How did the belief in Anthropogenic Global Warming become so deeply rooted?

[Andre]

"Unexplaining" global warming

Realclimate is an initiative of concerned climatologists who may seem to fear that the global warming message is waning.

I tested the objectivity of the place by applying the next comment:

If I read the title: "Global temperatures continue to rise" I expect to read about a rise of global temperatures. As it seems that the year 2004 is under observation, the expectation generated by the verb "rise" is consequently that 2004 was warmer than the year before, whereas the verb "continue" suggest that on the average previous years were cooler than the consecutive years.

But what do we see: “2004 was slightly cooler than 2003, 2002 and 1998”. So there were already three previous years warmer and worse: “1998 remains the warmest year”, indicating that also 2002 and 2003 broke already with the rising trend.

I have to conclude that the global temperatures did not continue to rise at all. Both verbs “continue” and “rise” are inaccurate. The title should have been “Global Temperatures remain above average” or something for correctness. Now it suggests being an Argumentum ad Metum a.k.a. red herring.

Obviously, the comment was not honored.

Anyway, to anybody objectively interested in the power of fallacies, I could recommend studying this site.

More worrying is the question why it is necesary to revert to a deluge of fallacies. One obvious problem is that practice and preached do not match and it appears that the evidence for Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) seems to problematic.

Now suppose that AGW is not true, how could it happen that so many people and many scientists are convinced that it is true. Is it a conspiracy? How did it happen. How can we explain the deep rooted belief in it and how can we "unexplain" global warming. That's the objective of this thread.

 

[Andre]

I believe that the main reason for the catastrophic believe in global warming is a mixture of psychologic factors, not only Andre's law of conservation of concern also selective memory or confirmation bias. It works like this: somebody poses a scary hypothesis but lateron this hypothesis is falsified by new facts figures or showing incorrect reasoning, etc. Confirmation bias is the reason that all rebuttals are quickly forgotten, while the original series of scary hypotheses lingers on in the memories, together forming a slippery slope that results into http://hanserren.cwhoutwijk.nl/co2/exeter_peiser.pdf .

Anyway, starting the "unexplanation" with Arrhenius, the father of global warming, who made a detailed study of the greenhouse effect.

http://www.greeningEarth'society.org/climate/previous_issues/vol4/v4n19/cutting1.htm

His calculation were not completely correct as is shown
http://members.lycos.nl/ErrenWijlens/co2/arrhrev.htm.

BTW to illustrate the strong (logaritmic) saturation effect of greenhouse effect (the more increase, the less the effect grows) perhaps try this little experiment:

Fill glasses with a little water and put a few drops of red or yellow ink in the second one (leave the first one). After stirring the water will be colored slightly Right? Now drop double as much drops in the third one, and double that in the fourth glass and so on.

Now compare the brightness of the glasses. See that the biggest difference in color is between glass one (no ink) and two. See that there is almost no difference in color between glass four and five, despite the ample difference in ink amount. That's saturation. You can continue dropping more ink in it but the color won't hardly change any more, because the light frequency band that is absorpted gets saturated. There is hardly any more light in that frequency to be absorpted, no matter how much ink you add.

Translated to CO2 greenhouse gas forcing, exactly one on one the same mechanism, only the parameters are different. The first single one ppm of CO2 in the air is extremely effective. It makes the air quite a bit opague for a certain band of Infra Red radiation but each consecutive ppm is still active in only that particular Infra Red frequency range and will not affect others. Consequently that frequency range gets saturated quickly and (much) more ppm's isn't really going to change much anymore.

The use of red or yellow ink is to simulate a similar narrow absorption bandwidth in visible light as CO2 has a similar narrow absorption band in the Infra Red region.

So doubling CO2 in the atmosphere has really little effect. Perhaps a degree at the most, but I figure a lot less.

edit for adding the conference link

 

[juju]

http://www.earthfiles.com/news/news.cfm?ID=857&category=Environment

 

[Andre]

Yes, wouldn´t it be nice if we didn't need to believe those scary stories anymore. Oh yes, there was a single model run out of several thousends that peaked at 11 degrees while most stayed close to 2-5 degrees. But now it's shouted all over the world. Global warming will be 11 degrees in 2100. Thanks for the clear demonstration of the "slippery slope" mechanism.

How about figuring out at which CO2 level the enhanced greenhouse effect would increase the temperature with one single degree Celsius?

As we can see http://www.uic.com.au/ueg.htm, the total greenhouse effect is 33 degrees Celsius. "Water vapour is the main greenhouse gas, accounting for some three quarters of the greenhouse effect". Of the remaining greenhouse gas effect, CO2 is accountable for 60%. Consequently the CO2 - part of that 33 degrees is 0,25 * 0,6 * 33 = 5 degrees.

Looking at the saturation effect we call the http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~archer/cgimodels/radiation.html model to get an idea.

