Is There Experimental Proof of CO2 Warming?

[ThankyouMoneypenny]

Originally Posted by spot1234

Allowing this thread to drift further off topic; Bird Flu killed no people in Brittan and a handful of people worldwide. Sars killed hundreds, perhaps thousands. The influenza epidemic of the early twentieth century killed more people then WWI. The black death killed off an estimated 2/3rds of European population. You think that if a threat doesn't materialise then money spent on understanding the threat or contingency's if it does is wasted?

Pardon me but this seems a stupid argument.

The argument is with the way the threat is publicised. Do you really feel that an inflammatory statement like "50,000 people would [nb, not could, but would] die from Avian flu..." is a reasonable way for a government to behave? Of course they can spend money on research - to a point - but to cause panic and have Doctor's surgeries running out of vaccine and stretching the NHS resources even more than normal when a ten year-old could have told them the chances of catching Avian Flu in the UK was as close to nil as makes no difference is bordering on criminal.
SARS -
"The World Health Organization said the change in data from Taiwan meant the global death toll from severe acute respiratory syndrome was now officially 774. In August, the agency reported 916 deaths; it does not collect its own data and relies on figures provided by governments."
Well, there's a thing. Fancy believing the governments and then changing your figures when they don't add up?

Yes, make contingencies; yes do some research but lets get some perspective here. The total deaths from BSE, SARS an Avian Flu globally is far less than 6 months road deaths in the UK. There are some really important issues on this planet but hyping up every single potential problem is not warranted. And yes, the hype is a waste of money, whether it is Anthropogenic Global Warming or something else.

[Bored Wombat]

Originally Posted by ThankyouMoneypenny

I'm actually not interested in the long-running debate about it because the current global temperature is not behaving in the way the hockey stick describes.

The hockey stick has been very critically studied, and it's findings affirmed by the NAS.

I had not heard that it did predictions. I thought that it was a past reconstruction of temperature.

Can you point me to a scientific source that confirms this claim that current global temperature is not behaving in the way the hockey stick describes?

Much obliged.

[spot1234]

Originally Posted by ThankyouMoneypenny

"The World Health Organization said the change in data from Taiwan meant the global death toll from severe acute respiratory syndrome was now officially 774. In August, the agency reported 916 deaths; it does not collect its own data and relies on figures provided by governments."
Well, there's a thing. Fancy believing the governments and then changing your figures when they don't add up?

Well imagine that. There is a crisis and after the dust settles and the inquires are held what actually happened is slightly different to what was initially reported. I thought you said you weren't a conspiracy theorist. It seems to me that after you discovered that hot objects emit infra-red you have been relying on allegations of conspiracys .

[ThankyouMoneypenny]

Originally Posted by Bored Wombat

The hockey stick has been very critically studied, and it's findings affirmed by the NAS.

I had not heard that it did predictions. I thought that it was a past reconstruction of temperature.

Can you point me to a scientific source that confirms this claim that current global temperature is not behaving in the way the hockey stick describes?

Much obliged.

My pleasure old chap. Here are a few. I'm sure you will get all 'scientificky' on me but hear me out first. I can't remember using the word 'predict'. I know the hockey stick graph used reconstructed temperature. The graphs I show here pretty much have the same data for the relative time-scales but - and this is a big but - they portray a much less threatening message to the un-scientific public. The hockey stick implies (note) that the temperature is (was) climbing at a rapidly alarming (almost exponential?) rate and this rate is very unusual because the line had been relatively flat for several centuries.

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate...jan-jun-pg.gif



http://icecap.us/images/uploads/CO2MSU.jpg



http://images.dailytech.com/nimage/7...ge_hadcrut.jpg



Temperature and CO2 consentration in the atmosphere since 400 000 years - Climate Change



After the peak of around 1998, the global temperature has remained flat or slightly cooling for the last decade. I know this is not long enough to really class as a 'trend' but in the same period the CO2 has continued to rise. You can't eat your cake and have it. To push the hockey stick graph out onto the media and cause alarm was, in my view, irresponsible and unscientific. I do not deny that global warming has occurred (because its obvious) but to draw the correlation between that warming and CO2 (and specifically man-made CO2) was neither responsible nor necessarily accurate.

I'm pretty sure that the final graph above would not have had the same effect on the media.

[ThankyouMoneypenny]

Originally Posted by spot1234

Well imagine that. There is a crisis and after the dust settles and the inquires are held what actually happened is slightly different to what was initially reported. I thought you said you weren't a conspiracy theorist. It seems to me that after you discovered that hot objects emit infra-red you have been relying on allegations of conspiracys .

