[Don_1]

As has been said by others here, I don’t think it is possible to attribute the extent to which man contributes to climate change.

It is perhaps not so much a scientific problem in the evaluation, as a mathematical one.

The first problem you encounter is ‘where do you start?’ Our very existence, both as a species and as individuals, gives rise to an effect on the eco system, albeit microscopic in the case of the individual. Should this be counted as a contributory factor? Or should we discount this and label it as ‘the natural effect’ of each individual? But can you discount the individual? If you do, must you then discount the family group, the extended family group and so on and so forth. Go down this path and you could say man has no ‘natural effect’ on the eco system. Now we are getting into politics, rather than science or mathematics.

I may be a vegan who grows my own food, has no car, uses no electricity or gas, drinks only water from my own natural spring, lives in a mud hut and recycles everything I use. I buy nothing and waste nothing. I am 100% self sufficient. What is my overall effect on the environment? I inhale oxygen and exhale CO₂. Do the food plants I grow (given that I grow only sufficient for my own needs and no more) convert that CO₂ back into oxygen, or are there insufficient plants for this. I burp and fart. I wee and poo (and that pongs a bit, so there are gases given off). Do these gases contribute to my negative effect?

Surely each individual animal (humans included, regardless of lifestyle) must have a negative effect, which is countered by each individual plant with its positive effect. So if you take a 1 – 10 scale such as this:

- 10:9:8:7:6:5:4:3:2:1:0:1:2:3:4:5:6:7:8:9:10+
        Animals              |           Plants

and place each individual at a point on the negative side according to the effect of a self sufficient individual; you could extrapolate the net effect of the entire human race at ‘natural effect’ level.

Now comes the monumental mathematical task of attributing the following, as a share to each individual, of:-

Extracting minerals, producing the equipment to extract those minerals, producing the machinery to produce the equipment to extract those minerals, producing the machinery to produce the machinery to produce the equipment to extract those minerals. Getting my drift here?

Trucks to move the machinery which is used to produce the machinery which is used to produce the equipment to extract those minerals. Trucks to move the machinery which is used to produce the equipment to extract those minerals. Trucks to move the equipment to extract those minerals. Trucks to move the extracted minerals.

Machinery to produce the trucks to move those extracted minerals.

OK, I won’t go on, but suffice to say this goes on and on and on and can be used for everything we eat, drink, wear, sit on, sleep in, build with, listen to, watch, dispose of………

Take a look around you. What do you see? Some letters, a clock, a pen and pencil, a cup of coffee, a biscuit (cookie), four walls (painted), a window, a carpet, the chair you are sitting on, the clothes you are wearing, your hair (you had it cut the other day with manufactured scissors) and washed over a sink with a shower head that had hot water; and towel dried, maybe even a hair dryer, which had to be manufactured and used electricity, which had to be generated, which needed generators, which ran on mineral oil. Oh yes, and the generators had to be manufactured.

The complexities of modern life mean that everything we have and everything we do adds to our negative effect, which we hope plants, with their positive effect, will offset.

Even a farmer, ploughing his field with an ox drawn plough is having a negative effect. He and his ox are using energy, which requires food and oxygen. They are producing waste, poo, wee, dead cells and CO₂. He is wearing clothes which require cotton, wool, wood, rubber, leather and oil. They are made with machines, which require the basic raw materials to make those machines: Minerals. And the plough? Yes that too has to be made from minerals. So we come back to square one.

Would you fancy being the mathematician who tries to work out this lot and all the rest, of course?

OK, you can say I have taken this to the absolute extremes, but then the question I would ask is, ‘where do you start and where is the cut off?’ Because that button on your shirt/blouse, has had a significant impact on your negative contribution, as has that biscuit (cookie) you are about to eat. What went into producing it? For each ingredient (wheat, corn, oats, sugar, nuts, fruit, fats, eggs, milk, water) you must start at the beginning, the minerals to make the ploughs, tractors, seed separators and sowers, fertilisers, insecticides, fungicides, irrigation systems, harvesters, trucks, and then the ovens, baking tins, cooling racks, packing machines and very factory they are made in. The individual packet packaging materials, the bulk packaging packing materials. The trucks that deliver them to the shops, the building and fitting of the shops……… Oh good grief, here we go again!

