[Madidus_Scientia]

Get a grip on your chicken-little roost already. Geeze. Warm is good, cold is bad

I'm afraid it's not that simple. With a warmer climate, sure, some places will become more fertile. Other areas however, will become deserts.

Even if you are going to block your ears and hum loudly when people speak of how a raise in temperature will be bad, perhaps you might consider the chemical effects increased CO2 has on the ocean. There are many, many creatures (including some plankton, which is a very important part of the oceans ecosystem) that have a shell composed of calcium carbonate. These creatures need to combine carbonate ions from the water with calcium to build and maintain their exoskeleton. As CO2 increases, the acidity of the ocean increases. The more acidic the ocean, the less free carbonate particles there are for these creatures to build their skeleton.

This will have far-reaching consequences not just for ocean life but for human life too, as worldwide a billion people eat seafood as their main source of animal protein. It will also form a feedback loop, as currently plankton absorb most of the CO2 in the atmosphere, but if they are killed off or almost killed off CO2 levels will all of a sudden dramtically increase, and it won't just be warm, it'll be pretty damn hot.

May I ask where you happen to live?

[Bored chemist]

There's another aspect that people seem to ignore while saying "it will be better if things are warmer".
Change isn't good.
Farmers like to know what the weeather will be like and the currebnt state of affairs is that we are having weird weather.
There is no question that CO2 levels have risen.
Since most of the CO2 is made from "ancient" C sources it's fair to blame the use of fossil fuels. (You can, in effect, radiocarbon date the CO2).

There's no question that CO2 absorbs IR radiation.
There's no way that you can avoid that leading to a greenhouse effect.
There is, thereefore, at least some anthropogenic global warming and the weather is going nuts.
If we want to eat we need stable weather.

Perhaps we should try cutting back onCO2.

[frethack]

Get a grip on your chicken-little roost already. Geeze. Warm is good, cold is bad, and right now it looks possible we might need baby harp seal sweaters shortly. The weather is like the stock market. It varies. Right now it is getting cooler.

A decade of temperature stability (with a minute amount of cooling) does not make a trend.  The standard is 30 continuous years to even begin to establish a long term climatic trend.  And as far as blanket statements like "warm is good, cold is bad" - while there is a grain of truth to it - it is a gross oversimplification of a very complex climate system that is only very vaguely understood (despite what yor_on and others claim).

I'm afraid it's not that simple. With a warmer climate, sure, some places will become more fertile. Other areas however, will become deserts.

While superficially true, there is generally a larger portion gaining rainfall than becoming desert during a warming, and the opposite during a cooling (though there have been a few exceptions, as with anything).  A warmer climate means that the ITCZ cuts a larger swath both north and south of the equator and draws the monsoons to higher latitudes (expanding the tropics and subtropics) than during cooling events.

There's another aspect that people seem to ignore while saying "it will be better if things are warmer".
Change isn't good.
Farmers like to know what the weeather will be like and the currebnt state of affairs is that we are having weird weather.
There is no question that CO2 levels have risen.
Since most of the CO2 is made from "ancient" C sources it's fair to blame the use of fossil fuels. (You can, in effect, radiocarbon date the CO2).

The climate has changed throughout the entire existence of man (well...of life in general), and there have been MUCH more drastic changes than we are experiencing now...quite a few of them...Last Glacial Maximum, Younger Dryas, 8.2ka, 7.1ka, 4.5ka, 0.9ka, and the Little Ice Age...and this is just a few major events over the past 17ka.

There is no doubt, as you state that CO2 levels have risen, that it is mostly old carbon, and that it is mostly anthropogenic (though there is a natural rise in CO2 that is expected with natural temperature variability).

There's no question that CO2 absorbs IR radiation.
There's no way that you can avoid that leading to a greenhouse effect.
There is, thereefore, at least some anthropogenic global warming and the weather is going nuts.
If we want to eat we need stable weather.

Perhaps we should try cutting back onCO2.

