Climate Change - The Scientific Debate (Vol. II)

Climate Change - The Scientific Debate (Vol. II)

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Discussion

happygoron

424 posts

189 months

Monday 19th September 2016
quotequote all
Surprised this hasn't been posted here

http://m.xkcd.com/1732/

LongQ

13,864 posts

233 months

Monday 19th September 2016
quotequote all
happygoron said:
Surprised this hasn't been posted here

http://m.xkcd.com/1732/
It was posted in the Politics thread where it seemed appropriate in some ways.

I note that the modelled estimates match well with the rapid development of digital computer technology. Thus one can speculate that computers are the most likely cause of climate change estimates over the past 50 years.


hairykrishna

13,166 posts

203 months

Monday 19th September 2016
quotequote all
mondeoman said:
"I’m a professional infrared astronomer who spent his life trying to observe space through the atmosphere’s back-radiation that the environmental activists claim is caused by CO2 and guess what? In all the bands that are responsible for back radiation in the brightness temperatures (color temperatures) related to earth’s surface temperature (between 9 microns and 13 microns for temps of 220K to 320 K) there is no absorption of radiation by CO2 at all. In all the bands between 9 and 9.5 there is mild absorption by H2O, from 9.5 to 10 microns (300 K) the atmosphere is perfectly clear except around 9.6 is a big ozone band that the warmists never mention for some reason. From 10 to 13 microns there is more absorption by H2O. Starting at 13 microns we get CO2 absorption but that wavelength corresponds to temperatures below even that of the south pole."


So what is going on with ozone? What is the impact on temps? Didn't we kill that with aerosols?
If the person who wrote that is a professional IR astronomer then I'm pope. Wien's displacement law tells you that 13 microns peak does in fact correspond to a black body with a peak with temperature of about -50C. However the emission is a continuous curve - see Planck's law. The earth therefore radiates a large amount of IR in the CO2 absorption band as anyone who knows anything about it could tell you.

Ozone is a greenhouse gas. Contributes a fraction of the amount CO2 does (~1/3 if my memory is correct). We have depleted it although it's recovering now CFC's are banned. It has a complicated relationship to temperature not least because the depletion/recovery is itself temperature dependent.

Jinx

11,391 posts

260 months

Tuesday 20th September 2016
quotequote all
LongQ said:
It was posted in the Politics thread where it seemed appropriate in some ways.

I note that the modelled estimates match well with the rapid development of digital computer technology. Thus one can speculate that computers are the most likely cause of climate change estimates over the past 50 years.
So many things wrong with that graph - slightly disappointed in Randell Munroe. For a start sticking the modern temperature record onto proxy data with a resolution in hundreds of years is a no-no - you would need to reduce the resolution of the modern era to 100 year points to even come close to a realistic graph. Other issues - claiming the MWP was only the Northern hemisphere whilst not acknowledging the modern warm period is also only the northern hemisphere - again definitely not science.
And as an aside - there are no actual bad events against the warm periods!

alock

4,227 posts

211 months

Tuesday 20th September 2016
quotequote all
Jinx said:
LongQ said:
It was posted in the Politics thread where it seemed appropriate in some ways.

I note that the modelled estimates match well with the rapid development of digital computer technology. Thus one can speculate that computers are the most likely cause of climate change estimates over the past 50 years.
So many things wrong with that graph - slightly disappointed in Randell Munroe. For a start sticking the modern temperature record onto proxy data with a resolution in hundreds of years is a no-no - you would need to reduce the resolution of the modern era to 100 year points to even come close to a realistic graph. Other issues - claiming the MWP was only the Northern hemisphere whilst not acknowledging the modern warm period is also only the northern hemisphere - again definitely not science.
And as an aside - there are no actual bad events against the warm periods!
Quite. A perfect sign wave of raw data could produce a perfectly flat graph if sampled appropriately. If the sampling then changes you will see a huge deviation from the previous trend.

Derek Smith

45,661 posts

248 months

Tuesday 20th September 2016
quotequote all
hairykrishna said:
mondeoman said:
"I’m a professional infrared astronomer who spent his life trying to observe space through the atmosphere’s back-radiation that the environmental activists claim is caused by CO2 and guess what? In all the bands that are responsible for back radiation in the brightness temperatures (color temperatures) related to earth’s surface temperature (between 9 microns and 13 microns for temps of 220K to 320 K) there is no absorption of radiation by CO2 at all. In all the bands between 9 and 9.5 there is mild absorption by H2O, from 9.5 to 10 microns (300 K) the atmosphere is perfectly clear except around 9.6 is a big ozone band that the warmists never mention for some reason. From 10 to 13 microns there is more absorption by H2O. Starting at 13 microns we get CO2 absorption but that wavelength corresponds to temperatures below even that of the south pole."


So what is going on with ozone? What is the impact on temps? Didn't we kill that with aerosols?
If the person who wrote that is a professional IR astronomer then I'm pope. Wien's displacement law tells you that 13 microns peak does in fact correspond to a black body with a peak with temperature of about -50C. However the emission is a continuous curve - see Planck's law. The earth therefore radiates a large amount of IR in the CO2 absorption band as anyone who knows anything about it could tell you.

Ozone is a greenhouse gas. Contributes a fraction of the amount CO2 does (~1/3 if my memory is correct). We have depleted it although it's recovering now CFC's are banned. It has a complicated relationship to temperature not least because the depletion/recovery is itself temperature dependent.
It would appear that the guy doesn't exist. Any published scientist is easy enough to find with a little effort. This chap is impossible to find with quite a bit.

