Is the World Ready for Another Ice Age? by Geoff Sharp

[LakeEffectKing]

http://en.wikipedia....oxide_poisoning

Per linked site, we certainly would not "all be dead" at 3% concentration, but exaggerations of the extreme are the standard OP in the world of AGW "education" aren't they?

[mempho]

Atmospheres are unstable, complex systems. So are economies (as we've seen in the last few years). We would be wise to invest even more in clear fuel R&D not only to reduce CO2 emissions and pollutants, but as source of industry and jobs in the 21st Century. Food, clean fuel, and sources of clean & potable water are the lynch pin of surviving and thriving.

The largest problem with the MMGW theory is in how it is being funded and who is behind it. Your objectives are worthy, but what makes you so sure that clean energy, food, and water are the aims of the current green initiatives. There are many environmental groups that are very concerned about this very issue, just so you know. The deniers do not believe that the objective of MMGW theory is any of the things you stated (quality food, clean fuel, clean water, etc.). No, the deniers believe the true objectives lie something upon the lines of greed, control, subjugation, and domination.

The science behind MMGW may turn out to be true, but who can trust a theory whose strongest proponents have openly advocated things like mass population reduction, global governance, and the like. You see, these are the types of phrases and phraseology that might have different meanings; one being rather benign and one being malignant.

Normal, everyday proponents of AGW scoff at such notions, but history is also nothing to be scoffed at.

If MMGW is correct, there is more than a minuscule chance that its aims and solutions have been hijacked for a much different purpose.

We all would love to have cheap and accessible clean fuel technology, food, and water. I dare say that I don't believe a person here would be against that or even against attempting such a noble purpose.

[beneficii]

Per linked site, we certainly would not "all be dead" at 3% concentration, but exaggerations of the extreme are the standard OP in the world of AGW "education" aren't they?

We cannot survive with everyone having those symptoms, including mild narcosis, long term.

EDIT: Though I can't find any definite sources, reading about things like sudden infant death syndrome seems to indicate that babies have a much lower level of tolerance for CO2. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that 3% is deadly for infants. If it's not, I would not be surprised to find out that long-term exposure would lead to massive damage to the baby's development.

EDIT 2: Of course, it's unlikely CO2 would ever have 3% concentration in earth's atmosphere anytime soon.

[beneficii]

The largest problem with the MMGW theory is in how it is being funded and who is behind it. Your objectives are worthy, but what makes you so sure that clean energy, food, and water are the aims of the current green initiatives. There are many environmental groups that are very concerned about this very issue, just so you know. The deniers do not believe that the objective of MMGW theory is any of the things you stated (quality food, clean fuel, clean water, etc.). No, the deniers believe the true objectives lie something upon the lines of greed, control, subjugation, and domination.

How would you expect those who understand that AGW is the best explanation for the current round of warming (and who expect it to be important into the future) to even respond to that?

[Snow_Miser]

We cannot survive with everyone having those symptoms, including mild narcosis, long term.

So the AGW crowd exaggerates again about co2. Having mild narcosis is much more different than saying "we're all going to be dead from co2." By the way, does anyone in the AGW crowd know what % of the atmosphere co2 currently is?

So the "3% we'll all die claim" is more apocalyptic nonsense.

You also like to site SkepticalScience as your sources. You do realize that John Cook, who funds SkepticalScience is a self-employed cartoonist, who knows absolutely nothing about science?

"John Cook: A cartoonist working from home in Brisbane, Australia" (SEV)

QUOTE "I'm not a climatologist or a scientist but a self employed cartoonist" - John Cook, Skeptical Science

[beneficii]

So the AGW crowd exaggerates again about co2. Having mild narcosis is much more different than saying "we're all going to be dead from co2." By the way, does anyone in the AGW crowd know what % of the atmosphere co2 currently is?

So the "3% we'll all die claim" is more apocalyptic nonsense.

Read my edits.

I never claimed that CO2 was going to be anywhere near 3%. I was correcting errors that were made by BethesdaWx as he was writing his posts. BethesdaWx says those were typos.

[beneficii]

I am responding to the stuff you edited into your post:

You also like to site SkepticalScience as your sources. You do realize that John Cook, who funds SkepticalScience is a self-employed cartoonist, who knows absolutely nothing about science?

