of how evolution must be false.

I'm pretty sure they are the same people, actually.

Do you guys think that their is a political motive behind this amongst the worlds scientific organizations??

...

As for dachy, your questions don't merit answers. You'll just move the goalposts.

Please do some research. its not a 100 scientists reaching a consensus, it's thousands. Your assertion that this is one big gov't conspiracy is as ludicrous as it is laughable. yes the world's countries which can't agree on anything (least of all their own climate action at copenhaguen) somehow managed to conspire to make millions!!

The rise of life, maybe. You're talking phytoplankton and lesser forms.

It is not a government conspiracy. It is 'watermelon' conspiracy. Green on the outside, red on the inside.
It is a conspiracy of 'the elites' who want more government control of the world.

Skeptical experts like Lindzen of MIT are attacked by true believers.

Writing in Newsweek, Fred Guterl stated "Lindzen clearly relishes the role of naysayer. He'll even expound on how weakly lung cancer is linked to cigarette smoking. He speaks in full, impeccably logical paragraphs, and he punctuates his measured cadences with thoughtful drags on a cigarette" – an observation that was later echoed by Robyn Williams.

Lindzen is a tenured professor at MIT.

I didn't start the politics of AGW, Al Gore, James Hansen and the IPCC did.

Some one said that scientists prioritize and gain more prestige if:

While the GEOCARB Carbon dioxide levels in the most part of the Phanerzoic Eon shows a fit and resultíng climate sensitivity similar to todays values, the early Phanerozoic includes a global ice age during the Ordovician age combined with high atmospheric carbon contents based on the same project.

High CO2 & low temps. Go figure...

So basicly you have 1 degree in electrical engineering LOL. 3 degrees, more like 3 classes.

the politics of AGW were launched by OPEC,

Where is your supporting documentation?

Ross Gelbspan, journalist and author, wrote a 1995 article in Harper's Magazine which was very critical of Lindzen and other global warming skeptics. In the article, Gelbspan reports Lindzen charged "oil and coal interests $2,500 a day for his consulting services; [and] his 1991 trip to testify before a Senate committee was paid for by Western Fuels and a speech he wrote, entitled 'Global Warming: the Origin and Nature of Alleged Scientific Consensus,' was underwritten by OPEC." http://dieoff.org/page82.htm

I know this as most people who support AGW and consider themselves educated 'elites' are always claiming the world is overpopulated and they have the political solution.

Monitor the delta temperatures, daytime highs, daytime lows at very dry locations around the world.
If CO2 is adding heat to the local environment, the deltas should be decreasing as CO2 levels rise.

I don't see why that would follow. You may be right, but I don't see how you arrive at such a conclusion. CO2 would boost maximum daytime temperature, by retro-reflecting some of the radiation emitted by the ground and risen warm air.

CO2 (and other gases) absorb photons at specific wavelengths and radiates that energy at different, usually longer wavelengths. There is no 'reflection'.

@TheBigYin

"What is an expert?"
'Ex' is a has been. 'Spert' is a drip under pressure.

I'm wondering, do I also need to show all of the calculations of flat waves as they strike the atmosphere at different angles causing different amounts of reflection? I would have thought that people commenting on photonics and optics would have at least had the bare minimum of education on the topic. Alas, marjon proves that my expectations are WAY too high.

I'm wondering, do I also need to show all of the calculations of flat waves as they strike the atmosphere at different angles causing different amounts of reflection? I would have thought that people commenting on photonics and optics would have at least had the bare minimum of education on the topic. Alas, marjon proves that my expectations are WAY too high.

That isn't what you said before, marjon. Just admit you were wrong and move on, preferably somewhere else.

@marjon, JayK,
I was under pressure from the 1000-word limit. "Retro-reflection" was sloppy language, but still in essence it's correct: energy comes off the ground or lower atmosphere, is captured by a CO2 molecule, and somewhat less than 50% of it is eventually re-radiated (at lower wavelengths, and in multiple photons) back down toward the ground -- either by the CO2 molecule itself, or by some other molecule (e.g. N2, H2O, etc.) that bumps into it and gains some of that kinetic energy. Bottom line: energy comes up, then a fraction of it "bounces back" down. The end result is that the ground and lower atmosphere get a greater net flux of photons, which is what creates a higher equilibrium temperature: the essence of the somewhat misnamed "greenhouse effect".