Let's leave all the defaults and only "poke" 0 ppm CO2 that gives us:

INTEGRATED RADIATION ENERGY FLUX= 249.096W/m2

Now we "poke" an average CO2 value of the last decennium say 370 ppm CO2, which gives us:

INTEGRATED RADIATION ENERGY FLUX= 226.928W/m2

Now if that 22 W/m2 energy flux is roughly linear with temp increase of some 5 degrees Celsius, then about 4,5 W/m2 is roughly equivalent with one degree change. Hence an increase of one degree Celsius would happen at an energy flux of about 222,5 W/m2

Now let's poke 1200 ppm CO2, more than three times the current level of CO2:

INTEGRATED RADIATION ENERGY FLUX= 222.469W/m2

Now what on Earth is all the fuss about? Talking about 2-5 degrees temperature rise with doubling of CO2. What is wrong here?

The answer is our current failure to understand the "ice ages".

 

[quantumcarl]

Yes, wouldn´t it be nice if we didn't need to believe those scary stories anymore. Oh yes, there was a single model run out of several thousends that peaked at 11 degrees while most stayed close to 2-5 degrees. But now it's shouted all over the world. Global warming will be 11 degrees in 2100. Thanks for the clear demonstration of the "slippery slope" mechanism.

How about figuring out at which CO2 level the enhanced greenhouse effect would increase the temperature with one single degree Celsius?

As we can see http://www.uic.com.au/ueg.htm, the total greenhouse effect is 33 degrees Celsius. "Water vapour is the main greenhouse gas, accounting for some three quarters of the greenhouse effect". Of the remaining greenhouse gas effect, CO2 is accountable for 60%. Consequently the CO2 - part of that 33 degrees is 0,25 * 0,6 * 33 = 5 degrees.

Looking at the saturation effect we call the http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~archer/cgimodels/radiation.html model to get an idea.

Let's leave all the defaults and only "poke" 0 ppm CO2 that gives us:



Now we "poke" an average CO2 value of the last decennium say 370 ppm CO2, which gives us:



Now if that 22 W/m2 energy flux is roughly linear with temp increase of some 5 degrees Celsius, then about 4,5 W/m2 is roughly equivalent with one degree change. Hence an increase of one degree Celsius would happen at an energy flux of about 222,5 W/m2

Now let's poke 1200 ppm CO2, more than three times the current level of CO2:



Now what on Earth is all the fuss about? Talking about 2-5 degrees temperature rise with doubling of CO2. What is wrong here?

The answer is our current failure to understand the "ice ages".

Einstein tentatively agreed with Charles Hapgood and Velokovski's theory that what we perceive to be an "ice age" is actually the result of crustal slippage where the crust of the Earth migrates on its molten mantel, dragging various areas into the polar regions. This was one way to explain the sudden freezing of Mammoths discovered in the artic, frozen, with fresh grass in their mouths.

In terms of CO2 emissions, the first major eruption of Krakatoa was in 600 ad. It was of such a magnatude as to cause a winter that lasted over 2 years in europe and other parts. I don't think human activity has produced enough pollutant to match that one tiny little eruption to date.

 

[Andre]

There you go, well the detailed ideas of Hapgood and Velikovsky can be considered flawed but it doesn't make their evidence go away indeed. And the Mammoths hold the "ice age"-models in contempt by having thrived in places were no life would have been possible. 2005 is going to be Mammoth year with a stunning Mammoth mummy remains (the Yukagir) on display in the Expo 2005 in Japan as well as highly correct replica. If you go there, don't forget to buy one of the books:
- The Yukagir Mammoth – An Animal of the Mammoth Steppe
- The Making of the Yukagir Mammoth
- The Woolly Rhinoceros
My name is in all of them. So, what do you want to know about Mammoths?

 

[quantumcarl]

There you go, well the detailed ideas of Hapgood and Velikovsky can be considered flawed but it doesn't make their evidence go away indeed. And the Mammoths hold the "ice age"-models in contempt by having thrived in places were no life would have been possible. 2005 is going to be Mammoth year with a stunning Mammoth mummy remains (the Yukagir) on display in the Expo 2005 in Japan as well as highly correct replica. If you go there, don't forget to buy one of the books:
- The Yukagir Mammoth – An Animal of the Mammoth Steppe
- The Making of the Yukagir Mammoth
- The Woolly Rhinoceros
My name is in all of them. So, what do you want to know about Mammoths?

I'm not sure what made the ideas of Hapgood and Velikovsky flawed other than the fact that they could not substantially point to a definite cause of the crustal slip. It is somewhat obvious that it is a random cycle since we se evidence of different areas experiencing a dramatic cooling and subsequent precipitation in the form of frozen water. 80,000 years ago it was the Yukon and points south that were supposedly in the polar region. Many thousands of years before that it was Greenland and parts of northern europe. This model also points to an answer concerning historic and prehistoric evidence of a wandering magnetic pole.

Are you saying that you are sited in those books about the mammoth remains etc?

 

[Andre]

I'm not sure what made the ideas of Hapgood and Velikovsky flawed other than the fact that they could not substantially point to a definite cause of the crustal slip.

Well a "crustal slip" could not have happened. Two main reasons are the continuous alignment of mantle volcanic hot spots (Hawaii, Iceland, Canaries) with the crust and the equatorial bulge resisting a slip of the crust, apart from a tremendous force required for that, that cannot be explained.

