(Part of the How to Talk to a Global Warming Skeptic guide)
Objection: In the geological record, it is clear that CO2 does not trigger climate changes. Why should it be any different now?
Answer: Given the fact that human industrialization is unique in the history of planet earth, do we really need historical precedent for CO2-triggered climate change before we accept what we observe today? Surely it is not far-fetched that unprecedented consequences would follow from unprecedented events.
But putting this crucial point aside, history does indeed provide some relevant insights and dire warnings.
During the glacial/interglacial cycles, temperatures and CO2 concentrations showed remarkable correlation. Closer examination reveals that CO2 does not lead the temperature changes, but lags by many centuries. Even so, the full extent of the warming can not be explained without the effects of CO2. Though these cycles do not demonstrate that greenhouse gas initiated warming, they do lend credence to the importance of CO2 and CH4 in setting the planetary thermostat.
There are also events in geological history when sharp rises in temperature were initiated and driven by large spikes in greenhouse gases -- not unlike the fossil-fuel-emissions spike today. The Paleocene Eocene Thermal Maximum is such a case. Roughly 55 million years ago, ocean pH levels dropped drastically and global temperatures rapidly rose over 5oC. The resolution of available proxy records indicates that this occurred in a period of time no longer than 5K years; it's not possible to know if it happened even faster. The likely cause was massive releases of methane from the ocean floors, perhaps due to some smaller warming or changes in sea level. It took over 100K years for the ocean, atmosphere, and temperatures to return to their previous state. The result was a mass extinction event that took millions of years to recover from.
We can also look at the formation of the Deccan Traps. In this case, a massive and sustained volcanic action altered atmospheric chemistry and caused a drastic climate change, one that lead to the extinction of the dinosaurs. And Snowball Earth theories involve the build-up of greenhouse gases as the mechanism by which the earth eventually escaped its frozen state.
In short, it is simply untrue that history lacks precedent for greenhouse-gas-driven warming. The precedents are there, as are the dire warnings.
The new Senate global warming deniers
EPA affirms California’s right to set tougher automobile emissions standards
Comments View as Flat
WWAGD?! Posted 3:06 pm
28 Dec 2006
Did you read what you wrote?
- You say CO2 lags warming.
- Then you say the the warming is "CO2 driven".
Is it me?I think this is important because that is the single biggest failure in the Al Gore comedy An Inconvenient Truth.
The big chart. He spent minutes on the big build-up. Showing the two graphs, CO2 and warming, in sync. And then, the showy part where he gets in a lifter, and like a scene from How To Succeed in Business Without Even Trying he shows the CO2 going up, up, up.
But wait. The warming isn't going up! It's way behind.
One can only conclude, as you should have, that correlation doesn not imply causality. And in this case, the correlation is broken, demonstrated courtesy of Big Al.
The Texeme Construct offers international text memetics construction and textcasting services.
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Zarkov Posted 6:20 pm
28 Dec 2006
False Logic,---- False Assumptions.
>> Given the fact that human industrialization is unique in the history of planet earth, do we really need historical precedent for CO2-triggered climate change before we accept what we observe today? Surely it is not far-fetched ... >>
Can you see the fallacy here ?
Do we really need to be making assumptions with almost no basic whatsoever.?
This is the Earth y'all playing with, and maybe you have the right to destroy yourself,
BUT there is no right on earth that will allow y'all to destroy my life and many others.
The Carbon Dioxide assumption is a MYTH
Why is it pushed so hard? because we can do something about carbon dioxide.......
What are you going to do about the OIL SLICK ON THE SEAS and the FACT THAT OIL IS PIVOTAL TO OUR ECONOMY and we can not just turn it off!!!!!!!!!!
I hate to invoke conspiracy, but you got one, and its world wide.
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caniscandida Posted 6:47 pm
28 Dec 2006
Deccan Traps; Pangaea
The amazing basaltic flows that took place over a period of time at the end of the Cretaceous period, on the Deccan plateau of west central India, are believed by many paleontologists to have contributed somehow to the K-T mass extinction event. But the mechanism of that event is not yet well understood. Also, the consensus is that an asteroidal impact centered just off the northern coast of the Yucatan peninsula, near a place called Chicxulub, was at least as significant. It seems premature to say simply that the Deccan vulcanism "led to" the extinction of the last non-avian dinosaurs.