Wrong again, marjon.

You even got emission vs. absorption wrong.

I don't understand why you keep trying to go on with this, you obviously don't understand the fundamentals of the physics and optics necessary to grasp what is being discussed.

@Skeptic_Heretic,
It's easier to monitor average global temperature, because then you don't have to try to extract the signal from under all the convection and weather effects: across the globe, these things automatically balance out in the average.

My only mistake was assuming a photon absorbed by a molecule of CO2 is emitted at a different wavelength.

Solar incident photons are absorbed coming down, too.

Whereas the outgoing peak is in infrared. So CO2 is more efficient in impeding cooling.

When you smooth data you want to smooth it to a reasonable level of noise elimination as well as maintaining data coherency.

At a concentration of 350 ppm?

Temperature swings of 40 deg F easily occur over dry deserts. In tropical regions with high H2O vapor, night temperatures are nearly the same as day.

There, I don't need to prove you wrong, Pink Elephant just did it. I explained above the same concept. Visible and UV wavelengths are passed through the atmosphere with little absorption, while the Earth absorbs a lot of it (albedo, I mentioned that before, remember?). The Earth then retransmits the heat in the infrared wavelengths, which is readily absorbed by CO2 in the atmosphere.

Some of this has to do with enhanced greenhouse due to high humidity, but actually a large part will be due simply to the high heat capacity of water, and also to the fact that when water condenses out of the air (e.g. creating fog or dew), it releases heat.

@Skeptic_Heretic,

Sure. It would be a bad idea to compute global averages if all your samples are concentrated in a single spot, or if they don't adequately sample the surface of the globe. There have been numerous studies showing that current sampling methods (using fewer measurements) still nicely reproduce the formerly higher-density records. So yes, the validity of sampling and smoothing methodology is an important subject of continued monitoring.

Still missing the point. If there is NO H2O, DRY AIR, does the atm temperature increase due to CO2?

That could be measured by noting the delta between the high and low for a day.

It might also be noted, if one doesn't read the entire abstract, that their calculations were in very close approximation to the observational data.

One need only look at the Boliva Effect to state that our current monitoring system is greatly truncating the true data sets via subjective manipulation.

There are a few options:

Marjon, arguing about somethign as well understood and proven as spectrometry of gasses is utterly ridiculous. I'm starting to understand where the application of the term denialist comes from. Some arguments you make are so utterly ridiculous as to be akin to the assertion that the holocaust didn't happen.

Be a skeptic, not a denialist.

I am skeptical that CO2 is the CAUSE of any warming.

The only reason it is consider a cause is that was the only way they could get the computer model to work.

Why so sure it's "subjective"? From what I understand of GISS methodlology, the smoothing functions are chosen so that they reproduce past correlations between temperatures over Bolivia vs. the "neighboring" stations. It's not the same smoothing function all over the globe; it is customized to each locale being interpolated, with the customization based on prior detailed data sets.

And like it or not, your comments will always be viewed in a similar light to theirs.

I say they are subjective as there is no verifiable standard in which the raw data is handled by organizations. So GISS is standard to GISS only, NCDC is standard to NCDC only, etc.

Would it be nice to harmonize these things across the world? Perhaps (but who decides on the "officially correct" methodology?) Would it be nice to remove raw data publishing and exchange restrictions imposed by certain data sources (and countries)? Definitely.

No, that isn't what PE is talking about. There is actually a benefit in the different organizations doing things differently in that the results are more independent and can therefore be judged on their own merits. The algorithms are not standard, they are proprietary. The fact that they all come to the same conclusions is a great proof of concept, not a defect.

What GCMs try to do, is derive the DEGREE of warming, plus details of various localized climate disruptions and feedbacks. You don't need models to establish the EXISTENCE of CO2-mediated warming; it's a given.

Apparently atm CO2 played no significant role in previous warming periods.

It is an important feedback mechanism: any time there's warming, oceans outgas CO2 into the atmosphere, which enhances greenhouse effect, and serves to further amplify warming.

