Micawber’s Recent Comments

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  Re: Re: Ignoring the Long Term Climate Pattern

  No sooner did I "pen" the parent than I found this month's Discover (7-2007), which contains an interview with Henrik Svensmark. a physicist in the Danish Space Research Institute who became engaged in atmospheric research and has devised a novel theory about how the sun could affect the climate: not just directly, by sheer radiation increase, but indirectly, by reducing cosmic rays and thereby cloud cover, allowing more sunlight to reach the ground.

  If this theory is right then this graph could be misleading if we calculate the amount of solar heat contribution from the sun's increased radiance alone. We must also take into account a reduction of average cloud cover that will permit more of it to reach the ground.

  (On studying the graph more carefully, I'm not so sure. Solar radiation is effectively flat since @1940. Per Svensmark's theory, cloud cover and additional sunlight reaching the ground should also be flat. That the solar contribution may get a boost from reduced cloud cover doesn't matter--it's still flat. If the solar contribution is significantly greater than CO2, the global temperature curve should flatten, but it clearly follows the CO2, not the sun)

  Svensmark's theory is contingent upon two foundation theories: First, that increased solar activity shields the earth from cosmic rays (among other causes, the sun's magnetosphere increases). I presume this can only be tested indirectly. Second, that cosmic rays stimulate cloud formation through ionization. As far as I can tell from the interview, only one experiment, or a series of experiments using the same apparatus, has be conducted to demonstrate this. Other experiments are underway.

  There is a book, The Cooling Stars co-written with Nigel Caulder. The first chapter is not promising. It begins by presenting archaeological finds in the Thun which indicate a history of advancing and retreating ice. But climate doesn't vary in lockstep in every part of the world, so the implied argument is specious. I think I'll pass, for now, and wait for the results of future experiments.

  In the interview, Svensmark restates the popular misconception that the climate models don't include clouds, and also mentions the little ice age as agreeing with a period of increased solar activity. But the little ice age was a local phenomena. His theory calls for climate to have cooled globally.

  Even so, I think Svensmark's theory is falsifiable, makes testable predictions and is worthy of testing.

  Discovery's article, I'm sorry to say, presents Svensmark as a lone hero doing battle with reactionary dogma (boo, hiss!). I'll let Richard Dawkins reply (from an afterword to Dangerous Ideas currently posted on the edge.org):

  ...Although it is true that hindsight can recognize accepted norms that were once dangerous ideas, it is also true that most dangerous ideas from the past neither deserved nor received eventual acceptance. It is not enough for an idea to be dangerous. It must also be good.
  

  For the present, Svensmark's opinion is very much a minority opinion among solar scientists and climatologists. It may win converts, it may not. He acknowledges that CO2 is a contributing factor to global warming, though perhaps less than currently supposed. Even if his theory proves to be correct, it would not change our strategy vis greenhouse gases. If the sun is warming our planet, we don't want to help it.

  To which I must append that if Svensmark is right, then my "magic heat faeries" are present and accounted for in the form of his cosmic rays. (Every time I yield to sarcasm...)
  On 'One hundred years is not enough'--Yes it is posted 2 years, 5 months ago 18 Responses

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  Re: Ignoring the Long Term Climate Pattern

  We don't live 500ky ago. We live now. Human civilization is all over the world and highly sensitive to climate change. Back in the day when we were wandering hunter-gatherers, we didn't care much about climate change. We just moved. It would be kind of tough to move Los Angeles or put Manhattan on stilts. (The heck with Queens) :)

  And the consensus opinion among climatologists--as opposed to amateurs--is that as far back as we can reliably measure, the climate has not been warmer than today. (It may have been in the late Permian, but--oh yes--that caused rather a large mass extinction event.

  I don't recall that an immanent ice age was ever a consensus opinion among climatologists (you had to reach all the way back to the 70s? Source, please). What were they using for computers, then. For models? How much less data did they have, and how much less accurate? Do you think that thirty-odd years might have improved understanding? Shall we delay action another thirty years in the hope that climatologists will reverse themselves?

  Recently, some climatologists thought an ice age might be a consequence of global warming (increased cloud-cover reflecting more sunlight along with changes in heat-distributing oceanic currents caused by melting & desalinization. CO2 only traps heat. If there's none to trap...) Over time, science converges on the truth. It does not flip-flop randomly.

  For global warming to be a natural trend, there would have to be a natural cause. Heat can't just appear from nowhere. I was able to find an AP reference to a 1997 study by Richard C. Willson of Columbia University's Center for Climate Systems Research which found the sun is contributing to global warming, but not by much: just 0.72 degrees in 100 years. (lubbockonline.com/news/092897/study.htm). The effect by itself cannot explain global warming and would not be dangerous save that it contributes to human-caused global warming.

  A 2004 London Telegraph headline trumpeted that "the truth about global warming is it's caused by the sun," but the text of the article didn't support this claim. They were citing (they said) a study by Sami Solanki of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, who said (according to the article) only that the sun was contributing to human-caused global warming and it was difficult to say which was contributing more.