"John Cook: A cartoonist working from home in Brisbane, Australia" (SEV)

QUOTE "I'm not a climatologist or a scientist but a self employed cartoonist" - John Cook, Skeptical Science

If you look at the front page, you'll find many different contributors; in addition, you'll find that the articles are well-sourced, linking to scientific studies and research papers. I've followed one of the contributors Dana1981 from here who seems to know what he's talking about:

http://answers.yahoo.com/activity?show=20f3291b9320a302e9070bf55325531daa

[BethesdaWX]

Read my edits.

I never claimed that CO2 was going to be anywhere near 3%. I was correcting errors that were made by BethesdaWx as he was writing his posts. BethesdaWx says those were typos.

Not typos..more of "rushed thought" syndrome, or whatev. You said we'd all be dead if it reached 3%....we won't be.

Either way, once we reach 900ppm, the heating potential is lost, theres a saturation point that basically shuts off additional CO2 "growth" in the eventual step.

[beneficii]

Not typos..more of "rushed thought" syndrome, or whatev.

OK.

You said we'd all be dead if it reached 3%....we won't be.

Read the edits on my post earlier, as I will not argue this any longer.

Either way, once we reach 900ppm, the heating potential is lost, theres a saturation point that basically shuts off additional CO2 "growth" in the eventual step.

Source?

I know about this:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/saturated-co2-effect.htm

Where the effect is logarithmic, but I don't see anything about saturation anywhere.

[BethesdaWX]

You're denying theres a CO2 Saturation point?

yeah..."skeptical science"

[beneficii]

You're denying theres a CO2 Saturation point?

No, I asked for a source, as I couldn't find anything about that myself. Do you have something you can provide?

[mempho]

How would you expect those who understand that AGW is the best explanation for the current round of warming (and who expect it to be important into the future) to even respond to that?

Simple...respond as to why you find the evidence credible when you consider who's driving the bus here. I think it's a legitimate question and is one that is near the heart of those who are deniers. If you think the world is in danger from MMGW, that's fine and you may be right. However, arguing datapoints doesn't work when the other side thinks the data is being falsified by a malignant force of some type.

Almost all of these arguments center around data and this theory and that theory and then it devolves into mudslinging....but it's not really about any of that. It's more or less about credibility and there are a lot of questionable things that have been stated by people near the center of this that need some real explaining.

[beneficii]

Simple...respond as to why you find the evidence credible when you consider who's driving the bus here. I think it's a legitimate question and is one that is near the heart of those who are deniers.

If you think the world is in danger from MMGW, that's fine and you may be right. However, arguing datapoints doesn't work when the other side thinks the data is being falsified by a malignant force of some type.

I appreciate your honesty. I followed this line of thinking in the past, but in the end I got tired of dishonesty by many proponents of this line of thinking in climate change and other matters--you will be surprised how dishonest fundamentalists can be--, several failed way-off predictions by them (q.v. Vault-co), and just an overall sense of crank-ness and paranoia that just got old after a while. Basically, my world view has changed, and I've become more inclined to trust the scientific consensus over the groups I was a part of.

Almost all of these arguments center around data and this theory and that theory and then it devolves into mudslinging....but it's not really about any of that. It's more or less about credibility and there are a lot of questionable things that have been stated by people near the center of this that need some real explaining.

I generally consider the science to be very credible, as it is confirmed by many different sources using many different lines of evidence. It is not about one group or the other, or one line of evidence or the other. But rather, it is based on research by several independent groups into multiple lines of evidence.

For example, there are indeed the IPCC and the CRU, but there are also NAS, the U.S. Navy, and virtually any other group with national or international standing in almost every other country. It isn't any one group, and there's little evidence of a massive conspiracy between these groups. In my mind, that is just paranoia.

[BethesdaWX]

No, I asked for a source, as I couldn't find anything about that myself. Do you have something you can provide?

huh? You say you're not denying...but you need a source? or what? Theres something called google, my friend

Heres your source. Read it thoroughly, because I'll know if you didn't

http://brneurosci.org/co2.html

Want more sources? More specific sources, with less "jumble"?

[beneficii]

huh? You say you're not denying...but you need a source? or what? Theres something called google, my friend

Heres your source. Read it thoroughly, because I'll know if you didn't

http://brneurosci.org/co2.html

Want more sources? More specific sources, with less "jumble"?

Can I get it in English, doc? :wink:

[Snow_Miser]

I am responding to the stuff you edited into your post:

If you look at the front page, you'll find many different contributors; in addition, you'll find that the articles are well-sourced, linking to scientific studies and research papers. I've followed one of the contributors Dana1981 from here who seems to know what he's talking about:

http://answers.yahoo...70bf55325531daa

Do any of those contributors have any scientific degrees? Now here is an actual scientist by the name of Lubos Motl. He has a PhD in Theoretical Physics, and has debunked John Cook and Skeptical Science in all angles.