Spot, stop being a pratt. This is the second time you have accused me of being a conspiracy theorist. I have never used that term and I couldn't give a toss whether there is a conspiracy or not. I note - yet again - that you have evaded my point.

ps, the plural of 'conspiracy' is 'conspiracies'. Just in case you want to accuse anyone else...

[Bored Wombat]

Originally Posted by ThankyouMoneypenny

My pleasure old chap. Here are a few. I'm sure you will get all 'scientificky' on me but hear me out first. I can't remember using the word 'predict'.

You didn't use that word. You said current temperatures were not behaving as it describes. But it didn't describe current temperatures, it described past ones.

I was wondering if you had a scientific source that was taking about the Mann temperature reconstruction with respect to current temperatures.

Nevertheless, thanks for the graphs.
First graph: That looks like recent warming.

Second graph: Yes, 1998 was very warm because of the El Nino of that year. Correlations to the long term trend of the short term trend either starting or ending near that year are indeed low.

Third graph: This chart is wrong. The HadCrut dataset is here. The first column after the date is the estimated mean global temperature anomaly.

Notice that

2008/01 0.054 not 0.037

also notice:
2008/02 0.192
2008/03 0.445
2008/04 0.254
2008/05 0.278
2008/06 0.314

[Bored Wombat]

Originally Posted by ThankyouMoneypenny

Bored Wombat,

I would love to see how I can view those experiments.

It's been a long time since such experiments were in journals. I recommend a library for something formal

But of course there are lots of high-school level reproductions of this kind of thing, with a sun lamp or the sun and a jar of air and another jar of CO2. Such as the one described here.

Originally Posted by ThankyouMoneypenny

I believe the experiments BW is referring to merely show that CO2 absorbs radiation at certain wavelengths by differing amounts. No argument there. However, to then say that it therefore warms the environment is, I think, overstating its importance.

Well, no. Since CO2 absorbs energy in the frequencies radiated by the earth more than those radiated by the sun, they keep the heat in by not out. Ergo warming.

The natural greenhouse effect on earth is good for about 33°C of warming. If you don't believe in it:
1) How do you think the earth isn't at -17°C mean surface temperature as predicted by energy balance to the sun and space?

2) Why do you think no scientific organisation in the world of note disagrees that global warming is real and anthropogenic?

3) How do you explain that no scientific paper written in the last 15 years doubts the greenhouse effect?

[Bored Wombat]

Originally Posted by ThankyouMoneypenny

Now here's a few questions for you:
1) Why can't computer modellers put historical data into the models and come up with the actual data we have today?

They have. HadCM2 was good for a 1000 year run against last millennium, without drift.
HadCM3 was better.

The Hadley Centre's Decadal Prediction System predicted that 2008 would not be record breaking year, but that at least half of the years between 2009 and 2014 should break existing records. (Ten-year climate model unveiled, BBC August 2007)

Originally Posted by ThankyouMoneypenny

2) Why has the global temperature not risen relatively in accordance with the measured CO2 rise?

The rise is still in the post. It takes 25 to 50 years for the climate to have completed 60% of the response to and increase in greenhouse gas concentration. (see Hansen et. al. Science 2004(.pdf)) Other changes include those from aerosols, volcanic activity and changes in solar irrandiance also have an effect, and changes in ocean currents can take more or less of the heat into the ocean. In particular El Nino's produce colder surface temperatures.

[Bored Wombat]

Originally Posted by ThankyouMoneypenny

Even if you take the worst-case graphs (like the 'Hockey stick' graph in your post), the temperature change of less than 1 deg c in the last 150 years or so does not match the 40-ish% rise in CO2 in the same period.

Those are nine recent peer reviewed temperature reconstructions. Only one of them is Mann et al 1999. They are not a worst case scenario. They are a as complete as I am aware of serious scientific set of temperature reconstructions.

Originally Posted by ThankyouMoneypenny

the temperature change of less than 1 deg c in the last 150 years or so does not match the 40-ish% rise in CO2 in the same period. There are obviously factors other than CO2 at play here!

The temperature rise is not finished yet, and the warming is not linear with CO2 increase. It is approximately logarithmic, with each doubling of CO2 causing about a 3°C rise, after feedbacks.

[Bored Wombat]

Originally Posted by flogger

"The gentle reality is these pseudosciences have no research basis. At all."

Hmmm thats a bit rich coming from the pro AGW side whose whole premise is based on dodgy modelling and 'fiddled' data.

If you guys can get one scientific organisation onside or get one peer reviewed paper published, then you've started to make sound scientific arguments.

At the moment there's about a thousand papers and about forty scientific organisations that would say that global warming is based on science.

Saying it's a based on "dodgy modelling" and "fiddled data" does nothing.

Show me your scientific study using non-dodgy modelling and non-fiddled data. Where is your science?