CO2 is not causing changes of climate

[LakeEffectKing]

Your posts are entertaining, but I have to wonder where you're getting your information from. Here's what I found on SkepticalScience on the topic of whether measured global warming can be attributed to the Sun.

Figure 1: Global temperature (red, NASA GISS) and Total solar irradiance (blue, 1880 to 1978 from Solanki, 1979 to 2009 from PMOD).

I apologize for the chart only going through 2009. That wasn't cherrypicking - that was the most recent graph I could find. My understanding is that the values for 2010 and 2011 are consistent with that shown.

I will also clarifiy what I meant when I described the Sun as 'quiet'. Do you see the Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) scale on the left hand side of the graph above. In the instrumental record from 1880 through 2009 the lowest TSI was 1365.3 W/m2 and the highest was 1366.2 W/m2. If my math is right that shows that the Sun output has fluctuated less than 0.07% - less than one tenth of one percent. That's quiet in my opinion. In fact, if that graph had been plotted with the TSI scale beginning at 0 then TSI would have been shown as a straight line since the min-max would be less than the width of a pixel.

In your response you focused on sunspot numbers instead of TSI, which is the dominant solar metric. So let's look at the peer-reviewed science:

The study is Surface warming by the solar cycle as revealed by the composite mean difference projection by Charles D. Camp and Ka Kit Tung. They find a global warming signal of 0.18°C attributable to the 11-year solar cycle. Eg - from solar minimum to solar maximum, global temperatures increase 0.18°C due to an increase in Total Solar Irradiance (TSI). To find the solar signal, they detrended the temperature data by removing the global warming trend. They found the detrended temperature correlated well with the solar cycle.

Figure 1: Detrended temperature (solid) compared to TSI (dotted) (Camp 2007)

However, a fair degree of climate variability contaminated the signal. Volcanic eruptions in 1982 and 1991 coincided with solar maximums. Similarly, the El Nino peak of 1998 occured during low solar activity. Tung and Camp filtered out the noise using various statistical techniques and found an even higher correlation with the solar cycle.

They concluded that from solar minimum to maximum (eg - from 1996 to 2001), the forcing from the sun increases global temperatures by 0.18°C. Conversely, from solar maximum to minimum (eg - from 2001 to 2007), the reduced forcing from the sun cools global temperatures by 0.18°C. This 11 year cycle is superimposed over the long term global warming trend.

So sunspot cycles are just that - cycles, and don't add anything to the long-term warming trend.

I don't know where you are getting your misinformation, but if I were you I'd be a bit more skeptical of anything they say.

The recent CLOUD experiment via CERN adds evidence to the potential that "solar" forcings are more than just TSI cycles, which would then indirectly alter the albedo estimated contributions in the negative direction....of course, it is just one experiment and I'm sure others are in the pipeline. We really have VERY MUCH to learn about the complexity of our climate system, and drawing such drastic conclusions at this point is more than a bit premature and sets in motion potential subconscience biases, leading to a constant search for confirmation of such.

[PhillipS]

Kinda like excluding the tree ring proxy data from 1969 and beyond.... You know....hide the decline?

Cute video - total hokum, of course - but still cute.

On the topic you brought up, the exclusion of some treee ring proxy data for the period after 1969, my understanding is that the excuded data was known to be questionable. Proxy data is not a direct measurement of some parameter, it is an indirect measurement. In many ways proxies are like a satellite sensor, which measure some characteristic related to the parameter of interest which is then analysed using that relationship to calculate the actual parameter. And like satellite sensors, proxies can drift for a variety of reasons to where the data is questionable and no longer reliable.

So what should scientists do when a sensor (or proxy) becomes unreliable? Continue to use the data even though it's known to be bad? Throw out all of the data back to the very first record, even though most of it is valid? Or exclude the data from the point at which it becomes questionable and annotate the record with what was done and why? This last course of action is what ws done with the tree-ring proxies - the data was used for the period it was reliable, it was excluded when it became unreliable, and the records were carefully annotated as to what ws done. Nothing was hidden.

But you, and the folks who made the video, seem to feel that something sinister took place. Okay, what would you have done with that data give what we know about its reliability?

[LakeEffectKing]

Cute video - total hokum, of course - but still cute.

On the topic you brought up, the exclusion of some treee ring proxy data for the period after 1969, my understanding is that the excuded data was known to be questionable. Proxy data is not a direct measurement of some parameter, it is an indirect measurement. In many ways proxies are like a satellite sensor, which measure some characteristic related to the parameter of interest which is then analysed using that relationship to calculate the actual parameter. And like satellite sensors, proxies can drift for a variety of reasons to where the data is questionable and no longer reliable.

So what should scientists do when a sensor (or proxy) becomes unreliable? Continue to use the data even though it's known to be bad? Throw out all of the data back to the very first record, even though most of it is valid? Or exclude the data from the point at which it becomes questionable and annotate the record with what was done and why? This last course of action is what ws done with the tree-ring proxies - the data was used for the period it was reliable, it was excluded when it became unreliable, and the records were carefully annotated as to what ws done. Nothing was hidden.

But you, and the folks who made the video, seem to feel that something sinister took place. Okay, what would you have done with that data give what we know about its reliability?

So it's just a coincidence that the ONLY proxy data that was questionable was when it didn't fit the "mold" of AGW??? Keep drinking....