Most often, the extinction event is reconstructed as involving, first, the ejection of much darkening particulate matter into the atmosphere, causing a severe global cooling, and a reduction in sunlight, therefore a long pause in photosynthesis, and a collapse of food chains based on the consumption of plants and plant-eating animals. Then, high levels of atmospheric sulfur may have caused periods of acid rain. Finally, possibly, the clearing of the atmosphere was attended by increasing levels of GHGs, perhaps related to Deccan vulcanism, or to the decomposition of dead plants and animals, resulting in a period of global warming.
Famously, no terrestrial animal larger than a cat survived. More important for climate science is the observation that marine animals bearing calcareous shells were greatly reduced. Also, in that fascinating group of animals who somehow survived were "true" birds (other previously successful bird lineages went extinct) and frogs, both of which we know to be extremely sensitive to environmental disruptions. For example, frogs are greatly distressed by acid rain, so we should be reluctant to assert that there was a long, widespread period of acid rain during the K-T extinction event.
Climate, as it affects life on Earth, is indeed a very complicated affair, and there is a lot more going on than just the relative quantity of GHGs. The arrangement of continents has as much to do with climate as anything else, apparently. In the mid-Triassic period, 225 million years ago, all the continents happened to be adjacent, and formed one great super-continent, called Pangaea. The climate of its interior, as one might expect, seems to have been hot and arid. This was the time when both the earliest mammals and the earliest dinosaurs first appeared; and it is interesting to speculate that the climate of Pangaea was less inhospitable to the diapsid-reptilian constitution of the dinosaurs, than to the synapsid mammals; hence, the dinosaurs lept into the lead as dominant animals, and maintained it for over 150 million years.
That said, I have no problem with Coby's data from the Cenozoic Era (with which I am not well acquainted, however, even the fascinating mass extinction event at the end of the Paleocene). The "historical" objections of the GW denier do not make sense to me.
Chickens are our cousins! So are other sensitive animals! Enough is enough! No more factory farms!
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amazingdrx Posted 11:01 pm
28 Dec 2006
Duuuh
"The warming isn't going up! It's way behind."
Imagine you have a garden. You want to start your garden earlier than normal in the spring.
You erect a greenhouse, the temperature in your garden goes up. the ground thaws and you can plant early.
The temperature does not go up before you put up the greenhouse. It goes up after.
The graph of temperature follows the graph of cO2 concentration levels. the warming in turn melts ice, 90% of solar energy is reflected by ice. only 10% from the ice free land or water that replaces it. That in turn causes even more warming.
The warming melts permafrost and methane hydrate ice in the seabed. methane is released, a 20 times worse gHG than cO2, and on and on it goes until the arctic ice is gone.
then the Gulf Stream conveyor stops and north america and europe go into an ice age, in as little as 10 years.
what is not to understand? please tell us of your confusion bunky! hehehey.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Entrylevel Posted 1:12 am
29 Dec 2006
Global Warming
Not much doubt on the warming, but there is another hypothesis available to think about. The Danish National Space Centre has published experimental evidence in the Royal Society of London (A) showing that during sunspot minima (about now) the earth's geomagnetic shield is down and cosmic rays (particles) from deep space enter our atmosphere and nucleate clouds. The paper is available from me if anyone wants to read it.
The second piece is this. A paper in Science by Friis-Christianson and Lassen (1991) demonstrated a 95% correlation between sun spot peak frequency and warming. Correlation is not causation, but in combination the two papers indicate that 95% of global warming is actually solar in origin.
Without considering error dispersion, lets say 5% is anthropogenic and the conservative temperature rise is 0.7 degrees C, the increment of global warming that might be anthropogenic is 5% of 0.7 degrees or Sweet FA.
It's been unseasonally rainy here in the Great Lakes basin. I attribute it anecdotally to the sun spot minimum. "The shields are down Scotty!" It's also been warming and the last sun spot cycle was a statistically short 10 years.
Francis T. Manns, Ph.D., P.Geo. (Ontario)
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buster Posted 2:41 am
29 Dec 2006
Ignorance is bliss
I don't see where Mr. Beck made any reference to Al Gore, or the movie An Inconvenient Truth. Furthermore, your response to this article is a bit hostile in nature, which is typical Republican behavior. You cannot (or will not) even consider the possibility of global warming, because it has been drilled into your head that it's some kind of liberal propaganda. I am just saying that is how it appears.