Yep, CO2 absorbs longwave radiation and causes a greenhouse effect (my understanding is that it works logarithmically and reaches a saturation point much like water vapor, but you are the chemist and probably understand this process much better than I do), and yes, there is at least some anthropogenic induced warming, but the weather is not going nuts.  It is changing, but is not as variable as it has been for about the past 800 years (though this could change within the span of a decade...or even shorter in extreme cases).

Though the Thames River frost fairs (during the LIA) would have been beautiful to see, I dont believe that I would want to endure winters cold enough that shopkeepers could establish booths in the middle of the rivers frozen surface for weeks out of the year.  Nor would I want to live in a time when the sun can take a dive into a 30 year minimum (Dalton Minimum), a volcano erupts (Pinatubo), and suddenly summer is entirely skipped with snow in July (the Year Without a Summer 1816)

As far as cutting back on CO2...Im absolutely all for renewable energy

[litespeed]

yor and bored - regarding sunspots, I refer you to the Maunder Minimum.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maunder_Minimum

And if you really want an example of cold is bad, get a load of this URL where colapse of Old Kingdom Egypt through draught famine is directly associated with sudden cooling that last one or two hundred years planet wide.

[peppercorn]

if you really want an example of cold is bad, get a load of this URL where collapse of Old Kingdom Egypt through draught famine is directly associated with sudden cooling that last one or two hundred years planet wide.

LS, why can't you get it through your head that any accelerated change in global mean temperatures is bad!  That's bad for humans and worst for ecosystems in general.  A very few species might win, but the majority will be hard pressed to adapt in time.

See Climate and the Collapse of Maya Civilization as an example:
"evidence has mounted that unusual shifts in atmospheric patterns took place near the end of the Classic Maya period, lending credence to the notion that climate, and specifically drought, indeed played a hand in the decline of this ancient civilization."
Note, this drought caused by increased global temperature.

Have you got it now?

[frethack]

See Climate and the Collapse of Maya Civilization as an example:
"evidence has mounted that unusual shifts in atmospheric patterns took place near the end of the Classic Maya period, lending credence to the notion that climate, and specifically drought, indeed played a hand in the decline of this ancient civilization."
Note, this drought caused by increased global temperature.

Have you got it now?

Peppercorn, you have posted possibly the most excellent popular science article that I have read in a very long time.  Your analysis that the fall of the Maya occurred during a warming period is absolutely incorrect, though.  The period from about 700 to 950 AD is known as the Dark Age Cold Period, and is noted for having a much decreased global temperature (though the tropics were not effected much...temperature wise anyway...as far as rainfall they were greatly effected) and greatly decreased rainfall in many areas...including Central America.  Nowhere in the article that I could find does it state that this is a warming period (and it would be blatantly incorrect if it did), and only refers to "climate change".  Oddly enough, during this exact time period in China there is what is called the "Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms" period, where there was a marked decline in rainfall and winter temperature that created so much turmoil that they went through multiple kingdoms and dynasties inside of 100 years.  This is also related to migration of the ITCZ just as the article attributes its migration to the Maya.

The other cultures that they mention:
The Anasazi disappeared from the American Southwest around 12750-1300 AD which is the very beginning of the Little Ice Age, and during the depths of the Wolf solar Grand Minimum (the first of the LIA).  This was a drastic cooling period.

The Akkadian Empire in Mesopotamia around 4200 years before present was the during a drastic decline in temperatures and tumultuous climate that occurred just after the Holocene Climate Optimum.  This was a drastic cooling period, though much wetter than any other cooling during the Holocene.

And the Mochica Culture in Peru disappeared about 500ybp, which was in the depths of the Sporer solar Grand Minimum during the worst of the LIA.  This is also a period of intense cooling.

Note, all of these droughts occurred during *decreased* global temperature.

[peppercorn]

Your analysis that the fall of the Maya occurred during a warming period is absolutely incorrect, though.

D'ya know what? I let myself down by one comment:

Note, this drought caused by increased global temperature.

It's a shame I included the word 'global'.
In fact if I'd said "the fall of the Maya occurred during a warming period" that would have been perfectly fine.  I'm fairly certain that the Mayans would have experienced the bad results of their local region heating up.  The point is climate getting hotter quickly is 'bad' just as getting cooler quickly is 'bad'.  Doesn't matter if it's a local effect or global.

