I made a decision after my last post on Climategate that I would scale back on my interest in anthropogenic global warming.
Before the emails and documents surfaced, I already knew there were issues with the some of the scientists and their data at East Anglia. Unfortunately, it’s likely that similar issues related to climate change exist in other places.
I am now very satisfied that my doubt in anthropogenic global warming is justified and don’t feel the need to follow what’s happening with climate change quite so closely.
I’ve already stopped my Google alert on the phrase climate change, which has significantly reduced the amount of items that I see in my feed reader.
This is my final post on climate change for the foreseeable future and I’m sharing here just a few of the many things I’ve learned before I get back to my regular posting.
I’m not looking to try to change any one’s mind, just share what I’ve learned. I’ll still be learning as things show up in my feed reader – I just won’t be studying as aggressively .
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Many scientists and others who are skeptical of anthropogenic global warming would like the answer to one question that, so far, has not been answered:
While there is laboratory evidence that carbon dioxide acts as a greenhouse gas and carbon dioxide and global temperature have both been rising, real world proof that CO2 has caused the rise in global temperature does NOT exist.
While, at times, there appears to be a rough correlation between CO2 and global temperature, correlation does not prove causation.
Even though anthropogenic global warming is an unproven hypothesis, it is likely that some historical warming resulted from carbon dioxide released to the atmosphere by humans. However, because of the physical properties of CO2, it’s done all the warming it can do.
Predictions of rising temperatures and the dire consequences of anthropogenic global warming are based on computer climate models. The climate models include the assumption that global temperatures will rise as CO2 continues to rise.
Over the last decade, global temperatures have leveled off while CO2 continued to rise. Temperature is trending below all of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predictions.
Joanne Nova, an Australian freelance science presenter & writer: Professional speaker, author, and former TV host, has prepared and published two excellent — and free — booklets on global warming. The first, The Skeptics Handbook, has been translated by volunteers into many other languages, including German, French, Norwegian, Finnish, Swedish, Turkish, Portuguese, Japanese, and Danish.
Carbon dioxide acts as a greenhouse gas by absorbing infrared radiation in three narrow bands of frequencies, (2.7, 4.3 and 15 micrometers (µM)), meaning that most of the heat producing infrared radiation frequencies escapes absorption by CO2. The main peak, 15 µM, is absorbed completely within about 10 meters of the ground meaning that there is no more to absorb. Doubling the human contribution of CO2 would reduce this distance. Reducing the distance for absorption would not result in an increase in temperature.
The sun appears to have entered a less active period and is providing less warmth to the Earth. The sun is in an extended solar minimum that was predicted to end in March 2008, nearly 20 months ago. Since 2004 there have been 770 days without sunspots. A typical solar minimum averages about 485 days. Solar magnetic activity continues to drop.
A number of scientists are projecting that global warming is over, for now, and that global average temperatures will be dropping for the next 20 to 30 years.
“Tricks” apparently have been performed on more climate data than just the tree ring proxy information. The figure below shows the adjustments made to the historical temperature record of Darwin, Australia. The blue lines show the values for the original, “raw” temperature data. The red lines are the official NOAA/GHCN ( National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — Global Historical Climate Network) data after the values have been “homogenized” and averaged. The black line are the values for the adjustment that was made (uses the scale on the right of the figure).
“Before getting homogenized, temperatures in Darwin were falling at 0.7 Celcius per century … but after the homogenization, they were warming at 1.2 Celcius per century. And the adjustment that they made was over two degrees per century …” – Willis Eschenbach, The Smoking Gun At Darwin Zero
American climate sceptics are now demanding a thorough investigation of NASA’s earth science programme, including the possibility that instruments on its satellites have been “tweaked” to give a “correct” result, and pointing out that the agency has repeatedly had to correct its data, going back to the 1930s. The common factor between CRU East Anglia and NASA is the destruction or withholding of research models and data which, if they are reliable, should be their pride and joy – documentation that would secure these institutions’ place in history, like Einstein’s equations. Telegraph.co.uk
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“I’m not looking to try to change any one’s mind, just share what I’ve learned.” Makes sense. The topic is important and needs to be discussed.
vered | blogger for hire´s last blog ..I Suck At Personal Blogging
I like your idea of sharing what you have learned. There will always be disagreements when attempting to discuss something as important an issue as this because strong feelings and convictions are involved, but Vered is absolutely right. And since you have done so much studying on this subject, your knowledge is valuable.
teeni´s last blog ..Holy Crap – It’s Almost 2010!
