Global warming and glaciers melting

[pattylou]

Don't just take my word for it that the Sahara was green... This is research from the University of Colorado at Boulder. (my boldface)

I mean, why would something like this be considered surprising at all? No one is saying the planet is unable to survive under very different climatic conditions (there was no O2 on the planet for the first billion years, for example, but life got along just fine - I doubt you'd like to return to those conditions?)...

...we are saying that such abrupt changes pose significant dangers to biodiversity, many numerous species will be threatened or killed, economics will be adversely affected, sea level is rising ... in short - we could return to any number of "past" Earth climatic scenarios ---- but I doubt it'd happen without a lot of unecessary suffering and at great loss to the richness of life on our present blue-green gem!

 

[Andre]

I think, Patty Lou, that we agree on our sacred mission to preserve the planet. The problem however is, that we don’t agree about how to do it. The 150 years CO2 global warming is based on provably scientific bankruptcy, which I’m trying to demonstrate. Without much luck though, it seems, judging to the consistent lack of feedback. But you cannot use all the other sins of humanity to state that warming is mainly caused by enhanced greenhouse gas CO2, as is clearly falsified by the radiosonde trend. If humans contribute to warming, they do it in another way. We should not divert our assets to a non-problem just because it feels like the right thing to do.

 

[NileQueen]

Dear Patty Lou,

You are on a very different page than me. In brief, you are using 4 billion years worth of history to argue variability in climate. I think this approach is rather a bit like stating the blindingly obvious.

This is not true. Although geologists study events in deep time, I prefer to study a more recent epoch, the Pleistocene. This ranges back from ~10,000 years ago to 1.2 - 2 million years. There is no way that stating comparisons in weather today to past climate thousands or millions of years back to gain insight can be labelled blindingly obvious.

I am arguing a simple causal relationiship between the last 150 years of human activity and a warming climate.

But this gives you tunnel vision. You are looking at the Industrial Age and EXPECTING it to be the cause for warming. There have been much warmer periods in Earth history WITHOUT fossil fuels. One way we can tell this is looking at fossil leaves of the time period. Tropical foliage found in frigid regions today tell us it was much warmer in the past. Glossopteris fossil leaves found at the Arctic by Scott is an example. Fossil narwhal bones found beached way above sea level in Siberia tell us that sea levels were different over 20,000 years ago.

In other words, we approach the question in two very different ways.

Yes you have made up your mind, and will not consider all the possibilities. I try to consider all the possibilities I can think of.

Here's a fun activity. What is the probability that the warming we have observed, would occur naturally... in any random 150 year period... of the past millions of years, without human contribution?

Compare to past warm periods, study and make comparisons. Then we may know better.

We probably won't have a very productive interaction.

This just tells me you have prejudged me, and have a negative, arrogant attitude. Why are you even here if you already have your mind made up and don't want to discuss things? Pack it up and go home.

NQ: Don't just take my word for it that the Sahara was green... This is research from the University of Colorado at Boulder. (my boldface)

PL:I mean, why would something like this be considered surprising at all? No one is saying the planet is unable to survive under very different climatic conditions (there was no O2 on the planet for the first billion years, for example, but life got along just fine - I doubt you'd like to return to those conditions?)...

It is quite surprising to me that hippos and giraffes once roamed what is now the Sahara Desert. I wonder about that. How can it have happened? I'd really like to know. And once again, Patty Lou, I am not talking about billions of years back regarding the Sahara. Just thousands.

...we are saying that such abrupt changes pose significant dangers to biodiversity, many numerous species will be threatened or killed, economics will be adversely affected, sea level is rising ... in short - we could return to any number of "past" Earth climatic scenarios ---- but I doubt it'd happen without a lot of unecessary suffering and at great loss to the richness of life on our present blue-green gem!

Who is "we"? You and who else is saying this?

Nature has a way, if there is an extinction event, of opening up a place for new species. Did you know we had a pretty significant extinction event about 11,500 years ago? Many kinds of animals disappeared from the planet forever (mostly Northern hemisphere), and man was not the culprit there.