I'm sure their must have been a previous period when the whole of humankind suffered as a result of an elevated global temperature.  If there isn't such an event in recorded history that has survived to our present age, if we don't get our collective heads out of the sand we soon will know how nasty global 'warming' can be.

[Madidus_Scientia]

I note that you completely ignored my last post litespeed. However, regarding;

yor and bored - regarding sunspots, I refer you to the Maunder Minimum.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maunder_Minimum

And if you really want an example of cold is bad, get a load of this URL where colapse of Old Kingdom Egypt through draught famine is directly associated with sudden cooling that last one or two hundred years planet wide.

However unlikely and difficult to predict, imagine for the sake of argument that the sun does go through another Maunder Minimum over the next century. What effect would this have on Earth's climate? The difference in solar radiative forcing between Maunder Minimum levels and current solar activity is estimated between 0.17 W/m2 (Wang 2005) to 0.23 W/m2 (Krivova 2007).

In contrast, the radiative forcing of CO2 since pre-industrial times is 1.66 W/m2 (IPCC AR4), far outstripping solar influence. And that's not including the extra CO2 to be added to the atmosphere in upcoming decades. In other words, the warming from CO2 dwarves any potential cooling even if the sun was to return to Maunder Minimum levels.

quoted from http://www.skepticalscience.com/heading-into-new-little-ice-age.htm

And concerning the advantages and disadvantages of global warming (from http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-positives-negatives.htm )

Advantages:

Agriculture
    * Bumper crops in high latitude countries like Greenland, Canada
    * Higher rice yields in Northern China
Health
    * Fewer deaths from cold exposure
    * Record profits for pharmaceutical companies
Arctic Melt
    * Shippers get an Arctic shortcut between Atlantic and Pacific
    * Access to North Pole oil (hmm, good or bad?)
    * Thriving mammoth trade
Environment
    * Greener rainforests due to higher sunlight levels due to fewer rain clouds
    * Animals in Greenland can graze longer
    * Save grey nurse sharks from extinction
Glacier Melt
    * Access to more mining areas as Greenland's glaciers recede
    * New extreme sport of glacier surfing (riding waves when chunks of glaciers fall into the sea)
    * Longer grazing for sheep in Greenland
Economical
    * Increased summer movie box office
    * Lots of work and money for lawyers (not sure which column to put this one in)

Disadvantages:

Agriculture

    * China's grain harvest will be cut by 5 to 10% by 2030
    * Africa's food production will be halved by 2020.
    * Decelerating tropical forest growth
    * Increased conflict over resources
    * Dislocate millions (with subsequent economical and military ramifications) - an estimated 50 million by 2010
    * Coral reefs are dissolving due to CO2 turning seawater acidic and bleaching due to warmer waters
    * Increase of wildfire activity
    * Water shortages in the Mediterranean, flash floods along the Rhine and summers so hot that nuclear power stations can't cool down, more than half of Europe's plant species could risk extinction by 2080 according to EU paper
    * Increased range and severity of crop disease
    * Encroachment of shrubs into grasslands, rendering rangeland unsuitable for domestic livestock grazing
    * Diminishing fresh water supplies for coastal communities
    * Decreased water supply in the Colorado River Basin (McCabe 2007)
    * Decreasing water supply to the Murray-Darling Basin (Cai 2008)
    * Decreasing human water supplies, increased fire frequency, ecosystem change and expanded deserts (Solomon 2009)

Health

    * Increased deaths to heatwaves (5.74% increase to heatwaves compared to 1.59% to cold snaps)
    * Increases in malnutrition and consequent disorders, with implications for child growth and development.
    * Increased deaths, disease and injury due to heat waves, floods, storms, fires and droughts.
    * Spread of malaria into wider regions
    * Increased frequency of cardio-respiratory diseases due to higher concentrations of ground level ozone related to climate change.
    * Spread of mosquito vectors and dengue fever in Singapore.
    * Spread of dengue fever throughout the Americas.
    * Increased pollen levels (due to more CO2) leading to increased allergies
    * Increased spread of flesh eating disease
    * More heart problems