Those are standards for protocols and hardware, how does that translate into anything that we're talking about?

That's how come the minuscule changes in solar irradiation due to Milankovich orbital cycles, can result in dramatic climate shifts that underlie the ice age cycle.

@stealthc:

this graph:
http://en.wikiped...0kyr.png
is why I rated your comment as a one. It appears you have no clue as to what you are talking about.

@john balls

"You dispute it because you have a background in what??"

Your point is absolutely irrelevant, a valid argument or idea stays valid regardless the profession, occupation, skin color, geographic location etc. etc. The same goes for facts by the way.
Typical academic arrogance to think intelligence, inventiveness (even creativity)is reserved for academics only.

I know of a clerk who invented relativity...

J.

While all this is true, think about the amount of knowledge required to investigate or criticize any other element of our technological society. I would certainly want to ask someone for their background if they were criticizing a medical procedure, or a computer security system.

Too true, that. Thanks for sharing that opinion piece. I myself do not complain when people express faith in some form of higher being. On the other hand, my dander gets up when people try to inject religion into the science or even turn it into a religion of sorts.

Don't anybody actually read that guardian link that marjon provided, because marjon obviously didn't, and I wouldn't want anyone to make fun of her.

And dachy, what will you do if you're wrong?

From 1816 to 1830 chemical analysis data I am seeing ranges from ~390 ppmv to ~430 ppmv, with a 19th century average of 321 ppmv. This is very interesting, indeed!

This is especially so considering that we are currently at ~388.63 ppmv averaged, according to Mauna Loa.

PE, I also mentioned high altitude CO2 measurements.

Unbelievable.
Why would anyone with half a brain deny we have a big problem. 800+ million cars, 200+ million commercial vehicles, planes, ships, power stations, cement plants, steelworks, smelters, +++++ the list goes on that were not here 100/200 years ago and man is not having an impact on the planet. Wake up - The logic is undeniable.
Forget all the B/S about being qualified/don't want fraud perpetrated/left wing/right wing/I've got three degrees/garbage.
How could anyone in their right mind deny that we should do something except "big business". Again a no-brainer. WHo loses ?
Go back into your closets and watch and beleive what you see on your televisions.

...Measurements made far and high over oceans, are more indicative of the average atmospheric concentrations. The somewhat more recent Mauna Loa data series (that starts in late 1950's) would be one example of such...

A problem with ocean-based measurements is that CO2 is absorbed by ocean water as it passes over...

I see little to no substantial evidence that the oceans are going to reach such a saturation point or even warm up to that point, only alarmism.

It is not necessarily true that the rest stays in the atmosphere

The Mauna Loa series ... may not be correct.

blah, blah, blah....

Acidification can continue without bound, and warmer water doesn't dissolve less CO2.

Warmer water dissolves far less CO2 than cooler water.

CO2 dissolves into the water and only so much can be held at a time influenced by the temperature of the water. The colder the water the more CO2 can be dissolved in the water.

But they wouldn't have fresh water, and what they would have would be far deeper than your thinking, marjon.

Why don't you take your shallow IQ somewhere else.

@Skeptic_Heretic,

Warmer water dissolves far less CO2 than cooler water.

If you really want to convince dachpy, you'll need to show him *evidence*. See, apparently he never had any direct experience with those mythical exotic so-called "fizzy drinks". Also, throughout his extensive and intensive researches and data mining, he apparently never before happened to chance upon such an esoteric a concept as you're proposing...

Well, for one, Skeptic, it isn't a step function from absorption to saturation, which will cause all sorts of complex feedbacks, such as increased atmospheric CO2 in areas where oceans took it up, before.

Science doesn't move goalposts. It defines a set of hypothesis and then provides conclusions to them. Good science takes the works of others and builds on the basis by using the citation methods.

Comment threads are not science. Marjon is using a debate technique that involves never actually addressing answers to questions, but just changes the questions over and over and over again. If this were a game, it would be equivalent to ignoring all of the points your opponent has scored while keeping your own score based on totally different criteria that you don't tell anyone else about.

If marjon would actually stick to a point, would answer questions or would even cite her opinion with reputable sources, that might be different. As it is, marjon is nothing but a useless troll masquerading behind a faux-Socratic method.