It is possible he might have some scientific training but I am wary of unpublished scientists, especialy those who might end their doctorate with 'it's the water vapour stupid'.


wc98

10,401 posts

140 months

Friday 23rd September 2016
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Halb said:
This popped up on my youtube feed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEylCS6-hBE&fe...

the sea temp is going up, so that's wht the air temp hasn't gone up?

the ice packs are rapidly dwindling.

Any thoughts?
No fighting, I'm not an advocate, for those that don't know me.
sea temps is a bit vague. the only reasonable data on sea temps (forget argo , some floats reporting ocean temps at depth from the middle of africa, others that reported cooling trends were discarded with no physical explanation and the distribution is sparse ) are surface temps from satellites, even then there appear to be issues as i personally know of discrepancies of up to several degrees . possibly explained by satellites measuring the immediate skin temp ? who knows, but anyone telling you global ocean "heat content" is known to any degree of accuracy is wrong.

Gandahar

9,600 posts

128 months

Wednesday 28th September 2016
quotequote all
Can anyone give me a breakdown on the number of AGW skeptic posts by US people on US blogs compared to the rest of the world?

I think the mass of posts on the AGW debate is actually more of interest, scientifically, to sociologists rather than actually adding to determining a solution to the question.

It's a good job people were not blogging during the first few years of Quantum Mechanics! Imagine that. biggrin

Galileo, the Church and Twitter .....


coffee

Jinx

11,391 posts

260 months

Wednesday 28th September 2016
quotequote all
Gandahar said:

It's a good job people were not blogging during the first few years of Quantum Mechanics! Imagine that. biggrin
Well I was and I wasn't.......

Halb

53,012 posts

183 months

PRTVR

7,107 posts

221 months

Thursday 29th September 2016
quotequote all
Halb said:
If as they claim we have reached the tipping point is there any point in carrying on with the decarbonisation of society? Would it not be advisable to put the money into mitigation of the supposed effects that it might or might not bring ?

LongQ

13,864 posts

233 months

Thursday 29th September 2016
quotequote all
Halb said:
The graph entirely lacks error bars.

Comparing a smoothed heavily estimated (from proxy sources) derived number with something measure in real time for a "blip" of years (in geological terms) is not entirely honourable in terms of science but bang on a career development trajectory for advocates seeking a long term career in ecology based journalism.

It looks like a site with some money behind it. Do we know who funds it?

Jinx

11,391 posts

260 months

Friday 30th September 2016
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Halb said:
Ice core CO2 data (where to be fair didn't have much CO2 producing flora and fauna around it during its formative years) with the Mauna Loa volcano CO2 data spliced on the end. Different resolution, different source and different location spliced on the same graph and that is supposed to be science is it!!!!

LongQ

13,864 posts

233 months

Sunday 2nd October 2016
quotequote all
Apparently reservoirs play a significant part in Global Warming.

http://phys.org/news/2016-09-reservoirs-substantia...

Should we drain them now?

If not, why not?

Jinx

11,391 posts

260 months

Monday 3rd October 2016
quotequote all
LongQ said:
Apparently reservoirs play a significant part in Global Warming.

http://phys.org/news/2016-09-reservoirs-substantia...

Should we drain them now?

If not, why not?
What about the Sea level rise!!!!!! OMG we're all gonna die..... smile

Well we are arn't we? At some point in the future

LongQ

13,864 posts

233 months

Monday 3rd October 2016
quotequote all
It seems there is a Multinational project underway to find out more about Jetstreams with a view to making better weather forecasts.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-3750...

Cool idea I thought. Always good to have more information and refine one's knowledge.

But the way Mr. Shukman's report reads the project is not about refining knowledge as it is about starting to discover anything of significant note about Jet stream dynamics.

In fact the way the report is written suggests that even the most basic of details is "not well understood". Or, more probably, not known at all.

Is that likely?

If it is I'm left somewhat baffled by such newly identified lack of knowledge. I thought the basic dynamics of the Jet Stream were quite well understood even if what might influence its path was still a bit of a puzzle.

It seems not.

How long has it been technically possible to look into this sort of science to at least some extent? And why has it not been done before - especially before Climate Models and the like were accepted as any degree of "proof" of anything?

jshell

11,006 posts

205 months

Tuesday 4th October 2016
quotequote all
Even 'The Sun' getting onto the cooling bandwagon: https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/1904563/planet-earth...

Gandahar

9,600 posts

128 months

Thursday 6th October 2016
quotequote all
Jinx said:
Gandahar said:

It's a good job people were not blogging during the first few years of Quantum Mechanics! Imagine that. biggrin
Well I was and I wasn't.......
And the real question is, if you did blog, would it have effected the results compared to if you didn't?

smile


Gandahar

9,600 posts

128 months

Thursday 6th October 2016
quotequote all
jshell said:
Even 'The Sun' getting onto the cooling bandwagon: https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/1904563/planet-earth...
Conversely if there are no sunspots and the Earth doesn't cool down then does that add a feather into the cap of AGW???

Gandahar

9,600 posts

128 months

Thursday 6th October 2016
quotequote all
LongQ said:
Apparently reservoirs play a significant part in Global Warming.

http://phys.org/news/2016-09-reservoirs-substantia...

Should we drain them now?

If not, why not?
Because the plus points outweigh environmental impact.

Caveat: generally, but not always.