Arctic Melt

    * Decrease in Arctic albedo, further accelerating warming
    * Loss of 2/3 of the world's polar bear population within 50 years
    * Positive methane feedbacks from mammoth dung (you can't make this stuff up)
    * Melting of Arctic lakes leading to positive feedback from methane bubbling.
    * Icebergs risk to shipping
    * Rising sea levels due to melting land ice over Greenland and Canada

Environment

    * Rainforests releasing CO2 as regions become drier (from the 'greener rainforests' study)
    * Encroaching deserts displacing tens of millions
    * Drying of arctic ponds with subsequent damage to ecosystem
    * Vanishing lakes
    * Tibetan plateau warming at twice the global average, so that all the glaciers in the central and eastern Himalayas could disappear by 2035 at their present rate of decline
    * Skinny whales (I always thought they stood to lose some weight)
    * Acidification of the ocean that violate EPA standards for ocean quality, threatening ocean ecosystems (eg - harming coral and plankton)
    * Threatened extinction of British shellfish
    * Gradual extinction of leeches (someone's gotta love em)
    * Dwindling penguin numbers
    * Disappearance of the low-lying island country Tuvalu
    * Disruption to New Zealand aquatic species
    * Oxygen poor ocean zones are growing (Stramma 2008, Shaffer 2009)
    * Increased mortality rates of healthy trees in Western U.S. forest (more...)
    * More severe and extensive vegetation die-off due to warmer droughts (Breshears 2009)
Glacier Melt

    * Flooding of low lying Asian rice fields
    * Water supply cut off for China and South America
Economical

    * Billions of dollars of damage to public infrastructure
    * Reduced water supply in New Mexico


So either you really really like Grey Nurse sharks, or you haven't really weighed up the pros and cons.

[frethack]

However unlikely and difficult to predict, imagine for the sake of argument that the sun does go through another Maunder Minimum over the next century. What effect would this have on Earth's climate? The difference in solar radiative forcing between Maunder Minimum levels and current solar activity is estimated between 0.17 W/m2 (Wang 2005) to 0.23 W/m2 (Krivova 2007).

In contrast, the radiative forcing of CO2 since pre-industrial times is 1.66 W/m2 (IPCC AR4), far outstripping solar influence. And that's not including the extra CO2 to be added to the atmosphere in upcoming decades. In other words, the warming from CO2 dwarves any potential cooling even if the sun was to return to Maunder Minimum levels.

The estimates that you have given for W/m2 between Grand Minima and Grand Maxima are the generally accepted values (though this is being challenged by Steinhibler et al. 2009), but the sun very profoundly affects mechanisms within the climate system that give it far more weight than 0.2 W/m2 would account for.

After Wednesday I will have more time to answer (studying for two tests), but until then I will refer back to this link:
http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=24403.msg265139#msg265139

Certainly not comprehensive, but gives an overview.  There are other factors that the sun may effects as well...such as cloud nucleation and cosmic radiation which is modulated by solar activity (very controversial though...there is decent research on both sides of the argument).  Ive been waiting for an experiment scheduled for next year at CERN that should shed lots of light on this subject.

Anyway, Ill respond more properly after Wednesday

[litespeed]

Madi - You wrote: "In contrast, the radiative forcing of CO2 since pre-industrial times is 1.66 W/m2 (IPCC AR4), far outstripping solar influence."

If so, you need to account for all the climate change that has taken place prior to industrialization. Specifically, atmospheric CO2 is at a near low in all of planetary history right now. Yet we are in something of a climate optimum. I notice you cite the IPCC.

This has about the same scientific content as your reference to Lord Attenbourogh and his breathless, yet supine, video clip cited earlier.  Cue dramatic music, cue single, unchallenged climatologist, cue clueless Shakspearean Actor.  Perhaps add forelorn Polar Bear on small iceberge.

Pathetic....

[Bored chemist]

I guess it's a matter of deffinition but I think muddling up the two Attenboroughs is pathetic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Attenborough
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Attenborough

If you can't tell the difference between a film producer/ actor and a anturalist then perhaps your other postings should be brought into question.