The emails really aren’t as important as you are making them out to be.
To borrow a phrase from William Whewell, there is a ‘consilience of evidence’ when it comes to the science of climate change: multiple, independent lines of evidence converging on a single coherent account. These forms of evidence are both observational (temperature records, ice core samples, etc) and theoretical (thermodynamics, atmospheric physics, etc). Together, these lines of evidence provide a conceptual and scientific backing to the theory of climate change caused by human greenhouse gas emissions that is simply absent for alternative theories, such as that there is no change or that the change is caused by something different.
Also, it is worth remembering that our task as citizens isn’t to decide with 100% certainty which factual claims about the climate are correct. Rather, we need to make an intelligent choice in the face of risk.
Vered – thanks, and there is a lot of discussion taking place that wasn’t just a few short weeks ago.
teeni – thanks, I think I’m beyond feeling and conviction on this.
Milan – Money and funding talk loudest in this infant science.
According to East Anglia CRU’s Professor Tom Wigley, in 1990, “My organization has only one permanent university funded scientist — and that’s me. I have about a dozen research workers with PhDs who are working in the Climatic Research Unit and they’re all funded on so called soft money. Their existence requires me or us jointly to get external support.” – from the fifth of a series of 6 YouTube segments of a 1990 Australian documentary posted on The Dog Ate My Data
There is NO real world proof that CO2 has caused the rise in global temperature and there are mounting indications that global temperature trends have been adjusted upward from the raw data.
I started researching this after I saw that the basic premise underlying global warming claims — the correlation with rising CO2 — did not make thermodynamic sense.
Predictions of catastrophe are wrong virtually all the time.
Long term predictions of catastrophe are ALWAYS wrong.
You’re young enough that you have a chance to see the truth of this with what happens with the long term predictions of catastrophe due to global warming.
I’m not out to debate this with anyone or prove it to anyone. I’m not going to change your views and you’re not going to change mine. I have too many hours invested in understanding this for your arguments to make a dent.
Thanks for commenting.
This ‘infant science’ has been developing for over a century. You should consider reading Spencer Weart’s excellent book The Discovery of Global Warming for a detailed and accessible explanation of why we know as much as we do about the climate.
There is NO real world proof that CO2 has caused the rise in global temperature and there are mounting indications that global temperature trends have been adjusted upward from the raw data.
Even if you ignore thermometers, the warming trend is clear. Just look at what is happening to glaciers and Arctic ice, as well as to the location of plant and animals species and things like blooming times of slowers. Those are all indicators of climate change that nobody could manipulate.
Long term predictions of catastrophe are ALWAYS wrong.
Until one proves to be right. The fact that we haven’t had a global thermonuclear war yet, or been hit by a giant asteroid, doesn’t mean that both aren’t catastrophic possibilities. Abrupt or runaway climate change poses similar risks.
I’m not out to debate this with anyone or prove it to anyone. I’m not going to change your views and you’re not going to change mine.
Thanks for commenting.
Given that you have set up a whole climate-devoted sub-site, it seems like you ought to be providing accurate information, and willing to consider claims that contradict your current beliefs.
It is one thing to hold one’s beliefs in private – quite another to advertise those beliefs in a public forum, potentially altering the thinking of others.
I’m not out to debate this with anyone or prove it to anyone. I’m not going to change your views and you’re not going to change mine.
Thanks for commenting.
Golly, I was under the impression that when you post your opinions and research on a blog that you are encouraging a discussion!
You have mentioned that “You’re young enough that you have a chance to see the truth of this with what happens with the long term predictions of catastrophe due to global warming.”
I am young enough to see what happens with the long term predictions, as are any of your younger relatives. Unwittingly or deliberately contributing to the dissemination of misinformation only serves as a detriment to them and us in the long term.
I think we deserve an explanation, or at least evidence that you have enough confidence behind your claims that you feel able to defend them when scrutinized legitimately.
Emily – thanks for commenting.
I grew up with dire forecasts of catastrophe – nuclear war, nuclear winter, global cooling, global starvation due to overpopulation, etc.
Remember Y2K?
None of them amounted to anything.
Yes, at some point a dire catastrophe may come true, but it won’t be the current climate change predictions of catastrophe.
I am firmly confident that the long term rise in CO2 globally will NOT have the dire consequences predicted by climate models.
There is no intent to deceive in any of the material that I have presented.
Unfortunately, the dissemination of misinformation is where the real problem is and is partially why I got deeply interested in the topic to begin with.