[litespeed]

Karsten - You wrote: "... running out of fossil fuels will ... probably bring the collapse of modern North American living."  This sounds more like wishfull thinking then fact. The US and China have so much coal we could go on for centuries.  Right now, the US has shifted its coal sources to those with less sulphur. Plenty of that stuff as well.

Karsten - You also wrote: "My friends in Europe and Canada have a difficult time believing how many people in the USA still cling to the perception that humans have very little to do with the problem. They find it laughable."

I can only speculate as to what problem you refer?  My suspicion is these individuals are entirely unaware CO2 is at a near global minimum; the temperature is at a near climate optimum; and the climate has been both warmer and colder in recorded history then it is now.

Do your chuckling freinds have ANY idea what a cooler climate would bring them?  I have little sympathy for those who have not studied history.

[litespeed]

Pepper - You wrote: "Original question: What proportion of global warming is attributable to humans? It is likely to be, at least a significant amount (say more than half). It is quite likely to be a majority share.

I just ran across this solar output chart that seems to correlate with modern climate trends over a thousand year period up to the year 1900. In 1900 solar output was higher then at any time since about the year 800. Values since 1900 are not shown. I will continue to research this area, especially in regards to cosmic rays. I am unconvinced climatistas even know what is a cosmic ray...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Carbon14_with_activity_labels.svg

"Sunspot numbers over the past 11,400 years have been reconstructed using dendrochronologically dated radiocarbon concentrations. The level of solar activity during the past 70 years is exceptional — the last period of similar magnitude occurred over 8,000 years ago."

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

[peppercorn]

"Sunspot numbers over the past 11,400 years have been reconstructed using dendrochronologically dated radiocarbon concentrations. The level of solar activity during the past 70 years is exceptional — the last period of similar magnitude occurred over 8,000 years ago."

Lit, can you point me to data showing a marked jump in mean global temperatures occurring exactly 70 years ago and continuing to present?  I mean a major one.
Otherwise this data (if totally reliable) is interesting, but nothing more.

[frethack]

I dont have a lot of time right now, as I have class in about 15 minutes, but I can provide evidence...lots of it.  Ive spent the last few years collecting resources, so this will not be nearly comprehensive.  I can also do a little better than 70 years...I can go back more than 400,000 years, and establish a very long trend.  Ill start with the landmark paper by Gerard Bond.  This particular paper doesnt equate temperature specifically, but it does relate North Atlantic ice rafted debris (IRD) events to solar activity over the past 12,000 years.  IRD events are caused by glacial calving in Greenland, Iceland, and Northern Canada during times of marked glacial growth (cooling events).  As the icebergs calve and spread into the N Atlantic, they carry LOTS of sediment within them that are dropped into the ocean when they melt.  The latitude and concentrations of these glacial sediments in the oceanic cores can tell us a lot about sea temperatures and the extent of glaciation/sea ice.

The citation for the paper is:
Bond, G., Kromer, B., Beer, J., Muscheler, R., Evans, M.N., Showers, W., Hoffmann, S.,
Lotti-Bond, R., Hajdas, I., Bonani, G., 2001. Persistent solar influence on North
Atlantic climate during the Holocene. Science 294 (5549), 2130–2136.

I encourage you to look it up and read it if you can.  If you cant find it, let me know and I will email it to you.  Bond is a very well respected geologist/climatologist and is considered among the giants in the field.  This paper alone has been cited over 700 times, and this is not even including his works helping to lay the foundations of plate tectonics during the 60's and 70's.  Anyway...enough adoration

The black lines are abundances of different IRD sediments in oceanic cores (all originating from different areas of the N Atlantic). The blue lines are 14C concentrations taken from tree rings chronologies if I remember correctly, and the red lines are 10Be concentrations from Greenland ice cores (both proxies for solar activity)



I have much more to post on shorter and longer time scales if you would like to see it in the future. 

