Thoughts on global warming, and cooling, from JoSH:
From the perspective of the Holocene as a whole, our current hockeystick is beginning to look pretty dinky. By far the possibility I would worry about, if I were the worrying sort, would be the return to an ice age — since interglacials, over the past half million years or so, have tended to last only 10,000 years or so. And Ice ages are not conducive to agriculture.
What’s the environmental impact of the Great Lakes region being under a mile of ice?
Actually, there this much in the recent geological record.
Lake Superior was much higher levels within the last ~10,000 years (give or take) as shown by the water eroded cliffs that surround the current lake.
Lake Michigan was at much lower levels, with a number of now submerged islands. And there are hints of a submerged Grand Traverse Bay “Stonehenge” perhaps built by the ancient Clovis people. Controversy remains, of course.
And then there was the Black Sea flood when the Med Sea broke through the Dardanelles apparently flooding rich farmland all around the Black Sea and perhaps inspiring stories of Noah and his Ark.
Human civilization arose during the last ~8,000 years during a rare period of climatic stability. Therefore, we are well served by coming to understand these processes and to acquire the technologies needed to regulate our climate.
The ability to increase or decrease atmospheric CO2 levels by conscious choice would seem to be one of the necessary tools. And that requires the ability to wean ourselves from fossil fuels while maintaining an industrial civilization.
Given the current economy of most of the Great Lakes states, a mile of ice might represent an improvement. ;^)
“What’s the environmental impact of the Great Lakes region being under a mile of ice?”
Business as usual. 😉
Seriously though, before I left MI, I spent several years adjusting property claims, including boat damage. there were a rising number of boats “bottoming out” or hitting the lake floor because they went in too shallow, this was a result of Dropping lake levels, not rising. If the polar caps were melting and ocean levels were rising, there’d be overflow in the great lakes and the levels would be rising, not falling at record rates. I knew the Global Warming data was fudged before the hackers proved it.
If AGW doesn’t get us, plate tectonics will.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-media/product-gallery/0425049914/ref=cm_ciu_pdp_images_1?ie=UTF8&index=1
(Note: the book was written in 1977.)
If the polar caps were melting and ocean levels were rising, there’d be overflow in the great lakes and the levels would be rising, not falling at record rates.
Really? How does that work?
Really? How does that work?
Rising oceans cause the Great Lakes to rise by sympathetic magic!
Much of the water level drop in the Great Lakes can be explained by post-glacial rebound of the land that was compressed under the weight of a mile-deep layer of ice during the last ice age. As the land rises, the water drains out.
“…can be explained by…”
Not saying you’re wrong, but I really hate that phrase. There is way too much speculative “science” in our lives, whereby if someone can come up with a merely plausible explanation for a phenomenon, it is treated as if it were truth. “Might be explained by” would be a much better phrase.
A professor once handed out a sheet to his students explaining how to read the literature. Some of the choicest translations I can recall were:
It is believed that… = I think
It is generally believed that… = A couple of other guys think so, too
The data clearly show… = These data are practically meaningless
While much study remains to be done… = I don’t understand it
This could also explain why Lake Michigan appears to be deeper; being farther south than Superior and thus (presumably) less compressed, at least some of the water being lost from Superior is collecting in Michigan. I wonder if at some point as Superior’s lakebed continues to rise, Michigan will overflow into, say, the Chicago River and start emptying into the Mississippi basin?
“The ability to increase or decrease atmospheric CO2 levels by conscious choice would seem to be one of the necessary tools.”
Where did you get the idea that we have the capability to increase or decrease the atmospheric CO2 levels? The pitifully small amounts we emit in a year are dwarfed by what Mother Nature puts out (and absorbes).
Most of the increase we’ve seen over the last few decades is most likely due to outgassing of the oceans due to Sun and PDO induced ocean warming.
Of course, it would be easy to add a few, in light of recent experience, e.g.,
“The science is settled” = I want to close down debate regardless of the science
Jim Breeding: Indeed. As I have written elsewhere:
Bill White Says:
December 8th, 2009 at 8:59 am
“Human civilization arose during the last ~8,000 years during a rare period of climatic stability. Therefore, we are well served by coming to understand these processes and to acquire the technologies needed to regulate our climate.