It's the sun: I agree with Richard Lindzen that it's silly to try to find "one reason behind all climate change", because the climate is pretty complex and clearly has lots of drivers, and this applies to the opinion that "everything is in the Sun", too. Cook shows that the solar irradiance is too small and largely uncorrelated to the observed changes of temperatures. I agree with that: a typical 0.1% change of the output is enough for a 0.025% change of the temperature in Kelvins which is less than 0.1 °C and unlikely to matter much. But I find it embarrassing for a student of solar physics such as himself to be so narrow-minded. The Sun influences the Earth's atmosphere not only directly by the output but also indirectly, by its magnetic field and its impact on the cosmic rays (via solar wind etc.) and other things. He has completely ignored all these things. Of course, I am actually not certain that these effects are very important for the climate but the evidence - including peer-reviewed articles - is as diverse as the evidence supporting CO2 as an important driver.

Climate's changed before: Cook says that the previous history of the climate shows that the climate is sensitive to imbalances. Indeed, it is and it has always been. And he says that the past history provides evidence for sensitivity to CO2. Well, it virtually doesn't. CO2, much like other effects, adds imbalances and pushes the temperature around. But there exists no way to disentangle CO2 from many other effects or argue that it has become the most important driver. So the climate continues to change in the same way as it did in the past, by the typical changes per year, decade, and century, and Cook has offered no evidence whatsoever that something has changed about the very fact that the climate is changing.

There is no consensus: This counter-point #3 is clearly obsolete: Cook tries to argue that 97% climate scientists endorse something - it sounds like a TV commercial. Most of his graphs are obsolete, too - the current support for various AGW-related statements is close to 1/2 of the figures he copied in an "optimistic" moment for his favorite political movement. The reality is that most scientists disagree with the basic tenets of the AGW orthodoxy - and even people like Phil Jones now agree that nothing unprecedented is going on with the climate right now (including no statistically significant warming in 15 years, and the existence of a medieval warm period), while Kevin Trenberth has agreed that the climate hasn't warmed and the popular models are inconsistent with this fact - what a travesty. There still exist large bodies of climate scientists who prefer to promote the panic - because they've been hired to do so or because it results from their political biases (which are mostly leftist in the Academia). The funding for climate science has increased 10-fold in the last 10-20 years - purely because of the possible threat - which means that 90% of the people (or 90% of the funding) is working on proofs of this pre-determined conclusion. At any rate, these discussions provide us with no evidence for the actual science - they're just about an attempt of the largely political movements to intimidate the scientists in the very same way in which Nazis wanted to intimidate the "Jewish science" by the consensus of the "Aryan scientists". Einstein would tell them that it's enough to find one scientist to prove Einstein wrong.

It's cooling: Again, Cook's graphs and statements are obsolete and a few years from the moment he wrote the page were enough to falsify his new predictions about the accumulating heat. The reality is that between 1998 or 2001 or other years on one side and 2009 on the other side, the global mean temperature dropped. Sometimes it's cooling, sometimes it's warming. The year 2010 is likely to be much warmer than 2009, approaching the temperatures of 1998, but when the El Nino fully switches to a La Nina, things can be very different. The fact that there's been no significant warming for 15 years has been accepted by both sides of this debate. And since 1998, it's just cooling. Cook has no counter-arguments. He just says that the heat flows influence the temperature and I agree with that. Except that he doesn't show in which way the flows are going to go e.g. in the next 10 years.

Models are unreliable: Cook says that models have made predictions that were successfully compared to observations. Except that this is not enough for the models to be reliable. For them to be reliable, it would have to be the case that the models have produced no predictions that were inconsistent with the observations - because one wrong prediction is enough to falsify a model. Clearly, such falsification has taken place with all of them. In particular, all IPCC-endorsed models predicted a warming since 1998 that didn't occur. They're gone. Again, both sides agree that we can't rely on them. Kevin Trenberth agrees that the disagreement of the models and the data is a travesty. There are hundreds of recent examples showing how deeply flawed the existing IPCC-endorsed models are.

Temp record is unrealiable: In his counter-point, Cook talks about the urban heat island effects that are "negligible". Well, they're surely not negligible because the estimated urban warming in typical large cities exceeds the whole assumed warming caused by CO2 - something like 0.6 °C. So it matters a lot whether the urban effects are isolated. But the urban effects are far from being the only problem with the surface temperature record. The number of recently found dramatic problems with the surface record is so huge that I can't even enumerate them here.