[Karsten]

Karsten - You wrote: "... running out of fossil fuels will ... probably bring the collapse of modern North American living."  This sounds more like wishfull thinking then fact. The US and China have so much coal we could go on for centuries.  Right now, the US has shifted its coal sources to those with less sulphur. Plenty of that stuff as well.

Karsten - You also wrote: "My friends in Europe and Canada have a difficult time believing how many people in the USA still cling to the perception that humans have very little to do with the problem. They find it laughable."

I can only speculate as to what problem you refer?  My suspicion is these individuals are entirely unaware CO2 is at a near global minimum; the temperature is at a near climate optimum; and the climate has been both warmer and colder in recorded history then it is now.

Do your chuckling freinds have ANY idea what a cooler climate would bring them?  I have little sympathy for those who have not studied history.

Litespeed: Yes, I ignore coal as a useful fossil fuel in the USA. I cannot imagine our cities being powered by coal-fired power plants or heated with residential coal stoves. Or our cars being moved with coal. Or synthetic fuels being created from coal with nuclear power (which we do not seem to plan to build). Or our food being grown with the help of coal. I thought you had a BIG problem with China using so much coal? Now you suggest that using coal is a solution for the USA? Talk about smog! I am sure we will use coal. We may have to. But it will change the USA and it sure will be much less comfy in this place that revolves around comfort. Oil and gas are easy. Wishful thinking that our civilization will collapse? I hate to be wrong, but in this case I hope I am. For my daughter's sake at a minimum. Please don't be rude and assume that I wish a dramatic an involuntary change in our society to happen. Just because I fear it may be does not mean I hope it to be.

(By the way, if I use future tense and the word "probably" I surely do not claim to present a fact.)

As for climate change, I trust professional science organizations rather than individual scientists. Somewhere you can find a scientist to provide data for almost anything. Not reliable. Not so with large professional science organizations. They are careful with what they say. And I do prefer to err on the safe side. I have not seen data that tells me that burning LESS fossil fuels results in damage to our environment. On the other hand, I turn on my car in my closed garage with me in it and can find out within minutes how dangerous this is. Of course this is simplifying the problem, but as I said, I tend to err on the safe side.

As for my chuckling friends, they know that we once upon a time had it hotter and at other times colder here. What does that have to do with anything? Of course we live in good times considering the planetary history. Well, this might actually depend on where you live. It is easy for a North American to observe the climate, consider the concerns about global climate change a bunch of hog wash, and promote and continue to enjoy their excessive life-style. It reminds me of goats and gardeners. Anyhow..., the global climate today is certainly pleasant for many. Why not respond to change in either direction, colder or warmer? Some people care about what happens to other people. And if what they do is wrong they try to change something. And they do find it hard to believe how desperately some Americans cling to straws that let them believe nothing is wrong (and continue guilt-free to consume, waste, and trash at world-record levels). Whether the European life-style is sustainable either is another story. I am sure it is pleasant to point at North America which is creating more damage than Europe. Always good to know someone worse than oneself. And I am also sure you can find rather strange-thinking Europeans.

That does not change that the USA needs to rethink how they live.

[litespeed]

Karsten

The planetary situation is just fine, and I will explain why. First, population will decline later this century. Specifically, as I posted elsewhere, the planetary population fertility rate is ALREADY approaching replacement level. More importantly, the industrial world AND China are already BELOW replacement level. [Further, I don't have any children so I am A Green Hero.]

In addition, this CO2 nonsense is just that. As I have pointed out elsewhere, plantetary CO2 is near an all time low, AND solar radiance is near an eight thousand year high. In other words, the climate is just about as good as it can get.  A little bit warmer might even be better, but I will not quibble. Anyone with any sense of history within historical times should understand this. Anyone with any sense of planetary history should understand the threat to life on earth is cold weather, not warm weather.

Further, you wrote: "It is easy for a North American to observe the climate, consider the concerns about global climate change a bunch of hog wash, and promote and continue to enjoy their excessive life-style."  First, even if it is getting warmer, that is a whole lot better then getting colder.

