Ward's look at cause of global warming

[treekiller]

The CO2 argument is bogus because (1) Temperature have risen in advance of CO2 increases. Al Gore got caught reversing these figures. (2) The temperature effect of atmospheric CO2 is logarithmic --that means there is a diminishing response as you keep adding more. A huge amount of CO2 would have to be pumped into the atmosphere to produce any appreciable increase in temperatures on Earth. (3) Of the CO2 emitted to the Atmosphere each year, humans contribute only 3.4%. (4) CO2 does not have a blanket effect as depicted in the media. Heat is still released to space from CO2 although at different wavelengths than it's absorption. (5) Water in the atmosphere keeps 9X the amount of heat from escaping to space as CO2 does. (6) The anthropogenic global warming climate models predict temperature increases in the upper troposphere from the CO2 increases. This increase in temperatures has not been observed as predicted. Instead the lower troposphere has been warming just as it has been since (before the industrial revolution) the end of the Little ice age.

[Bored Wombat]

Hi Treekiller. It seems as though you've selected a nom-de-plume that says: "I'm a troll". Nevertheless, I shall once take the bait, and beg to differ with your post on almost all points:

Originally Posted by treekiller

The CO2 argument is bogus because (1) Temperature have risen in advance of CO2 increases.

No they don't. At the end of ice ages the temperature leads by about 800 years over a 5000 year warming. So up to 84% of the warming could be due to CO2.

Originally Posted by treekiller

Al Gore got caught reversing these figures.

That sounds like utter rubbish. Do you have a citation for this?

Originally Posted by treekiller

(2) The temperature effect of atmospheric CO2 is logarithmic

Good to see that you accept that there is a temperature effect of atmospheric CO2. Your point 1 above is contradicted by this. (And reality).
Yes, you're right. People tend to quote climate sensitivity in terms of a doubling of CO2. It's not exactly logarithmic, but it's closer to that than linear.

Originally Posted by treekiller

--that means there is a diminishing response as you keep adding more.

Yes, that's what it means.

Originally Posted by treekiller

A huge amount of CO2 would have to be pumped into the atmosphere to produce any appreciable increase in temperatures on Earth.

No, that's rubbish.
The amount of CO2 already pumped into the atmosphere has increased temperatures appreciably. The range of flora and fauna has moved measurably, springtime events have moved measurably, climatic systems have been measurably disturbed, and the summer sea ice extent is measurably reduced.
There is very little doubt indeed that most of the warming over the last 50 years is because of the increased greenhouse effect.

Originally Posted by treekiller

(3) Of the CO2 emitted to the Atmosphere each year, humans contribute only 3.4%.

And yet this 3.4% is not re-absorbed, leaving an continuously increasing CO2 concentration:

Originally Posted by treekiller

(4) CO2 does not have a blanket effect as depicted in the media. Heat is still released to space from CO2 although at different wavelengths than it's absorption.

It is, nevertheless a greenhouse gas. Increasing it's concentration will increase the surface temperature, overall.

Originally Posted by treekiller

(5) Water in the atmosphere keeps 9X the amount of heat from escaping to space as CO2 does.

This is one of the positive feedback systems that makes living with increased CO2 dangerous and difficult to predict. As increased CO2 concentrations increase the temperature in the long term (about 100 years), this increased temperature also increased the concentration of H2O, which is a greenhouse gas with a short term residence in the atmosphere (about 2 weeks). This means that the effect of the CO2 increase is magnified by H2O.
Another effect that will probably magnify the effect is the one you note in point 1 above. At some point the increase in temperature will probably cause a large natural dump of CO2 into the atmosphere, probably from the oceans, which at the moment are the only CO2 sink that the world has.

Originally Posted by treekiller

(6) The anthropogenic global warming climate models predict temperature increases in the upper troposphere from the CO2 increases. This increase in temperatures has not been observed as predicted.

That comment is premature. There has been a rapid advancement of late in inferring temperature at different atmospheric heights, but different groups are still producing quite different results.
Even if, at some future date the worldwide upper tropospheric temperature can me more accurately established, it could easily be an inaccuracy in the modelling that has caused the discrepancy - possibly due to the effect of increased clouds due to increased atmospheric CO2. Cloud cover has been difficult for one of the world's leading climate models HadCM3 to predict in the tropics because one of it's problematic outputs has been inaccurate wind speed predictions in the tropics ... which effects evaporation rates.[/quote]

Originally Posted by treekiller

Instead the lower troposphere has been warming just as it has been since (before the industrial revolution) the end of the Little ice age.

