What happened to Global Warming?
When I put my first above ground pool in around the late 90's we were able to open it in April and start swimming in May.
Now my pool is just opened and still not warm enough to swim in
I'd like some global warming back...
Whew! That means we are all safe. We are up to the 1400s. I pitty the second commenter.
Answer me this:
If the world has been moving along just fine for billions of years (or whatever) why hasn't one extreme or the other killed us by now?
Surely in however many years the earth has supposedly been in existence, either global warming or global cooling would have gotten to the point that Earth would have frozen solid completely or burst into flames. Either one you want, why did it not happen yet?
The answer to that question is that the environment has developed responses to both increases and decreases that it can use to revert itself back to normal conditions.
If global cooling is in effect, nature combats that to reverse the trend.
If global warming is in effect, nature combats that to reverse the trend.
That right there is why the Earth exists in the form that we recognize. That we even exist is evidence of the truth in this.
What there is zero evidence for is to assume that the defenses that have served the Earth well for billions of years (or whatever) will not kick in and prevent catastrophies now and in the future.
My prediction for 50 generations into the future (approx 3000 AD) is that the temperature on Earth will be almost exactly what it is now.
Because we are descendants of the lucky ones who survived everything that our dear earth has thrown at us.
I hope so. Maybe if we do our best and help nature a hand if it's required, then who knows
Jafo throws rocks at Daiwa ..... oblivious of the cruelty.......to the rocks....
@Raiddinn,
Our planet has seen extremes of both heat and cold different from what is current and has gone through extinction events but, yes, life marches on. When you say "the environment has developed responses..." you're talking about homeostasis. Homeostasis is something that evolution selects in living things as a desirable trait and there are tons of examples of mechanisms in our bodies but the planet isn't a living entity subject to evolution in the same way. You're kind of talking about the Gaia hypothesis, which is a nice sounding idea but as far as I know there aren't any specific "homeostatic thermostat" mechanisms in place so in theory we could "fuck things up". How quickly that could happen based on the present day situation is debatable of course.
How do you think nature "combats" warming or cooling trends?
How are our activities separate from "nature" in the first place? (meaning, if there are homeostatic climate mechanisms, then we would also be either working for or against them - and homeostatic mechanisms are not invincible - as anyone with diabetes knows...)
Personally I don't think there is any evidence the planet has a kind of sentience or agency to "make adjustments as needed". Humans are the big new variable in what has been "normal cycles" of the past. There's plenty of evidence we are having an impact on the climate - it's just more a question of how much and how quickly and what if anything can and should be done about it. If, for argument's sake, we are creating a dangerous warming trend, the planet doesn't have any magic way of changing that on its own.
Do you realize mankind altered everything on the planet? Soon rainforests will be gone, oceans air soils poisoned.. Do you really think the responses in this system will be natural? Because I don't think so.
Just a simple example. Will the rainforests heal themselves while mankind is actively destroying it? I think we both know the answer.
Good point, we can only hope this system wil keep the planet alive in the future too. Though I think a new major extinction that would erase our civilization is not something nice, I don't really want that to happen..
Those responses are changed when the system has a major parasite changing the properties of the said system. We cannot even guess what will be the responses of the planet when we finally make the system reach total unstability, and give strong responses for the unwanted processes.
It is not this simple. The last 2.5 million years (ice ages in the northern hemisphere) show this is a bit more complex than this.
Maybe, maybe not, I guess we will never know..
There is a theory that strong global warming will cause a new ice age, and if it's true, than we have a system getting back to stability, adjusting itself. (Theories about the causes of strong fluctuations of temperature in the previous million years).
We have a university course about environmental systems, and we learnt that systems will gain back their stability if the annoying force disappears, or will get used to it and reach a new type of stability, though I don't think a supernatural being does this, only the system itself, like a river, no matter what you do with it, if you stop bothering it after a while it will reach stability again, and be somewhat natural. Maybe it is true to the whole planet itself, but who knows? I guess the time scale of such things are much larger than modern mankind can measure with scientifical means.
There's an interesting paper on this topic here:
http://www.ploscompbiol.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pcbi.1003050
If you look at events like the Azolla event, you'll see that it requires very speficic circumstances before life can act like a significant carbon sink. Life cannot do that by itself, it can only do that if the geology is favourable to permanent burial.