Check out Joanne Nova’s booklets on global warming. For fun and freewheeling discussions on climate change and the politics of climate change, join in the comments of any of her blog posts.
I don’t have a problem with discussion. When someone leaves me a link to his post on dealing with skeptics, though, it just seems like there is an agenda associated with the visit. I’m not interested in a debate. I knew that I was not going to change his views and he was not going to change mine. I also knew that it was likely he would try at least one more time and possibly twice, even when I told him I wasn’t interested in debating.
If there were a proven cause for anthropogenic global warming and if anthropogenic global warming were a proven fact, then I would be 100% for taking any actions that would produce a result. Anthropogenic global warming is NOT a proven fact and there is no proven cause. From a thermodynamics and physics perspective, CO2 is a poor choice as the culprit.
The problem with starting responding on this is that I keep writing and writing and writing — then correcting and rewriting, and so on.
I may reconsider my disengagement from this, but it’s going to have to be in such a way that I can also take care of the other things that interest me.
Predictions:
The face of the climate change debate will be completely different in 5 years. Some scientists will lose funding and jobs and will be discredited.
Global temperature will not rise and will likely fall over the next 10 years — personally, I’d rather see warming. There will be more climate related deaths if the globe cools than if it warms.
GREAT post! I am wondering, as I have heard radio hosts also say, if they are going to try to cut down on CO2 emissions from humans. Maybe if we all stopped breathing we could change global warming? You are right on the money with this one, it is all about politics, and nothing about our environment. Actually, now that I think about it, there are many who are trying to cut down on human CO2 emissions. China has a one child policy, Obama is funding overseas abortions….
Mike,
I have thought about what you said me about my last comment. There are so many sides to every issue. I do greatly enjoy the information you provide on this site. It keeps me thinking and maybe that’s what’s really important — to consider all sides of an issue.
BTW You were a winner of my 2010 calendar. Please send me your address via my contact box and I will forward the calendar to you as soon as possible:~)
Sara´s last blog ..Actions Louder Than Words
Delirious – I guess if we all stopped breathing, the issue would go away. There is actually a humorous cartoon, though, related to breathing now being regulated or something like that.
Sara – Thanks. I’m already reconsidering how I can continue on with this and still do all of the other things I want to do.
I like that there are arguments that challenge the theory of Carbon dioxide causing global warming and I believe that will strengthen the research directed at finding more information about this phenomenon.
Lizwi´s last blog ..16 Days of activism
Lizwi – More research is certainly warranted on the causes of climate change.
Check out Joanne Nova’s booklets on global warming. For fun and freewheeling discussions on climate change and the politics of climate change, join in the comments of any of her blog posts.
Hey, whoa whoa whoa… Joanne Nova… You’re right!
She’s got her face right in the top corner there.. gazing at me, convincingly. One thing I know for certain is that foaming at the mouth Right wingers with a penchant for putting derisive quotes around the term “intellectual”, are always right.
My beef is less about the hokey sources you reference, and more about your unwillingness to engage in a debate – when debate is legitimate.
Putting your fingers in your ears and humming, while you point to Joanne and her badly formatted website does not a convincing case make.
Even if you figured that the earth would be better off a little balmier, we need to make the transition to low-carbon energy sources so that when oil becomes scarce – your kids can still have a working agricultural economy (at the very least).
Or, hey, even clean water to drink, and air to breathe.
Have you ever been to a truly polluted city? Have you ever had diarreah for weeks – because the only water you have to wash vegetables is from the tap and contaminated? The type of place where the young and healthy develop chronic lung conditions simply by virtue of breathing the city air?
Inaction is not an option. When you put your foot down and say the best course of action is none at all, you’re willingly signing your children, nieces, nephews and all the children of the people you care about to an increasingly degrading level of quality of life.
All signs point to Methane, CO2, and other powerful GHG’s causing climate changes. This means flooding, agricultural disruption, and droughts. Sydney is becoming less inhabitable every year due to drought. The San Francisco water line is rising, so much so that city planners are nervously making blue prints to change the location of the city in anticipation of faster, higher water levels on the shore. And hey, have you had a quick look at the Arctic this winter?
Not quite as broad and icy as it used to be.
Yeah, there are cases in the past of politically-motivated scares. But, that doesn’t meant that the increasing alarm and the increasing levels of evidence are incorrect.
First, there is no need for ad hominem arguments. The question of what to do about climate change is bigger than all of us. It is one that we can respond to with cooperation and good analysis.