Some of the victims:
woolly mammoths, Columbian mammoths, woolly rhino, saber toothed cat, cave bear, short faced bear, cave lion, camel and horse (went extinct from North America), Jefferson's ground sloth, giant beaver, giant armadillo, mastodont, stag-moose. Many other species radically moved their range. Musk ox and reindeer made it through the event somehow. But how?
And yet we have diversity today.

All of these animals survived the peak of the last ice age ~21,000 years ago, continuing another ~10,000 years.

If we can understand what happened to them, we can better understand what may happen again, and there is a curious cyclicity to the workings of our planet

http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Image:Ice-Age-Temperature.png
ice cores reveal a pattern

http://muller.lbl.gov/papers/BenthicStack.pdf
Look at page 16. A graph of isotopes taken from deep sea sediment cores.
This does not look random
(There is an updated benthic stack by Lisiecki and Raymo but the link was not available)

 

[pattylou]

But you cannot use all the other sins of humanity to state that warming is mainly caused by enhanced greenhouse gas CO2, as is clearly falsified by the radiosonde trend. If humans contribute to warming, they do it in another way.

I do not argue that CO2 is the "main" culprit. I argue that CO2 contributes. I also argue that deforestation contributes. I expect we contribute in additional ways that I have not considered.

If CO2 contributes, then we should try to address that. If deforestation contributes, we should try to address that. Etc.

I also argue that we do not need 100% certainty on this issue in order to decide to act. I do not know how certain the rest of humanity is on any of these topics. I am certain enough that i have made significant life style changes to plant more trees and reduce fossil fuel use. I also believe in encouraging others to do what they can. Maybe I'll start a thread on it to bounce ideas around.

 

[pattylou]

Dear Nile Queen,

Thank you for the time with your response. I find one argument after another that you present, entirely without merit. I'll address one, and leave it at that:

You say you aren't looking at 4 billion years, only ten thousand years. For the moment, let's leave aside the fact that you pick ten thousand because that just happens to be a useful range for your particular viewpoint (in other words, you didn't pick it randomly which is what you would need to do if you were interested in calculating probabilities of current climate change).

Even leaving that mathematical problem aside, ten thousand years is rather a long time. Take any 150-year period in that ten thousand years. What are the odds that the warming that we observe, coincides with industrialization, deforestation, (essentially, the rise of H sapiens society), would have occurred through natural means in any other random 150 year window--- of that 10,000 years?

The odds of that occurring in any 150 year window picked by chance, through natural means, is miniscule. This is damning.

A similar refutation can easily be made about your comment about past extinctions. And any other point you made.

These discussions are tiresome. Your opinion doesn't matter (and neither does mine.) We will continue to live in the hottest years on record, oil will continue to run out, sea level will continue to rise... and policy will be put in place to change consumption patterns. You will probably change your mind quietly, in about 5 or ten years. Possibly I will, if trends reverse.

 

[NileQueen]

p.s. Patty Lou,

It really is a GOOD thing for the people in a discussion to have different approaches. It helps in troubleshooting.

 

[pattylou]

p.s. Patty Lou,

It really is a GOOD thing for the people in a discussion to have different approaches. It helps in troubleshooting.

I agree. It's also useful to recognize that every opinion has its place, and serves some function in the greater scheme of things.

Have you computed that probability that I mentioned? Just curious.

Also, what problem are you interested in troubleshooting? I was under the impression that you thought there was no problem.

 

[NileQueen]

You say you aren't looking at 4 billion years, only ten thousand years. For the moment, let's leave aside the fact that you pick ten thousand because that just happens to be a useful range for your particular viewpoint (in other words, you didn't pick it randomly which is what you would need to do if you were interested in calculating probabilities of current climate change).

Even leaving that mathematical problem aside, ten thousand years is rather a long time. Take any 150-year period in that ten thousand years. What are the odds that the warming that we observe, coincides with industrialization, deforestation, (essentially, the rise of H sapiens society), would have occurred through natural means in any other random 150 year window--- of that 10,000 years?

Patty Lou, you clearly aren't reading my posts. I said the Pleistocene which is roughly 2 million years. The last 10,000 years is considered an interstadial, or warm period between glaciated periods. While I do study it too, I am looking at the bigger picture of these ice age cycles.