If you consider the argument of global warming and what is at stake, you will probably conclude that there is not a whole lot we can do on a global level. This is up to humans as individuals to make life changes that reflect a level of responsibility and appreciation for the planet we were given to live on. Since you brought it up, "Big Al's" book was nothing more than global warming according to Al Gore, with some pages about his personal life that were rather distracting from the point of the book. I didn't see the movie. I have met Al Gore and respect him as a person. The fact that he is trying to at least make people aware of a situation that many people ignore, is commendable.
What Gore doesn't say enough of in his book, and what we should be also considering, is that everything is tied together. Ecosystems upon ecosytems. Animals rely on one another for survival, life and health. An overexposure to CO2 can drastically change life in the oceans, which is full of nutrients that support many different species. Isn't that enough? Because the destruction of one ecosystem is eventually going to catch up to other ecosystems, including ours.
It sounds like your distaste for Al Gore is a separate issue you have. The scientific facts however, should not be confused with his recent personal initiative.
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buster Posted 2:46 am
29 Dec 2006
your precious oil
Not long from now oil will not be the central focus of our economy. It will most likely be water. Change is constant.
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Coby Beck Posted 9:58 am
29 Dec 2006
Is it jabilo?
"Is it me?" you asked. Yes.
Your objections are addressed as the central themes of the post, ignoring everything in there and starting us at square 0 again is not constructive.
CO2 starts after temperature but drives it thereafter. There is no contradiction between the data and that interpretation and that interpretation matches the theory of the Greenhouse effect, very well established.
As for your complaint that the correlation seen in the ice core data is not seen today ("But wait. The warming isn't going up! It's way behind.") you ignore the temporal properties of the two situations, both the time frame and the resolution. Nor does the ice core record offer any analogue for today's 100ppm in 100 years CO2 jump.
Invent a clever saying, and your name will live forever! -- Anonymous
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dobermanmacleod Posted 6:07 pm
07 Jan 2007
Dead men walking
Frankly, the tone of some of these postings is incredible. Do you understand that you are dead men walking? What is about to happen to the climate is appearently not some remote abstraction, not what it will be: an in your face bottleneck.
The trigger that causes the chain reaction described above is much stronger this time, which means it is going to happen much quicker, and will be much, much more severe.
Of course, you probably think I am exaggerating, or that I am an alarmist. By the time you figure out I am right on, it will be too late. To give you just a glimpse: weird things happen at high temperatures (just like they do at really low temperatures). Have you ever suffered multiple days at 120F, especially when it doesn't cool off at night? You will...you will. Transformers overheating and blowing up and catching fire, powerlines sagging and shorting out, many people dying from heat exhaustion...that is but the beginning of our hellish climate future.
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ASC Posted 9:03 pm
10 Mar 2007
CO2 increases FOLLOW temperature increases
Hold on, doberman! Let's at least try to keep a cool head and stick to scientific data and evidence-supported theory. Your apocalyptic predictions sound like the ramblings of a madman. Cool heads are required. In the 1970s, people (including many scientists) were convinced that we were about to head into another Ice Age. Guess what? As you will concede, that paranoia was completely unjustified. But we are much smarter now, aren't we? Especially when an entire ideology and industry precariously rests on the belief that CO2 drives climate. They may be right. But let's stick to fact.
Let's return to the evidence, not in order to go round in circles, but so that we can assess the theory with a cool head. The graph plotting CO2 against temperature is THE crucial piece of evidence when examining the lynch-pin claim that CO2 drives climate. All the policies condemning the Third World to low-level development derive from this claim, so nothing less than the future well-being of billions of people is at stake. As a left-leaning humanist-internationalist, this is a very important issue for me.
The graph clearly shows that CO2 increases FOLLOW rises in temperature. Coby Beck writes: "CO2 starts after temperature but drives it thereafter." This is unsupported by the graph as far as I can see. The graph is here on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Co2-temperature-plot.s ...
