[jeffreyH]

Let's not forget carbon trading schemes. The new capitalist currency.

[puppypower]

One thing that is not addresses is the good side of global warming. For one thing, a warmer earth will mean more water in the atmosphere and therefore more purified drinking water; rain, for the growing world populations. Warming also means longer growing seasons, which when combined with higher CO2 means more food production to feed the higher world populations. It also means new land may open, providing more space for the world's growing population. New land can also make it easier to find natural resources to feed the industry that will be needed to support a growing population.

[alancalverd]

Let's not forget carbon trading schemes. The new capitalist currency.

Wonderful stuff, which has allowed Iceland to import smokestack industries it never had before.

[DanJonesOcean]

Follow-up:

The "Skeptical Science" website has a great explanation of why CO2 lags temperature in paleoclimate data. 

"When the Earth comes out of an ice age, the warming is not initiated by CO2 but by changes in the Earth's orbit. The warming causes the oceans to release CO2. The CO2 amplifies the warming and mixes through the atmosphere, spreading warming throughout the planet. So CO2 causes warming AND rising temperature causes CO2 rise.  Overall, about 90% of the global warming occurs after the CO2 increase."

To put it another way, the fact that CO2 has lagged temperature in paleoclimate data *does not* alter the argument for human-driven climate change.  It's still true that more CO2 in the atmosphere --> more energy at Earth's surface.  There's no way around the greenhouse effect. 

Also from Skeptical Science:
"To claim that the CO2 lag disproves the warming effect of CO2 displays a lack of understanding of the processes that drive Milankovitch cycles. A review of the peer reviewed research into past periods of deglaciation tells us several things:

- Deglaciation is not initiated by CO2 but by orbital cycles
- CO2 amplifies the warming which cannot be explained by orbital cycles alone
- CO2 spreads warming throughout the planet

Overall, more than 90% of the glacial-interglacial warming occurs after the atmospheric CO2 increase"

Since I can't post links, you'll have to google the full piece yourself, unfortunately!

[Bored chemist]

One thing that is not addresses is the good side of global warming. For one thing, a warmer earth will mean more water in the atmosphere and therefore more purified drinking water; rain, for the growing world populations. Warming also means longer growing seasons, which when combined with higher CO2 means more food production to feed the higher world populations. It also means new land may open, providing more space for the world's growing population. New land can also make it easier to find natural resources to feed the industry that will be needed to support a growing population.

Or, then again, we could consider what actually hapens in the real world.
http://www.fwi.co.uk/news/thousands-of-livestock-now-feared-dead-in-floods.htm

[Tim the Plumber]

One thing that is not addresses is the good side of global warming. For one thing, a warmer earth will mean more water in the atmosphere and therefore more purified drinking water; rain, for the growing world populations. Warming also means longer growing seasons, which when combined with higher CO2 means more food production to feed the higher world populations. It also means new land may open, providing more space for the world's growing population. New land can also make it easier to find natural resources to feed the industry that will be needed to support a growing population.

Or, then again, we could consider what actually hapens in the real world.
http://www.fwi.co.uk/news/thousands-of-livestock-now-feared-dead-in-floods.htm

Are you saying that the amount of flooding there has been in the 21st century has been above the expected norm?

[alancalverd]

Or, then again, we could consider what actually hapens in the real world.
http://www.fwi.co.uk/news/thousands-of-livestock-now-feared-dead-in-floods.htm

Interesting statistic, and worth putting in context.

2000 sheep dead or missing. There are 22,000,000 sheep in the UK, and we eat about one third of them each year, so the number killed or missing in floods roughly equals the number we would eat in 2 hours.

Tough luck on individual small farmers (the sheep would have been killed anyway) but big deal? I think not.

[Bored chemist]

One thing that is not addresses is the good side of global warming. For one thing, a warmer earth will mean more water in the atmosphere and therefore more purified drinking water; rain, for the growing world populations. Warming also means longer growing seasons, which when combined with higher CO2 means more food production to feed the higher world populations. It also means new land may open, providing more space for the world's growing population. New land can also make it easier to find natural resources to feed the industry that will be needed to support a growing population.

Or, then again, we could consider what actually hapens in the real world.
http://www.fwi.co.uk/news/thousands-of-livestock-now-feared-dead-in-floods.htm

Are you saying that the amount of flooding there has been in the 21st century has been above the expected norm?

Yes, and I'm not alone in saying that.

[Bored chemist]

Or, then again, we could consider what actually hapens in the real world.
http://www.fwi.co.uk/news/thousands-of-livestock-now-feared-dead-in-floods.htm

Interesting statistic, and worth putting in context.

2000 sheep dead or missing. There are 22,000,000 sheep in the UK, and we eat about one third of them each year, so the number killed or missing in floods roughly equals the number we would eat in 2 hours.