The ability to increase or decrease atmospheric CO2 levels by conscious choice would seem to be one of the necessary tools. And that requires the ability to wean ourselves from fossil fuels while maintaining an industrial civilization.”
Hilarious, Bill. We’ve had an alleged rise in CO2 of about 30% and we’re desperately trying to torture the data with statistical techniques to find out the magnitude of the temperature rise, if any, that this has caused.
Now go back to the article and tell us what caused all those other temperature changes when people weren’t putting out all this CO2.
This is a water planet, Bill. H2O in vapor form is a ubiquitous greenhouse gas. CO2 is a bit player whose effect is easily overwhelmed by that of CO2. See Lindzen and Choi 2009.
Where did you get the idea that we have the capability to increase or decrease the atmospheric CO2 levels? The pitifully small amounts we emit in a year are dwarfed by what Mother Nature puts out (and absorbes).
While the total amount of CO2 cycling through the atmosphere each year, as biomass is created in spring and summer and decays away in fall and winter (and the even greater amount transiting between the ocean and the air just above the ocean surface), is much greater than annual CO2 input from fossil fuel combustion, human activities do dominate annual net additions of CO2 the atmosphere.
Not even the oil companies dispute this, since (1) we can accurately measure the CO2 content of the atmosphere, and the annual change, and (2) we can accurately estimate the CO2 being given off by fossil fuel combustion (since we can accurately estimate how much of each kind of fossil fuel is being burned, and also because we can now directly measure the change in atmospheric oxygen concentration). Without fossil fuel combustion, all the other flows would cause a large average net annual reduction in atmospheric CO2 levels. This effect is large; a substantial fraction of the amount of CO2 being released by fossil fuel combustion is being absorbed somewhere.
No, Paul. They DO NOT. The IPCC itself acknowledges that natural processes release 220 Gton of CO2 into the atmosphere every year, versus 8 Gton from anthropogenic sources.
There is no “net”. This is a DYNAMIC system. The sinks do not discriminate between anthropogenic CO2 and natural CO2. See my comment at December 8th, 2009 at 12:09 pm above.
Oh, if only randomly bolding words actually meant something.
Now, what are your talking points on water vapor or methane?
No, Paul. They DO NOT. The IPCC itself acknowledges that natural processes release 220 Gton of CO2 into the atmosphere every year, versus 8 Gton from anthropogenic sources.
The total change in atmospheric CO2 each year is about 15 Gton. The 220 Gton figure you give is one part of a natural flux that also includes a very large amount of absorption.
Your figure of 220 Gton likely refers to the annual flow of carbon into and out of biomass. This flow is almost entirely in balance, perhaps with absorption exceeding emission as forests regenerate in North America.
Of course it is in balance!!!! That is what feedback systems do: they balance things. If you want to shift that balance, you have to significantly counter the forces which establish the balance.
You didn’t read the comment at 12:09, did you?
I can’t hang around here all day. Let me reiterate that point several times:
If you want to shift that balance, you have to significantly counter the forces which establish the balance.
If you want to shift that balance, you have to significantly counter the forces which establish the balance.
If you want to shift that balance, you have to significantly counter the forces which establish the balance.
If you want to shift that balance, you have to significantly counter the forces which establish the balance.
If you want to shift that balance, you have to significantly counter the forces which establish the balance.
If you want to shift that balance, you have to significantly counter the forces which establish the balance.
If you want to shift that balance, you have to significantly counter the forces which establish the balance.
Did it go in yet? I’ll check back later and see.
Bill,
if we all agree to get rid of fossil fuels, can we build a wind farm, or solar catcher of “X” variety in your backyard? Or where the local park is now? Can a 300′ wind tower roost in your yard so you and 699 of your neighbors use THAT power source first, before relying on the evil, fossil fueled grid? R U driving a Prius yet? Got even a solar hot water system on the White’s House?
Or should it All be elsewhere? Out of YOUR sight?
