Tsunami sea level rise alert 07 January 05

that seems to make sense, but most of the places worst hit by the waves are quite small fishing villages. In Aceh – i spent a month there once – there is nothing else. The habitable part of the province is a thin strip of mangrove swamp along the side of some thickly-jungled mountains, to which fishing villages and small, wild harbour towns cling precariously. Clung.

I suppose it’s good advice for the builders of white hotels on Thai beaches, who will ignore it because if they don’t someone else will build a hotel between theirs and the sea, but for most of the people trying to reassemble their lives it won’t seem very important.

Hello Will,

Rebuilding infrastructure should take into account the forces of nature and how to best avoid loss of life and property damage.

I also think that any rebuilding in the USA should take nature into account. In Florida, houses should be able to withstand hurricanes and any building in a flood plain should be avoided. This would help reduce insurance payouts and reduce government disaster relief efforts which are paid by our taxes.

Humans never seem to build with respect to geological time. Disasters must happen more frequently within a generation or two to gain attention.

With respect to climate change, we do not have any frame of reference. Our current world economic infrastructure does not seem sufficient to meet the challenge of preventing climate change until an actual undeniable dramatic disaster happens.

The problem of waiting to the point of a dramatic event caused by climate change in order to mitigate it creates the problem that our options may be limited to further mitigate it or reverse it and restore balance. The only good news is the wakeup call would finally mobilize an all out effort of human ingenuity to deal with the problem.

It seems this would be similar to our 911 event. One thing that happened during 911 is that all air flights were grounded immediately and that lasted for many days. Some things that we would think could never happen did happen when faced with an emergency. I would say that an unmistakable disaster from climate change that was at the same level of the tsunami disaster would warrant immediate attention.

I am NOT suggesting that we should give up hope for humanity to prevent climate change without an emergency to motivate them. Breakthroughs do happen.

I do recommend that we focus more on ways we can reduce emissions and how to best communicate with others rather than get overly immersed in the climate science alone.

If you can reduce emissions through greater efficiency and conservation then we should make direct attempts to help our friends and neighbors and even strangers do the same.

The more we know what to do, the more we become leaders for others. When crises hits, the instant awareness of the masses will be looking to people like us for guidance. Please do understand that we may be called into greater action in the future.

As this New Year unfolds, let us look within ourselves to a greater awareness of what we can do individually each day. Let us use our influence and our own resources to multiply this effect in others around us.

This can include political involvement even if it is simply writing a letter to a politician.

Let us also continue to interact with each other with our insights, knowledge, and moral support. Know all our efforts do make a difference.

The climate has been warming erratically since the end of the last Ice Age, about 10,000 years ago. With the warming, comes a rise in sea level, which also has been rising for about 10,000 years.

There is no evidence, only computer model output that indicates that the accretion of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has a significant effect on the temperature of the atmosphere. No physical data confirm that carbon dioxide causes warming.

In fact, even the IPCC modelers acknowledge that carbon dioxide alone cannot cause more than a few tenths of a degree of atmospheric warming. They invoke an enhanced feedback mechanism to account for the remainder of their outrageous worst-case predictions. That mechanism is increasing concentrations of water vapor; the models assume that the relative humidity will remain constant as the temperature of the air increases. The predicted result is an increase in the concentration of water vapor in the air; they assume that the absolute humidity will increase. Water vapor (average concentration ~15,000 parts per million) is responsible for about 20 times more heat absorption than is carbon dioxide (average concentration ~400 parts per million, perhaps increasing to 700 parts per million) so its increase is more important than the increase in carbon dioxide.

Recent measurements by NASA satellites indicated that the absolute humidity of the atmosphere is not increasing. Another hole in the IPCC hypothesis.

Our history is replete with instances of catastrophe caused by rising sea levels. Many have died, but mankind has not. The sea level increases have been slow and for the most part manageable.

Some examples of sea level-caused catastrophes include the lost of Atlantis. Recent investigations have suggested that Atlantis may lie at the bottom of the Strait of Gibraltar; that the Atlantic Ocean broke through a land dam, simultaneously creating the Inland Sea and inundating many civilizations. There is some evidence that the Biblical flood may have been the submerging of coastal areas around the Black Sea, which was at the time a freshwater lake, when the Mediterranean Sea broke through a land dam at Bosporus. The parting of the Red Sea may have been a withdrawal of water from a shallow sea on the north coast of Egypt by an approaching tidal wave. The Israelites made it across before the wave arrived the Egyptian chariots did not.

People in the Low Countries have dealt with the rising sea levels by creation of dikes and dams. They still exist as do the rest of us.

I see no reason to fear the future.