Also I note thet you chose to belittle the IPCC as unscientific.
I presume that your definition of unscientific is anything that doesn't agree with you.

[Madidus_Scientia]

Madi - You wrote: "In contrast, the radiative forcing of CO2 since pre-industrial times is 1.66 W/m2 (IPCC AR4), far outstripping solar influence."

If so, you need to account for all the climate change that has taken place prior to industrialization. Specifically, atmospheric CO2 is at a near low in all of planetary history right now. Yet we are in something of a climate optimum. I notice you cite the IPCC.

This has about the same scientific content as your reference to Lord Attenbourogh and his breathless, yet supine, video clip cited earlier.  Cue dramatic music, cue single, unchallenged climatologist, cue clueless Shakspearean Actor.  Perhaps add forelorn Polar Bear on small iceberge.

Pathetic....

Of course, it must be pathetic if it's in contradiction to your assertion that the planet is cooling. And it's obvious the IPCC must also be composed of liars. And WTF is your obsession with polar bears?

Anyway, the Maunder Minimum was only from roughly 1645 to 1715. When CO2 levels have been higher in the past (many millions of years ago) solar levels were also lower. No one is saying CO2 is the only thing that drives climate, but that the evidence suggests it is certainly the main factor in rising temperatures today.

[litespeed]

madi - You wrote: "...solar levels were also lower..."

Please provide citation showing solar variance over time.  Please provide citation for rising temperatures in 2009.

[Madidus_Scientia]

http://droyer.web.wesleyan.edu/PhanCO2(GCA).pdf

The correspondence between atmospheric CO2 concentrations and globally averaged surface temperatures in the recent past suggests that this coupling may be of great antiquity. Here, I compare 490 published proxy records of CO2 spanning the Ordovician to Neogene with records of global cool events to evaluate the strength of the CO2-temperature coupling over the Phanerozoic (last 542my). For periods with sufficient CO2 coverage, all cool events are associated with CO2 levels below 1000 ppm. A CO2 threshold of below ~500 ppm is suggested for the initiation of widespread, continental glaciations, although this threshold was likely higher during the Paleozoic due to a lower solar luminosity at that time. Also, based on data from the Jurassic and Cretaceous, a CO2 threshold of below ~1000 ppm is proposed for the initiation of cool non-glacial conditions. A pervasive, tight correlation between CO2 and temperature is found both at coarse (10 my timescales) and fine resolutions up to the temporal limits of the data set (million-year timescales), indicating that CO2, operating in combination with many other factors such as solar luminosity and paleogeography, has imparted strong control over global temperatures for much of the Phanerozoic.  © Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2009/20090916_globalstats.html

Global Highlights – August

    * The worldwide ocean surface temperature of 62.4 degrees F was the warmest on record for any August, and 1.03 degrees F above the 20th century average of 61.4 degrees F.
    * Separately, the global land surface temperature of 58.2 degrees F was 1.33 degrees F above the 20th century average of 56.9 degrees F, and ranked as the fourth warmest August on record.
    * Large portions of the world’s land mass observed warmer-than-average temperatures in August. The warmest departures occurred across Australia, Europe, parts of the Middle East, northwestern Africa, and southern South America. Both Australia and New Zealand had their warmest August since their records began.
    * The Southern Hemisphere average temperatures for land and ocean surface combined were the warmest on record for August.

[frethack]

I guess it's a matter of deffinition but I think muddling up the two Attenboroughs is pathetic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Attenborough
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Attenborough

If you can't tell the difference between a film producer/ actor and a anturalist then perhaps your other postings should be brought into question.

Also I note thet you chose to belittle the IPCC as unscientific.
I presume that your definition of unscientific is anything that doesn't agree with you.