[PhillipS]

The recent CLOUD experiment via CERN adds evidence to the potential that "solar" forcings are more than just TSI cycles, which would then indirectly alter the albedo estimated contributions in the negative direction....of course, it is just one experiment and I'm sure others are in the pipeline. We really have VERY MUCH to learn about the complexity of our climate system, and drawing such drastic conclusions at this point is more than a bit premature and sets in motion potential subconscience biases, leading to a constant search for confirmation of such.

Have you read the CERN report? I confess I've only read the paper's abstract and the postings on it at Climate, Etc and RealClimate (it's not worth $32 to me to buy the full paper). I agree with you that it is only one experiment. I found this quote from lead author Kirby to be interesting:

But, Kirkby adds, those particles are far too small to serve as seeds for clouds. “At the moment, it actually says nothing about a possible cosmic-ray effect on clouds and climate, but it’s a very important first step,” he says.

I'm curious why you feel that clouds, GCR triggered or natural, are always a negative (cooling) feedback. I understand why low altitude daytime clouds are a negative feedback - they increase albedo and reflect incoming visible light. But high altitude daytime clouds are a net positive (warming) feedback because they are composed of ice and thus pass more visible light that they reflect as well as absorbing and reradiating outgoing IR..

And all night-time clouds, low or high altitude, are warming because there is no sunlight to reflect but there is always outgoing IR to absorb and reradiate.

So it appears to me that the CERN experiment showed that GCRs could potentially increase global warming.

[LakeEffectKing]

Have you read the CERN report? I confess I've only read the paper's abstract and the postings on it at Climate, Etc and RealClimate (it's not worth $32 to me to buy the full paper). I agree with you that it is only one experiment. I found this quote from lead author Kirby to be interesting:

But, Kirkby adds, those particles are far too small to serve as seeds for clouds. “At the moment, it actually says nothing about a possible cosmic-ray effect on clouds and climate, but it’s a very important first step,” he says.

I'm curious why you feel that clouds, GCR triggered or natural, are always a negative (cooling) feedback. I understand why low altitude daytime clouds are a negative feedback - they increase albedo and reflect incoming visible light. But high altitude daytime clouds are a net positive (warming) feedback because they are composed of ice and thus pass more visible light that they reflect as well as absorbing and reradiating outgoing IR..

And all night-time clouds, low or high altitude, are warming because there is no sunlight to reflect but there is always outgoing IR to absorb and reradiate.

So it appears to me that the CERN experiment showed that GCRs could potentially increase global warming.

Well, the experiment only opened the door (that was supposedly locked, or poo-poo'd) for further science to be conducted. Yes, I read the paper, and came to the conclusion that there is no smoking gun here falsifying AGW. But to see some effect (even if not yet quantifiable) certainly will lead to further study...as it should, and may actually pacify some of the most ardent skeptical folks, as long as the science is carried out in a fair, open manner.

[PhillipS]

So it's just a coincidence that the ONLY proxy data that was questionable was when it didn't fit the "mold" of AGW??? Keep drinking....

Wow, several whoppers in a single sentence . . . where to begin to respond? You do understand, don't you, that Mann's work was the reconstruction of the Earth's paleoclimate, i.e. the handle of the 'Hockey Stick', not the blade which is the instrumental record. If the 'decline', the excluded data, had been included then the reconstructed climate history would have been slightly colder and the appearance to a hockey stick all the more acute. So it wasn't that the data didn't fit the mold of AGW, it was just bad data.

And it is simply not true that data from one tree-ring series was the ONLY proxy data excluded. Data is rarely if ever perfect and scientists routinely use the best data available. Mann and his coauthors used more than 400 proxy data series in their 1998 report that first generated the 'Hockey Stick'. And they excluded at least as many proxy series as being less applicable to their analysis. Since Mann et al's 1998 paper there have been a number of re-analyses, using various combinations of proxy series, and guess what - they all confirm Mann's research and show a hockey stick shape.

So there was no coincidence involved - just scientists doing their best. People can, and have, disagreed with aspects of their research, such as their statistical methods, but insinuating that they lied, hid data, or are part of some grand conspiracy is just silly.

If your mind is open enough to really want to learn the facts I recommend the RealClimate posts on the Hockey Stick controversy.

[Snow_Miser]

1. From SkepticalScience - In the scientific field of climate studies – which is informed by many different disciplines – the consensus is demonstrated by the number of scientists who have stopped arguing about what is causing climate change – and that’s nearly all of them. A survey of all peer-reviewed abstracts on the subject 'global climate change' published between 1993 and 2003 shows that not a single paper rejected the consensus position that global warming is man caused. 75% of the papers agreed with the consensus position while 25% made no comment either way, focusing on methods or paleoclimate analysis (Oreskes 2004).

Skeptical science is a BLOG that is run by a CARTOONIST. Just because it has the word "science" in its title, doesn't mean that it is a scientific site. The Oreskes 2004 paper is seriously flawed, because not only does it cherry pick papers to show a predetermined conclusion, it also mathematically incorrect. For example, in Oreskes 2004, Naomi Oreskes claims she analyzed 928 abstracts, but in the paper it shows that she only analyzed 905 abstracts. This means that Oreskes' claim is incorrect. In addition, when Dr. Benny Peiser did the same search from 1993-2003, he found 12,000 papers, when he searched for "global climate change." This means that Naomi Oreskes' paper is flawed, cherry picked, and has been debunked over and over and over again.