Tough luck on individual small farmers (the sheep would have been killed anyway) but big deal? I think not.

Your point is valid to the extent that sheep are the only things affected.
That's not a very big extent.

[Tim the Plumber]

One thing that is not addresses is the good side of global warming. For one thing, a warmer earth will mean more water in the atmosphere and therefore more purified drinking water; rain, for the growing world populations. Warming also means longer growing seasons, which when combined with higher CO2 means more food production to feed the higher world populations. It also means new land may open, providing more space for the world's growing population. New land can also make it easier to find natural resources to feed the industry that will be needed to support a growing population.

Or, then again, we could consider what actually hapens in the real world.
http://www.fwi.co.uk/news/thousands-of-livestock-now-feared-dead-in-floods.htm

Are you saying that the amount of flooding there has been in the 21st century has been above the expected norm?

Yes, and I'm not alone in saying that.

I was under the impression that there had in fact been less such extreme weather events recently. Certainly around the world.

[Bored chemist]

I was under the impression that there had in fact been less such extreme weather events recently. Certainly around the world.

That's an interesting  impression.
It's not clear that you got it from the real world- where this sort of thing happens
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/aug/11/extreme-weather-common-blocking-patterns
So, perhaps you could let us know hoe you came to that  belief?

[Jolly]

So what does everyone think about this:-

"The fiddling with temperature data is the biggest science scandal ever"

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/environment/globalwarming/11395516/The-fiddling-with-temperature-data-is-the-biggest-science-scandal-ever.html

[edvinpaus]

And while we are at it, lets do some actual numbers on this claim " You must have missed something. Using nothing more than two square meters of parabolic mirrors, the gentleman in the video was able to turn a large, solid metal bolt into molten lava in just a few seconds. At that rate, you could easily produce a gallon of molten lava per hour. Sorry, but if you can power a train cross country with a couple of guys shoveling coal into a chute by hand, you could certainly power a standard home for a day with the steam produced by several gallons of molten metal."

OK I really don't think there's anything I can have missed here.
You say (twice) they are using two square metres of mirrors.
Well, that can't collect more power than falls on two square metres.
So that's two times the solar constant
which is 2 m^2 times 1.35 KW/m^2
which is 2.7 KW


And then there's your second unsupported claim there
"you could certainly power a standard home for a day with the steam produced by several gallons of molten metal"
That sounds more credible, but it's no great challenge to run the numbers.
Lets assume you are using an imperial gallon, rather than the smaller US gallon.
That's about 4.5 litres and you say "several"
Well, that's not very scientific, but lets pick a number and say 10, which I think is generous.
So that's 45 litres of "metal".
Again, I'm going to have to make an assumption or two here- firstly that the metal is steel and secondly that the heat of fusion of steel is comparable with that for iron.
So 45 litres of steel is (measured near room temp- which introduces an error- but it's in your favour) is about 350kg
And, the data from here
newbielink:http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/fusion-heat-metals-d_1266.html [nonactive]
tells me that it takes 272 KJ to melt each Kg of metal
So that's about 100,000 KJ of energy.
Sounds a lot.
Now lets also consider a 1 bar electric fire
That's 1KJ per second or about 85000 KJ per day.
But that's hardly going to heat your home.
To do that you need the sort of boiler they use for central heating.
This sort of thing
newbielink:https://www.mrcentralheating.co.uk/boilers/boilers-by-type/combi-boilers/35kw-42kw [nonactive]
And it seems tha a typical boiler draws something like 30 KW
Which is about 25 times more energy each day than is needed to melt ten buckets of steel.

So, while I have no doubt that you were "certain", it doesn't detract from the fact that you are wrong.

And what really galls me is that I'd much rather be pointing out that the climate change deniers are the ones who can't do basic maths.
Why don't you try not talking nonsense? Then they won't be able to say "but the people who believe in climate change can't do basic physics".
And I think that's going to make more difference to the debate than randomly TYPING in all CAPS.
Also, please look up the meaning of the word "literally" because this
"When you eat, your body literally uses combustion. " is just plain ignorant.

Just a point about energy needed to heat an average home. Most people on this planet don't have three to four bedroom homes, which is what anything above newbielink:https://hasslefreeboilers.com/vaillant-831-plus-31kw-combi-boiler/ [nonactive]for. Most people don't event have a newbielink:https://hasslefreeboilers.com/combi-boiler/ [nonactive] which is what's indicated below, but heat themselves by burning fossil fuels. You can't even roughly estimate how much each human per average uses energy.

[alancalverd]

As far as atmospheric CO2 is concerned, there is no difference between fossil fuel and biomass. There are plenty of authoritative estimates of global human consumption of artificial (i.e non-food) energy and it works out at about 1.5 kW per capita, nearly all from the oxidation of carbon compounds.