As for your Amused European Friends? Europe does not have a very good track record on just about anything that might improve the lot of The Unwashed Masses. Fortunately, the English Channel has, for the most part, kept European Political Emotions on the other side.  On the other hand, Britain seems increasingly contaminated by the EU.

It does not matter much. Continental Europe will be banging its collective head towards Mecca in less then two hundred years anyway.

[Karsten]

In addition, this CO2 nonsense is just that. As I have pointed out elsewhere, plantetary CO2 is near an all time low, AND solar radiance is near an eight thousand year high. In other words, the climate is just about as good as it can get.  A little bit warmer might even be better, but I will not quibble. Anyone with any sense of history within historical times should understand this. Anyone with any sense of planetary history should understand the threat to life on earth is cold weather, not warm weather.

Further, you wrote: "It is easy for a North American to observe the climate, consider the concerns about global climate change a bunch of hog wash, and promote and continue to enjoy their excessive life-style."  First, even if it is getting warmer, that is a whole lot better then getting colder.

Why does the AAAS not agree with you regarding the "CO2 nonsense"? Are you one of those individual scientists I cannot trust?

You seem to be one of those Americans who look at the climate change with little worries since the change will not effect you much either way. It has been said before, 95% of the world does not live in the USA and may have to worry about what goes on. I hope the world does not judge US-Americans solely based on the carefree image you present.

[Madidus_Scientia]

litespeed, why do you keep regurgitating the same misguided beliefs across approximately 762,000 other threads?

plantetary CO2 is near an all time low

This is a misleading statement. 'all time' is not really relevant to us considering homo sapiens have only been around 50 thousand years or so. There is evidence to suggest CO2 levels have not been this high for 2 million years.

It seems all I need to do to debate you now is quote myself from the aforementioned 762,000 other global warming threads you've participated in.

It is not only the level of CO2 that is a problem, but the rate at which it is increasing. Slow increases like those that have occured in history give life time to evolve and adapt, and ocean chemistry to buffer against ph decrease, but at the current rate this will be alot more difficult.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/03/09/2510699.htm

Dr Howard says that over time, the ocean may be able to counteract acidity by dissolving accumulated shells of dead marine organisms on the ocean floor, thus raising ocean pH and its ability to take up CO2.

But he says this will take a long time and come at the cost of living marine organisms.

"The buffering mechanisms in the ocean are quite slow compared to the rate at which we are putting fossil fuel carbon into the atmosphere and into the ocean.," he said.

http://www.coralcoe.org.au/news_stories/coralfutures.html

“When CO2 levels in the atmosphere reach about 500 parts per million, you put calcification out of business in the oceans.”

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071017102133.htm

New calculations made by marine chemists from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) suggest that low-oxygen "dead zones" in the ocean could expand significantly over the next century. These predictions are based on the fact that, as more and more carbon dioxide dissolves from the atmosphere into the ocean, marine animals will need more oxygen to survive.

the climate is just about as good as it can get.  A little bit warmer might even be better

I have already argued against this astonishingly ignorant statement here: http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=22612.msg282336#msg282336

Anyone with any sense of history within historical times should understand this. Anyone with any sense of planetary history should understand the threat to life on earth is cold weather, not warm weather.

One minute you refer to 'all time' history, then you want to try to make examples of human history. If by this statement you are reffering to your comparison of today's climate with that of roman times I have already addressed this in this post - http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=26664.msg283276#msg283276

[peppercorn]

the threat to life on earth is cold weather, not warm weather

LS, your like a stuck record! And the rest of your post, your overly dismissive attitude to other posters and, in places apparent close-to-racist attitudes seem most out of place on a science website.

You my friend are a bigot!

[litespeed]

pepper

My comment on Mecca was gratuitous, and I appologize for it.  However, Islam is not a race, it is religion. And I doubt you are a biggot even though that was unfortunately implied by your post. As for broken records. I confess. I don't take these CO2 concerns seriously for several reasons.

First, it does not matter; nothing meaningfull will be done to reduce CO2 emissions until both China and India become prosperous enough to consider alternatives. In addition, I do not believe in out-of-control global warming catastrophy for the simple reason life flourished during eras of 3,000 ppm.