Geologists btw consider 10,000 years as a blink of an eye in geologic time. We have to put things in perspective.

The odds of that occurring in any 150 year window picked by chance, through natural means, is miniscule. This is damning.

Okay since you are fixating on 150 years in the past 10,000 years, take a look at the Medieval Warming Period

The Medieval Warm Period partially coincides in time with the peak in solar activity named the Medieval Maximum (AD 1100–1250).

In Chesapeake Bay, Maryland, researchers found large temperature excursions during the Little Ice Age (~1400-1900 AD) and the Medieval Warm Period (~800-1300 AD) possibly related to changes in the strength of North Atlantic thermohaline circulation [7].

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_climate_optimum

Vikings were able to colonize Greenland, but that came to an end with the Little Ice Age, a return to much colder conditions.

A similar refutation can easily be made about your comment about past extinctions. And any other point you made.

What you have posted is not a refutation of what I said. You cannot dismiss my statements about extinctions in this glib way. That is not a discussion.

These discussions are tiresome.

Probably because you do not want to deal with facts, and doing a little investigation on your own.

Your opinion doesn't matter (and neither does mine.)

Sorry, PL, my opinion is really important. You can trash yours if you like. That is your choice.

We will continue to live in the hottest years on record,

These are not the hottest years on record. Global averages are already coming down (since 1998)

oil will continue to run out,

Oil will not run out. What will happen though, is prices will make it unavailable to most people. There is CONSIDERABLE oil in oil shale and tar sand out West, which now would be cost effective to recover, but that type of recovery industry would have to be set up. Canada has a lot of tar sand but it is closer to the surface and easier for them to recover.
I do feel that alternative sources of energy should be developed to avoid impending economic collapse.

sea level will continue to rise...

A gross assumption on your part. For how long do you predict sealevel to rise?

and policy will be put in place to change consumption patterns. You will probably change your mind quietly, in about 5 or ten years. Possibly I will, if trends reverse.

Don't make predictions about what I will do in 5 or 10 years PL. Trends are already reversing, in case you hadn't noticed.

 

[NileQueen]

Have you computed that probability that I mentioned? Just curious.

I am not a statistician. I'll let you collect the figures relating to what you are trying to present, and you can present it.

Also, what problem are you interested in troubleshooting? I was under the impression that you thought there was no problem.

Science is never a "done deal". We do the best we can with the information available to us at the time. As new facts emerge, we may have to modify our theories.

One problem I've mentioned, in case you didn't pick up on it, Patty Lou, is the cause for the megafaunal extinction ~11,500 years ago. That's a pretty good problem to work on.

Pollen and macrofossils found with mammoth carcasses in the permafrost indicate it was a cool steppe, not the frozen tundra that Taimyr Peninsula is today. And this at the peak of the last ice age, ~21,000 years ago. Today there is not enough fodder there to support herds of mammoths. They required ~330 to 660 lbs of fodder and 10-40 gallons of water daily.

Why did so many large mammal species (including predators) go extinct around this time?

How did a small group of mammoths on Wrangel Island NORTH of frozen Siberia manage to survive until about ~4,000 years ago?

How did reindeer, horse, and muskox, companions of mammoths on the megafaunal steppe, manage to make it through that extinction event?

How did elephants manage to survive if mammoths could not? (probably the southern hemisphere was not as affected)

There are lots of unsolved mysteries to work on.

 

[SOS2008]

So awhile back I see this article:

"Ice shelf collapse reveals undersea world"
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8619890/

Very interesting--it appears this is in reference to the Larsen B ice shelf collapse in 2002. In any event, there is no mention of the cause being global warming, but perhaps because that would be old news.

So...here in Arizona we've had a heat wave for about a month, with 18 people dead--I think at least 13 in one day. And apparently the heat wave was felt everywhere in the world. I might say oh it's just a 100 year cycle, except for the days of record temperatures--that makes me wonder.

 

[CobblyWorlds]

Hi Nilequeen, 1.