"Extreme weather" depends on how you measure it. A growing population with increasing expectations of security, is living in increasingly marginal land, in increasingly flimsy buildings. 100 years ago the only people who lived near the sea were professional seafarers with stone huts and wooden boats. Nowadays the coast is littered with pensioners in highrise flats and weekenders with plastic yachts, so an onshore Force 8 which used to mean a couple of days' lost work now means massive devastation and injury. Flood plains and water meadows are now concrete housing estates, so a few wet cows  have been replaced by an economic disaster.  Most of Australia and California caught fire from time to time, and the natives made the most of fleeing animals and new growth on the ashes, but modern farming methods (and farmers' bankers) are much less tolerant of nature.

It is interesting to compare the GISS "annual correction" graph with the reported "corrected global mean temperature". They are identical. The real mystery is why any correction needs to be made at all, or why anyone uses individual station data: since 1970 we have had complete satellite data on the entire surface, and there is no useful data before that time that relates to global mean surface temperature except by guesswork. 

The credibility of station data is itself dubious: there was almost no interest in land surface temperature before 1910 (and very little interest in sea surface temperature ever). Accurate land data was required for aviation and the quantity and quality of measurements peaked in the 1950s. However the high quality data necessarily came from areas of high population density (civil airports) or military significance.  The number of stations has decreased since the 1950s and most of the permanent  stations have changed from grass fields to concrete runways and buildings, with quite different diurnal and annual temperature characteristics.

Tree ring data is interesting but far too convoluted by rainfall, sunshine, other trees, and CO2 level, to provide unequivocal temperature records of the required precision.

The best historic data we have is from ice cores and fossil records. These show enormous and very rapid pre-human fluctuations in temperature, always followed by a corresponding change in CO2 level.   

[puppypower]

Manmade global warming and climate change has no precedent in terms of earth history. If we work under the assumption this is real, it is still a very unique occurrence, sort of like an experiment that is in progress, but which has never been done before. The drama has not even completed one cycle to know for sure how it will end.

Natural warming/cooling and climate change, on the other hand, has a lot of historical precedent. This is analogous to having data from hundreds of complete experiments. What I don't get is why natural explanations, with more data and precedent is given less credibility, than the one singular experiment, in progress, that has no precedent? Doesn't this violate science protocol?

As an analogy, say I claim to have a gasoline engine that can get 200 MPG. Based on this claim, a lab begins testing. In the next room, and we have another engine that claims to gets 80 mpg. This engine has been successfully tested for hundreds of days, having  gone thorough many compete test cycles. Those in charge of funding, decide to pick the former, and crucify anyone who brings up the latter. Something about this is not normal science protocol. Would the Food and Drug administration fast track a medicine without precedent and then bury another which has been successfully tested for years? The answer is yes if politics and kickbacks are involved.

This is not how science is supposed to work. It smell like a political ploy. In the engine or drug experiments, I would get the impression someone wants the 200 MPG engine or the newer drug to work so badly, they are willing to throw away the bird in the hand.

In terms of a hypothetical example, the current events would be like the warming from the last ice age, being blamed on sparks made during fabrication of stone tools. These sparks are hot and can even start fires. If we could then brow betas anyone who claims the warming is based on natural causes, a denier or worse, the masses might funneled into returning to wood tools. But even if the spark claim was correct, there is still no precedent for a second point on the graph. This is totally new to the earth. One point allows us to draw any curve you want. This allows magic tricks, by politicians, such as the doom and gloom predictions that never pan out, but nevertheless move the herd. That is the problem with no precedent and less that one full experiment.

One thing about CO2 that bothers me is, if CO2 can prevent heat from escaping into space, can't the same CO2 also prevent heat from the sun from entering the earth? CO2 is not a one way thermal blanket, anymore than are clouds. Clouds can cool the surface during the day and keep in heat at night. The result of two way CO2 insulation, would be the earth warming at a slower rate than computer models that assume a one way street. This claim has to do with historical precedent like clouds; 2 way, versus a work in progress; 1 way thermal blanket.

[Bored chemist]

So what does everyone think about this:-

"The fiddling with temperature data is the biggest science scandal ever"

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/environment/globalwarming/11395516/The-fiddling-with-temperature-data-is-the-biggest-science-scandal-ever.html

I think it is one dissenting voice compared to a consensus of  thousands of scientists.
He doesn't seem to have got close to proving his assertion.

[Bored chemist]

As far as atmospheric CO2 is concerned, there is no difference between fossil fuel and biomass.