A more detailed graph would be useful, but all the same... Take a look at the point around 25,000 years ago. The temperature rises drastically. About 1000 years later, CO2 rises drastically. This may be correlation. It may be causation (temperature leading to CO2 increase). But not even Doc Brown from Back to the Future could argue that a rise in CO2 could trigger a temperature rise which happened some 1000 years before! As industrialisation occurs, CO2 OVERTAKES temperature, and the correlation seems to end (the lines separate). How can this suggest that CO2 is driving temperatures?
What caused the rise in temperatures between 1900 and 1940? The CO2 output was relatively low. What caused the fall in temperatures during the economic boom of 1940-1970? The CO2 output surged during this period. Correlation does not mean, but could imply, causation. But even the correlation seems out of synch here. In fact, a stronger correlation can be found between solar activity and climate: http://www.tmgnow.com/repository/solar/lassen1.html
This does not prove causation, but it demands that we take a step back and consider our founding assumptions.
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Coby Beck Posted 11:26 am
11 Mar 2007
back to the top
ASC,
Reread the article, this time with your eyes open.
As for mid-century cooling and predictions of cooling in the 70's, there are articles on both of those.
"The problem with people who have no vices is that they tend to have some pretty annoying virtues." -- [paraphrased] Elizabeth Taylor
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ASC Posted 10:23 pm
11 Mar 2007
No answer offered by article or response
Thanks for your reply, Coby, even if it was slightly rude. The article itself does not answer my questions, otherwise I would not have written my original post. May I ask you, once again, to justify your claim that "CO2 starts after temperature but drives it thereafter"?
Higher temperature leads to higher levels of CO2 in the atmosphere (after a time lag). Following the hypothesis that CO2 drives climate temperature, would the resultant graph not show an EXPONENTIAL increase? Higher temperature levels causing higher levels of CO2 causing higher temperature levels causing higher levels of CO2, and so on ad infinitum? In other words, temperature and CO2 would spiral up together, each prompting the other to higher levels. This does not seem to happen. Doesn't this in itself suggest that CO2 did not drive climate in the past? Isn't it more plausible that they are correlates of some other driving factor (e.g. the sun?)?
Coby, please respond to this specific query. I realise that no one denies there are many factors in play in the climate, but the central claim is that CO2 has the capacity to drive climate. If this is not reflected in the historical ice-core record, where can we turn for evidence of this claim?
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Coby Beck Posted 6:16 am
14 Mar 2007
sorry, wrong post!
Sorry ASC,
I mistakenly thought we were under the "CO2 Lags, not Leads" article, you should find more clear explanation there:
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/12/22/231145/76
In that article there is also a link to a more technical Real Climate discussion:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=13
As for the shape of the curve, not all feedbacks are exponential there are usually self limiting factors. One in this case is the fact that CO2's effect on the radiative budget is logarithmic not linear with concentration. This means as CO2 rises it takes more and more to have the same temperature effect. Other limits I can suggest are in the actual sources of carbon, which are not well establised to begin with and he thermal inertia of the total system imposed by massive NH icesheets. (Please note, these are just speculations of my own but they seem reasonable to me and are mostly offered to show one should not expect things to be so simple as your exponential scenario assumes)
I will not pretend to know precisely what shape these cycles actually have (visual inspection is rather limiting) or how precisely we can determine it. I will only note that modern GCM's can successfully reproduce the climate change out of the last glacial maximum. I will also acknowledge that there is still a lot of uncertainty about the details of the glacial cyces both in theory and in available data.
For the technical details you appear to want you will have to read the relevant scientific literature (that is if RC and/or the IPCC report do not answer your questions).
The take home message for laypeople, my target audience, is that there is in fact nothing in the glacial records that indicates current warming is not of anthropogenic origin, despite contrarian talking points. To the contrary, there is a rich assortment of information that is consistent with current climate science and modern GCM hindcasts and predictions's.
Thanks for your comments!
"The problem with people who have no vices is that they tend to have some pretty annoying virtues." -- [paraphrased] Elizabeth Taylor
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ASC Posted 8:04 am
14 Mar 2007
Appreciate this
Thanks for this response, Coby. It's nice to receive a thoughtful response - environmental forums too often seem hostile to the very idea of questioning climate science, as if it was all gospel. I'll look into your suggestions for further research. Best wishes.