You assert that the issue of AGW is in doubt, and you quote the Greening Earth Society (backed by fossil fuel concerns), you allude to Representative Joe Barton (HoR Texas – backed by fossil fuel concerns), and the House of Lords (whom you misrepresent!)

As one example of the basic flaw in your argument. What you say about the LIA backs up my experience in trying to ascertain it’s nature. i.e. That whilst there are strong records of an effect in the Atlantic Basin the records of it’s effect elsewhere are sporadic and patchy. That is neither here nor there for the issue we face now. The LIA was associated with a reduction in the Sun’s power output. i.e. The 'Maunder Minimum'. So the question that the LIA raises now is – “Is a change (increase) in the Sun’s radiation causing the recently observed warming?” NO it is not.

You can go through the paleo records applying this question (“Is it what’s causing the changes now?”) again and again and the answer is NO. In cases where the cause for changes is not fully known it is not good enough to simply say that we don’t know what causes the current change because we have a good theory; AGW.

So this is just a non-sequeter, Climate has changed in the past, we know that. But the climate is changing now, and despite the panoply of technology we cannot tie in the current change with any of the theories about the past change, nor any of the theories as to why it may be changing now, apart from one theory: CO2 is the only candidate for the majority of the current warming trend. The doubts in the science are ones of detail and magnitude, there is very little room for reasonable doubt that CO2 is the cause of the warming.

2.
Lords Report – please READ the article, or better still refer to Hansard before claiming it supports your contention that the theory of AGW is flawed. I quote from the article you link to: “A cross-party House of Lords report today finds that the Kyoto targets will make "little difference" to the pace of global warming and has called for Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, to calculate how much it is costing Britain.” For the record; I TOTALLY AGREE!

If they found “will make "little difference" to the pace of global warming” that doesn’t imply to me that they don’t agree it’s happening! Kyoto is a total waste of time, as I continue to maintain. But NOWHERE in the HOL report do they question the reality of it!

Your raising this issue as you seems to me to be disingenuous, you quote it attempting to imply that the science is in question. But your source does not support that contention, and before you talk about the IPCC, again I quote “Lord Lawson, a former chancellor and committee member, was critical of the way that Kyoto targets for greenhouse gas emissions had been "subcontracted" to the IPCC, which he described as "very, very flawed".” i.e. it is the subcontracting of the targets issue that is flawed (or at least that was my understanding - were Mr Lawson implying that the IPCC are flawed then I'd like to hear his reasons!). Regrettably I am forced to assume that you quote intending to mislead those who will not take the time to read the article or Hansard. After all none of us would post links here without knowing to what we are linking.

 

[Andre]

Have you any idea of the incredible concentration of fallacies in the previous post?

Still counting the ad hominems and strawmans, I let you know the result in a week or so.

 

[Andre]

Greening Earth Society (backed by fossil fuel concerns), you allude to Representative Joe Barton (HoR Texas – backed by fossil fuel concerns)

Two counts of circumstantial ad hominems, the most common fallacy widely used by the global warmers.

Ever heart a climate sceptics refer to the whealty fundings of scientific global warming modellers, who have their carreers and status guaranteed as long as they keep predicting hell and disaster? We don't do that. it costs the webmaster of http://www.climateaudit.org some 1000$$ yearly for his skeptic activities and he turns down all offers to refund expenses like traveling and hotels for symposia etc, but the petrol money ghost lingers on. No matter what.

Money is not an issue at all, look at what is said. The argument like this has no more value than "He says that water boils at 100C / 212F but he is a serial killer so he is wrong."

Why are fallacies so common? Because there are hardly valid arguments.

to be continued

 

[CobblyWorlds]

Hi Andre,

Not familiar with the terminology, although I hear it all the time so can you tell me what "ad hominems and strawmans, " thanks.

There are issues you could tackle head on here.

1) I assert that there is no evidence that the current warming is due to the same processes as paleo warmings. By which obviously I mean I've not read such a demonstration of common cause. So can you tell me why I am wrong in this assertion? Or can you tell me why Paleo events are relevant despite the lack of apparent causal linkage?

2) The House of Lords report - I don't recall it asserting that the science of the IPCC was flawed, or that Global Warming/Climate Change isn't happening. Can you correct me?