”...in order to protect against the metre or so of sea level rise expected over the next century.”

Who exactly “expects” a “metre or so over the next century”?

The last I saw, the median IPCC projection was about 0.35 meters. And TOPEX/Poseidon sea level measurements show sea level is currently rising at 2.8 mm/year (i.e., 0.28 meters per century).

http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/rising_seas_measured.html

You are right to raise this point. I was perhaps being sloppy in referring to what I’ve been hearing from experts rather than what has been published. The ‘median’ IPCC projection has no more inherent validity than the upper (88cm, close to a metre) or the lower (9cm), by the way, as they are all based on the SRES scenarios – each of which is defined as equally likely. Most of the experts I’ve talked to certainly expect sea level rise to be on the high side of IPCC projections now given the more rapid than expected melting of Greenland and other continental ice, and the latest coming from Antarctica vis a vis the speeding up of ice streams once floating shelves (like Larsen B) break up. It’s interesting you raise TOPEX/Poseidon (now overtaken by JASON), which is measuring a 2.8mm sea level rise over the last decade or so, substantially up on the 1.8mm average for earlier decades as measured by tide gauges and so on.

To give you an example, here’s a quote from a recent news story: “McCracken and some other experts say that recent evidence of a faster than expected melt of Greenland and Antarctic ice indicate that the rise in sea levels would be in the upper half of a 9-88 cm range projected by the UN’s climate panel by 2100.” This is now a common refrain, though it will be some time before these news estimates make it into the literature.

Hope this clarifies things a little.

The climate has been cooling in the last millennium due in part to orbital changes often referred to as Milankovitch cycles (named after the Serbian scientist Milankovitch).

This cooling trend over the last thousand years reversed back to increased warming since the dawn of the industrial revolution and since has accelerated with higher temperatures in the last half century with temperatures rising at an ever higher rate than before.

Coupled with this increase in temperature has been the rise of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases and there is ample evidence that carbon dioxide causes warming. It is called Physics.

If carbon dioxide does not cause warming then this would violate the laws of physics. Carbon dioxide causes warming and you do know that. The physical evidence is ample and was first demonstrated in 1862 when John Tyndall discovered that carbon dioxide was opaque to heat rays in his laboratory.

Positive feedback mechanisms are very relevant to climate change and the worst-case predictions are not so outrageous when these mechanisms are fully understood. The decrease in albedo of the northern ice has led to much higher temperatures there than the global average increase would indicate.

It is this highly localized warming do to increases in solar absorption from reduced albedo which is causing the greatest concerns for increased sea-level rise.

If recent measurements by NASA satellites indicate that the absolute humidity of the atmosphere is not increasing, then the relative humidity should decrease as temperature rises leading to drier air.

Would not drier air absorb more water? It may be possible that the NASA measurements you cite are not taken into the correct context. There is something very confusing about this.

Rather than argue the point about water vapor, it seems that the fact the temperature is increasing as you acknowledged in that paragraph makes everything else you said regarding water vapor a mute point since it is global warming you are denying (I think).

Your Logic: The models are wrong since the current warming has not actually increased the water vapor. Since the water vapor has not increased then we are not warming after all and there is nothing to be worried about since the current warming did not increase the water vapor?????

Forgive me, but do you realize how stupid this must sound to others on this site? It makes me dizzy trying to follow your convoluted logic. This is not ridicule so much as this is a serious site and you have to do a much better job articulating a point especially when it is contrary to the consensus of intelligent people who contribute to this site. It is like arguing that the world is flat and doing a very poor job of it.

I see no reason to fear the future except that this world is led astray by stupid people. I am sure you are not one of those and you just need to articulate your case better or determine first what your point actually is.

Let me challenge you at another level called empirical evidence. What do you make of the reduced polar ice and the decreased albedo and how this may accelerate further melting? What do you make of the increased speed of Greenland glaciers? What do you make of ice that has been here since the last ice age completely melted away within two decades? What do you make of the melting of permafrost in Alaska?

The bottom line is the empirical evidence overrules ALL mathematical analysis. Bumbles Bees cannot fly according to mathematical analysis so in your mind they cannot fly.

So even if the models are not perfect, you still have no case because the empirical evidence indicates that we do have a problem and you do not reassure me at all there is nothing to be concerned about!

Even if the sea doesn’t rise 1 meter by 2100, it may do so by 2200, so it’s important to avoid rangling over a few centimeters.

Addressing others who claim those concerned about global warming are fear mongers, I feel that the problem with the GW problem is that is it NOT so immediately scary to get people off their behinds to do something about it (or maybe stay on their behinds, rather than drive around polluting the place). I don’t have much personal fear about GW. I do have concern for young people and future generations who will have to bear the brunt of it (assuming we don’t reverse it & it IS happening).