It hasn't warmed since 1998: Cook claims that the Earth continued to accumulate heat. If you check his evidence, you will see that it is a circular reasoning because the sources also use the models in which the warming should have continued. The fact is that no warming has occurred since 1998 so it's likely that there's also no warming in the "pipeline". Cook emphasizes that 1998 was a year of a strong El Nino. Of course, it was, but it was not unprecedented or unrepeatable. The most recent El Nino episode reached more than 2/3 of the maximum of the 1997/1998 El Nino episode. So they're surely comparable, to say the least. If 2010 will match the temperatures of 1998, it still means that the "trend-like" warming per 12 years is only comparable to 1/3 of the effect of one El Nino, or 1/6 of the difference between an El Nino and La Nina peaks. It's very small.

Ice age predicted in the 70s: Cook claims that these predictions were largely media-based. Well, the same is true about the current global warming alarm. It's mostly media-based and good scientists are simply not working on such conspiracy theories. It's still true that less good scientists are working on them, and they were also working in the 1970s. Sometimes it's the very same people. For example, Rasool and Schneider predicted a new ice age in 1971 - in an article in Science. The relative importance of the "scientific community" and the "media" is pretty much the same as it was in the global cooling alarm in the 1970s - the recent global warming hysteria just got far more severe than the global cooling hysteria 35 years ago.

We're heading into an ice age: Cook claims that CO2 beats all other things. At some point in the future, this statement will of course become ridiculous. Ice ages may be 10 °C cooler than the interglacials. Because of the logarithmic character of the greenhouse warming, one can't ever compensate 10 °C of cooling by an added CO2 because the concentration would have to jump something like 256-fold. It's clear that a "big" ice age will return in a multiple of 10,000 years and the people will only be able to deal with it if they have a much stronger technology than the current ones. Also, a "little" ice age may return within a century, and a possible cooling by 2 °C, as seen historically, will be greater than the effect of the CO2.

Antarctica is gaining ice: Cook claims it's not, when looked at the whole continent. Well, the graphs of the sea ice area in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres show that both of them are very near the normal levels right now, as extracted in the last 30 years or so. In the last 50 years, Antarctica was cooling, but such things are due to many coincidences. It is completely plausible that in the next 50 years, it will be the Arctic that will be cooling. It's preposterous to promote these random changes to "signals from God": the huge variability of the polar regions is a rule rather than an exception.

http://motls.blogspo...al-science.html

A nice read.

[skierinvermont]

No, I asked for a source, as I couldn't find anything about that myself. Do you have something you can provide?

He's referring to the fact that the effect of CO2 is logarithmic to concentration. There is no saturation point, but the effect of additional CO2 becomes less at higher concentrations. Unfortunately, by the time we got to 800ppm world temperature would have already risen 2-3C which would jeopardize the Greenland ice sheet, cause widespread extinctions, major ecosystem disruption, and excessive flooding and droughts.

[mempho]

I appreciate your honesty. I followed this line of thinking in the past, but in the end I got tired of dishonesty by many proponents of this line of thinking in climate change and other matters--you will be surprised how dishonest fundamentalists can be--, several failed way-off predictions by them (q.v. Vault-co), and just an overall sense of crank-ness and paranoia that just got old after a while. Basically, my world view has changed, and I've become more inclined to trust the scientific consensus over the groups I was a part of.

That's fine. I understand that there are a lot of people that you can't have a reasoned conversation with over the specifics of what I brought up...but it is the elephant in the room. I'm not sure what you do for a living but my job and education are in accounting. So, it's only natural that I look at the money side of things. Therefore, if someone says that A is going to happen, I try to look at where A came from. Further, in dealing with numbers and datasets , I'm quite aware that even the most objective-looking information can be manipulated if that is one's aim.

That makes motive important. If I'm performing a financial statement audit and a client has the intent to deceive me (and his bankers and investors), he's going to be able to do it if he's got any decent kind of intellectual capacity. It's not because I'm lacking but it's because, as I like to say, "there are 1,000 ways to tell a lie but only one way to tell the truth." I simply can't cover every possibility. That's the very reason that our first job in an audit is to assess the character and integrity of the client. That includes assessing possible motives for the client to commit fraud. I don't have to know how the fraud is committed, but if I assess that it's very likely that fraud is occurring, I'm supposed to not even undertake the audit.