Well, for one, Skeptic, it isn't a step function from absorption to saturation, which will cause all sorts of complex feedbacks, such as increased atmospheric CO2 in areas where oceans took it up, before.

And marjon, why are you still here? I'd ask what solution you have to moving that water inland to those not on the shores, but you'll move the goalposts some more. Oh, and when all of that free energy shows up for desalination plants, you might let countries like Australia know where you got it. They're having a massive problem getting fresh water to their people. You'd finally be a hero!

Well, for one, Skeptic, it isn't a step function from absorption to saturation, which will cause all sorts of complex feedbacks, such as increased atmospheric CO2 in areas where oceans took it up, before.

And marjon, why are you still here? I'd ask what solution you have to moving that water inland to those not on the shores, but you'll move the goalposts some more. Oh, and when all of that free energy shows up for desalination plants, you might let countries like Australia know where you got it. They're having a massive problem getting fresh water to their people. You'd finally be a hero!

He said the oceans will not get warm enough to hit a terminal saturation limit.

He's correct in that statement, so I'm not sure where you're going with this.

So, if partial pressure of CO2 in water goes up by 1/16th, to equilibrate the partial pressure in air needs to go up by 1/16th as well, relative to the pre-existing concentration in air. That means for each 1 degree K of ocean SURFACE warming (it doesn't even matter what happens at depth), CO2 in air must go up by 1/16th -- which, considering the pre-industrial concentration was about 300 PPM (roughly speaking), would amount to outgassing of about 19 PPM, or the equivalent of roughly 10 years of anthropogenic emissions at the end of last century.

As you can see, warming the oceans by just 1 degree K has the effect of already far more than exceeding "terminal saturation".

Also, the capacity of the air to hold water vapor, a significant greenhouse gas, increases, non-linearly, with temperature. How does that play into the total partial pressure?

Basically you explained why the statement that CO2 outgassing from the oceans makes the temp warmer is false. In order for the outgassing to occur the ocean temp must rise first.

Yet another equilibrium mechanism.

@marjon,

Also, the capacity of the air to hold water vapor, a significant greenhouse gas, increases, non-linearly, with temperature. How does that play into the total partial pressure?

You're misunderstanding the concept of *partial* pressure. It refers to the pressure of each component of the atmosphere, in isolation (e.g. what the pressure of the atmosphere would be, if all other gases except for CO2 magically vanished.) The partial pressure of CO2 in air is independent from the partial pressure of H2O in air.

Can't be independent if pressure is constant.

Yes, warming of oceans causes outgassing of CO2 into atmosphere. This raises CO2 concentration in air, which boosts the atmospheric greenhouse, which causes further warming, which causes further outgassing, and so on.

Demonstrates the need to include water vapor pressure as well.

Dalton's Law of Partial Pressure:
The pressure of a mixture of gases is equal to the sum of the pressures of all of the constituent gases alone.

Mathematically, this can be represented as:
PressureTotal = Pressure1 + Pressure2 ... Pressuren

And you're completely ignoring sequestration brought on by temperature

increased partial pressure affect on temperature

volume reduction or increase of the total atmosphere brought on by temperature and as affected by polarization of the magnetic field

Dalton's Law of Partial Pressure:
http://library.th...ton.html
Nice experiment.
Demonstrates the need to include water vapor pressure as well.

What does any of that have to do with the price of tea in China?

There's a helluva lot that you're either ignoring or ignorant of at play than just CO2 in and out of the ocean.

Stuff like thermal expansion of the atmosphere, varying magnetic fields, and so on and so forth, has no significant impact on the basic dynamic governing CO2 outgassing and resorption by land and oceans through climatic heating/cooling cycles.

Stuff like thermal expansion of the atmosphere, varying magnetic fields, and so on and so forth, has no significant impact on the basic dynamic governing CO2 outgassing and resorption by land and oceans through climatic heating/cooling cycles.

And your evidence for this statement?

What affects P1?

@stealthc:

this graph:
http://en.wikiped...0kyr.png
is why I rated your comment as a one. It appears you have no clue as to what you are talking about.