For me the issue is a sense of ethics and justice. I don’t feel right causing problems for poor people and future generations, even if those problems were to be mild. It isn’t just that I benefit at their expense, especially when I am not benefitting much from so inefficiency.

People have been rightly focused on the tsunami, but there is a difference between being a victim of a natural disaster and being a victim at the hands of people who know they are harming you. Even though the effect may be the same (loss of life, property, livelihood, or bodily harm), there is ofen a greater sense of injustice in the latter, and perhaps a demoralization that people are just plain evil. Also, we hopefully it is not too late for us to do something to help reverse or reduce GW, whereas we really cannot stop earthquakes & volcanos, etc.

So, whether the projection be little harm or great harm, we need to do everything that we can to reduce it, especially through means that save us money, or don’t cost us (which might get us down to 1/4 our GH emissions, given current technology). Victims tend feel greater injustice, anger, and disgust when the perpetrator did it for nothing, but just out of ornery meaness.

Mark, this was an excellent post. Please continue to share the thoughts that come out of your excellent brain in this manner. This is not sarcasm. Your message often gets buried in the prolixity.

Best,

D

I agree with everything you said.

Our good values should be at the heart of our culture and a reflection of the best within us.

We should all feel an obligation to future generations. How can anyone argue against that? What about the generations of the past who helped us to have what we enjoy today?

We could all eliminate and reduce 1/4 of our use of energy. I know this is true in the USA.

I agree that our climate has warmed and is warming. I do not agree that evidence exists that proves that the increased carbon dioxide concentration is responsible in any significant way. Of course, carbon dioxide absorbs heat and increased carbon dioxide delays the rate at which heat radiates from the earth into space. It does not follow that the increase in carbon dioxide has caused the climate to warm significantly.

Arrhenius first proposed that increasing carbon dioxide would cause atmospheric warming around the end of the 19th century. He made calculations to estimate how much the temperature would change in response to increasing carbon dioxide. His calculations were seriously flawed and never credible. The point is that the hypothesis has been around for a long time.

You are correct, if the absolute humidity does not increase as temperature rises, then the relative humidity would decrease. IPCC models include a basic assumption that the relative humidity will remain constant as temperature rises. The NASA study found that assumption to be false; the relative humidity has not remained constant, as the temperature has risen. This is another serious flaw in the models.

Air does not absorb water. Water has a vapor pressure at any given temperature. Water will evaporate into the air, displacing air (reducing the concentration of air if you will) until its concentration above the water surface reaches equilibrium with the body of water. If the air is cooler than the water, some of the evaporated water will condense. The condensing water releases heat, which warms the air. The results are warmer air saturated air, cooler water, and a fog over the water.

Again, I am not denying that the climate has warmed and is warming; I have expressed skepticism about the cause being the increased carbon dioxide concentration.

My logic is that because a central tenet of the hypothesis, that is that relative humidity will remain constant as carbon dioxide –induced warming proceeds, is wrong, that the models are wrong about the reason for the observed and acknowledged warming. That means that I believe that our climate is warming but that the failure of relative humidity to behave properly is one more demonstration that the IPCC hypothesis is wrong about the cause of the warming.

The situation that I see is that IPCC concluded that carbon dioxide was causing the climate to warm. They proceeded to build computer models (I believe that 35 different models exist now) to predict the future of the warming climate. They designed the models to explain all of the warming to be a function of increased carbon dioxide concentration. The models contain hundreds of arbitrary parameters that cause the models to do exactly what the designers told them to do; blame the observed warming on carbon dioxide.

The problem is that too many of the underlying assumptions (relative humidity is but one of dozens of examples) have proven to be false.

A second major problem is that the temperature record that the models use, the surface record is tainted with urban heat island effects. There are two major shortcomings.

One is that the models correct the temperature at urban stations with a population dependant factor. The correction reduces the temperature reading in cities by some number times the population of the city. Comparisons of urban temperatures to the temperatures of nearby rural areas always show a higher difference than the correction allows. I believe that the reason is that the per capita use of energy in urban areas has increased faster than the populations. The IPCC correction takes no account of per capita energy use. The correction for Bombay is the same as it is for New York.

The second shortcoming of the surface record is that the number of stations has decreased significantly (about 40%) during the past 100 years. Nearly all of the extinct stations were rural stations. Thus, the fraction of the fast rising stations, urban stations in the surface record has increased significantly. If you were to take the data for the last year that all of the stations operated and removed the extinct stations from it, you would calculate a higher average temperature for that year.