Here is Dr. Benny Peiser's quote in its entirety.

Oreskes claims to have analysed 928 abstracts she found listed on the ISI database using the keywords "climate change". However, a search on the ISI database using the keywords "climate change" for the years 1993-2003 reveals that almost 12,000 papers were published during the decade in question. [...] ...she admitted that there was indeed a serious mistake in her Science essay. According to Oreskes, her study was not based on the keywords "climate change," but on "global climate change" [yet her paper is clearly titled: The scientific consensus on "climate change" not "global climate change"] Her use of three keywords instead of two reduced the list of peer reviewed publications by one order of magnitude (on the UK's ISI databank the keyword search "global climate change" comes up with 1247 documents) [...] The results of my analysis contradict Oreskes' findings and essentially falsify her study: Of all 1117 abstracts, only 13 (1%) explicitly endorse the 'consensus view'. [...] 34 abstracts reject or doubt the view that human activities are the main drivers of the "the observed warming over the last 50 years". 44 abstracts focus on natural factors of global climate change.

Source for the quote.

Several subsequent studies confirm that “...the debate on the authenticity of global warming and the role played by human activity is largely nonexistent among those who understand the nuances and scientific basis of long-term climate processes”. (Doran 2009). In other words, more than 95% of scientists working in the disciplines contributing to studies of our climate, accept that climate change is almost certainly being caused by human activities. <BR style="mso-special-character: line-break">

The first sentence is a complete misrepresenation. If it is several more studies, why is only one additional study used as evidence? The Doran and Zimmerman study isn't neccessarily flawed, but has some serious poor wording issues, as these two papers document.

Here are the abstracts, respectfully.

In the second question of their survey, Doran and Kendall Zimmerman refer only to “human activity.” Furthermore, even if scientists agree that the effect of human activity is “significant,” which is the word used in the second question, they can have very different beliefs as to how large, and how dangerous, this effect is.

While the polled group is important, in any poll the questions are critical. My point revolves around their question 2, to wit, “Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?” Note that the opening sentence of their article uses the phrase “major cause” in reporting the results of the polling, while the poll itself used the phrase “significant contributing factor.” There is a large difference between these two phrases.

2. The fact that the Earth has been warming for more than a century has been firmly established (see answer 3 below). There is more energy today in the Earth's aggregate land/ocean/air system than there was in, say, 1880. And you will remember from your high school physics that the 1st Law of Thermodynamics states that energy is neither created or destroyed. The Earth can't spontaneously warm any more than a pot of water on a table can spontaneously warm. The warming is the response to a change in the Eath's energy balance. So where did that additional energy that has warmed the Earth come from? Well, there are only two possibilities - (a) the Earth is receiving additional energy or (b ) something has perturbed Earth's climate so that less energy is being radiated out. Scientists have carefully studied the Sun and have factored in its changes and cycles and have ruled it our as the source of GW because it is just too stable and quiet. So it is not (a), which means source of the warming is (b ).<BR style="mso-special-character: line-break">

Right. Earth has generally been warming at a modest rate, and is not under dispute. The change in the Energy Balance is also not under dispute. However, the simple fact that OLR has been increasing at the rate of approximately 4.5 w/m^2 per decade is not consistent with AGW at all. AGW would have to create an initial decrease in OLR, so the Earth would have to warm, so that the OLR equilibriates to the amount of ISR reaching Earth's Surface.

Since OLR is increasing, we can conclude that the current warming is being driven largely by albedo changes. Why can we conclude this? Because during the same time OLR has been increasing, Cloud Cover has been in decline. So the steep increase in OLR has been contributed by two factors- less clouds to trap the OLR, and the fact that more ISR is reaching Earth's surface, which would lead to more warming, and more OLR to be released out into space.

You're probably thinking, if OLR and ISR both increase, shouldn't that create no temperature change at all? Well, no. Clouds reflect more Energy than they trap energy, so if you remove all Cloud Cover from Earth, an extra 13-21 w/m^2 would be added to Earth's Energy Budget, which has been measured by the Earth Radiation and Budget Experiment, or ERBE.

The latest results from ERBE indicate that in the global mean, clouds reduce the radiative heating of the planet. This cooling is a function of season and ranges from approximately -13 to -21 Wm-2. While these values may seem small, they should be compared with the 4 Wm-2 heating predicted by a doubling of carbon dioxide concentration.

If we take a look at the ERBE data, we can clearly see that clouds have more of a cooling impact than a warming impact. The following images are hypothetical scenarios of if Cloud Cover covered 100% of the Earth. They depict whether Cloud Cover would add additional energy or subtract energy from reaching the surface, than if it were a clear day.

For January, we can see that there are some reds, which would equate to +50 w/m^2, however, it doesn't compensate for the -100 to -150 w/m^2 in the Southern Ocean, so overall clouds have a cooling impact in January.

The same applies for July.

You claim later in your paragraph, that "scientists have ruled out the cause of warming being an increase in ISR" but this is totally wrong. Scientists Dr. Phil Goode and Dr. Enric Palle have worked on measuring the Earth's albedo through a technique known as "earthshine."

The Albedo is calculated when reflected incoming shortwave radiation hits the moon, which bounces off of the moon, and you get Earthshine. Using this technique, they calculated the average albedo on Earth over the past 20-25 years. Their results are stunning.