You address the issue of money, which I have only addressed in the first para of my post, some 50 of the 600 words of the post. What do you have to say about the rest?

TIA

 

[Andre]

The House of Lords now opposes Kyoto
http://news.scotsman.com/politics.cfm?id=746502005

...and the House of Lords (whom you misrepresent!)
...Lords Report – please READ the article, or better still refer to Hansard before claiming it supports your contention that the theory of AGW is flawed. I quote from the article you link to: “A cross-party House of Lords report today finds that the Kyoto targets will make "little difference" to the pace of global warming and has called for Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, to calculate how much it is costing Britain.” For the record; I TOTALLY AGREE!

If they found “will make "little difference" to the pace of global warming” that doesn’t imply to me that they don’t agree it’s happening! Kyoto is a total waste of time, as I continue to maintain. But NOWHERE in the HOL report do they question the reality of it!

So NQ makes observation: "..House...opposes.." Nothing more nothing less. Nothing in that quote justifiyes the stream of allegations that follows. This fallacy is called a straw man.

And CW when the text is blue and underlined, there is a link behind it to a page that usual tells more about the subject. It may help to click on those every once and a while.

 

[CobblyWorlds]

Your 'ad hominen' link wasn't coming up on my machine, it's doing so fully now.

I apologise to Nile Queen, but what I was doing was not a 'straw man' it was 'not paying attention' mixed with 'assumption'. This being the 7th reference I've seen to their report, the previous 6 implying that they did not accept that the Global Average Temp is increasing.

 

[NileQueen]

Cocktails of confusion

Dear Cobblyworlds,

I apologise to Nile Queen, but what I was doing was not a 'straw man' it was 'not paying attention' mixed with 'assumption'. This being the 7th reference I've seen to their report, the previous 6 implying that they did not accept that the Global Average Temp is increasing.

Apology accepted. But please do try to pay attention and please try not to make assumptions in the future. It will make communication much easier.

NQ

 

[CobblyWorlds]

Consider my knuckles rapped!

 

[SOS2008]

So...here in Arizona we've had a heat wave for about a month, with 18 people dead--I think at least 13 in one day. And apparently the heat wave was felt everywhere in the world. I might say oh it's just a 100 year cycle, except for the days of record temperatures--that makes me wonder.

Odd that the very next evening I saw this on the news:

LOU DOBBS TONIGHT
Deadly Heat Wave; Interview With NASA Administrator
Aired July 25, 2005 - 18:00 ET

KITTY PILGRIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's sizzling from coast to coast. In Arizona, the heat left 18 dead. This weekend, Denver had the fifth day in a row of 100 degree heat. In Las Vegas, no fun at 117 degrees. Chicago, over 100 degrees. The governor asked for federal disaster help, with half the normal rainfall in the state in the past four months.

PETER FRUMHOFF, UNION OF CONCERNED SCIENTISTS: The scientific consensus is that we are beginning to see a trend in global warming, not because of the most recent heat waves, but because of the changes we're seeing over time. The last decade, best estimate is, is it's the warmest decade for the past 1,000 years.

PILGRIM: Waters in the Atlantic hurricane region are two to four degrees warmer than normal. Never before have so many storms formed so early in the season. And this spring brought the worst red tide season to New England in decades. Concentrations were ten to hundreds of times higher than normal, changing the balance of marine life.

The climate change is not about discomfort, it's deadly. In Europe, the summer of 2003 was the hottest in nearly 300 years. Thirty-five thousand heat-related deaths. And the worry is that those kind of extremes will become more frequent.

MATT KELSCH, METEOROLOGIST: What we look for is, is there a pattern where there's more heat waves than there are cold waves over a number of years? And also things like what's happening to the glaciers and the different mountain regions or the polar ice caps or ocean temperatures. Those are all better measures of what the Earth's temperature is. And because of what's happening to those things, there is a general consensus that the Earth is warming.

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0507/25/ldt.01.html

 

[Andre]

I think that there is little dispute about the climate changes having a warming tendency in general. The question is, what is causing it and do we have to worry about catastrophic climate changes and if so, can we do anything about it?