That's the way I'm trained to think and, therefore, I think it's legitimate. I don't think I have to immediately jump onto the full-blown conspiracy bandwagon to ask these questions. However, you and I live in the same town and you and I probably know lots of people who equivocate modern-day environmentalism with some hideous master plan. So, while you're thinking in terms of CO2, Mauna Loa, ice cores, feedback mechanisms, and the like...they're thinking of quotes by Maurice Strong and others.

In any case, my point in saying this is that you can't really expect anything to get done on this as long as there is a significant chunk of the politically active portion of society that is of the belief that the MMGW movement has, at its heart, a terrible desire. It seems as if these concerns get either ignored, ridiculed, or scoffed at. That's not going to get the job done here. It's a terrible way to build unity within a democratic framework. As you can see, the resistance has gained enough critical mass so that (fear of) ridicule is no longer causing people to jump sides here. People on both sides are merely fortifying their own camps....and, when there is dialogue, they can't really even speak to each other because noone's really listening to the other side.

Look at the debate on here which is much more elevated on the topic than in the general discourse:

Proponent: Here is graph A showing global temperature over time.

Opponent: Where is that derived from?

Proponent: It's from satellite data.

Opponent: The start point on your graph precedes the satellite era by a mile.

Proponent: It was reconstructed through....

Opponent: Method X is an unreliable way to reconstruct the data according to a study done by....Furthermore, the basis of AGW is that carbon has a causative effect on climate change and...

Clearly, you can see that the opponent doubts the data because of distrust. I think it is clear that the opponents (even on here) have substantial doubt that the scientists are neutral and objective. This is a real problem and peer review does not solve the issue if people believe that there is a systemic bias within the system arising from a nefarious motive. Systemic bias is now further being supported by allegations of blackballing scientists based upon the conclusions reached rather than the soundness of the scientific methodology with which that conclusion was reached.

These are major problems and, since it is the proponents of AGW that see the status quo as unacceptable, it is, by default, the opponents who win in permanent stalemate.

I generally consider the science to be very credible, as it is confirmed by many different sources using many different lines of evidence. It is not about one group or the other, or one line of evidence or the other. But rather, it is based on research by several independent groups into multiple lines of evidence.

For example, there are indeed the IPCC and the CRU, but there are also NAS, the U.S. Navy, and virtually any other group with national or international standing in almost every other country. It isn't any one group, and there's little evidence of a massive conspiracy between these groups. In my mind, that is just paranoia.

However, your mind is not the one that needs to be put to ease. If you're trying to change hearts and minds (and from all your posts here, it seems you are), then you need to address the underlying issues.

Personally, I believe both sides of the debate are possible. I was once a firm believer in the AGW hypothesis and I remember being completely convinced by the ice core data. Some later research on the subject (as the result of a denier's allegations) led me to read some stuff on the UN's site that really want to vomit (Huxley). And, that invariably led to Sanger and later Strong and I kept hoping to disprove it but I turned up enough first-hand sources that I just felt sick about it. This is not stuff that any sane person wants to believe. Admittedly, you can read most of it in a way that's rather benign and you can admit that things like racism were more of a norm in society a few decades ago and that everyone's got skeletons and so on and so forth. I look at some of the comments that [some of the aforementioned and others] have made and some of them were really vile...so much so that I excluded them from posting here.

With all of that said, I don't really believe that the modern environmental movement is about the genocide or starving everyone or even world government (but perhaps a global structure for dealing with carbon emissions). It may be about what we call "soft" methods of birth control or it may be about greed or it may just be about the environment. Personally, though, the greed thing doesn't bother me so much. People make money at the expense of others. This has happened through all of history and I'm certainly not one to change it. So, if someone gets rich from saving the planet or even if they are just pretending to save the planet to get rich, then, at worst, it's no different than what my expectations are of society as a whole. However, there is doubt there and that doubt it seems a little like playing Russian roulette in that there's a small probability of a terrible outcome versus a much larger probability of a not-so-bad outcome. Therefore, I really "default" myself into a skeptic's position out of a fear. Maybe I'm being rational and maybe I'm being irrational. IDK, but I do know that I'm not alone in feeling this way. If AGW is a real concern, all of the skeletons need to come out of the closet and it needs to be discussed openly in society and the people who are not in the science purely to get it right, regardless of outcome, are the ones that need to be blackballed and ostracized. Furthermore, anyone found to be attempting to falsify or eliminate data contrary to their conclusions can be put on trial for fraud when using grant money. This is not something that we need to play games with....it's a serious matter and full honesty is the only way to get anything accomplished within a democratic framework. The idea that people can just say, "there's a strong consensus" and "the debate is over" and just get rid of opposition is not democratic. Amongst the people, there is no strong consensus. And there won't be as long as the opposition keeps dragging new skeletons out of the closet and throwing them in the growing pile of yet-to-be-explained items.