Here it is shown that the Earth's albedo has been going down, until about 1998. This probably explains most of the warming through that timeframe- an increase in ISR through decreasing Cloud Cover. For a comparison on how this compares with the amount of energy being added to Earth's Energy Budget by GHGs since 1790, as cited in the IPCC, it is shown in red. CO2 has been dwarfed by just albedo changes alone in 21 years, by almost a factor of three. (7 w/m^2 over a 21 year timeframe from albedo changes) and (2.4 w/m^2 since 1790 from increasing GHGs as cited by the IPCC.)

Now how do we know that the decreasing Cloud Cover is caused by an external forcing, and not an internal one? Well, it's simple. Water Vapour has been decreasing. If the decrease in Cloud Cover was caused by increasing temperatures, you would notice an increase in Water Vapour, since there is less water vapour that can condense into a cloud. This has not been observed.

Water Vapour has been decreasing slightly, or not increasing at all, which would automatically falsify that hypothesis.

However, the Solar AA Index is a likely cause. It peaked around in around 1992, which would match up with the Cloud Cover increasing a few years later, because there would be a lag in the Solar AA Index changes and the GCR Flux.

Cosmic Rays driving Cloud Cover, (but having a weak correlation to do so) have been seen in many studies, including these three studies.

TSI, Cosmic Rays, and Cloud Cover.

Low Clouds and Cosmic Rays.

Cosmic Rays and Temperature

I await your reply.

[Hugo]

Global warming could be solved if we'd all get CO2 detectors.

[PhillipS]

[/color]

My, that was an entertaining post - one that brought to mind the old saying "If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with BS". But I won't debunk your post point by point because, frankly, I have better things to do. Anybody reading this thread and wanting to learn the facts can find lots of info on-line, written by people more knowledgable and articulate than I am.

But one thing did catch my eye as I was reading your post. You wrote:

You claim later in your paragraph, that "scientists have ruled out the cause of warming being an increase in ISR" but this is totally wrong. Scientists Dr. Phil Goode and Dr. Enric Palle have worked on measuring the Earth's albedo through a technique known as "earthshine."

What got my attention is that I didn't make the quote you attribute to me. I hadn't mentioned ISR in the post you replied to, or any earlier post. That's easy enough to check, just read my original post. Your response is a bald-faced fiction. A fabrication. It is a lie, plain and simple. Which brings to mind another old saying "A man who lies to you once will lie to you often".

So my question back to you is - now that you have demonstrated that you are a liar, why should anybody give any of your posts any credibility at all?

[valkhorn]

Cosmic Rays driving Cloud Cover, (but having a weak correlation to do so) have been seen in many studies, including these three studies.

Those aren't three studies. Those are three graphs. You didn't even source them.

Also, a link has NOT been found yet, CERN is working to find a link (among other things) and they are 5-10 years off of having any conclusive evidence either way. This is according to the actual researchers.

Whenever I see a skeptic invoke cosmic rays, it's like a Deepak Chopra follower quoting quantum physics. They usually don't understand what has and hasn't been done as far as research/science, or even what it really means.

[Snow_Miser]

My, that was an entertaining post - one that brought to mind the old saying "If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with BS". But I won't debunk your post point by point because, frankly, I have better things to do. Anybody reading this thread and wanting to learn the facts can find lots of info on-line, written by people more knowledgable and articulate than I am.

What got my attention is that I didn't make the quote you attribute to me. I hadn't mentioned ISR in the post you replied to, or any earlier post. That's easy enough to check, just read my original post. Your response is a bald-faced fiction. A fabrication. It is a lie, plain and simple. Which brings to mind another old saying "A man who lies to you once will lie to you often".

So my question back to you is - now that you have demonstrated that you are a liar, why should anybody give any of your posts any credibility at all?

Um, no. Your "debunking" has been a lot of copying and pasting from SkepticalScience, which I must remind you again, is a cartoonist's blog. I checked SkepticalScience, and they don't have much on the Earthshine experiment. They have a seriously flawed argument that can be easily debunked, and includes multiple straw men. Could this be why you don't want to "debunk" my argument?

You also don't seem to know what ISR, or Incoming Shortwave Radiation is. It is the energy that reaches Earth's surface from the sun. The incoming energy. The incoming energy you CLEARLY stated could NOT be causing warming.

From your earlier post.

The warming is the response to a change in the Eath's energy balance. So where did that additional energy that has warmed the Earth come from? Well, there are only two possibilities - (a) the Earth is receiving additional energy or (b ) something has perturbed Earth's climate so that less energy is being radiated out. Scientists have carefully studied the Sun and have factored in its changes and cycles and have ruled it our as the source of GW because it is just too stable and quiet. So it is not (a), which means source of the warming is (b ).

Your personal attack demeans a seriously flawed aspect in your argument. Perhaps it's time you checked the facts, and got on board with scientific reality, instead of personally attacking me to hide that weakness.

[Strongbad]

Um, no. Your "debunking" has been a lot of copying and pasting from SkepticalScience, which I must remind you again, is a cartoonist's blog. I checked SkepticalScience, and they don't have much on the Earthshine experiment. They have a seriously flawed argument that can be easily debunked, and includes multiple straw men. Could this be why you don't want to "debunk" my argument?