Carbon sinks are determined by:
- anoxia in the deep oceans. This can occur in isolated warm waters, or in general in very hot oceans (like 40 degrees). In the latter case we're already well into a major extinction event.
- subsidence of continental margins: creating large swamps where plants can get buried permanently.
- mountain building: new rock absorbs carbon by weathering from acid rain.
- volcanism: CO2 from volcanoes and from heated carbonate rocks or coal deposits
- water temperature: the capacity of oceans to hold CO2 depends on temperature. An increase in temperature can also trigger releases from methane hydrates. These things influences the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.
- ice ages: a runaway ice age can set in by sudden loss of albedo under already cold conditions.
Life on its own is just not capable of capturing carbon permanently. Life just tries to survive while the earth shapes the conditions.
Of course life is a very important part of the carbon cycle... but when left on it's own it cannot act like a carbon sink, because life itself does not bury plants under hundreds of meters of sediment to store carbon away for good. That requires the movement of continents which life has no control over, that's driven by heat from the earth.
A runaway greenhouse was not possible in the past, because the sun does not provide enough heat for this. It may become possible in a billion years or so.
If you would suddenly cover half the earth under a blanket of ice and maintain that long enough (so that the layer of snow and ice is thick enough and won't melt during the summer), then who knows, maybe a runaway ice age may occur.
But it would require an extraordinary event to do that at current global temperatures and the higher the global temperature is, the less likely an ice age becomes.
I think the earth is a whole lot more resilient than we give it credit for.
If we had ice ages and we thawed out there must be some sort of nature based cold defeating thing out there and vice versa for if it gets too hot.
Whatever kind of vicious cycles exist it is obvious that they can be put to rest.
The earth is a whole lot more resilient than we are. If we do enough damage to her, she will wipe us out and get on with the healing process.
Seriously, though, I think we will see her developing ways to fight against what we are doing to her.
None of this even implies that temperatures go up AFTER CO2 rises.
The whole AGW hypothesis rests on the assumption that CO2 increases result in temperature increases. The evidence doesn't support that. CO2 has steadily gone up this century without temperature tracked to it at all.
In addition, past temperature increases showed CO2 only went up AFTER.
(bolded for emphasis)
WHAT? What do you mean it doesn't matter? The entire premise of AGW rests on CO2 going up FIRST. If CO2 goes up because temperatures go up, then that has little to nothing to do with human activity.
That's not evidence of anything other than CO2 increases might affect extinction. We're talking about temperature and the claim that more CO2 in the atmosphere increases measured temperatures on the surface.
It doesn't mean that CO2 causes temperatures to go up. It doesn't prove anything in particular. There is a far stronger cases that CO2 goes up when it gets warmer. In which case, humans aren't involved.
Much of this is akin to someone using the bible to prove the bible.
None of this demonstrates or points to any evidence that CO2 increases in the atmosphere affect temperature.
I am not arguing whether the earth is getting warmer or not. For the sake of argument, let's assume the temperature record is accurate. So? It doesn't appear to be caused by CO2.
I've a few things to say about this:
1. Visual artifact.
A lag can also be simulated by 2 processes: first a small jump by another process (loss of albedo or something). This gives a small jump in temperature, but not yet in CO2.
If after this event the temperature rise would be controlled further by CO2 alone, you would see temperature and CO2 increases at the same time. But it would look like CO2 lags temperature, because of the initial jump due to another process.
You can easily see this in a diagram of T/CO2 versus temperature. Take a piece of paper and draw a diagonal line for CO2 vs Time. Now draw another diagonal line on top of the first one for Temperature versus Time: perfect correlation (if CO2 and T were related 1:1). Now we add a small inital effect, so draw another diagonal line for Temperature versus Time a little above the first: it looks like there's a lag.
But this is only a thought experiment mind you!
2. Correlation of absolute values.
Also note how the Temperature and CO2 both rise and fall, they are ALWAYS very closely correlated, in absolute levels.
If temperature would be controled by other things than CO2, then you would not see a close correlation between temperature and absolute levels of CO2.
Low levels of CO2 (about 200 ppm) are always associated with very cold climates, throughout the ages.