Quite a few people have complained (to the moderators) about litespeed from these threads, though I am not sure if one of them is you Bored chemist (You might even be a moderator for all I know).  I am in agreement that he uses misnomers and inaccurate facts quite often (which seems to be common among these threads...on both sides of the argument and including you), but completely disregarding someones opinion and belittling them because they made a mistake between David/Richard Attenborough (or even between 250 ml/mm for that matter) is the equivalent of deeming your posts invalid because you cant seem to spell the words deffinition (definition), thet (that), or anturalist (naturalist).  *Everyone* makes mistakes.

You are obviously a very intelligent person, and I would never disregard your postings for something as trivial as that (I understand that you know how to spell.  You are extremely articulate and well read...that much is evident), but your method of "scientific" debate leaves something to be desired.

Karsten, Madidus Scientia, Paul and some others seem to be able to hold a very intelligent and lively debate without needing to resort to ridicule or bullying.

[litespeed]

fret - You wrote: "Quite a few people have complained (to the moderators) about litespeed..."

If this is true, then I am a bit surprised at how thin skinned the locals are. I have posted on forums since the 1980's, and have actually been banned more times then I can count. However, [seriously] my post here have been entirely moderate in comparison to those. And even in those I was almost always reinstated since I never used profanity etc etc.

In these forums I have been especially dilligent in defining the terms of my debate. For instance, I have made a special effort to address climate change since Roman Times.  IMHO, my citations on Roman Era warming are without contest.

True, I have made fun of those who present short video clips as some sort of scientific evidence. Specifically Lord[?] Attenbouroughs supine and Shakespearian conversion to The Faith. I simply pointed out the theatrical nature of the presentation included not one ounce of scientific reference. Just one guy making some assertions based on nothing but his own expertise, and unchallenged by The Great Orator.

I became this little gadfly because The Climatistas assaulted the world with forlorn Polar Bears; Certain Death by oceanic inundation, unmitigated  hurricanes, and runaway GW such as the Planet Venus and so on. Of particular irritation to me is the block headed refusal to see we are in a CLIMATE OPTIMUM!

But maybe its just me....

[Madidus_Scientia]

completely disregarding someones opinion and belittling them because they made a mistake between David/Richard Attenborough (or even between 250 ml/mm for that matter) is the equivalent of deeming your posts invalid because you cant seem to spell the words deffinition (definition), thet (that), or anturalist (naturalist).  *Everyone* makes mistakes.

In Bored Chemist's defense it seemed to me any belitting/ridicule done was purely in retort:

Pathetic....

I guess it's a matter of deffinition but I think muddling up the two Attenboroughs is pathetic.

In my opinion BC is always civil unless hostility is initiated by another party. I wouldn't take the mm/ml thing personally, he's just very pedantic when it comes to facts :p

[Bored chemist]

How inapropriate for a science site- I prefer the facts to be correct.
I also think that there's a difference between a few typos which simply indicate that I was in a hurry, and rubishing a video on the basis that it was presented by an actor.

There are two points there and I accept I probably should have focussed on the other.
Litespeed did muddle the two Attenboroughs, but that's not the big issue.
The real problem is that he thinks it matters.
I don't care if the video was fronted by an naturalist, a "Shakspearean Actor" or a gorrilla in a tutu.
The facts remain facts.

[frethack]

How inapropriate for a science site- I prefer the facts to be correct.

I do very much owe you a public apology for singling you out for a problem that is systemic throughout these debates.  If I had been more rational than reactionary, I should have addressed my post in a general sense, but instead I chose to call out someone who is well respected (including by myself).  It was unbecoming, and for that Bored chemist I am most humbly apologetic.


To correct myself, this is what I should have said:
When words begin to fly like "carbonistas" or "denialists" the undertone of an agenda becomes evident, and a healthy public debate on a very young science turns into a dogpile.  Unfortunately, global climate is a hotbutton issue, and there is a lot of hostility associated with it.  I should probably just accept that.  My experience in the paleoclimate community has been very different though.  If you have a good argument, no matter if it is contrary, the facts and merits are debated without agenda.

[Bored chemist]

Don't sweat it.
You are certainly right in saying this subject tends to turn into a mess. There are currently 3 or 4 threads all going over essentially the same subject.
Incidentally, I'm not a mod- just a bloke who wonders why he had to point out the 250mm/250ml problem twice.