  On visiting Dr. Solanski's home page, it appears that he is not very excited by this remarkable result--it isn't featured, nor could I find it in the list of his publications. Digging deeper, it turns out that the institute has, in fact, come to the opposite conclusion: The sun is not contributing significantly to global warming. Apparently, one should not get one's climatology from the London Telegraph.

  So it's not the sun. Could it be something else?

  How about the earth's core? Nope, that's cooling.

  Volcanic heat? They're not putting out that much heat, and vulcanism is trending (very slowly) downward.

  Volcanic CO2? Concedes the point that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, and volcanoes are not putting out nearly as much CO2 as we are.

  That pares the list down to humans and magic heat faeries. I vote for humans.

  It is not a thesis of human-caused global warming that humans are evil, only that we don't know our own strength.

  All of which is beside the rather obvious point that we'd better hope global warming is caused by humans, because if is, we can help ourselves before it gets serious. That such is the consensus opinion of climatologists, and that it agrees well with common sense (unless one does believe in magic heat faeries) is cause for relief.

  Even if global warming had a natural cause (suppose our measurements of solar radiation were way off) we could still mitigate it by reducing greenhouse gases, and that would have to be an important part of whatever hunker-down strategy we might devise. The only strategy that's guaranteed not to help is putting our heads where the sun don't shine.On 'One hundred years is not enough'--Yes it is posted 2 years, 5 months ago 18 Responses

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  Re: Just a Few Things

  So you'd like to see data. That's great. This site and real climate.org have plenty.

  It is not contradictory to say that data is complex and then derive conclusions from it providing an explanation is given of how the complexities were sorted out. Conclusions are derived from complex data all the time. You should read a little more carefully. This stuff takes patience.

  Perhaps this is a good time to mention that scientists are biased.  It has been shown time and time again that scientists will collect and interpret data that supports priori conclusions regardless of the actual state of things.  I am not making this up, these are scientists who published their raw data and, when that data was compiled by someone else later, the results were often dramatically altered.  I'm in no way trying to belittle scientists or say that this is always the case or even intentional, I'm just saying that bias is inherent in science and its influence cannot go ignored.  I also believe that the effects of scientific bias reach far deeper than anyone wants to admit.
  

  So, in case that data you'd like to see happens not to support the conclusion you want, you have prepared a retreat: scientists cannot be trusted. That's good strategy, but poor thinking.

  Yes, a few scientists have published bad data. A very few have done so deliberately. It does not happen often. Even if accidental, it can be very harmful to a person's career and is always embarrassing. If bias was as prevalent as you suggest, then the advancement of science becomes rather difficult to explain, as does the existence of the computer on which you are reading this. :)

  Third, did you even read Zarkov's comment, or just skim it, scoff and refute it?  You repeat what he said and offer it as evidence that he is wrong (e.g. he says that drier air has a lower heat capacity and you tell him he is wrong because wet air has a higher heat capacity...does anyone else see the contradiction here)?  I guess my point is, you don't know near as much as you assert and your solid data isn't all that solid.
  

  Zarkov does appear to have his facts wrong. Heat capacity is determined by density. Since wet air is more dense than dry air, it has a greater heat capacity. (When you open an oven and 300-400F air wafts over you, it is unpleasant and you certainly couldn't withstand that temperature for long. Spill boiling water on your hand (212F) and you may go to the hospital, or at least make use of a few choice words)

  I don't know what to make of your closing remark, except that it appears you have already made up your mind without the benefit of that data you'd like to see. That's OK, as long as you are prepared to change your mind should the the data warrant. Be sure to read the arguments, too. Raw data's a little hard to chew.

  Paragraphs are nice. :)On 'The satellites show cooling'--No, they don't posted 2 years, 5 months ago 15 Responses

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  My Sympathies

  A typo once posted...

  Why is there no edit? And don't say because there's a preview. Really, why?On 'Warming is due to the Urban Heat Island effect' -- No, it isn't posted 2 years, 5 months ago 25 Responses

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  Two Lies Don't Make a Truth?

  Are you kidding?

  If an observation does not fully support a theory, that does not make it a lie.

  The argument is that glacial retreat is part of a growing body of evidence that collectively has made human caused global warming a census opinion among climatologists (I believe I can affirm that based on the support among academies of science world-wide).

  There is as yet a non-zero chance that all (or a significant number) of the observations of separate phenomena which support the conclusion the climate is getting warmer could somehow be found to be in error, but that chance is vanishingly small. It is also possible a non-human cause for climate change may be found, but we'd better hope not. If it's human caused, we can do something about it. Thankfully, that chance is shrinking faster than the glaciers.

  Looking at collections of individually inconclusive but mutually supporting (and, eventually, overwhelming) data is the process by which theories in science are normally established. To equate it (in sneering tones) to two lies equaling a right is to reveal complete ignorance of the methods of science and a degree of illogic that suggests you have not learned the basics of reason. (You appear to think it has something to do with disputing facts and sneering)

  Blow the dust off your old logic book or buy a new one. A person who doesn't know how to think should not wander into this maze.On 'Glaciers have always grown and receded'--A few glaciers melting does not mean global warming posted 2 years, 5 months ago 14 Responses