Jim Hansen on the standstill

[GatorRade]

Originally Posted by wygator

You're sort of taking my response out of context. I was answering a statement that (correctly) pointed out that too much CO2 is bad for plants. I was trying to determine what those ranges actually are and putting them into the context of present atmospheric levels of CO2. I included what some studies and experience of gardeners have shown about "optimum" levels. Rational and science based response to a rather emotional post.

There's a difference between feeding a plant its ideal diet and pounding Twinkies down your kid.

I apologize if I took your out of context there, wy.

Originally Posted by wygator

I think, however, that you are wrong that the optimal climate is only a moral question. It is easy to look at statistical data on crop production, temperature related deaths, moisture levels, and other measures to find the best range for each ideal outcome. Certainly most of these questions could be answered scientifically.

Still, preferences will vary. If we find 85 F to be ideal for crop production and human survivability, there will be others who prefer snow and cold weather for sport and personal reasons.

You sort of gave my answer to this already. Preferences vary, so this is not the realm of science. Let's just focus on direct human temperature preferences: temperature related deaths, temperature comfort, money spent on clothes/climate control, preferences on clothes, and what locations are we interested in? The most populated? The ones that already use heat/cool? The richest? And of course we have crops, sea levels, biomes, variability vs averages, etc.

I agree that quantitative analysis should be a part of answering these questions, but that doesn't make these questions scientific.

[wygator]

A chart to consider seriously as countries attempt to meet Kyoto targets:


Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, International Energy Statistics.


Note that the rapid increase in coal emissions by China dwarfs whatever reductions might be achieved by the signatories of the Kyoto treaty.

[Gatorrick22]

Originally Posted by oragator1

Wow.
Every single human needs heat too, let's double the temperature and see how we do.
Or only breathe carbon, that can't be bad, it's good for us!
Or double your cholesterol intake, the body needs that too. That has to be healthier for us.
Or maybe salt, body needs that. Double your salt intake, more has to be better.
How about doubling your sun exposure, you get vitamin D from it, more has to help, can't hurt the skin, the sun is life giving.

I could do this all day, it's liberating to know that anything that has any good in it can't be harmful in any way.

Hyperbole is a way of life for you leftists.

[GatorRade]

Originally Posted by Gatorrick22

Hyperbole is a way of life for you leftists.

As are derogatory labels for you "rightists".

[GatorRade]

Originally Posted by wygator

A chart to consider seriously as countries attempt to meet Kyoto targets:

Note that the rapid increase in coal emissions by China dwarfs whatever reductions might be achieved by the signatories of the Kyoto treaty.

This kind of information underscores the complexity of potential mitigation. However, it is rather misleading when thinking about emissions, which is better represented by the graphic below.



Still, this is a problem that clearly crosses borders.

[wygator]

Originally Posted by GatorRade

This kind of information underscores the complexity of potential mitigation. However, it is rather misleading when thinking about emissions, which is better represented by the graphic below.



Still, this is a problem that clearly crosses borders.

My point remains about the growth of their emissions, especially considering that "per ton" coal releases more emissions than other fossil fuels. Add to that the fact that vehicle ownership is growing rapidly in China and you have rapidly increasing fuel use as well.

China has been experiencing sales growth rates of 20 – 30% year-on-year since the beginning of the decade and assumptions of the continuation of these growth rates raise concerns of enormous annual vehicle sales by 2020. Even conservative estimates point to 2020 sales rate of 50 million units per year, which is comparable to total global vehicle sales in 2009.

source

[GatorRade]

Originally Posted by wygator

My point remains about the growth of their emissions, especially considering that "per ton" coal releases more emissions than other fossil fuels. Add to that the fact that vehicle ownership is growing rapidly in China and you have rapidly increasing fuel use as well.

source

For sure China's emissions growth is going to be off the charts. India as well. And eventually, we might see countries in Africa make the jump as well (I hope). If everyone starts emitting like the US, we are in for some serious CO2 release. I don't begrudge them this though, because this is a part of becoming wealthy. (I don't begrudge the US either). However, there is the potential for a tragedy of the commons situation, and then some tough decisions would need to be made. But for now, grow away China and India (though maybe think a bit about pollution when you get a few dollars).