I ask, because usually most anti-fossil fuel folk are also the most vehement NIMBY folk. You can’t fool me on that one dude, I lived in SOCAL for a while. Every “angelino’ I met was all for solar farms, and wind power, if it were ALL built in NEVADA. Only Ed Begley and Bill Nye put their money where their solar collectors were. On their OWN property.
Speak up Sir, we’re all listening.
I like thorium fuel cycle nuclear power (thorium reactors eat nuclear waste and allow the recovery of palladium metal).
I also favor increased natural gas production including deployment of high efficiency fuel cell technologies that turn more of the gas into power rather than waste heat.
Petroleum? Too much of it is under lands rules by dictators or religious fanatics.
Coal burning is what I most oppose. Not merely CO2 but all sorts of other nasty stuff, such as mercury and radon gas and soot.
China’s skies are brown because of coal burning. I want blue skies.
Of course it is in balance!!!! That is what feedback systems do: they balance things. If you want to shift that balance, you have to significantly counter the forces which establish the balance.
You didn’t read the comment at 12:09, did you?
I did. It appears to vacuous analogical handwaving.
Perhaps you could state more precisely what you think is happening with atmospheric CO2 levels, and why anthropogenic emissions are not causing the observed increase?
McGehee – Lake Michigan is flowing into the Mississippi now, via the Chicago Ship and Sanitary Canal. IIRC correctly, to make this happen naturally would require a huge increase in lake levels – like 60 to 100 feet. Also, Huron is on the same level, so you’d need to increase its level.
Bart – your comment at 12:09 is rather pointless. Your comment at 1:06 PM is debatable. We don’t know if the balance is inherently stable or unstable. For all we know, moving off the balance point kicks off a cascade effect that rebalances at a different temperature point. Think of balancing a coin on its edge – you can do it, but the slightest vibration causes it to fall (in that case) to a different balance point – flat on a side.
We don’t know that a cascade can happen either way. There’s some (not conclusive) evidence that it can happen, and waiting until we see the cascade is like waiting until you see the avalanche to move out of the way.
Der Schtumpy – I for one am in favor of nuclear plants. Won’t fit in my backyard- it’s really small 😉 – but if you can find vacant land in the Chicago area, go for it. Actually, what I’d like to see considered are some different designs. For example, the CANDU reactors (developed and running in Canada and elsewhere) could use radioactive waste from existing plants as fuel. Kill two birds with one stone.
“It appears to vacuous analogical handwaving.”
Let me rephrase what I said, then. You didn’t understand the comment at 12:09, did you?
Look, balance in nature does not happen by luck. It is achieved because opposing forces confront, and cannot overcome, one another. For CO2, you have on one side the sinks. On the other side are the sources. They balance because, if the sources push harder, the sinks will push back equally hard. When you add 3.6% to the side of the sources, the sources side pushes harder. The sinks side is not able incrementally to push back as hard, so it retreats a little to establish a new equilibrium position about – who’da thunk it? – 3.6% closer to the sink side.
What is happening with atmospheric CO2 levels? They are going up. As they have gone up, and down, many times in history. Anthropogenic contributions to that rise should be on the order of about 3.6%, or about 11 ppm, i.e., negligible.
It is possible that minor positive feedbacks stimulated by the anthropogenic release could reinforce that rise, perhaps doubling or tripling its effective input. Such might be the case if, for example, rising CO2 increased temperature, leading to greater release of CO2 from the oceans.
But, to account for the entire 100 ppm or so increase of the last 50 years, every unit of anthropogenic CO2 would have to stimulate production of up to 10 times, perhaps more, as many units of natural CO2. We’re talking the CO2 analog of a LASER here. I find the likelihood of that supposition dubious at best.
Chris, don’t try to discuss dynamics with me. It is painfully clear that you are out of your element.
Bart – I don’t know your background in climatology, but when you say They balance because, if the sources push harder, the sinks will push back equally hard that’s an assertion, not a fact. Specifically, the sinks may be only able to hold so much. They are, after all, chemical reactions, and when all the chemical that can react has, the reaction is over. More source just accumulates.