Trust and transparency are the hallmarks of a healthy democracy and those items seem to be in short supply in this debate...and in a host of others as well.

That's about as honest as I can be on the subject.

However, there I readily admit that I find a little bit of global cooling to be attractive (as in, I'd kind of like it to be true) just so we can get more snow. However, snow is an unimportant (mostly) fantasy, and, if there's a real problem, I'm not one to say we should ignore it and deny the problem but I still don't see

[skierinvermont]

Do any of those contributors have any scientific degrees? Now here is an actual scientist by the name of Lubos Motl. He has a PhD in Theoretical Physics, and has debunked John Cook and Skeptical Science in all angles.

http://motls.blogspo...al-science.html

A nice read.

There are a lot of blatant errors and obfuscation in that.

[Snow_Miser]

There are a lot of blatant errors and obfuscation in that.

Dr. Motl has a PhD in theoretical physics. What are your credentials in order to prove Dr. Motl wrong?

[beneficii]

He's referring to the fact that the effect of CO2 is logarithmic to concentration. There is no saturation point, but the effect of additional CO2 becomes less at higher concentrations. Unfortunately, by the time we got to 800ppm world temperature would have already risen 2-3C which would jeopardize the Greenland ice sheet, cause widespread extinctions, major ecosystem disruption, and excessive flooding and droughts.

He made it seem like he was talking about something different, because I had already acknowledged the logarithmic effect. Oy vey.

[beneficii]

Dr. Motl has a PhD in theoretical physics. What are your credentials in order to prove Dr. Motl wrong?

Theoretical physics is not climatology. I also noticed that he seems to be giving the entire field of climatology the middle finger by barely quoting any sources.

[Snow_Miser]

Theoretical physics is not climatology. I also noticed that he seems to be giving the entire field of climatology the middle finger by barely quoting any sources.

Physics is great in understanding the properties of matter. He also wrote up this about the logarithmic aspect of co2.

Let us try to end up with the 1 °C sensitivity. First of all, as we have already suggested, fundamental physicists respect "e" and not "2" as the right base of exponentials and logarithms so the goal will be to show that multiplying CO2 volume by "e" will warm up Earth by a certain amount comparable to 1 °C / ln(2) = 1.44 °C. Let’s see how close to 1.44 °C for this e-normalized climate sensitivity we can get.

With the e-multiplication of CO2 (between 1800 and 2150 or so, assuming fossil fuels to go on), the tropopause shifts by height_0 = 5 km, the temperature at the tropopause drops by 25 °C. If the tropopause and the surface were emitting 50% of the radiation each, then the surface would have to warm up by 25 °C: with this change, the decrease of the thermal radiation by the cooler troposphere would be compensated by the increase of the thermal radiation from a warmer surface. However, 25 °C would indeed be a pretty high, catastrophic e-sensitivity. Fortunately, the surface emits a vast majority of the radiation, so a small increase of the surface temperature is enough to compensate the small cooling at the tropopause.

Assuming the average percentage composition of the radiation from surface vs tropopause to be 94:6, you see that the Earth is 17 times more important than the tropopause for the energy budget. So you need to change the Earth surface temperature by 25 °C / 17 in the opposite direction to compensate them which is 1.47 °C. A pretty good agreement. OK, I cheated a bit by saying that the effective distribution was 94:6 but what is important is the framework of the calculation and the qualitative logarithmic form of the result. You may try to put better numbers into it if you want to improve it.

You should also think how you could properly incorporate heat convection and some basic influence of different forms of water in the atmosphere.

http://motls.blogspot.com/2008/01/why-is-greenhouse-effect-logarithmic.html

[skierinvermont]

Dr. Motl has a PhD in theoretical physics. What are your credentials in order to prove Dr. Motl wrong?

100s of other PhDs and logic.

[Snow_Miser]

100s of other PhDs and logic.

You mean the politically driven IPCC which had only 52 signatures from scientists, and even less than that from climatologists? You do realize that more policymakers signed the IPCC 2007 report than scientists?