High levels of CO2 (1000 ppm and higher) are always associated with very hot climates, throughout the ages.
This correlation of absolute values of CO2 concentrations cannot be explained by your theory.
3. Influence of independent mechanisms.
You should know that CO2 levels are also controlled by other things than just temperature. CO2 is stored in sediments for example. And sometimes more CO2 is released by volcanoes. And sometimes life helps a hand, like in the Azolla event.
This causes very long-term variations in the total CO2 content of the atmosphere and oceans.
These long-term variations are also closely correlated with temperature.
I don't think your theory can explain this kind of correlation. On long terms, with other processes dominating changes in the carbon cycle, I wouldn't expect much long-term correlation if your theory were correct.
4. Dependence of solubility on temperature and partial pressure.
I kind of agree that oceanic storage is important. If oceans are warm, they'll have less capacity to store CO2, so they'll release some CO2.
However, part of the flaw of the T-CO2 control theory is (I think) that it underestimates the effect of partial pressure. If temperature rises a little, and oceans release some of its CO2, the partial pressure in the atmosphere increases. This makes it a lot harder for the oceans to release CO2, because the dependency on partial pressure is pretty strong.
Suppose we have a situation like an ice age, when temperatures were low and levels of CO2 were at 200 ppm or so.
At the moment, we have higher temperature of 4 degrees and levels of CO2 of about 400 ppm.
So we have a temperature increase of 4 degrees, and a DOUBLING of the partial pressure.
I wonder which effect is more important for balancing the total CO2 content of the ocean...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry's_law
5. Different mechanisms the other way around.
Vice versa, by theory temperature of the atmosphere is not controlled purely and immediately by CO2. The ocean acts as a large heat sink which takes a while to heat up. For example an El Nino can occasionally exchange hotter surface waters with colder deep oceanic waters - as a result it can cool the upper ocean the atmosphere, while the deep ocean warms up slowly. Melting of large volumes of ice also requires enormous amounts of energy. Therefore to measure the warming effect of CO2, it is not sufficient to measure atmospheric temperature alone.
The poles heat faster than the equator. Such a pattern is typical of insulation, right ...
The thermosphere cools while the lower atmosphere warms. This is caused by absorption of radiation by the lower atmosphere.
Increasing heat content of the oceans point to a (more or less) continuous warming of the planet. Skeptics claim that atmospheric warming has halted, but the overall heat sink of ocean + atmosphere shows a more consistent rise in heat. This gradual rise is consistent with a gradual increase in insulation from CO2 and H2O.
The problem with your theory is, that there's no "cause". You just say: temperature rises, and therefore CO2 rises. But why would the temperature be rising for the past 100 years if it isn't CO2?
It would be nice if you could present a credible alternative.
It's statistical evidence.
If it isn't controlled by CO2, then you'll have to explain the correlations by another correlated (third) mechanism which controls temperature, CO2, and somehow also the other events that take place.
Try explaining something like the Azolla event, where algae buried trillions of tons of carbon over a period of about 1 million years. Due to this CO2 levels dropped 80% (although I think that might be exaggerated, it depends on the accuracy of measured CO2 levels) and sure, this was accompanied by a cooling of the climate. Researchers actually claim that this was such a huge event, that it initiated a more permanent cooling of the planet. How do you explain that, why would the temperatures on our planet suddenly drop and stay down despite millions of years of overall elevated temperature and elevated CO2 levels, what's your mechanism that caused this more or less permanent change?
Try explaining some of the extinction events in earth's history. Why do temperature and CO2 rises occur at the same time as large volcanic events? What's your mechanism to explain this correlation?
Again, you continue to propose that the order in which co2/temp rises isn't important, only that there is a relationship. The beginning, middle, and end of AGW is based on the claim that CO2 is the key driver for temperature increases.
Everything you just posted simply indicated that CO2 levels rise and fall with temperature. I subscribe to that belief. Warm temperatures release carbon. There's nothing you posted that indicated that co2 is the driver of warmer temperatures.
As for explaining what alternative to Co2 might exist to affect temperature, I'd first say that the burden of proof isn't on me and second I'd point to that big ball of light and heat in the sky. I'd also point out that the formation of the continents has a lot to do with surface temperatures. The last ice age period began when the isthmus of Panama formed, blocking ocean currents.