The little ice age was thought to be a global phenomenon in the 1990 IPCC report, but even then the report included caveats that this had not been established.
By the time the 1995 report came out, and separate temperature reconstructions existed for each hemisphere, the Little Ice Age was shown to exist in quite different centuries at different places. Modern Temperature reconstructions for the globe show it, but it is certainly not as significant as the recent warming:

And the little ice age does not explain the warming of the last 50 years, a time of declining solar activity.
The anthropogenic greenhouse effect does.
(Images are hyperlinks to their source.)

[Bored Wombat]

Originally Posted by wardengineering

Systems of force
The only relevance is the continuing idea that CO2 is the cause of global warming.

Then you'll be pleased to note that we are now very confident that the Greenhouse effect is causing most of the warming.

Originally Posted by wardengineering

My position has always been global warming and global cooling is the Earth’s reaction to planetary forces. The tightening or loosening of the crust, volcanoes, weather and earthquakes are symptoms of those forces.

Then your position is wrong.

Originally Posted by wardengineering

I have explained the process in earlier essays.

Great.

Originally Posted by wardengineering

Perhaps another metaphor can describe the four systems of force.

Oh God, Please no.
You're unclear and rambling at the best of times - throw in a metaphor that you keep stepping in and out of, and the clouding of the issue will be nearly complete.
Why don't you use the actual situation and try to clearly describe that without a metaphor?
Curtain rods, my arse.

Originally Posted by wardengineering

The units of force are relative based on Newton’s law of gravitational attraction and deals only with x,y,z distances tied to density.

Then if my calculations are right, yours appear to be out by 15 orders of magnitude.

The Jupiter-Earth system is never less than 400. In fact, the greatest distance between Jupiter and Earth is 968.1 million kilometres. Their masses are about 1,898.6 * 10^24 and 5.9736 * 10^24 kg respectively.

Plugging into GMm/(r^2) gives a minimum attraction of about 8*10^17.

(http://www.google.com/search?&q=%28G...6+km%29%5E2%29)

[treekiller]

Wombat, I'm glad you like my nom-de-plume, but I've been spoken for. Anyway, I came across this chart of ice core data for the last 440,000 years. Maybe you can spin it for me. It show the temperature increasing in advance of the CO2 concentration increases. I also see CO2 concentrations increasing for --Oh-- the last 18,000 years. Is the 18,000 year increase in CO2 concentrations anthropogenic????? Yes, I know, the chart shows an accelerated CO2 increase in the last 150 years......but look at the chart.....temperature increase does not follow.






Wombat wrote

That comment is premature. There has been a rapid advancement of late in inferring temperature at different atmospheric heights, but different groups are still producing quite different results.

Oh ya, Quite different results, but we should accept the models anyway.

Wombat wrote

Then you'll be pleased to note that we are now very confident that the Greenhouse effect is causing most of the warming.

How can you be confident with different results to the climate models.


Wombat wrote

The little ice age was thought to be a global phenomenon in the 1990 IPCC report, but even then the report included caveats that this had not been established.
By the time the 1995 report came out, and separate temperature reconstructions existed for each hemisphere, the Little Ice Age was shown to exist in quite different centuries at different places. Modern Temperature reconstructions for the globe show it, but it is certainly not as significant as the recent warming:

Excuse me, but 300 years of very cold temperatures, famine, economic collapse, cultural and social strife, restrictions of emigration and ontold deaths is significant. Hell, it even wiped out their wineries!

[Bored Wombat]

Originally Posted by treekiller

It show the temperature increasing in advance of the CO2 concentration increases.

I humbly suggest that you're seeing things.

There is a rapid increase in temperature and CO2 from about 333,000 to 324,000 years ago, from about 242,000 to about 239,000 years ago and about 135,000 to about 129,000 years ago. On the scale that you've plotted they move together. Ice cores show that there is often about and 800 year lag, but this is less than 1/10th of one division of your x-axis and it is not really visible.

Your chart does show how tightly CO2 and temperature are coupled on this scale and it also shows that the natural warming phases are very rapid swings to a new climate, over a few thousand years whereas cooling phases are slow non monotonic declines lasting about 100,000 years.

The reason that warming is rapid is because a warmer ocean releases CO2, which as we know is a greenhouse gas, so this warms the ocean more, releasing more CO2, and the system goes into runaway warming.

The periodicity of these events at every 100,000 years or so is (confidently) thought to be set off by a combination of the earth's orbit, precession and solar sunspot cycles called Milankovitch cycles. So you are correct to note that they are not set off by the greenhouse effect.