The notion of “hundreds” or “thousands” of UN scientists agreeing to a scientific statement does not hold up to scrutiny. (See report debunking “consensus” LINK) Recent research by Australian climate data analyst John McLean revealed that the IPCC’s peer-review process for the Summary for Policymakers leaves much to be desired. (LINK) (LINK) (LINK) & (LINK) (Note: The 52 scientists who participated in the 2007 IPCC Summary for Policymakers had to adhere to the wishes of the UN political leaders and delegates in a process described as more closely resembling a political party’s convention platform battle, not a scientific process – LINK)

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/12/08/shredding-the-climate-consensus-myth-more-than-1000-international-scientists-dissent-over-man-made-global-warming-claims-challenge-un-ipcc-gore/

The IPCC is perhaps one of the greatest embaressments to the scientific community.

Here are some pretty nice quotes from scientists that dissent against AGW.

“We’re not scientifically there yet. Despite what you may have heard in the media, there is nothing like a consensus of scientific opinion that this is a problem. Because there is natural variability in the weather, you cannot statistically know for another 150 years.” — UN IPCC’s Tom Tripp, a member of the UN IPCC since 2004 and listed as one of the lead authors and serves as the Director of Technical Services & Development for U.S. Magnesium.

“Any reasonable scientific analysis must conclude the basic theory wrong!!” — NASA Scientist Dr. Leonard Weinstein who worked 35 years at the NASA Langley Research Center and finished his career there as a Senior Research Scientist. Weinstein, is presently a Senior Research Fellow at the National Institute of Aerospace.

“Please remain calm: The Earth will heal itself — Climate is beyond our power to control…Earth doesn’t care about governments or their legislation. You can’t find much actual global warming in present-day weather observations. Climate change is a matter of geologic time, something that the earth routinely does on its own without asking anyone’s permission or explaining itself.” — Nobel Prize-Winning Stanford University Physicist Dr. Robert B. Laughlin, who won the Nobel Prize for physics in 1998, and was formerly a research scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

“In essence, the jig is up. The whole thing is a fraud. And even the fraudsters that fudged data are admitting to temperature history that they used to say didn’t happen…Perhaps what has doomed the Climategate fraudsters the most was their brazenness in fudging the data” — Dr. Christopher J. Kobus, Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Oakland University, specializes in alternative energy, thermal transport phenomena, two-phase flow and fluid and thermal energy systems.

“The energy mankind generates is so small compared to that overall energy budget that it simply cannot affect the climate…The planet’s climate is doing its own thing, but we cannot pinpoint significant trends in changes to it because it dates back millions of years while the study of it began only recently. We are children of the Sun; we simply lack data to draw the proper conclusions.” — Russian Scientist Dr. Anatoly Levitin, the head of geomagnetic variations laboratory at the Institute of Terrestrial Magnetism, Ionosphere and Radiowave Propagation of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

“Hundreds of billion dollars have been wasted with the attempt of imposing a Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) theory that is not supported by physical world evidences…AGW has been forcefully imposed by means of a barrage of scare stories and indoctrination that begins in the elementary school textbooks.” — Brazilian Geologist Geraldo Luís Lino, who authored the 2009 book “The Global Warming Fraud: How a Natural Phenomenon Was Converted into a False World Emergency.”

“I am an environmentalist,” but “I must disagree with Mr. Gore” — Chemistry Professor Dr. Mary Mumper, the chair of the Chemistry Department at Frostburg State University in Maryland, during her presentation titled “Anthropogenic Carbon Dioxide and Global Warming, the Skeptic’s View.”

“I am ashamed of what climate science has become today,” The science “community is relying on an inadequate model to blame CO2 and innocent citizens for global warming in order to generate funding and to gain attention. If this is what ‘science’ has become today, I, as a scientist, am ashamed…Science is too important for our society to be misused in the way it has been done within the Climate Science Community.” Swedish Climatologist Dr. Hans Jelbring,

“Those who call themselves ‘Green planet advocates’ should be arguing for a CO2- fertilized atmosphere, not a CO2-starved atmosphere…Diversity increases when the planet was warm AND had high CO2 atmospheric content…Al Gore’s personal behavior supports a green planet – his enormous energy use with his 4 homes and his bizjet, does indeed help make the planet greener. Kudos, Al for doing your part to save the planet.” — Renowned engineer and aviation/space pioneer Burt Rutan, who was named “100 most influential people in the world, 2004″ by Time Magazine and Newsweek called him “the man responsible for more innovations in modern aviation than any living engineer.”