[oragator1]

Originally Posted by Gatorrick22

Hyperbole is a way of life for you leftists.

It was a "reduction to the absurd" argument, so it was purposeful.

But given the fact that you are now resorting to name calling instead of substantive posting, can I infer that you are finally done trying to defend your initial statement, which was based on a easily disproven premise?

[wygator]

Japan's meterologicical agency diverges significantly from NASA/GISS and HADCRUT after 2000. Maybe they haven't been adjusting all the temperature measurements upward for the past decade



Down .25C since 2000.

link

[MichaelJoeWilliamson]

The DAGW hypothesis that I want to test here is precisely and only “that dangerous global warming is being caused, or will be, by human-related carbon dioxide emissions”. To be “dangerous”, at a minimum the change must exceed the magnitude or rate of warmings that are known to be associated with normal weather and climatic variability.


Consider the following tests:

(i) Over the last 16 years, global average temperature, as measured by both thermometers and satellite sensors, has displayed no statistically significant warming; over the same period, atmospheric carbon dioxide has increased by 10%.

Large increases in carbon dioxide have therefore not only failed to produce dangerous warming, but failed to produce any warming at all. Hypothesis fails.

(ii) During the 20th century, a global warming of between 0.4O C and 0.7O C occurred, at a maximum rate, in the early decades of the century, of about 1.7O C/century. In comparison, our best regional climate records show that over the last 10,000 years natural climate cycling has resulted in temperature highs up to at least 1O C warmer than today, at rates of warming up to 2.5O C/century.

In other words, both the rate and magnitude of 20th century warming falls well within the envelope of natural climate change. Hypothesis fails, twice.

(iii) If global temperature is controlled primarily by atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, then changes in carbon dioxide should precede parallel changes in temperature.

In fact, the opposite relationship applies at all time scales. Temperature change precedes carbon dioxide change by about 5 months during the annual seasonal cycle, and by about 700-1000 years during ice age climatic cycling. Hypothesis fails.

(iv) The IPCC’s computer general circulation models, which factor in the effect of increasing carbon dioxide, project that global warming should be occurring at a rate of +2.0O C/century.

In fact, no warming at all has occurred in either the atmosphere or the ocean for more than the last decade. The models are clearly faulty, and allocate too great a warming effect for the extra carbon dioxide (technically, they are said to overestimate the climate sensitivity). Hypothesis fails.

(v) The same computer models predict that a fingerprint of greenhouse-gas-induced warming will be the creation of an atmospheric hot spot at heights of 8-10 km in equatorial regions, and enhanced warming also near both poles.

Given that we already know that the models are faulty, it shouldn’t surprise us to discover that direct measurements by both weather balloon radiosondes and satellite sensors show the absence of surface warming in Antarctica, and a complete absence of the predicted low latitude atmospheric hot spot. Hypothesis fails.


http://www.aitse.org/global-warming-...ogenic-or-not/

[MichaelJoeWilliamson]

One of the 20th century’s greatest physicists, Richard Feynman, observed about science that:

“In general we look for a new law by the following process. First we guess it. Then we compute the consequences of the guess to see what would be implied if this law that we guessed is right. Then we compare the result of the computation to nature, with experiment or experience; compare it directly with observation, to see if it works.

It’s that simple statement that is the key to science. It does not make any difference how beautiful your guess is. It does not make any difference how smart you are, who made the guess, or what his name is. If it disagrees with experiment it is wrong.”

None of the five tests above supports or agrees with the predictions implicit in the greenhouse hypothesis as stated above. Richard Feynman is correct to advise us that therefore the hypothesis is invalid, and that many times over.

Summary

The current scientific reality is that the IPCC’s hypothesis of dangerous global warming has been repeatedly tested, and fails. Despite the expenditure of large sums of money over the last 25 years (more than $100 billion), and great research effort by IPCC-related and other (independent) scientists, to date no scientific study has established a certain link between changes in any significant environmental parameter and human-caused carbon dioxide emissions.

In contrast, the null hypothesis that the global climatic changes that we have observed over the last 150 years (and continue to observe today) are natural in origin has yet to be disproven. As summarised in the reports of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), literally thousands of papers published in refereed journals contain facts or writings consistent with the null hypothesis, and plausible natural explanations exist for all the post-1850 global climatic changes that have been described so far.