You also don't seem to know what ISR, or Incoming Shortwave Radiation is. It is the energy that reaches Earth's surface from the sun. The incoming energy. The incoming energy you CLEARLY stated could NOT be causing warming.

From your earlier post.

Your personal attack demeans a seriously flawed aspect in your argument. Perhaps it's time you checked the facts, and got on board with scientific reality, instead of personally attacking me to hide that weakness.

You and I both know alarmists resort to these kind of tactics. Thankfully we have you, who knows the science behind this argument. I know the history of Eco-facism and it isn't pretty, but I am glad we now have someone who knows the science as well as you.

[WeatherRusty]

Um, no. Your "debunking" has been a lot of copying and pasting from SkepticalScience, which I must remind you again, is a cartoonist's blog. I checked SkepticalScience, and they don't have much on the Earthshine experiment. They have a seriously flawed argument that can be easily debunked, and includes multiple straw men. Could this be why you don't want to "debunk" my argument?

You also don't seem to know what ISR, or Incoming Shortwave Radiation is. It is the energy that reaches Earth's surface from the sun. The incoming energy. The incoming energy you CLEARLY stated could NOT be causing warming.

From your earlier post.

Your personal attack demeans a seriously flawed aspect in your argument. Perhaps it's time you checked the facts, and got on board with scientific reality, instead of personally attacking me to hide that weakness.

Here is what the actual scientific studies have to say about solar forcing:

IPCC

The change in solar output since 1750 can not come close to accounting for warming since then. This is not science as interpreted by skeptic web sites. Here we have the actual scientific studies.

[WeatherRusty]

You and I both know alarmists resort to these kind of tactics. Thankfully we have you, who knows the science behind this argument. I know the history of Eco-facism and it isn't pretty, but I am glad we now have someone who knows the science as well as you.

He knows the skeptical argument, not the actual science.

[PhillipS]

Um, no. Your "debunking" has been a lot of copying and pasting from SkepticalScience, which I must remind you again, is a cartoonist's blog. I checked SkepticalScience, and they don't have much on the Earthshine experiment. They have a seriously flawed argument that can be easily debunked, and includes multiple straw men. Could this be why you don't want to "debunk" my argument?

You also don't seem to know what ISR, or Incoming Shortwave Radiation is. It is the energy that reaches Earth's surface from the sun. The incoming energy. The incoming energy you CLEARLY stated could NOT be causing warming.

From your earlier post.

Your personal attack demeans a seriously flawed aspect in your argument. Perhaps it's time you checked the facts, and got on board with scientific reality, instead of personally attacking me to hide that weakness.

First - how is it in any way relevant who runs the SkepticalScience site? If the information available there is accurate, it's accurate. To claim that the information isn't true simply because of the site owner's career is a pure ad hom attack. I like to reference that site because they have a lot of material specifically debunking denialist nonsense. And the material is written for a layman audience. I also reference the RealClimate site, which is run by some of the leading climatologists. It's material is very good, too, but is written for a somewhat higher level of readership.

Second - in my original post you responded to I was referring to the Sun's output, i.e. Total Solar Irradiance (TSI), in the context of the Sun's output being too stable to have caused the observed global warming trend. I made no reference to ISR or to albedo. So I am correct in saying that your rewriting my comment to change its meaning and your attributing words to me that I never said was a lie. There is no way you can weasel out of it - you lied. So calling you a liar is not an attack, it's a valid observation.

I hope that the moderators of this forum are aware of your behavior because an honest debate can only take place with honest debaters. Your recent posts show that you are not interested in an honest debate. If you were, you would man up and admit your error and apologize. Somehow I don't see that happening.

You still haven't answered my earlier question - now that you have demonstrated that you are a liar, and an unapologetic one at that, why whould anybody give any credibility to your posts?

[DeltaPilot]

Im presently in a discussion with a "freind" about this issue...I'd like an honest opinion of this page......

http://www.skeptical...om/argument.php

and that website.

Im recently new to this discussion and my background is one of long term interest and study on the topic. I HAVE READ PEER REVIEWED papers on this topic. Many. My argument with this "friend" is that there is still no actual consensus surrounding the CO 2 issue amongst climatologists. Maybe Im off base or Im cherry picking..which I try NOT to do..but it appears to me that we still dont quite have all the pieces when it comes to cloud issues and the modeling of these along with LW radiation and how this affects OHC. I DO understand the physics of all this and the science, but this guy seems to be a hard core alarmist and I am not. I DO acknowledge AGW but believe we still have to fit some of the puzle pieces together to know one way or another if we are in a runaway situation.

[WeatherRusty]

Im presently in a discussion with a "freind" about this issue...I'd like an honest opinion of this page......

http://www.skeptical...om/argument.php

and that website.

Im recently new to this discussion and my background is one of long term interest and study on the topic. I HAVE READ PEER REVIEWED papers on this topic. Many. My argument with this "friend" is that there is still no actual consensus surrounding the CO 2 issue amongst climatologists. Maybe Im off base or Im cherry picking..which I try NOT to do..but it appears to me that we still dont quite have all the pieces when it comes to cloud issues and the modeling of these along with LW radiation and how this affects OHC. I DO understand the physics of all this and the science, but this guy seems to be a hard core alarmist and I am not. I DO acknowledge AGW but believe we still have to fit some of the puzle pieces together to know one way or another if we are in a runaway situation.