Finally, [broken record again] the climate was warm during both Roman and Midieval times. The reasons are obscure, but there does seem solid evidence of a 1,500 year cycle, but we don't know why.  In any event civilization flourished during the warm eras. This seems to be related to excess food production available for non-agricultural work projects.

The most serious threat to life is the inevitable next Ice Age.

[Madidus_Scientia]

What life flourished during eras of 3000ppm?

[litespeed]

You wrote: "What life flourished during eras of 3000ppm?"

I stand corrected. The CO2 curve varies from about about 1,500 ppm during the Triasic, to about 2,500ppm in the Jurasic, to as little as 750 ppm in the Cretaceous; a span of about 250 million years. Give or take a T-Rex or two...

http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Carboniferous_climate.html

[yor_on]

I dont have a lot of time right now, as I have class in about 15 minutes, but I can provide evidence...lots of it.  Ive spent the last few years collecting resources, so this will not be nearly comprehensive.  I can also do a little better than 70 years...I can go back more than 400,000 years, and establish a very long trend.  Ill start with the landmark paper by Gerard Bond.  This particular paper doesnt equate temperature specifically, but it does relate North Atlantic ice rafted debris (IRD) events to solar activity over the past 12,000 years.  IRD events are caused by glacial calving in Greenland, Iceland, and Northern Canada during times of marked glacial growth (cooling events).  As the icebergs calve and spread into the N Atlantic, they carry LOTS of sediment within them that are dropped into the ocean when they melt.  The latitude and concentrations of these glacial sediments in the oceanic cores can tell us a lot about sea temperatures and the extent of glaciation/sea ice.

The citation for the paper is:
Bond, G., Kromer, B., Beer, J., Muscheler, R., Evans, M.N., Showers, W., Hoffmann, S.,
Lotti-Bond, R., Hajdas, I., Bonani, G., 2001. Persistent solar influence on North
Atlantic climate during the Holocene. Science 294 (5549), 2130–2136.

I encourage you to look it up and read it if you can.  If you cant find it, let me know and I will email it to you.  Bond is a very well respected geologist/climatologist and is considered among the giants in the field.  This paper alone has been cited over 700 times, and this is not even including his works helping to lay the foundations of plate tectonics during the 60's and 70's.  Anyway...enough adoration

The black lines are abundances of different IRD sediments in oceanic cores (all originating from different areas of the N Atlantic). The blue lines are 14C concentrations taken from tree rings chronologies if I remember correctly, and the red lines are 10Be concentrations from Greenland ice cores (both proxies for solar activity)


I have much more to post on shorter and longer time scales if you would like to see it in the future. 

I thought I didn't care about disputing with you 'skeptics' anymore but.
Ah well, changed my mind

Quoting a conversation in realcimate
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/11/muddying-the-peer-reviewed-literature/

Go there and look in the 'readers comment section', and please, read the rest of the comments following the quotation and see for yourself.


---------Quote-----------------
With respect to your statement that “No one calculates the surface temperature (which is well observed) using the atmospheric heat content”. I do not know how you made this bizzare interpretation of the quotes from the reports I provided to you!

[Response: Your quote stated exactly that the equation for determining T of the planet involved an equation using the rate of change of the heat content, the forcing and lambda. I do not recognise that anyone determines T in such a fashion. -gavin]

In your original post, you wrote

“Please point me to one study anywhere in the literature which has used the surface temperature record to infer changes in the heat content of the atmosphere”.

I have done that in the NRC (2005) report and the CCSP report which is in the chapter that Ben Santer authored.

[Response: Sorry, but no. I have no objection to the CCSP quote in the slightest. But it is completely un-responsive to my question since it does not address atmospheric heat content at all. And despite the NRC quote (on which you were a co-author) I still don't see anyone actually calculating H using T. Show me one such calculation. - gavin]

Now that I have answered your challenge to the question in your original post, you have changed the question to “”No one calculates the surface temperature (which is well observed) using the atmospheric heat content”. Of course, we don’t and no one has claimed this! You have mis-represented what I wrote with this later claim.