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maouter Posted 6:18 pm
20 Apr 2007
Incredible
v1 v2 v3 v4 v5 v6 v7 v8 v9 v10 v11 v12 v13 v14 v15 v16 v17 v18 v19 v20 v21 v22 v23 v24 v25 v26 v27 v28 v29 v30 v31 v32 v33 v34 v35 v36 v37 v38 v39 v40 v41 v42 v43 v44 v45 v46 v47 v48 v49 v50 v51 v52 v53 v54 v55 v56 v57 v58 v59 v60 v61 v62 v63 v64 v65 v66 v67 v68 v69 v70 v71 v72 v73 v74 v75 v76 v77 v78 v79 v80 v81 v82 v83
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dscotese Posted 12:25 pm
30 Dec 2007
Eating fake pears.
...there is in fact nothing in the glacial records that indicates current warming is not of anthropogenic origin, despite contrarian talking points. To the contrary, there is a rich assortment of information that is consistent with current climate science and modern GCM hindcasts and predictions's.
Is there, then, in fact, anything in the glacial records that indicates current warming is or anthropogenic origin?
Yes.
If I read it correctly, an alarmingly small amount of it can be contributed to the extra CO2 that would not be in our atmosphere if we hadn't burned all the fossil fuel we've burned. Why is it alarming? Because governments are creating laws that are destroying businesses and families in order to prevent that small amount of warming. Maybe you guys should start studying how to control the sun instead?
I was under the impression that the study of global warming was motivated originally by the correlation of CO2 and temperature that ice-core data shows. We assumed that since we can control the CO2, we could control the temperature. But later ice-core data shows that the causation apparently goes the other way. I guess once you start eating the FAKE PEAR, you don't want to stop because it might have some nutrient value, right?
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oseberg Posted 6:46 pm
12 Jan 2008
Which laws are destroying which businesses?
I'd like to say that this is a great thread. I believe I have learned a lot. But mostly I believe I learned that I have a lot more to learn about this.
> Because governments are creating laws that are
> destroying businesses and families in order to
> prevent that small amount of warming.
I'd like to know exactly which laws are destroying which businesses?
I'm going to guess that you're talking about the auto industry.
However, I'd like to point out that for the past 100 years our big 3 appears to have been under the belief that they will be more profitable if they build cars from components that wear out and break so that they can profit from the sale of parts and repairs while several other companies in other places in the world have focused for the past 30 years on building quality and reliability.
I believe that this is the cause of the destruction of these companies and not any laws or policy changes.
I am of the opinion that if we were to create the worlds strictest environmental and fuel economy laws that force the big 3 to innovate they will innovate and they will innovate better than any other companies in the world and we will end up creating more jobs and creating more successful industry here in the US.
If you want an example of how the US is able to innovate when required, check out the computer industry.
I have no clue why the big 3 have resisted innovation for the past 100 years, but I would guess the reason is because innovation is expensive. The reason it's expensive is because it requires the companies to hire more employees. But, this creates more jobs!
So, I believe that the best thing for our economy both now and in the future is to create laws and policies that force companies that resist innovation to innovate or disappear leaving room for other companies who will innovate.
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gzornenplat Posted 1:53 am
23 Mar 2008
Destroying businesses
> I'd like to know exactly which laws
> are destroying which businesses?
The congestion charge in London has affected many businesses inside the zone and the companies outside the zone who need to visit or deliver to companies and individuals inside the zone.
On another point, I can't see the need for laws to force companies to innovate - natural selection will take care of that
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cogswellcogs Posted 2:55 am
17 May 2008
distortion
>>>>Cool heads are required. In the 1970s, people (including many scientists) were convinced that we were about to head into another Ice Age. Guess what? As you will concede, that paranoia was completely unjustified. But we are much smarter now, aren't we? >>>> ASC
This is pap. The 1975 newsweek article commonly cited contains no primary quotes claiming this AT ALL. It's pure science writer exaggeration. A NYT article, that I've fully read, from 1975 shows the NAS saying they had insufficient data to make any claims one way or the other and that man-made CO2 might lead us to warming just as easily. You can also find a study on this very site showing that most scientific papers of the era dealt with warming, not cooling, by a large margin.
To equate what a few scientists suggested as possible which was then exaggerated by some media with the widespread scientific agreement with global warming today (even by skeptics who usually only argue causation), is just distortion of history.
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