First of all, there is no runaway situation. Global temperature responds to the net of all forcings by seeking an equilibrium temperature. Only if the forcing runs away would the temperature follow and that can't happen given the current condition of the Earth and it's Sun.

The CO2 issue is agreed to by most everyone, skeptics included. The physics follows from very well from first principles of science. It is in the inevitable feedback process where the research has some way to go in honing in on what climate scientists refer to as equilibrium climate sensitivity, or how much warmth will we get after all feedbacks have fully settled down to an equilibrium state.

The best estimates to date reside in the range of 2.0C - 4.5C of total warming from short term feedback response to a forcing the equal of 3.7W/m^2 from a doubling of CO2. Of this 1.2C is due to CO2 before the feedback process, so that is the least we should expect if we isolate the impact of increasing CO2 from all other factors.

[DeltaPilot]

Thanks Rusty.

It does appear to me that there is still a debate on the feedback process and how CO2 relates to that. Obvioulsy as evidenced by this thread, albeit not neccesarily part of the community. As I said..Im not a denier, Im just trying to get a better handle on the CURRENT state of the climatological communities "surety" on this. I just finished reading Lindzen Choi et al 2011 and it has sparked my interest in all of this.

You didnt answer my question though...

[OHSnow]

First of all, there is no runaway situation. Global temperature responds to the net of all forcings by seeking an equilibrium temperature. Only if the forcing runs away would the temperature follow and that can't happen given the current condition of the Earth and it's Sun.

The CO2 issue is agreed to by most everyone, skeptics included. The physics follows from very well from first principles of science. It is in the inevitable feedback process where the research has some way to go in honing in on what climate scientists refer to as equilibrium climate sensitivity, or how much warmth will we get after all feedbacks have fully settled down to an equilibrium state.

The best estimates to date reside in the range of 2.0C - 4.5C of total warming from short term feedback response to a forcing the equal of 3.7W/m^2 from a doubling of CO2. Of this 1.2C is due to CO2 before the feedback process, so that is the least we should expect if we isolate the impact of increasing CO2 from all other factors.

Well, runaway warming would be possible in such a situation if there were a continuous chain of positive feedbacks each amplifying the warming.

[tacoman25]

Well, runaway warming would be possible in such a situation if there were a continuous chain of positive feedbacks each amplifying the warming.

We would live in a very unstable climate if that were the case. Negative feedbacks have always existed and will continue to exist.

[valkhorn]

We would live in a very unstable climate if that were the case. Negative feedbacks have always existed and will continue to exist.

Well on a geological scale climate has been pretty unstable, has it not?

[valkhorn]

First of all, there is no runaway situation. Global temperature responds to the net of all forcings by seeking an equilibrium temperature. Only if the forcing runs away would the temperature follow and that can't happen given the current condition of the Earth and it's Sun.

The CO2 issue is agreed to by most everyone, skeptics included. The physics follows from very well from first principles of science. It is in the inevitable feedback process where the research has some way to go in honing in on what climate scientists refer to as equilibrium climate sensitivity, or how much warmth will we get after all feedbacks have fully settled down to an equilibrium state.

The best estimates to date reside in the range of 2.0C - 4.5C of total warming from short term feedback response to a forcing the equal of 3.7W/m^2 from a doubling of CO2. Of this 1.2C is due to CO2 before the feedback process, so that is the least we should expect if we isolate the impact of increasing CO2 from all other factors.

I disagree. There could easily be a runaway greenhouse situation because we live next door to a planet that has had it happen. Venus is MUCH hotter than it should be, and is absorbing most of the heat it gets from the sun and isn't letting a lot out into space. It will likely never happen, but if Earth had a 97% CO2 atmosphere as thick as Venus's, it would be nearly as hot. Hopefully we don't have that much CO2 on this planet.

[valkhorn]

First - how is it in any way relevant who runs the SkepticalScience site? If the information available there is accurate, it's accurate. To claim that the information isn't true simply because of the site owner's career is a pure ad hom attack. I like to reference that site because they have a lot of material specifically debunking denialist nonsense. And the material is written for a layman audience. I also reference the RealClimate site, which is run by some of the leading climatologists. It's material is very good, too, but is written for a somewhat higher level of readership.

Second - in my original post you responded to I was referring to the Sun's output, i.e. Total Solar Irradiance (TSI), in the context of the Sun's output being too stable to have caused the observed global warming trend. I made no reference to ISR or to albedo. So I am correct in saying that your rewriting my comment to change its meaning and your attributing words to me that I never said was a lie. There is no way you can weasel out of it - you lied. So calling you a liar is not an attack, it's a valid observation.

I hope that the moderators of this forum are aware of your behavior because an honest debate can only take place with honest debaters. Your recent posts show that you are not interested in an honest debate. If you were, you would man up and admit your error and apologize. Somehow I don't see that happening.

You still haven't answered my earlier question - now that you have demonstrated that you are a liar, and an unapologetic one at that, why whould anybody give any credibility to your posts?

The same people who trot out the owner of skepticalscience are the same people who post blog posts by JB or WUWT. So, go figure.

[tacoman25]

Well on a geological scale climate has been pretty unstable, has it not?

Not in the "runaway" sense that they were talking about.