The second issue is “how fast?” Let’s say that all the “excess” CO2 is absorbed in 1,000 years – fast by geological timescales. While the CO2 is being absorbed, what’s happening to the climate? 1,000 years is a long time for humans.
So a butterfly exhaling a little CO2 over Hong Kong could cause global warming over New York. Therefore all butterflies flying over Hong Kong should be shot so as to avoid kicking of a climate cascade event! Got to love climatology.
Bart – my familiarity with dynamics is in ship bouyancy. Please trust me when I tell you I’ve seen unstable and stable dynamic situations. For an example of the later, see S.S. Eastland disaster. For those not clicking through, an apparently stable ship was slightly overloaded and promptly rolled over.
An apparently stable and balanced situation, due to a slight change, rapidly changed to a different equilibrum state. During the change, several hundred people died.
Chris, that is a stupid argument. It is not supported by the historical record. And, it is not in any of the IPCC scenarios. I’m not going to discuss it any more.
To everyone else: when I said “perhaps doubling or tripling its effective input”, I am not saying I believe there is any such level of stimulated emission. I am simply trying to highlight that, even when we start to talk about absurd levels of stimulated emission, we are still nowhere close to what we need to explain the last half century’s increase.
My conclusion is that the rise in CO2 we are witnessing is significantly independent of anthropogenic forcing. Do I know what is causing it? No I do not. Neither, apparently, does anyone else.
“They are, after all, chemical reactions, and when all the chemical that can react has, the reaction is over. More source just accumulates.”
The CO2 capacity of the oceans is vast. We are nowhere close to a tipping point. If we were, it would have happened eons ago when CO2 levels were an order of magnitude higher.
“Let’s say that all the “excess” CO2 is absorbed in 1,000 years…”
Firstly, reliable estimates of the dominant time constant are more on the order of 5 to 10 years. Secondly, it does not matter. The CO2 will accumulate proportionately to the rate of production, of which anthropogenic production to date is less than 3.6% (and some studies say much less than that – that is the IPCC figure).
Firstly, reliable estimates of the dominant time constant are more on the order of 5 to 10 years.
You’re just making it up now, you know.
Bart – the CO2 capacity of the oceans is not the only dynamic at work. Just sticking with oceans, methane hydrides are an issue. Also, the surface ocean and the deep ocean don’t mix that rapidly, so as the surface ocean reaches capacity, the pick-up from the deep ocean won’t be nearly as fast.
Like Paul, I’d like to see a source on that dominant time constant as well.
You’re just making it up now, you know.
Nonsense, Paul. Let’s us help Bart want it into reality.
…and remember that a towel is one of the most useful things in the universe.
“You’re just making it up now, you know”
Yeah? How do you then square the fact that the increase in concentration we have seen is only 1/2 of the amount we have pumped into the atmosphere in the last 50 years?
“…the CO2 capacity of the oceans is not the only…”
Do you deny that CO2 levels in the atmosphere have been much higher than today?
Most of the increase we’ve seen over the last few decades is most likely due to outgassing of the oceans due to Sun and PDO induced ocean warming.
I’ve read AGW propopents who say we can measure the relative proportions of isotopes in the atmosphere, and it shows most of the increase is due to burning fossil fuels.
Sounds plausible.
Yours,
Tom
Sounds like speculative “science” to me, Tom (see above comment at December 8th, 2009 at 12:00 pm). Firstly, have they really eliminated other possibilities? Secondly, what are the inherent assumptions (a “well-mixed” atmosphere being one which is very open to question in my mind)? Thirdly, how do we trust the people presenting the measurements when we’ve seen so much cherry picking of other data?
If AGW doesn’t get us, plate tectonics will.
I’ve got a copy of that book I bought back in 1980. To leaf through it today, a decade after all the “changes” were to have occurred, is highlarious! (And a foretaste of how the IPCC reports will be treated in a few decades…)
Let me give you a little gedankenexperiment to consider. Let’s say you have a straight-sided bucket with a hole in the bottom which is being fed with clear water from a spigot so that it has reached an equilibrium level. Above the bucket, we have a shower head with which we start spraying blue water into the bucket at 3% of the rate of the spigot. What happens to the water level, assuming it was less than 97% full to begin with? How blue does the water look from above a few seconds after turning on the shower head? How about 10 minutes later?