It is true that Arctic ice and some glaciers are waning. It also is true that other glaciers are waxing and that the total volume of glaciers is approximately unchanged in the past 30 years. However, increased temperatures will cause ice to melt. It certainly is true that there are fewer and smaller glaciers than there were 10,000 years ago. The fact that ice is melting does not prove that carbon dioxide is causing the warming.

You mentioned orbital changes as one factor that causes our climate to change. There are others. The earth wobbles on its axis for example. Sunspots apparently enhance the magnetic field in the solar system and deflect the positively charged cosmic rays, which precipitate clouds thereby causing warming, solar intensity increases and decreases. The relative cool that ended about 1850 (aka Little Ice Age) apparently resulted from a several century long decrease in solar intensity.

The IPCC models cannot predict the cooling that began at the end of the Medieval Climate Optimum. Nor can they explain the Roman Warm Period. Neither of those could possibly have been caused by industrial carbon dioxide emissions, though I admit that the Romans did make Portland cement. We have had a period of relative warmth about once a millennium for at least 2,000 years.

Also, note that the warm periods were eras of well-fed, happy and healthy humans. The cold periods are famous for disease, famine and superstition fuelled violence (witch burnings and the like). Warm is better.

I agree that observational data trumps computer models. Unfortunately, for the global warming believers, most observational evidence refutes their hypothesis. A good example is that the temperature of the upper troposphere is warming more slowly than the surface record indicates. The models predict that the troposphere will warm first and that its warmth will warm the surface. There are many other examples.

Actually, I believe that Bumble Bees can fly; I have seen them do it. I believe that the mathematics that says that they cannot (if such ever existed) is wrong.

OK, I will not assure you that we have nothing to worry about. But, we don’t have anything to worry about.

The validity of temperature measurements have nothing to do with the physics of carbon dioxide. Even if the temperatures are off by any measure, then the temperatures will still increase according to the laws of physics based on the physics of how carbon dioxide traps atmospheric heat.

Temperature measurement is important to verify results predicted by the models and it is important to insure that this is done accurately. However, the increase at the north Polar Regions is of the greatest concern and the temperature increase is so large that it is undeniable.

This polar temperature swing is important and I already mentioned that before in my last response to you. It is called positive feedback by the decreased albedo and this is clearly happening as predicted by the models you think are invalid. It is happening and this is clearly undeniable by before and after photos of the polar ice.

Your assertion that increased carbon dioxide does not cause global warming is ridiculous at best. The physics is sound and according to essays by Dr. Spencer Weart, I read that many General Circulation Models and Simple One Dimensional Models are within 20 percent of predicting temperature increases with respect to radiation, convection, and the energy-balance calculations. This constitutes a very robust check on the validity of the more complex General Circulation Models.

For further insight into how these models developed over the decades let me refer you to this website: http://www.aip.org/history/climate/GCM.htm

Dr. Spencer Weart is the author of this essay and he wrote a very insightful book called The Discovery of Global Warming. Dr. Weart has explained in great depth and clarity many aspects of climate science from a historical perspective and how the science developed over the last century. I owe much of what I know about climate science from reading his on line essays and his book.

The assumption you made about the mid-level temperatures not warming is false. In the essay I mentioned above, Dr. Weart, mentioned a new analysis of the satellite measurements in 2004 which showed that the mid-level atmosphere had been warming up in the way the models predicted.

I did find the NASA study you mentioned. This study you quoted also said that the overall water vapor increased with temperature. I find it interesting that you missed this important point. The fact that water vapor did not increase fast enough to bring the relative humidity back to a constant may just be a transient condition.

It may simply take more time for more water vapor to enter the atmosphere to bring the relative humidity back to its original value. In fact, the faster it is warming, then the more likely it could be a transient condition which could indicate that things may be worse not better.

Therefore, your conclusion that the NASA study demonstrates that the IPCC hypothesis is incorrect may not be true or even if it is off slightly, then you cannot conclude that it would invalidate the predictions from the models. Maybe the models need to be improved. So what!

I think it is prudent to repeat this NASA study in the future to see if possible transient conditions subside and check to insure that the water vapor cycle is indeed in equilibrium or is warming occurring so fast that it cannot reach equilibrium?

Please understand that I am not a climate scientist, but a transient condition sounds more reasonable to me that your theory which is basically that the overwhelming consensus of scientists spending their life energy in pursuit of the truth over all these many decades is wrong.

I find it interesting that you believe that the carbon dioxide increases and the current warming are all just an amazing coincidence. In fact, it must be an amazing coincidence that ancient ice cores have been examined and clearly show a correlation between carbon dioxide increases and the warming of past climates.