[WeatherRusty]

I disagree. There could easily be a runaway greenhouse situation because we live next door to a planet that has had it happen. Venus is MUCH hotter than it should be, and is absorbing most of the heat it gets from the sun and isn't letting a lot out into space. It will likely never happen, but if Earth had a 97% CO2 atmosphere as thick as Venus's, it would be nearly as hot. Hopefully we don't have that much CO2 on this planet.

The greenhouse effect of Venus is tremendous. The surface is at 860F or 460C while the upper atmosphere is cooler than Earth's despite being 2/3 of Earth's distance from the Sun! How did it get that way?

A few facts:

The atmospheric surface pressure is 92 times that of Earth's.

Being covered in sulfur dioxide cloud, the albedo of Venus is 0.77. It reflects away more than 3/4's of incident sunlight.

The effective temperature of Venus, the temperature it would have without any atmosphere and thus no greenhouse effect is 56C.

Because of it's clouds producing a 0.77 albedo the effective temperature could be -46C....cold! A cloudy Venus with no greenhouse effect would be much colder than Earth!

So that greenhouse effect has turned Venus into a hell hot enough to melt lead on it's surface.

Venus has no liquid water on the surface. Liquid water on Earth helps sequester CO2 belched from eons of volcanic activity in the creation of carbonate sedimentary rock. This process does not operate on Venus, the outgased CO2 remains in the Atmosphere with nowhere to go rather than being converted to rock, and over the eons the greenhouse effect and atmospheric pressure have accumulated to present conditions.

This can not occur on the present day Earth because liquid water is stable here. Earth is not loosing it's water as Venus once must have given it's much higher clear atmosphere effective temperature.

(Ultraviolet sunlight would have split H2O into it's constituent parts with the hydrogen subsequently being lost to space. This is also happening here on Earth but at a much, much slower rate than would have been the case at Venus which also lacks a planet wide magnetic field.)

[Strongbad]

The same people who trot out the owner of skepticalscience are the same people who post blog posts by JB or WUWT. So, go figure.

Wow, thank goodness we have you to trot out quotes from...well all I know is your sources probably share similar beliefs to Al Gore, Paul Ehlrich, Rajendra Pachauri, Michael Mann, etc. Each of these men has yet to participate in a debate w/ skeptics. Pretending to "not give the other side credit or attention" has clearly backfired and public opinion for the AGW movement is collapsing globally. I elect you to call one of those men up and get them on television debating any of the top skeptical scientists.

After they have been routinely destroyed in debate, or if they do the destroying, maybe your movement will gain steam. Until then, it's sinking as fast as global temps will for the next couple of decades.

Cheers.

[Snow_Miser]

Those aren't three studies. Those are three graphs. You didn't even source them.

Also, a link has NOT been found yet, CERN is working to find a link (among other things) and they are 5-10 years off of having any conclusive evidence either way.

Perhaps you misunderstood. When I said "three studies" I meant that the images came from three separate peer reviewed papers.

Usoskin et. al 2008

(The paper that showed the Low Clouds with the GCR Flux.)

We have reviewed the experimental evidence and

theoretical models relating cosmic ray variations to the

terrestrial climate changes.

On a short time scale of a few days, there exists much

evidence that CR changes may affect the process of

cyclogenesis via the changing transparency and

pressure, particularly in the North Atlantic during cold

seasons. Although each individual piece of evidence is

barely significant, in aggregate, they suggest that the

relation can be real.

A link between low clouds and CR appears

statistically significant on the interannual time scale

since 1984 in limited geographical regions, the largest

being North Atlantic + Europe and South Atlantic. We

note that many reconstructions of the past climate are

based on European data, where the CR–cloud relation is

the most pronounced. Extension of this relation to the

global scale may be misleading.

A relation between the geomagnetic field changes

and climatic variations provides evidence favouring the

possible CR influence on climate. A study of regional

climate variations in relation to the geomagnetic dipole

axis migration over the last millennium is also

promising.

There is an indication of the climate changes

synchronously with the CR flux on Myr time scales,

but this result is not straightforward to interpret. Large

uncertainties make it only indicative.

Essential progress has been recently achieved in

theoretical modelling of both ionizing effect of CR and

physical mechanisms relating CRII to cloud variations,

but the link between micro- and macro-physics is still

missing. A new experimental evidence, obtained by the

SKYexperiment team, confirm that enhanced ionization

notably facilitates the production of small ion clusters in

realistic atmospheric conditions.

In conclusion, a CR–climate link seems to be a

plausible climate driver, as supported by the bulk of

statistical studies and existing theoretical models.

Shaviv and Veizer 2003 (The image with the GCR Flux and Temperature over 500 million years.)

Independent empirical evidence

suggests that the galactic cosmic

ray flux (CRF) is linked to climate variability.

Both drivers are presently discussed

in the context of daily to millennial variations,

although they should also operate

over geological time scales. Here we analyze

the reconstructed seawater paleotemperature

record for the Phanerozoic (past

545 m.y.), and compare it with the variable

CRF reaching Earth and with the

reconstructed partial pressure of atmospheric

CO2 (p2). We find that at least

66% of the variance in the paleotemperature

trend could be attributed to CRF variations

likely due to solar system passages

through the spiral arms of the galaxy.

Kristjasson et. al 2004 (Temp, Solar Activity and the Cloud Anomaly)

What is interesting about this paper, is that it finds a possible mechanism that the sun impacts cloud cover through changes in the oceans from changes in solar activity.