Historical temperature and CO2 graphs exist. They show temperature rises BEFORE CO2 rises. Not the other way around. Also, volcanic events result in global cooling, not warming.
I've run the equation from Henrey's law because I was curious.
I thought, let's see what happens if a temperature change of 1 degree (20 ->21 degrees) would hypothetically change the CO2 content of the atmosphere from 400 ppm to about 453 ppm, if temperature alone would be responsible (I keep partial pressure at 400 ppm). You can calculate that from Henrey's law by calculating the differences in concentrations and than simply multiple the difference by a very large number to simulate a CO2 release from the decrease in CO2 concentration in the ocean.
Of course this particular value has no observational basis, it's just a numerical experiment and I though a 50 ppm increase would look nice.
At this point, skeptics usually stop and shout: hey look! A 50 ppm increase because of 1 degree rise in temperature, that explains everything!
Then I run the equation repeatedly again and again at these higher pressures. It turns out that partial pressure pushes a lot of CO2 back into the ocean and in subsequent iterations the partial pressure dropped, and reached a stable value at 409 ppm.
Similarly, a rise of 95 ppm by a 1 degree temperature rise alone, will result ultimately in a stable value of about 410 ppm: only slightly higher than the 9 ppm earlier. It seems to me that partial pressure places a firm limit to rises of CO2 in the atmosphere.
(Note that lower rises have relatively less compensation: an initial rise of 14 ppm would result in a stable rise of 3 ppm.)
So from a physical (theoretical) standpoint, I think you need unrealistically high temperature changes in order to create significant changes in CO2 levels of the atmosphere. Because if 1 degree change in temperature can only create a 10 ppm change in CO2 level in the atmosphere... how high a temperature increase would you need to create a 100 ppm change...
It looks like a 10 degree increase (20 -> 30 degree celcius at 400 ppm with an initial rise to about 2300 ppm) results in a stable value of about 520 ppm. That's just not the kind of temperature / CO2 increases that we see in the paleo-records.
Well actually I was trying to tell you that it's a nice convenient relationship which explains how events in the past related to each other.
You haven't given a new mechanism which can explain those. Oh wait, maybe below.
I'm sorry, but have you tried drawing a graph like I suggested?
You can have a perfect correlation of observations with a theory that has 2 elements: for example an initial rise due to loss of albedo, and then later on a longer-term rise due to CO2. It would be a nice match.
The cooling is caused by larger particles. These wash down from the atmosphere pretty quickly, within a few years. Then the cooling stops.
Most volcanism is not that violent and doesn't release particles to cause cooling ; most takes place under water, or in quiet volcanoes like in Hawaii and Sicily. Only a few volcanoes explode violently to cause cooling.
So what else have you got to say about the big ball in the sky, except that it's there?
How does an ocean current influence global temperatures? I mean, I can imagine that a current can have a regional effect of one or two degrees, but globally?
I also wonder how you view the extinction events. Do you think it's all driven by temperature variations of the sun and that it's just coincidence that those coincide with major volcanic events or other exotics things like huge algae blooms?
And as a side-note, don't you want to make a prediction for the next year?
Has it?
Geoman - that is a good question. And the answer is - even for the propents of AGW - that we do not know. The sun just finished its largest Solar maxima in the past 300 years. Did that cause the temperatures to rise? I do not know. But it is something to consider, is it not?
Coincidentally, the maxima ended about the same time that temperatures plateaued (the end of the 20th century). Correlation does not mean causation. But given that virtually all the energy the planet receives comes from the sun, that is a good place to start looking if you want to research why the planet is warming. At least it should be investigated. Yet Gavin Schmidt dismissed it completely. He has not offered a reason, so we are left to wonder why.
Ours is not wonder why but just to do and die
Tennyson
Such an epic troll thread...nearly 60 pages on and we still have people denying that CO2 and other greenhouse gases have any warming effect...an FYI Frogboy - CO2 is not capable of generating heat on its own - that "big ball" in the sky obviously does that - the CO2 just prevents heat from escaping that otherwise would. Let the JAQing off continue...