I do not believe that the models were designed to blame the observed warming on carbon dioxide. I believe the models were designed to model the atmosphere and that the carbon dioxide concentration was just one important part in each model.

The models do not blame the warming on carbon dioxide increases. The warming is partly caused by carbon dioxide and the models help scientist better predict what may happen with this increase. I do not see a conspiracy here.

You say that many underlying assumptions have proven to be false. So far, I do not see this with respect to relative humidity and mid-level atmospheric temperatures.

There are many underlying assumptions that have proved to be true. One aspect of the models is that they are getting better at predicting results. The models are close in correlation to the melting that you even acknowledge is occurring. Is this simply another amazing coincidence?

There will always be uncertainty with the models because modeling the climate is a formidable task. However, I have always noticed that a range of temperatures are always provided so that the truth would lie somewhere inside that range. The scientists have understood this uncertainty and that is why they always provided a range. I do believe that it is more likely that the true nature of what is to come could be within any part of that range.

There is a real risk that the worst case scenario or something close to it can happen as shown by the models. I say this because uncertainty can go either direction. Mark’s article on the accelerating ice flows of Greenland glaciers is one example. The fact that glaciers are moving faster than scientists expected demonstrates the true risk presented from being on the down side of this uncertainty.

Therefore, things may not always go our way. When they do not, then it becomes irreversible and catastrophic. So caution is in order when thinking about what we should do at this time to make sure it does not get out of our ability to control or at least mitigate.

Your attitude of indifference is dangerous and I consider it irresponsible. Not only has your logic been completely one-sided, you need to have some common sense as to what is at stake here. It is the planet earth and it is the only home we have.

Ah, but how did IPCC et al. calibrate their GCMs, that is the question and one reason why the accuracy of the surface temperature record is so important in the debate. There are so many variables that we cannot yet include analytically and so many variables that we don’t even know about that the models are what I would call physics-based empirical models.

The goal was to create code that would replicate the known physics in the atmosphere. Because of the shortfalls in knowledge, the models ability to predict the present was abominable, so, the modelers had to include arbitrary parameters that allow them to tune the model output by tweaking the values of the arbitrary parameters. They proceeded to tweak until the models now do a poor job of replicating the existing climate. As I said earlier, there are about 30 models in existence and no two agree very well.

Clearly, if the surface temperature is wrong, they will have calibrated the models to erroneous data and they will have seriously compromised the accuracy of their predictions of the future.

Whether the Arctic is warming or cooling depends on how you define the Arctic. The study that the press has been so excited about recently includes a rather imaginative definition of the Arctic. They included many cities and towns below the Arctic Circle. Those Alaskan stations that they included experienced a one-time step increase in 1976-1977 of about 2-Celsius degrees because of a shift in the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. Alaska has not warmed since 1977. They also included the memories of the native peoples who say things like, “It is warmer now than it was when I was a child”. That is anecdotal evidence, which is always unreliable at best.

Studies that include only stations that are north of 70 degrees North latitude show that the Arctic is not cooling at all. The official definition of the Arctic is those areas that have at least one day of 24-hr sunlight and one of 24-hr darkness; it is the area north of 66 degrees North latitude.

I have not asserted that the climate is not warming. As I pointed out the last time you misquoted me, my original posting said that the climate has been warming erratically for 10,000 years. I have said that I see no evidence that the activities of man have had a significant impact on that warming, some impact but not a lot. I also have said that it is my belief that because our impact is small, changing our behavior will have no significant impact on climate.

The importance of the observation that the surface temperature is rising faster than the temperatures in the upper troposphere is because the physics of the carbon dioxide-induced warming hypothesis predicts that the upper troposphere will warm faster than the surface. The reason is that the 400 parts per million of carbon dioxide near the surface cannot compete with the16,000 parts per million of water vapor. The troposphere is quite frigid so the concentration of water vapor is comparable to the carbon dioxide concentration, so that carbon dioxide can warm the upper troposphere.

Your Dr. Weart is referring to a paper by Wu and his compatriots at the University of Washington who published a paper in Oct or Nov. in which they claim to have re-analyzed the satellite data and found the warming that the GCMs demand. Christy and Spencer, the researchers who operate the satellite, say that they tried Wu’s technique 15 years ago and found that it does not work. The debate continues. We shall see. Your Dr. Weart suffers the same malady that afflicts all in the global warming industry, he wants so badly to believe that Wu is correct that he went ahead and assumed that Wu is correct. That is bad science, which could lead to bad policy.

I did not miss the point that the water vapor increases some; it just is not important. The reason is that the relative humidity decreased and the GCMs rely on constant relative humidity for the enhanced feedback mechanism to have the predicted effect.