Eighteen years of monthly averaged low cloud cover data from the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project are correlated

with both total solar irradiance and galactic cosmic ray flux from neutron monitors. When globally averaged low cloud cover

is considered, consistently higher correlations (but with opposite sign) are found between low cloud variations and solar irradiance

variations than between variations in cosmic ray flux and low cloud cover. The correlations are not significant at the 0.1 level, but it

should be noted that non-solar effects such as El Ni~no and volcanic eruptions have not been removed.

[/QUOTE]

I also note that your second sentence is quite contradictory. They have most certainly found a link, they just are a bit uncertain on how strong that link is.

[Snow_Miser]

Here is what the actual scientific studies have to say about solar forcing:

IPCC

The change in solar output since 1750 can not come close to accounting for warming since then. This is not science as interpreted by skeptic web sites. Here we have the actual scientific studies.

The Solar Forcing through TSI changes is fairly weak, as the IPCC correctly lists as around .1-.3 w/m^2. The argument you present does not take account for the Cloud Feedback through the Solar AA Index, which is approximately 7 w/m^2 over a 21 year period, as the Earthshine experiment has showed. (SOURCE)

The raidative forcing that GHGs have added to Earth's Energy Budget since 1750 is 2.4 w/m^2, as seen in red on the image below. CO2 and GHGs are significantly dwarfed to just albedo changes alone.

[Snow_Miser]

First - how is it in any way relevant who runs the SkepticalScience site? If the information available there is accurate, it's accurate. To claim that the information isn't true simply because of the site owner's career is a pure ad hom attack. I like to reference that site because they have a lot of material specifically debunking denialist nonsense.

It is always good to check the source of all of the information that your opponent presents. Somehow, a cartoonist's opinion on things isn't willing to convince anyone on the science of climate change. If cartoonists can interpret the science they want, as long as they agree with you, yet skeptical atmospheric scientists with Ph.Ds, and years of knowledge can not, without the risk of being called a "denier?"

Second - in my original post you responded to I was referring to the Sun's output, i.e. Total Solar Irradiance (TSI), in the context of the Sun's output being too stable to have caused the observed global warming trend. I made no reference to ISR or to albedo. So I am correct in saying that your rewriting my comment to change its meaning and your attributing words to me that I never said was a lie. There is no way you can weasel out of it - you lied. So calling you a liar is not an attack, it's a valid observation.<BR style="mso-special-character: line-break">

Then you don't know how the Earth's Climate System works, because you specifically said RECEIVING ENERGY. Changes in albedo can change the AMOUNT of INCOMING ENERGY that REACHES EARTH's SURFACE.

From your post:

there are only two possibilities - (a) the Earth is receiving additional energy or (b ) something has perturbed Earth's climate so that less energy is being radiated out. Scientists have carefully studied the Sun and have factored in its changes and cycles and have ruled it our as the source of GW because it is just too stable and quiet. So it is not (a),

Therefore the argument you tried to present to try and rule out the source of the warming as an increase in Incoming Energy is completely flawed, because you completely ignored the albedo changes that were occuring, and said that only an increase in Solar Output could create an increase in Incoming Energy that reaches Earth's Surface.

This demonstrates a complete lack of knowledge on the properties of changing Cloud Cover, and its influences on the Global Energy Flows.

So maybe YOU can stop trying to weasel out of the fact that YOU only thought that an increase in TSI could produce an increase in energy that reaches Earth's Surface, and that you completely ignored the albedo changes as being a cause of the increase in ISR.

In addition, ISR is the exact same thing as Incoming Energy reaching Earth's surface, so yes, you were talking about ISR.

I hope that the moderators of this forum are aware of your behavior because an honest debate can only take place with honest debaters.

Too bad they'll probably agree with me that you calling me a liar is uncalled for and derogatory.

[PhillipS]

It is always good to check the source of all of the information that your opponent presents. Somehow, a cartoonist's opinion on things isn't willing to convince anyone on the science of climate change. If cartoonists can interpret the science they want, as long as they agree with you, yet skeptical atmospheric scientists with Ph.Ds, and years of knowledge can not, without the risk of being called a "denier?"

You keep claiming that SkepticalScience is written by a cartoonist but I confess I wasn't sure so I checked. What I found out is that the site's material is written by a team of people and reflect comments and suggestions by a much larger group of interested folk. Here's the resume of the website's lead austhor:

Skeptical Science is maintained by John Cook, the Climate Communication Fellow for the Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland. He studied physics at the University of Queensland, Australia. After graduating, he majored in solar physics in his post-grad honours year. He is not a climate scientist. Consequently, the science presented on Skeptical Science is not his own but taken directly from the peer reviewed scientific literature. To those seeking to refute the science presented, one needs to address the peer reviewed papers where the science comes from (links to the full papers are provided whenever possible).

Doesn't sound too cartoonish to me but, heck, I'm just a cospiratorial alarmist.

Here's the link to the info on the rest of the SkepticalScience team. They sound like a pretty smart bunch to me. Would you care to share your credentials with us?

As I said in my earlier post, you can weasel around all you want but you can't change the fact that you lied. I was talking about TSI and the Earth, not ISR and the Earth's surface. The Earth is more than just its surface - the terms are not synonymous. You lied. If you had a milligram of integrity you would be ashamed of yourself and apologize or slink away. But I'll predict that you'll just keep posting your error-filled rants.