"Extreme weather" depends on how you measure it. A growing population with increasing expectations of security, is living in increasingly marginal land, in increasingly flimsy buildings. 100 years ago the only people who lived near the sea were professional seafarers with stone huts and wooden boats. Nowadays the coast is littered with pensioners in highrise flats and weekenders with plastic yachts, so an onshore Force 8 which used to mean a couple of days' lost work now means massive devastation and injury. Flood plains and water meadows are now concrete housing estates, so a few wet cows  have been replaced by an economic disaster.  Most of Australia and California caught fire from time to time, and the natives made the most of fleeing animals and new growth on the ashes, but modern farming methods (and farmers' bankers) are much less tolerant of nature.
Tree ring data is interesting but far too convoluted by rainfall, sunshine, other trees, and CO2 level, to provide unequivocal temperature records of the required precision.

"As far as atmospheric CO2 is concerned, there is no difference between fossil fuel and biomass. "
Yes there is- rather clearly.
Biomass burning is - on a reasonable timescale- carbon neutral in a way that fossil fuel can't hope to be.

"Tree ring data is interesting but far too convoluted by rainfall, sunshine, other trees, and CO2 level, to provide unequivocal temperature records of the required precision."
That rather depends on what you do with the tree rings.
I guess you mean measuring how wide they are.
If you measure C12/C13 and O16 O18 isotope ratios then you have a pretty good measure of temperatures.
Of course, you might not agree with that but in that case you can't use the ice cores so...

Did you notice that almost all of this ""Extreme weather" depends on how you measure it. A growing population with increasing expectations of security, is living in increasingly marginal land, in increasingly flimsy buildings. 100 years ago the only people who lived near the sea were professional seafarers with stone huts and wooden boats. Nowadays the coast is littered with pensioners in highrise flats and weekenders with plastic yachts, so an onshore Force 8 which used to mean a couple of days' lost work now means massive devastation and injury. Flood plains and water meadows are now concrete housing estates, so a few wet cows  have been replaced by an economic disaster.  Most of Australia and California caught fire from time to time, and the natives made the most of fleeing animals and new growth on the ashes, but modern farming methods (and farmers' bankers) are much less tolerant of nature."

wasn't actually about weather.

If you actually look at records of temperature and rainfall- i.e. weather, we are in fact getting a larger number of extreme events.

[jeffreyH]

We are in the unfortunate position that the earth is in an upward phase of a repeating cycle at just the same time that we are making a positive contribution to that trend. So that rather than us reaching extinction in thousands of years time we are merrily hastening the event.

[alancalverd]

Did you notice that almost all of this ........
wasn't actually about weather.

No, it was about wind, rain and forest fires. Weather must be about something else. Silly me.

[puppypower]

Putting aside cause and affect, it is interesting that progressives tends to accept the premises of manmade warming and climate change, while conservative tend to be more open to the possibility of natural causes for warming and climate change.

This difference is grounded in how each side views the world. Conservatives tend to honor the best of the past, and therefore are more open to the idea of history repeating itself. Progressives like to stay at the cutting edge of change, with such changes manmade and more of an extrapolation of natural. It looks at the past, through the prism of the present; revisionist history. For example, in USA, the progressives still think slavery is going on in America. They don't check the past, so they can realize this has been illegal for 150 years. They apply a political bias to alter the past to meet their needs of their present; shakedown.

The point is, the vast majority of the people, who discuss and have an opinion on climate science, are not climate experts. They depend on others to tell then what to think. If you combine, with political orientations, the dividing line is predicable, since each side will have an affinity for particular arguments.

Based on the protests that are gong on in America, those on the left appear far more unhinged than the right leaning counterparts, when President Obama won. From this one can infer, the left is easier to influence, using added stresses. Instead of stand back and review the past to see how we got here, it is more thinking in terms of now, acting out or seeking a safe place. 

Let me go back to CO2. Greenhouse gases should be able to block heat in two directions, since the insulation affect is IR dependent, which is the same in both directions. The sun is the main source of heat for the earth, therefore more CO2 in the atmosphere will reduce the solar input, while also causing the heat that reaches the surface, to be retained longer.

The earth, as far as I know, has never gone into a runaway heating loop, as greenhouse gases cause hotter global temperatures, that heat the oceans causing soluble ocean CO2, to appear in the atmosphere, causing even more heating until all the CO2 is the atmosphere and earth becomes a pressure cooker. This suggests maybe the two way greenhouse blanket is more complicated than expected and may not be linear. I am honoring history, to infer the present, and not trying to revise the past to justify the present.


If you look at earth temperature curves, before there was any fossil fuel, the earth was not at its warmest, even though all the CO2 was in play and not fixed as fossil fuel. The correlation between CO2, and heating may not be linear, but sort of sinusoidal. However, if you look at a small section of a sine wave, it can appear linear.