More time for water to evaporate is not the issue. According to the GCMs, carbon dioxide alone can only increase the temperature by 0.7 or so Celsius degrees. That is about as much as the surface temperature has warmed since 1850. I have not seen any catastrophic effects. Have you?

I do not know what you mean by “overwhelming consensus of scientists”. I probably could name 50 eminently qualified climate scientists who have expressed skepticism about the IPCC hypothesis. If the overwhelming consensus means 99%, you have to name 5,000 scientists who subscribe. Can you?

If you will spend some time with those ice borehole studies, you will find that most of them show that temperature increased before carbon dioxide increased. Could that mean that warmer temperatures release carbon dioxide from the oceans and that caused the increase in carbon dioxide? The oceans contain thousands of times more carbon dioxide than the atmosphere.

According to IPCC, the most likely temperature increase is about 2.5-Celsius degrees. I know that we hear a lot about 5.8-Celsius degrees (12 degrees F); that is the media for you. By the way, the lower end of the range is a small decrease in temperature.

Please do not accuse me of indifference. I care a lot. I happen to believe IPCC when they say that implementation of Kyoto would have had no measurable effect on the climate. I also believe that implementation of Kyoto would have caused massive human suffering and would have eliminated any chance that we have of dealing with the consequences of increasing temperature. Warming is not a threat to the earth, Kyoto is.

Hi Dan and Norbetzangox, I am enjoying the debate on validating climate change.

Here are some snippets from the point of view of a farmer and carbon sequester, to help keep the debate going.

Up to 1970 the main source of CO2 emissions was land use change. ie man could do far more damage by burning some forest to create farm land, and ploughing and reducing the carbon content of fertile ex forest soils.

The Romans destroyed much of the forest around the Mediterranean at the same time as the chinese were enjoying a period of civilisation at the expense of the environment. The ability of previous civilisations to change the climate should not be underestimated, especially when you consider that these civilisations lasted many centuries. This might help explain the Roman warm period.

The evidence which I found most convincing in relating CO2 levels to temterature changes was the Antarctic ice core samples which showed a close relationshop between CO2 levels and temperatures.

I understand the CO2 acts like sheets of glass in a glass house. The sun shining on the glass house heats the air within the glasshouse rather than the glass. In the same way teh sun heats the air near the ground rather than the atmosphere containing the CO2.

Humiditity changes rapidly on a daily basis depending on temperature. You only have to see the dew evaporating off the grass by mid morning, and the temperature rising rapidly when there is no more water to evaporate.

Trees are very effective carbon sequesters. I spoke to someone growing cut flowers in a glasshouse downwind from a large pine forest. He complained that CO2 levels beside his glasshouse were only 235 ppm instead of the normal 270 ppm and he had to add extra CO2 to his glasshouse to make the flowers grow.

Keep the debate going.

Great Insightful Post Michael John Cambridge!

Sometimes we humans only think we affect climate in our modern times. Rice patties and cattle farms release methane gas which is not an insignificant contribution to the warming. Trees are our friends!

It is my honor to be of service! Soon I will reply to norbitzangox latest response back to me and you will have the further pleasure of even more entertainment because this debate is headed for closure very soon! Unless Mr. norbitzangox desires to keep digging his hole even deeper!

Stay tuned! More is yet to come!

Mark Lynas writes, “The ‘median’ IPCC projection has no more inherent validity than the upper (88cm, close to a metre) or the lower (9cm), by the way, as they are all based on the SRES scenarios – each of which is defined as equally likely.”

Oy vey! Do you know how much like a Bible-quoting religious fundamentalist you seem, when you write something like that?!

It is utter rubbish-completely irrational nonsense-that the SRES scenarios can be “defined as equally likely!”

Consider this: Suppose you had a single die. It wasn’t “loaded”...so that any number from 1 to 6 showed up with equal probability. Would accept that I had “defined as equally likely” that you could throw three sixes in a row, versus throwing three numbers that didn’t match? I hope you wouldn’t accept that! So why in the world do you accept the completely irrational nonsense that the SRES scenarios could ever be “defined as equally likely”?!

I apologize for my bluntness, Mark, but the idea that the IPCC’s projections are nothing more than pseudo-scientific junk. The fact is that the IPCC Third Assessment Report’s projections for atmospheric methane concentrations, CO2 emissions and atmospheric concentrations, and temperature rises (1.4 to 5.8 degrees Celsius) constitute the greatest fraud in the history of environmental science. You have a better chance of running the 1500 meters in under 3 minutes and 40 seconds than the earth has of warming even 5 degrees Celsius in the 21st century. It is likely (greater than 50 percent probability) that the lower troposphere will warm by less than 2 degrees Celsius in the 21st century. And the odds that the lower troposphere will warm by even 3.6 degrees Celsius (i.e., the midpoint between 1.4 and 5.8 degrees Celsius) are probably less than 1 in 100:

http://markbahner.typepad.com/random_thoughts/2005/01/resolved_the_ip.html

http://markbahner.50g.com/what_will_happen_to_us.htm

Mark Bahner (environmental engineer)

P.S. I notice you have a book coming out called “Six Degrees.” I assume that title is based on the utterly ludicrous belief-as in religious belief-that the earth will warm by approximately 6 degrees Celsius in the 21st century.