[Response: I just read what you quoted. I agree it would be a bizarre thing to do (progress!). - gavin]

The authors of the [with the"odd" quote] NRC report, besides myself, were Daniel Jacob, Roni Avissar, Gerald Bond, Stuart Gaffin, Jeff Kiehl, Judith Lean, Ulricke Lohmann, Michael Mann, V. Ramanthan and Lynn Russell. For you then to state that the “quote from the NRC report is, frankly, a little odd” simply means you disagree with it. The peer reviewed NRC report assessed the climate communities perspective on the surface temperature anomaly and what this metric means in terms of radiative forcing and climate system heat changes. Your disagreement with the statement in that report is with a wider community than just the authors of the Klotzbach et al 2009 paper.

[Response: Had I peer reviewed it, I would have questioned it. I didn't, and so there it is. I'm perfectly happy to be in disagreement with a few lines of an NRC report (these are good, but not infallible). However, there is still not a single calculation that uses this formulation that I can see. If this was so widely supported by the community, there would be an actual paper that used this equation to calculate atmospheric heat content anomalies surely? Yet there is not. - gavin]

On your statement that “Half of your paper using an incorrect expectation (based on the McKitricks’ inadvertently mistaken calculation) and the other half doesn’t address the issue at all (since no real physical process in the PBL can cause a bias in the surface temperature records)”

indicates that you still do not accurately report on (or understand) our paper. First, Ross McKitrick’s calculations were not mistaken but used a set of data from your GISS model output.

[Response: Unfortunately, it appears to be you that just doesn't understand. The subset of model output that McKitrick used (which was provided for a completely different issue) is not capable of giving the metric you want. It doesn't matter what model it came from. I did do the calculation that you wanted and let you have the full raw data to check it. The answer is very different from what you got from McKitrick. Did you find my calculation in error perhaps? If so, let me know and we can see what the issue is. In the meantime you appear to be arguing with me over what the GISS model shows for amplification of the MSU-LT trends over land. There is no argument here - McKitrick's answer is not correct (though his error was inadvertent). Your refusal to take the correction on board appears to be quite deliberate. Why? - gavin]

Moreover, to state that “half” of our paper depends on that calculation is wrong. Our results are robust even without using an amplification.

[Response: This makes no sense. What is your result then? Comparing two trends without having a reason to think about how they should be related allows you to conclude nothing. - gavin]

Second, the bias in using the surface temperature trends is in its interpretation as a metric of temperature trends above the surface. We have clearly shown (in several of our papers) that a systematic warm bias exists when the surface temperature measurements are in a stably stratified boundary layer, and the lower troposphere warms. The Klotzbach et al 2009 paper examined this issue and concluded this is a robust result.

[Response: But (and now we are apparently back to square one), no one has ever made that interpretation! If they had, there might be some point to this, but they haven't. The only paper I know that used the energy content of the atmosphere in a calculation (Levitus et al, 2001) used the energy content metric directly from a reanalysis. Perhaps you know of another example? - gavin]

As we have written before, we look forward to a formal exchange with you on this issue in the peer-reviewed literature as part of a Comment/Reply.

[Response: I tried really hard to help you guys out with this one, under the naive assumption that you would want to get it right all on your own. I didn't have to check McKitrick's calculation, let alone do the proper calculation myself and embroil myself in yet another pointless debate. You chose (are choosing) instead to persist in error despite having the right answer given to you, and the tools at your disposal to check the calculation any which way you want. Dr. Klotzbach said that you were going to put in a corrigenda and I urge you to do so and to make it substantive. - gavin]

----------End of quote-----------------------

And don't tell me it's humbug. We both know that this is one of the guys making the paper you cite.

[frethack]

I thought I didn't care about disputing with you 'skeptics' anymore but.
Ah well, changed my mind

The label "skeptics" was always very amusing to me.  I wonder when exactly skepticism became unnecessary to science.