Perhaps it's interesting to see what IPCC had to say about it in 1990:

We conclude that despite great limitations in the quantity and quality of the available historical temperature data, the evidence points consistently to a real but irregular warming over the last century. A global warming of larger size has almost certainly occurred at least once since the end of the last glaciation without any appreciable increase in greenhouse gases. Because we do not understand the reasons for these past warming events, it is not yet possible to attribute a specific proportion of the recent, smaller warming to an increase of greenhouse gases.

The period referred to is likely to be early Holocene 11,000 years ago, after that however, the real extend of the Hypsithermal (Holocene thermal optimum) was discovered, about 9000-4000 years ago when the trees of the taiga (birch, pine, alnus) were growning at the Arctic coasts of North Siberia, the current area of high arctic tundra and permafrost.

So, why do we think that we can do that now; Linking increase in greenhouse gas to warming? Because of the Hockey stick, the flawed brain paralyser. Without that infamous hockeystick and with the hypsithermal, we have no more clues than the statement of IPCC in 1990.

 

[CobblyWorlds]

Hi Andre,

"I think that there is little dispute about the climate changes having a warming tendency in general."

Would that not mean that the Earth's temperature is continually increasing?

"Perhaps it's interesting to see what IPCC had to say about it in 1990"

Surely it would be more interesting to see what the IPCC had to say in 2001, after all 1990 was the Second Assesment Report, 2001 was the Third Assesment Report(TAR). From the TAR Summary for Policy Makers; "Natural factors have made small contributions to radiative forcing over the past century." and "There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities." These are headings to sections that contain more detail. Further detail on top of that is available in the relevant chapters.

That aside it's not the hockey stick that causes people to link the increasing CO2 with increasing temperature, it's the physics. The Hockey Stick actually has very little to say about CO2 and temperature. After all it only suggests a correlation, and as we all know correlations in themselves are interesting but of little meaning. What is needed is mechanism.

CO2 is able to increase radiative forcing as it's concentration increases, IPCC TAR Chapter 6 gives some simplified expressions for calculating the increased forcing http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/222.htm#635. CO2 increases forcing because of it's ability to 'trap' more Infra Red radiation, the logarithmic term in the equations stated by the IPCC is there to account for spectral saturation. This increased forcing is, in and of itself, small. But it is then amplified by the response of atmospheric water vapour. An increase in absorption of IR by CO2 and subsequently amplification by water vapour will lead to an increase in the Global Energy Balance, thus increasing Global Average Temperature. Indeed even without the amplification by water the CO2 would cause a warming. The issue is one of magnitude.

 

[Andre]

There we go again. My answer is this thread.

and http://members.lycos.nl/ErrenWijlens/co2/howmuch.htm and http://members.lycos.nl/ErrenWijlens/co2/arrhrev.htm

 

[CobblyWorlds]

The thread you link to this thread. I have only given it a cursory inspection but I have already addressed at least on point in my post 19/7/05, 8:20AM which I quote below

"You quote "I expect to read about a rise of global temperatures." I understand that you are stating that this post was one of yours that was rejected. I can understand why and fully agree with RealClimate's decision to do so. Sorry but 'one swallow does not a summer make'. WMO press release 718 starts "The global mean surface temperature in 2004 is expected to be +0.440 C above the 1961-1990 annual average (14.0C) ". This does not show that the trend as displayed in the above mentioned graphs has been broken. For this trend to be broken you'd have to have at least as long as has been a rising trend displaying a falling trend. So to bias the issue in your favour let's say that the trend started to be positive in 1995, the point at which the tropo graph I linked to displays a constantly positive anomaly. We are no in 2005 which, I will bet will maintain the trend. So we'll say that to reasonably expect a break in the trend the anomalies should continue to fall until 2015. When the anomalies have displayed a negative trend from now until 2005 then you may have a point."

Was there another point you were making?