The greenhouse effect does dominate the behaviour of the warming in these dramatic temperature swings of several degrees over only a 6 or 7 millennia at the rapid pace of about 0.01 degrees per decade.

Originally Posted by treekiller

I also see CO2 concentrations increasing for --Oh-- the last 18,000 years. Is the 18,000 year increase in CO2 concentrations anthropogenic?????

No it's periodic like the end of the previous three ice ages that your plot shows. There's nothing unusual about that warming.

Originally Posted by treekiller

Yes, I know, the chart shows an accelerated CO2 increase in the last 150 years......but look at the chart.....temperature increase does not follow.

Again, this is because the scale on your chart is too large. Current warming is about 0.2 degrees per decade, 20 times as fast as the rapid warmings that end the ice ages. However, it's only been happening for less than 100 years, which is 1/100th of one division of your x-axis.
But you are also correct in noting that in this case, unlike the end of the ice ages the CO2 concentration has moved slightly before the temperature. In fact the oceans are not yet a source of CO2, although their capacity to act as a sink has already been shown to be decreasing.

Originally Posted by treekiller

Wombat wrote

Oh ya, Quite different results, but we should accept the models anyway.

Temperature measurements are not made by models. They are made by radiosonde and by satellite. Satellite data is more complete in its coverage, but it is still a developing science how to interpret the measurements, made worse by a lack of continuity in the data as new technologies replace older ones.

Originally Posted by treekiller

Wombat wrote

How can you be confident with different results to the climate models.

The models don't differ on this point. Some say all or slightly more than all the warming of the last 50 years is anthropogenic, some say as little as 50 to 60%. No peer reviewed papers in the last 15 years have reached the conclusion that most of the warming of the last 50 years is natural. This is the basis of the IPCC claim from the 2001 assessment report that "In the light of new evidence and taking into account the remaining uncertainties, most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations." (source)

So you can see how extremely conservative the IPCC assessment reports are. This is due to the input by political delegations, and heavy fossil fuel producers and consumers are powerful and vociferous. Notably USA, China, Saudi Arabia, and historically Kuwait have forced a softening of the language used.

Originally Posted by treekiller

Wombat wrote

Excuse me, but 300 years of very cold temperatures, famine, economic collapse, cultural and social strife, restrictions of emigration and ontold deaths is significant. Hell, it even wiped out their wineries!

It's not significant in terms of mean global surface temperature. I'm sure a dearth of wine is socially significant, but the little ice age simply wasn't that cold overall. It was regionally cold, but warm in other places. As might be caused by changing sea currents.

[wardengineering]

Probable earthquakes on February 4, 2008

Venus will pass Jupiter about February 1, 1948. The Moon will pass beyond the two planets on the 4th. History has shown three earthquakes with this configuration.
M6.5 December 4, 1948 at Desert hot springs, Ca.
M6 December 29, 1948 at Verdi, Nevada
M4.5 December 31, 1948 at Hollister, Ca.

[Bored Wombat]

Originally Posted by wardengineering

Probable earthquakes on February 4, 2008

Venus will pass Jupiter about February 1, 1948. The Moon will pass beyond the two planets on the 4th. History has shown three earthquakes with this configuration.
M6.5 December 4, 1948 at Desert hot springs, Ca.
M6 December 29, 1948 at Verdi, Nevada
M4.5 December 31, 1948 at Hollister, Ca.

M 4.5?

Ward, at the time of writing over the last week there average just over 2.5 earthquakes per day with a magnitude over 5.

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/...quakes_big.php

Claiming there will be one over 4.5 on Feb 4 is meaningless. There should be several, independent of the movement of celestial bodies 60 years ago.

[wardengineering]

sorry , my error. My info is for California not the world.

[Bored Wombat]

Originally Posted by wardengineering

sorry , my error. My info is for California not the world.

Can you tell where in California, or how deep?
Or how big a quake?

[wardengineering]

Not without the history of the events over long periods of time. It has only been in recent times that depth has been reported. Energy buildup along some faults may takes hundreds of years for the riight solar configuration to occur for the release of the energy. The information in California on physical observation dates only to 1800. It wasn't until instruments were invented to gage the magnitde of energy release that its scale became available.
Venus and Jupiter come together, on average, about every 7.78 months. The staggered meeting works its way around the Sun so that their arrival always falls on different dates. When they do, their respective cones of force are superimposed on each other. The declination of each orbit also makes their meeting have varying magnitude applications of their force. The Moon rhythm and declination also applies varying magnitude applications of its cone of force. At the right timing their collective meeting gives the Earth a jolt which can trigger events. Therefore, specific dates of events for comparison over long reaches of time must be available.