“Global warming is the central tenet of this new belief system in much the same way that the Resurrection is the central tenet of Christianity. Al Gore has taken a role corresponding to that of St Paul in proselytizing the new faith…My skepticism about AGW arises from the fact that as a physicist who has worked in closely related areas, I know how poor the underlying science is. In effect the scientific method has been abandoned in this field.” — Atmospheric Physicist Dr. John Reid, who worked with Australia’s CSIRO’s (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization) Division of Oceanography and worked in surface gravity waves (ocean waves) research.

“We maintain there is no reason whatsoever to worry about man-made climate change, because there is no evidence whatsoever that such a thing is happening.” — Greek Earth scientists Antonis Christofides and Nikos Mamassis of the National Technical University of Athens’ Department of Water Resources and Environmental Engineering.

“There are clear cycles during which both temperature and salinity rise and fall. These cycles are related to solar activity…In my opinion and that of our institute, the problems connected to the current stage of warming are being exaggerated. What we are dealing with is not a global warming of the atmosphere or of the oceans.” — Biologist Pavel Makarevich of the Biological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences

“Because the greenhouse effect is temporary rather than permanent, predictions of significant global warming in the 21st century by IPCC are not supported by the data.” — Hebrew University Professor Dr. Michael Beenstock an honorary fellow with Institute for Economic Affairs who published a study challenging man-made global warming claims titled “Polynomial Cointegration Tests of the Anthropogenic Theory of Global Warming.”

“The whole idea of anthropogenic global warming is completely unfounded. There appears to have been money gained by Michael Mann, Al Gore and UN IPCC’s Rajendra Pachauri as a consequence of this deception, so it’s fraud.” — South African astrophysicist Hilton Ratcliffe, a member of the Astronomical Society of Southern Africa (ASSA) and the Astronomical Society of the Pacific and a Fellow of the British Institute of Physics.

So which PHDs are you talking about skier?

[beneficii]

You mean the politically driven IPCC which had only 52 signatures from scientists, and even less than that from climatologists? You do realize that more policymakers signed the IPCC 2007 report than scientists?

http://wattsupwithth...e-un-ipcc-gore/

The IPCC is perhaps one of the greatest embaressments to the scientific community.

Here are some pretty nice quotes from scientists that dissent against AGW.

So which PHDs are you talking about skier?

LOL.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-scientific-consensus.htm

Let's keep the back and forth going.

[skierinvermont]

You mean the politically driven IPCC which had only 52 signatures from scientists, and even less than that from climatologists? You do realize that more policymakers signed the IPCC 2007 report than scientists?

http://wattsupwithth...e-un-ipcc-gore/

The IPCC is perhaps one of the greatest embaressments to the scientific community.

Here are some pretty nice quotes from scientists that dissent against AGW.

So which PHDs are you talking about skier?

The ones in the peer-reviewed journals which contradict the nonsense you posted.

[Snow_Miser]

LOL.

http://www.skeptical...c-consensus.htm

Let's keep the back and forth going.

Well well… this is from Doran 2009, no?

From the blog post you referenced…

…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).

Well… let’s investigate this paper. Turns out that you can play with fractions and percentages in order to make it “look like” there is a scientific consensus. Turns out that this comes to a non peer-reviewed article which has a sample size of 79. Turns out that they chose 76 scientists to represent John Cook’s so called consensus. I believe that there are many more climate scientists than 76. Don’t you? In fact, some of these so called “climatologists” are not even climatologists at all.

From the article…

The two areas of expertise in the survey with the smallest percentage of participants

answering yes to question 2 were economic geology with 47% (48 of 103) and meteorology with 64% (23 of 36).

Perhaps I could get Willie Soon, Lubos Motl, Nir Shaviv, Richard Lindzen, Fred Singer, Professor Veizer, Tim F. Ball, Ian Clark, John Christy, and James Hansen, and claim that 90% of scientists say that Global Warming is caused by natural causes.

The ones in the peer-reviewed journals which contradict the nonsense you posted.

Which specific scientists are you refering to? I seem to recall you said there were 100s of PhDs that were proponents of AGW...

http://www.americanw...post__p__205739

So who are these 100s of Scientists with PhDs?

[skierinvermont]

Maybe you should read a peer reviewed journal and find out.

[superjames1992]

Are we ready for another ice age? No. Are we ready for a warmer world? Probably not. Of course, an ice age would be the worst of the two extremes. The Earth's population could collapse if that were to happen, particularly when dealing with lesser developed countries. Whatever the case, we'll have to adapt to whatever happens.