There is no evidence that CO2 is a significant driver of temperature. Feel free to provide an example in earth's history where CO2 levels went up BEFORE temperatures went up.
As for trolling, trolling would be to assume after 60 pages that we don't know what greenhouse gasses are. Going from 0.3% to 0.4% of the earth's atmosphere over the past century requires quite a leap of faith to believe that it is a driving force in temperature changes.
This looks like a more reliable comparison:
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2010/12/16/comparing-temperature-data-sets/
It uses year-averages (instead of only octobers) and it also explains how to compare data sets correctly by aligning the base lines.
In labs all around the world. And in computer models based on those observations.
Even the mythbusters had a lab experiment with CO2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPRd5GT0v0I
And it's going on all around us of course... although you don't buy that do you
BTW, you can also look for the reverse: cases where CO2 goes down before temperatures go down.
I'm not the one making claims and predictions. You are.
The fact that temperatures rises have not corresponded with CO2 rises doesn't speak well for the predictions of AGW proponents.
I can think of lots of things that humans could do to affect temperature measurements including:
None of which have to do with CO2.
As for extinction events, they have nothing whatsoever with CO2. We've had a number of different extinction events ranging from snowball earth to cosmic collisions to the mass production of O2 via Cyanobacteria.
The core problem with AGW is that there is zero evidence that CO2 was a driver of warming trends. Not just "little" evidence but zero as in none at all. You've yet to present a single example in all of history where CO2 drove increase trend.
CO2 vs. temperatures from ice core records. Temperatures go up, CO2 goes up. Temperatures go down, CO2 will go down. But not the other way. In fact, temperatures will sometimes go down long before CO2 starts to fall.
That's why AGW isn't that complicated of a hypothesis and is relatively easy to be skeptical about. The historical temperatures clearly demonstrate that CO2 isn't what drives temperature increases.
Here's another one from a different ice core:
As you can see, like ever other one (and these graphs can be found on Wikipedia or on pro-AGW sites) the temperatures go up, CO2 goes up.
Now, one thing I think is hard to deny is that we have put a lot of CO2 into the air. Look at how high up CO2 is now. Yet, the temperatures? IF CO2 was a real driver of temperatures, we should be at the warmest period in history. And yet, we're not even warmer yet than the medieval warming period.
Sure there are also a few extinction events that are not linked to a climate change. But most of them (especially minor but also a few major ones) seem to be very closely linked to climate.
Yes I just love those data, they're really nice, but take care when you take those data at face value. Your plot shows no error bars and those error bars are really pretty big. But before you make such bold conclusions, at least take a look at this more comprehensive study:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17611404
Ah yes, that must be the EPICA one with a better estimate of CO2 ages? I was trying to find it in my favorites but well...
Of course temperature/CO2 are correlated. We don't disagree on that... we only disagree on the cause of the correlation.
This plot is a bit funny though... at year 0 there's a big jump in CO2, but not a jump in Temperature.
It's just for fun... for the new year.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v484/n7392/full/nature10915.html
Or you're just being smug and think it's something simple but in reality it's far more complex.
Did you even read the article you posted?
The reason the AGW hypothesis isn't that complicated is that it boils down to saying that CO2 is a significant driver of global temperatures. Well, where is that major temperature increase?
http://co2now.org/
It's at 393.66 now. It's gone up from 310 to almost 400 in just over 50 years. That's a huge increase. And I can absolutely be convinced humans are a major reason for that.
However, where is the corresponding temperature change? If CO2 was a major issue, then we'd be experiencing the warmest temperatures in the past 100,000 years. Clearly, CO2 isn't a major temperature increaser.
I still think we should be trying to reduce our impact on our environment. That's why I (and I know it annoys some of the lefties here) unlike anyone else in this discussion, am the only one whose home/vehicle has a negative carbon footprint. My house, powered by solar and my electric car, powered by solar, is doing its part.
But I presume those that are raising the alarm regarding CO2 affecting temperature changes expect us to do some radical stuff NOW since it's highly unlikely we'll be relying on fossil fuels in 50 years as our primary energy source.
So you would think that they would have the CO2 as the major driving force down as an undeniable fact. But it's far from it.
And strangely, those that scream the loudest about CO2 seem to be willing to do the least personally about it. They want other people to do it for them.
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