“Even if the sea doesn’t rise 1 meter by 2100, it may do so by 2200,...”

Lynn, have you thought at all what the world will be like in 2200?

Imagine a person in 1800 being dropped into the world in 2000. That person would never have seen an automobile, an electric light, air conditioning, radio or TV, computers, asphalt roads, etc. etc. etc.

Per calculations by Brad DeLong, the world per-capita GDP in 1800 was $195 (in year 1990 dollars). His calculation for the year 2000 was $6539. In other words, in 200 years, the per-capita GDP grew by a factor of 34. If the per capita GDP were to grow by another factor of 34 in the next 200 years, the world per-capita GDP in 2200 would be $222,000 (in year 1990 dollars).

But it’s likely that the world per-capita GDP will grow by more than a factor of 34 just in THIS century. In fact, my prediction is that the world GDP will grow by more than a factor of 1000, just in this century alone. In other words, I predict that by 2100, the world per-capita GDP will be over $6,000,000 (in 1990 dollars). People even in 2100, let alone 2200, will be almost unimaginably wealthy.

“For me the issue is a sense of ethics and justice. I don’t feel right causing problems for poor people and future generations,...”

If you want to help poor people (with their environmental problems), give to a charity like Water Partners:

http://www.water.org/

As for helping people in the future, what you’re talking about would be something like a person in 1800 cutting back on whale oil usage, and leaving you with a barrel of whale oil. Or a kid cutting back on gumballs and giving you 30 gumballs. It will be touching, but that’s about it.

The Romans and Chinese might have cut and burned a lot of forest; I find it hard to accept your conclusion that their activities had a significant effect on the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere or on the climate.

For one there were relatively few Romans and Chinese 2,000 to 4,000 years ago, so their activities could have had little impact relative to the impact that humans have now. The estimated population of the world in the year 1 AD is 150 to 170 million (see http://desip.igc.org/populationmaps.html, and http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/worldhis.html). The estimate for 4,000 years ago is about 14 million. The estimate of the current population is about 6 billion (same sources).

The present population is cutting and burning more forest than the ancients could have. Furthermore, we currently are burning sequestered oil at a rate of 100 million barrels per day and burning sequestered coal at an even higher rate. Even at those burn rates, we have added just 4 to 6 percent to the carbon dioxide emission rate. Mother Nature emits about 95 percent of the carbon dioxide that enters the atmosphere each year. There is no reason to believe that the natural emissions of carbon dioxide have changed.

About 60 percent of the carbon dioxide that we emit appears to be accumulating in the atmosphere. The environment is sequestering other 40% of anthropogenic emissions. It seems likely that little to none of the carbon dioxide emitted by the ancients would have accumulated.

Further, even at the high present emission rate, the effect of carbon dioxide on the warming of the planet appears small. IPCC estimates that doubling of the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere will increase the temperature of the climate by about 0.7 Celsius degrees, which is about as much as the temperature has increased since 1850.

It also is interesting to look at the table at the second address. It shows a relatively stable population until 500 to 1,000 years ago when the climate began warming. It also shows population reaching a plateau near the end of the Roman Warm Period and remaining relatively stable until the beginning of the Medieval Climate Optimum (MCO). The table then shows population stabilizing near the end of the MCO and even decreasing during some centuries as the world plunged into the little ice age. The periods of cold climate were the periods of crop failure and plague. Finally, the population begins increasing as the world begins emerging from the Little Ice Age.

The web site, http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0762181.html, shows that the rate of increase of world population has been steadily decreasing since 1960. As poorer countries become more prosperous and fewer children starve, birth rates have begun declining. I believe that the UN is estimating that the world population will level out at about 9 billion.

I agree that the ice cores show correspondence between carbon dioxide concentrations and climate temperature, but I also believe that many of the ice core analyses show that the increased temperature preceded the rise in carbon dioxide. In addition, the correspondence between temperature and carbon dioxide does not mean that increased carbon dioxide causes the temperature rise. They could both be results of the same cause, solar activity.