Bart – regarding your thought experiment – air and water mix at different rates. In large systems, such as the ocean, differences in temperature create distinct layers or a thermocline. (I knew those ASW classes would come in handy!)
As a result, the ocean takes several hundred years to completely mix, while the air does so over an annual basis.
Yeah, I know Chris. Which is supporting my argument, in case you hadn’t noticed.
It’s easy enough to bound our CO2 output. The human species uses 500×10^15 BTU of energy every year. Coal produces around 20×10^6 BTU per ton, and (44/12) = 3.67 tons of CO2 per ton of coal burned. If all of our energy were derived from coal (it isn’t), we’d produce 91.7×10^9 tons of CO2 per year. The next biggest source is probably concrete production, but I doubt if it produces 1% of the total from energy.
The atmosphere contains 3×10^12 tons of CO2 (another easy calculation). So we’re adding a little less than 3% to that a year.
I don’t doubt that we contribute to atmospheric CO2 content. I DO doubt that we alone took it from 270 ppm when I was in college to 350 ppm today. Aside from all that, I haven’t seen any credible evidence that such an increase could cause any measurable change in the energy balance of the earth.
Bloody hell, I know this is going to come back some inane way, so I better explain. We are talking about two different processes here, reabsorption and mixing. I’ve already made my point about the time constant associated with reabsorption. The one for mixing is the one which comes into determining Tom’s point about the isotopic ratio is dispositive. The sources claiming that it is are operating on the assumption of a well mixed atmosphere.
I think this pretty much finishes off the C12/C13 ratio argument as far as man made vs “natural” carbon is concerned.
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/02/25/the-trouble-with-c12-c13-ratios/
Oh and it is becoming obvious that much of the “warming” in the surface temperature record is from the “adjustments” being made by CRU, NCDC and GISS. Even the Australian BoM and the New Zealand NIWA.
See http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/08/sticky-for-smoking-gun-at-darwin-zero/
and also check the archives over the last few weeks.
Yes, Mike, that one brings up a lot of information to consider, information which there is no evidence was ever considered in the studies trumpeting the ratio as a “smoking gun”. (You may notice, if you scroll down, that I left a comment at that site on 11/15).
Aside from those concerns, there is the question of mixing which I have brought up. There is also the fact that the ratio appears closely correlated with the SST, which Dr. Roy Spencer brought up. I had great fun with that one, when I clobbered a guy at WattsUp who linked to the Tamino blog for what he called the ‘definitive’ rebuttal of Spencer’s hypothesis, and I was able to show Tamino had made a dumb error in his rush to accuse Spencer of having made a dumb error.
It’s all so ridiculous and shoddy. We have infrastucture online in this country which has been studied meticulously for half a century or more, and we still do not understand fully those systems’ operation at the margins. And, these are relatively simple systems, built using extremely well established principles. The idea that these climate guys could nail down the Earth’s climate system in a couple of decades virtually from scratch was always a ludicrous proposition. One of the most subtle and damning quotes I read which someone left at a blog somewhere was “why don’t they have these super-geniuses working on the unified field theory? They could probably knock it out in a couple of weeks.”
Bart,
The reason these guys aren’t working on unified field theory is that they aren’t super geniuses. They are second and third raters playing at being research scientists. I think it was Lindzen who said something like “when did you last have one of your best and brightest students go into climate science?”
I know! Let’s just eliminate all CO2 from the atmosphere. That’ll get AGW proponents to shut the hell up. Of course, all the plankton would die, and then everything else, but they’ll get their victory.
Bart – no, thermoclines refute your argument. What happens is that the top layer gets saturated, and until it mixes with the bottom layer the ocean doesn’t absorb CO2. This phenomenon is not seen in air.
“Let’s just eliminate all CO2 from the atmosphere. That’ll get AGW proponents to shut the hell up.”
Better yet, let’s get all the AGW proponents to stop breathing! That will eliminate a lot of hot air and the rest of us could breath easier.
If these “people” were seriously worried about CO2, they would stop breathing.