Second, breathing isn’t a problem. The CO2 humans exhale comes from the food we eat. When next year’s crop is grown, it gets drawn back out of the atmosphere again. The problem is that burning fossil fuels is causing the amount of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere to rise every year.
Thirdly, the link between greenhouse gasses and the absorption of outgoing infrared radiation is well understood. In a recent interview, Al Gore expressed things pretty well:
“And again, we’re putting 90 million tons of [CO2] into the air today and we’ll put a little more of that up there tomorrow. The physical relationship between CO2 molecules and the atmosphere and the trapping of heat is as well-established as gravity, for God’s sakes. It’s not some mystery. One hundred and fifty years ago this year, John Tyndall discovered CO2 traps heat, and that was the same year the first oil well was drilled in Pennsylvania. The oil industry has outpaced the building of a public consensus of the implications of climate science.
But the basic facts are incontrovertible. What do they think happens when we put 90 million tons up there every day? Is there some magic wand they can wave on it and presto!—physics is overturned and carbon dioxide doesn’t trap heat anymore? And when we see all these things happening on the Earth itself, what in the hell do they think is causing it? The scientists have long held that the evidence in their considered word is “unequivocal,” which has been endorsed by every national academy of science in every major country in the entire world.
If the people that believed the moon landing was staged on a movie lot had access to unlimited money from large carbon polluters or some other special interest who wanted to confuse people into thinking that the moon landing didn’t take place, I’m sure we’d have a robust debate about it right now.”
Second, breathing isn’t a problem. The CO2 humans exhale comes from the food we eat. When next year’s crop is grown, it gets drawn back out of the atmosphere again.
I was talking about pollutants in general there, to emphasize the point that moving to a low-carbon economy is important for more reasons than changing climate. General health should be a motivating factor in changing the way we behave, when considering our impact on future generations.
I was responding to Delirious’ claim that: “Maybe if we all stopped breathing we could change global warming?”
Mike,
Did you spend $164 on the developer’s version of Thesis, between when this thread started and now?
Emily – There are places in this world that are truly dirty and nasty. Let’s take actions that will help clean them up. Let’s clean up the air and clean up the water. Let’s improve the quality of life for everyone. What’s not to like about that?
I’m not being cynical. I truly believe that it is a travesty that countries around the world are not addressing these problems. I even believe that the rich countries of the world should help fund resolutions to these issues.
I am not putting my foot down and saying that the best course of action is none at all with regard to the real problems of the world. We need to take the right actions.
The problem is that we’re tilting at the wrong windmills.
The planet has been cyclically warming since the end of the Little Ice Age. Carbon dioxide has been rising since the beginning of the industrial age — more steeply since the end of World War II. Many see a correlation between the warming of the earth and rising CO2.
The connection has never been scientifically proven. Correlation does not prove causation.
As I wrote in the post, carbon dioxide acts as a greenhouse gas by absorbing infrared radiation in three narrow bands of frequencies, (2.7, 4.3 and 15 micrometers (µM)), meaning that most of the heat producing infrared radiation frequencies escapes absorption by CO2. The main peak, 15 µM, is absorbed completely within about 10 meters of the ground meaning that there is no more to absorb. Doubling the human contribution of CO2 would reduce this distance. Reducing the distance for absorption would not result in an increase in temperature.
Carbon dioxide is less than .04% of the atmospheric gases. That’s a tiny fraction.
While CO2 is a greenhouse gas, it is already doing all of the greenhouse warming that it can do. Because of this, policies aimed at limiting global CO2 will do little or nothing to limit global warming.
If global warming is truly a problem, scientists should be trying determine what is actually causing it. Find the right windmill.
In the meantime, let’s find practical ways to fix the problems of the world. Creating a new global financial system based on carbon credits is NOT the right way.
The mean temperature of the Arctic area north of the 80th northern parallel is about -25°C right now and the sea ice extent today is very near to what it was in 2005.
Yes, I look at Arctic data daily when I have internet access.
Milan – Yes, I did get the developer’s version of Thesis.
The mean temperature of the Arctic area north of the 80th northern parallel is about -25°C right now and the sea ice extent today is very near to what it was in 2005.
This is practically a version of the it is winter, therefore there is no climate change fallacy.
It’s not the temperature or ice extent today that matters, but the long-term trend. For Arctic sea ice, that trend is towards less and less extent, thickness, and multi-year ice.
The world’s glaciers are also vanishing.
The connection [between rising CO2 concentrations and warming] has never been scientifically proven.