As for what you actually meant by the label, that I do not believe that humans have an effect on the climate system, you are very far off the mark.  The radiative effect of CO2 is at least qualitatively established (though not quantitatively), so I would be academically dishonest if I did not acknowledge that humans have altered the climate system to some extent.  I have said such in many previous posts, and would become a very poor climatologist if I didnt.  It is the degree of our contribution for which I am a "skeptic", and nothing more than that.

And don't tell me it's humbug. We both know that this is one of the guys making the paper you cite.

Im not sure if you meant to post a different link and accidentally included the wrong one.  Please clarify.  The person responding in the comments section is Dr. Gavin Schmidt, who runs the realclimate.org website, and is a colleague and co-author with at least one of my climatology professors.  He is not associated with Bond et al. 2001...nor with any other Bond publication that I have ever read.  The responses happen to *mention* Dr Bond once as an author of a National Research Council report, but Dr. Schmidts responses have absolutely nothing to do with the paper that I have posted.  They do discuss McKitrick and McIntyre some...was this supposed to be in response to the thread below and accidentally posted here?

http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=26877.msg284908#msg284908

Gerard Bond has written MANY papers and reports, and his opinions were highly sought after until his death in 2005.  This should serve to lend gravity to his body of work, which puts me at a bit of a loss as to your intention for posting this reply.

[peppercorn]

I doubt you are a biggot even though that was unfortunately implied by your post.

How?

As for broken records. I confess. I don't take these CO2 concerns seriously for several reasons.

Not taking them seriously is one thing - that's dismissal or even apathy.
Repeatedly preaching the opposite is quite another!
Not being a bigot, I accept the possibility that I may be wrong to trust the body-scientific in their standpoint that:
1. The earth's eco-sphere is currently sustaining a warming trend.
2. That any rapid change is global temps is bad for life in general.
3. The vast majority of the change is caused of man's activities.

The one of these statements that lacks the 'knock-out blow' of truth is number 3.  The other two are, by scientific bodies the world over, beyond doubt.

nothing meaningful will be done to reduce CO2 emissions until both China and India become prosperous enough to consider alternatives.

Quite right.  We in the west have had our 'cake' for a long time.  Now we owe it to the rest of the world to pay them back for the damage.  India and China (& the rest) deserve the growth they are now on the verge of realising. We need to pay to ensure that they can do it cleanly; whilst cutting our growth back and concentrate on taking responsibly for our own poor & destitute. [obviously, what I've written is a massive oversimplification, but if it's a fair and sustainable world we want that's the general gist.]

...there does seem solid evidence of a 1,500 year cycle, but we don't know why.

Okay, I'll indulge you.  How many times has this 'cycle' been repeated? On provable evidence that is (after all, you would only accept the most rigorous evidence from the other side).

The most serious threat to life is the inevitable next Ice Age.

Undoubtedly another ice age will occur some indeterminate amount of time in the future.  Statistically, we are overdue for all sorts of planetary disasters - the Jellystone eruption, meteors the size of NYC, etc.  So what!  By your logic, we all should start building enormous towers now to get above the debris cloud that will be coming - Comparing this to your 'I'm going to drive around extra to combat the coming ice age'.

The difference is CC is happening now (the meteor is already in the sky -if you like) - let's at least attempt to try to slow it!

[litespeed]

pepper - You wrote: "Original question: What proportion of global warming is attributable to humans?" If the emails hacked from the Director of University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit are real, then GW for the last decade or more is directly attributable to specific individuals.

You may be better at math then I am. Perhaps you can figure out just how much of the reported GW is from these particular humans [emphasis added] they seem to have it all worked out:

-----------------------
From: Phil Jones
To: ray bradley ,mann@XXXX, mhughes@XXXX
Subject: Diagram for WMO Statement
Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1999 13:31:15 +0000
Cc: k.briffa@XXX.osborn@XXXX

Dear Ray, Mike and Malcolm,

Once Tim’s got a diagram here we’ll send that either later today or first thing tomorrow.