Are you saying that you are sited in those books about the mammoth remains etc

No, I'm on page 2 in small letters, assisting, translating, checking, editting, stuff like that. The main writer is http://www.highbeam.com/library/doc0.asp?docid=1P1:38032109&dtype=0~0&dinst=&author=Stone%2C%20Richard&title=DICK%20MOL%3A%20%27Sir%20Mammoth%27%20Leads%20Charge%20to%20Uncover%20Ice%20Age%20Fossils&date=12/15/2000&refid=ency_botnm .

 

[Andre]

Anyback, to the greenhouse effect for a moment. How would a temperature prediction look like if we only use the modtran3 model and double both CO2 (280 -> 560 ppm) and CH4 (1,8 -> 3,6 ppm)

The energy flux 257.6 W/m2 resp 253,7 W/m2 an hence equvalent with a total temperature increase of 0.89 degrees Celsius (as one degree is 4.95 W/m2). Interesting that without methane rise that would only have been 0.65 degrees Celsius. It would suggest that methane is a much stronger greenhouse gas than CO2. But that's not true. it is only demonstrating the logarithmic effect again, the first ppm's being the strongest. So if we want to cut back emissions, CH4 might be more interesting. BTW Methane is unstabil and dissapears in about a decade, that's why it's concentration is always low.

Then what is all the fuss about?

The feedback factors, it's quite difficent to determine whether or not positive feedback (like reflectivity decrease due to melting snow, more moisture in the air) ar bigger than negative feedback (denser clouds reflect more light). So we could look at the practice. The (broken) hockeystick for instance suggested a tight correlation between CO2 and temperatures. So the temperature rise of some 1,0 degrees as of 1850 corresponds to a CO2 rise of 280 -> 380 ppm suggesting some increase of some 2-4 degrees for doubling depending on a lineair or logaritmic relationship. Then if we look at ice age graphs, like Vostok or GISP (much more later about that) it appears that changes from 190 - 200 ppm to 280 caused temperature changes of over 10 degrees. There you go, that's the fear part. Would the temperature change 20-30 degrees with doubling greenhouse gasses?

It seems that the discoveries in the ice cores (like the http://www.agu.org/revgeophys/mayews01/node7.html events) were sounding of the alarms with slogans like "7 degrees temperature rise within a decade"

But do we have a clue what really happened?

edit to add this http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2004/2004_RahmstorfArcher.pdf that illustrates the problem of those Vostok Ice core assumed paleao temperatures.

 

[quantumcarl]

Well a "crustal slip" could not have happened. Two main reasons are the continuous alignment of mantle volcanic hot spots (Hawaii, Iceland, Canaries) with the crust and the equatorial bulge resisting a slip of the crust, apart from a tremendous force required for that, that cannot be explained.

I find it hard to believe there could be such a thing as a long term "continuous (crustal) alignment" with the continuously changing semi-liquid magma of the Earth's mantle.

No, I'm on page 2 in small letters, assisting, translating, checking, editting, stuff like that. The main writer is http://www.highbeam.com/library/doc0.asp?docid=1P1:38032109&dtype=0~0&dinst=&author=Stone%2C%20Richard&title=DICK%20MOL%3A%20%27Sir%20Mammoth%27%20Leads%20Charge%20to%20Uncover%20Ice%20Age%20Fossils&date=12/15/2000&refid=ency_botnm .

"Editting" eh?!

 

[Andre]

Well "continuous" as in very gradual changes, not interrupted with sudden massive displacements that would have occurred with the Hapgood ECD mechamism.

editting? Well, spelling is wobbly. It's good spelling, but it wobbles, and the letters
get in the wrong places.[/url]

 

[Andre]

So shall be continue discussing the interpretation problems of the ice cores for the violent climate changes of the ice age?

 

[Andre]

Or shall we witness yet another blow to the hockeystick

The magazine Nature has been quoted for being a fair supporter of the IPCC vision on climate issues. Notably, it refused publishing the M&M paper despite positive advises of the peer reviewers. It was accepted later by the Geophysical Research Letters. So why would Nature publish this?

Nature 433, 613 - 617 (10 February 2005); doi:10.1038/nature03265

Highly variable Northern Hemisphere temperatures reconstructed from low- and high-resolution proxy data

MOBERG et al

Abstract

A number of reconstructions of millennial-scale climate variability have been carried out in order to understand patterns of natural climate variability, on decade to century timescales, and the role of anthropogenic forcing. ...

...Our reconstruction shows larger multicentennial variability than most previous multi-proxy reconstructions, but agrees well with temperatures reconstructed from borehole measurements and with temperatures obtained with a general circulation model. According to our reconstruction, high temperatures—similar to those observed in the twentieth century before 1990—occurred around AD 1000 to 1100, and minimum temperatures that are about 0.7 K below the average of 1961–90 occurred around AD 1600. This large natural variability in the past suggests an important role of natural multicentennial variability that is likely to continue.

http://www.climate2003.com/blogimages/moberg3.gif[/URL]


http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v433/n7026/extref/nature03265-s1.doc

It appears that the house of cards may have started tumbling.