One of the main tasks of the IPCC was the detection and attribution of climate change. They have concluded that warming is unequivocal, and that greenhouse gasses are the major reason for it. This assessment is backed by a notable joint statement from the national science academies of the G8, Brazil, China, and India.
Your assertion that doubling CO2 would not change temperatures is not sourced in any way, and stands in stark contradiction to what those who have conducted systematic analyses of our knowledge on climate change have concluded.
Carbon dioxide is less than .04% of the atmospheric gases. That’s a tiny fraction.
This is a silly argument – like saying that someone’s blood is only .04% cyanide, so there is no problem. It’s not the absolute value that matters, but what effect any change in concentration will have on global temperatures and on phenomena like precipitation patterns and ocean currents.
Increasingly, scientific assessments are showing that the consequences of remaining on a business-as-usual course will be severe.
Milan – The question I was responding to was “And hey, have you had a quick look at the Arctic this winter?” The temperature or ice extent today is a direct answer to that question.
Relating CO2 to cyanide is specious. However, I do agree that what is important about CO2 is the effect that change in concentration will have on global climate — nothing.
I don’t have any faith in an organization founded on the premise of anthropogenic global warming nor on proclamations based on that organization’s “findings.”
The IPCC has done no science. They have reviewed “the literature,” primarily the scientific information that fits their agenda. They already have their minds made up. Only anthropogenic climate change is of interest.
The scientific assessments that predict severe consequences are based on the same climate models tools that did not predict the global temperature of the decade that is just now ending.
As I’ve said before, neither of us is going to change the other’s mind. I suggest we both move on to more productive activities.
I will be posting, on occasion, more related to climate change. Please feel free to visit and comment.
As I’ve said before, neither of us is going to change the other’s mind. I suggest we both move on to more productive activities.
If your site wasn’t likely to mislead other visitors, I wouldn’t be concerned about your beliefs. Given that you are putting your beliefs up on a platform for examination, however, you have to accept scrutiny of them.
Newsweek has printed a comprehensive evaluation of the significance of the CRU emails, written by Jess Henig of FactCheck.org. It concludes that the emails sometimes “show a few scientists in a bad light, being rude or dismissive” but that the emails do not undermine the IPCC consensus, and that: “E-mails being cited as “smoking guns” have been misrepresented.”
Considering the small number of regular readers that I have, your commenting and linking to this site is more likely to increase the blogs ranking and bring more visitors in.
Thanks.
Hi Mike -
I see in repsonse to Milans analogy about cyanide you said;
“Relating CO2 to cyanide is specious.”
I think your failing to address a really important point here. There are lots of examples in life where a tiny percentage increase in something may produce a major change in state. Let’s look at some more examples.
I fill a bath to the brim – the next pint I put in constitutes a minuscule fraction of what’s already in the bath – nevertheless it’s enough to make the bath overflow.
I have a large mound of dry black powder. I apply a match which in terms of the thermal energy I am applying is a minuscule increase in the thermal energy of the whole pile – nevethless we get a big boom state change because it releases the chemical potential energy within the black powder.
I could come up with hundreds of other examples.
What this shows is that quoting the perrcentage of CO2 in the atmosphere or the percentage increase of CO2 and saying that these can be ignored because they are very small is a specious argument.
The issue is whether the change is a sufficient one to cause a state change. The balance of evidence suggests that for CO2 we are rapidly approaching this point. It’s not about absolute proof it’s about the balance of probablities and using the precautionary principle when the consequences are potentially so dire.
Bunc´s last blog ..Lawyers Gag BBC over Trafigura Toxic Dump
I would like to see even one paper with empirical evidence that carbon dioxide leads to major warming.
I don’t deny that there’s plenty of evidence that carbon dioxide causes minor warming, but it’s done all the warming that it can do, based on the physical science of absorption of infrared radiation by CO2.
I don’t deny that there are plenty of “simulations” that claim to show major warming.
However a simulation of the climate is not evidence, is not proof.
All a simulation can do is give simulated evidence.
We need evidence from the real climate, not the fake simulated climates, before we take drastic actions that may have adverse consequences.
But there is no empirical evidence that CO2 leads to major warming. There is NO proof.
The “balance of proof” is based on the products from climate simulations.
I agree that the balance of simulated evidence suggests CO2 is a major player. That’s because it’s programmed into the simulation!
I just cannot see applying any sort of precautionary principle based on evidence from simulations.
Yes, the planet has been warming since the end of the Little Ice Age. And the climate is going to change no matter what mankind does.