I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline. Mike’s series got the annual land and marine values while the other two got April-Sept for NH land N of 20N. The latter two are real for 1999, while the estimate for 1999 for NH combined is +0.44C wrt 61-90. The Global estimate for 1999 with data through Oct is +0.35C cf. 0.57 for 1998.

Thanks for the comments, Ray.
Cheers
Phil

Prof. Phil Jones
Climatic Research Unit Telephone XXXX
School of Environmental Sciences Fax XXXX
University of East Anglia
Norwich

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/hadley_hacked/

[litespeed]

pepper -  "Quote ...there does seem solid evidence of a 1,500 year cycle, but we don't know why." Okay, I'll indulge you.  How many times has this 'cycle' been repeated?from the other side)."

"Scientists got the first unequivocal evidence of a continuing moderate natural climate cycle in the 1980s, when Willi Dansgaard of Denmark and Hans Oeschger of Switzerland first saw two mile-long ice cores from Greenland representing 250,000 years of Earth's frozen, layered climate history. From their initial examination, Dansgaard and Oeschger estimated the smaller temperature cycles at 2,550 years. Subsequent research shortened the estimated length of the cycles to 1,500 years (plus or minus 500 years)."

http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=2319

[litespeed]

pepper - You wrote: "... Now we owe it to the rest of the world to pay them back for the damage."

What Damage? All industrial nations have cleaner environments now then at any time in the last many hundreds of years. [Can you imagine living in a metropolitan area where chamber pots are thrown out of upstairs windows?] Further, the climate is far more docile then it was even 200 years ago. If you get The History Channel I recommend 'The Little Ice Age: Big Chill (History Channel)' this comming Wednesday.

At any rate, my basic point is that CO2 legislation in the Industrial World is entirely pointless:

"...wind and solar ... are just one-sixth of 1 percent of American ...consumption. Nuclear? ... rich nations endorse reducing world carbon emissions 80 percent by 2050. [however] if nuclear is to supply even 10 percent ... the world must build more than 50 large ... plants a year. Currently five a year are being built."  http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/will112209.php3

Reducing CO2 from industrial societies is little more then self-flagelation and would have about the same effect as the midieval version during the Black Death. [Which, incidentally, was accomodated by above mentioned Little Ice Age.]

So. Planetary CO2 will continue to increase. Inevitable. PERIOD. The good news? It just might not matter all that much. And Get A Load Of This: we now have evidence the highest levels of climate research scientists have been [pardon the expression] cooking the books. In order to "...hide the cooling".

As 'The Church Lady' used to say. "Well. Never mind..."

[frethack]

pepper -  "Quote ...there does seem solid evidence of a 1,500 year cycle, but we don't know why." Okay, I'll indulge you.  How many times has this 'cycle' been repeated?from the other side)."

litespeed is correct.  At least the past two glaciations display Dansgaard/Oeschger (DO) events, and much of the reason we cant tell beyond that is because of resolution problems in glacial cores.  They show up in every major proxy...ocean sediment cores (around the world), glacial cores (both Antarctica and Greenland), as well as speleothem records (around the world, though the best examples are in China).  It is not yet known whether it is a true cycle, or an internal response from the climate system, but the period actually has a somewhat wide range in error at 1500 +/- 500 years.  These also agree well with ice rafted debris events reported in Bond 2001 above (Ill send you the paper if you like...just ask).  The Gleissberg (~87 yrs) and deVries/Suess (~220 yrs) solar cycles form harmonics with a periodicity that ranges at around 1500 +/- 500 years, which is also reported in the Bond paper, but a solid, compelling link between the two has not yet been established.  It is possible that centennial scale cooling events during the Holocene are expressions of the DO events from the glaciations.

As for the East Anglia emails...It would be better to judge them in the context of the conversation, which we do not know, unfortunately.  So far, the only definite wrongdoing that I can see is in circumventing FoI requests...which leads one to wonder exactly what they have to hide.  McKitrick and McIntyre have really been a thorn in their sides, but that is not a reason to circumvent the law.  (I actually think that McKitrick and McIntyre have done some pretty good work...the hockeystick fiasco...Goddard Space Institute having to change 1934 to being the warmest year on record instead of 1998)