With regards and this and this. I am not going to indulge speculation by self-appointed experts. The IPCC themselves state in my ref TAR6 that the equations given are simple. But they are adequate for the types of 'back of the envelope' calculations people may wish to play with. I don't have a GCM so 'back of envelope' is all I can do. And the science clearly shows that CO2 does cause a forcing, that IS the accepted position of modern science. Don't believe me? Check any climate physics textbook. The magnitude may have a margin of error, the fundamentals do not. Do you have peer-reviewed research that shows that CO2 will not cause a warming (and for the purposes of this we can neglect water vapour amplification - so I'm making it easier for you :) ).

 

[reasonmclucus]

I recently recalled a theory that suggests that an accumulation of black soot in the Arctic may be causing increased melting. Black soot absorbs sunlight and converts it into heat. Black soot accumulations in snow would absorb rather than reflect sunlight and increase melting according to the theory. Other studies have indicated that south Asia cooking fires are putting significant amounts of black soot in the atmosphere.

http://www.livescience.com/environment/050328_arctic_soot.html

 

[Andre]

Black soot absorbs sunlight and converts it into heat.

Exactly. Seems very plausible.

Soot, directly in the lowest atmosphere layers, would also explain the difference between the warmer surface temperature (lowest air, polluted with soot) and the lower temperatures of the lower troposphere, which is still too high for the soot to reach. With the greenhouse gas effect you would expect a higher temperature in the lower troposphere. So soot explains that better than greenhouse gas. Moreover, given the local warming patterns, this soot heating effect may be very well provable.

I believe that the IPCC acknowledges this effect albeit played down a lot, together with the Urban Heat Island effect in order not to interfere with the CO2 warming myth.

Needless to say that soot can be easily dealt with and it would also help in countering air pollution. Furthermore, it's hard to see that soot can lead to catastrophic climate change.

I have only given it a cursory inspection

Yes, we definitely have to go over the scientific method again. The first step being observe a phenomenon, you know, “observe”. Hasty cursory inspection are not likely to lead to a superior situational awareness. Without you are bound to go astray. Perhaps recall that I wrote “thread”, and the thread was about “unexplaining global warming”, not the opening anecdote

But now you did adress it, your battle against that little diversion is priceless. A very nice demonstration of how passion can distort sense of logic.

I can understand why and fully agree with RealClimate's decision to do so.

Very nice to acknowledge the censorship of Mann et al. That’s part of their demagogical campaign. You cannot allow for sound logic of course. That would spoil the http://www.newspeakdictionary.com/ns-prin.html

Was there another point you were making?

Almost embarrassing, omitting step one of the scientific method.

I am not going to indulge speculation by self-appointed experts.

Excellent. Never before in the field of human (global warming) conflict have so many fallacies been put in words, so few. (Free after http://www.quotecha.com/quotes/quotation_16568.html )

First of all, the person in question has not appointed himself as expert (others have). So it’s a straw man to start of with. Next the self appointed thinghy suggest that there is something wrong with the person. Trying to discredit him is an "ad hominem" in the version of "poisoning the well", a pre-emptive strike before even arguments have been exchanged. Next the use of the words “indulge speculations” attempts to generate an emotion of disapproval adding the red herring of emotional appeal. A most excellent example. Very well done.

And the science clearly shows that CO2 does cause a forcing, that IS the accepted position of modern science. Don't believe me?…

The "restricted choice" fallacy. "Yes" would mean that we would agree that CO2 is the main culprit, "No" would mean that I chose for a physical wrong answer. The correct answer could have been found in the “this and this”. The magnitude of greenhouse gas effect due to increase of CO2 is marginal and if you would have browsed a bit in my threads you would have seen that the correlation of warming with CO2 concentration is poor.

Do you have peer-reviewed research that shows that CO2 will not cause a warming?

"Argumentum ad Ignorantiam"; an informal fallacy. If there is no peer reviewed research that disproves CO2 causing warming, then it must cause warming.

You can find all those fallacies here: http://www.fallacyfiles.org/
Maybe we should try again; reading the thread and a lot more and also “this and this” could help in a fallacy free discussion.

Edited to add this priceless quote

http://www.biology.uAlberta.ca/old_site/palmer.hp//thh/c1.htm

And science is simply common sense at its best; that is, rigidly accurate in observation, and merciless to fallacy in logic

Now shall we go over the fallacies in http://www.realclimate.org ?