The glasshouse analogy is not quite accurate. The glass actually prevents passage of infrared radiation. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere absorbs certain wavelengths of infrared light that the surface of the earth emits and emits infrared at other wavelengths. The emission direction is random, up, down, sideways. The light radiated downward returns to the surface. The surface then emits comparable energy at even lower wavelengths, wavelengths that carbon dioxide does not absorb. The process slows, but does not prevent radiation of heat into space. The result is an increased nighttime (and wintertime) low temperature with a concomitant increase in average temperature. Maximum temperatures are relatively unaffected.

Absolute humidity does not change much on most days. The relative humidity is highest in the early morning, when the air temperature is low. As the sun warms the surface and the lower atmosphere, the vapor pressure of water rises and the relative humidity, the ratio of the existing vapor pressure divided by the maximum possible vapor pressure at the existing temperature, decreases. In other words, the theoretical absolute humidity increases while the actual absolute humidity remains constant.

I believe that mature forests come to near equilibrium. That is, as forests grow older, the rate at which they emit carbon dioxide through nighttime respiration and decomposition of fallen leaves, limbs and dead trees, closely approaches the rate at which they absorb carbon dioxide. The residue that remains after biological decomposition eventually becomes coal. All of which makes coal a renewable resource, albeit one with an extremely low renewal rate.

Newly planted and young forests, which are creating plant mass faster than they are loosing it, are net carbon dioxide absorbers. However, I believe that ocean organisms, not terrestrial organisms do most of the carbon dioxide absorption.

GDP & GNP measure the monetization of the economy. Something has to be sold to enter its calculation. People in the past were mainly subsistence farmers, growing their own food, breeding their own livestock and draft animals. None of this enters GDP calculations. Even in the 1950s families did more work without pay around their homes than they do today. It is possible for an economy to increase in GDP, while decreasing in productivity. People may be rightly feel they are working harder today and getting less.

Some economists are working on better measurements of productivity and material well-being.

Another point is the 2nd law of thermodynamics…

in a science journal with evidence that anthropogenic global warming started 10,000 years ago (2,000 years after the beginnings of agriculture), and is linked to agriculture. I can’t remember where I saw it, but it isn’t widely accepted by others climate scientist YET.

In our debate, I have reproduced Norbetzangox last response first for the benefit of the reader on Mark’s site so we can easily compare each other’s main points. For the reader, I have also provided websites so you can join in and post your comments. I encourage you go to the websites I have listed and to participate at some level with your comments.

• GENERAL CIRCULATION MODELS *

• MY REFERENCES AND OTHER GOOD SITES SUMMARIZED BELOW *

DISCOVERY OF GLOBAL WARMING, Dr. Spencer Weart, Ph.d, American Institute of Physics, 2004 (A hypertext history of how scientists came to (partly) understand what people are doing to change the Earth’s climate)

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/

The above website is a great guide for anyone to understand the complexities of climate science through the eyes of a historian on how scientists first discovered global warming and how the science matured and developed from the beginning. I highly recommend this site for those confused by the controversial aspects of climate science. Dr Weart emphasizes that the science is still evolving and makes a case that the science has improved and continues to improve over time.

NATIONAL PARKS CONSERVATION MAGAZINE: ALASKA MELTDOWN, 2004

http://www.npca.org/magazine/2004/summer/globalwarming.asp

The above web article shares how climate change is affecting Alaska

ALASKA’S CLIMATE: TOO HOT TO HANDLE, JOHN WHITFIELD, Earth Nature News: 2 October 2003

http://www.clivar.ucar.edu/recent/nat_alaska_climate.htm

According to the above webpage, Alaska is warming up more than anywhere else on the planet.

THE FANB TEMPERATURE RECORD (measure of mean Alaskan mainland temperature, using the averages of Fairbanks, Anchorage, Nome, and Barrow), Sue Ann Bowling Ph.D, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Last update January 3, 2000

http://climate.gi.alaska.edu/Bowling/FANB.html

The above webpage is more technical and discusses problems with temperature trends in Alaska

PROBLEMS WITH THE USE OF CLIMATOLOGICALLY DATA TO DETECT CLIMATIC CHANGE AT HIGH LATITUDE, Sue Ann Bowling Ph.D, University of Alaska Fairbanks, 11-15 1990

http://climate.gi.alaska.edu/Bowling/AKchange.html

The above 2 websites are technical discussions on some of Norbetzangox concerns with temperature measurement difficulties and the difficulties at high latitudes. It does not prove the climate is not warming. It only shows the challenges faced by scientists in doing their work. Originally presented at the International Conference on the Role of the Polar Regions in Global Change, held June 11-15 1990 at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks

WETTER UPPER ATMOSPHERE MAY DELAY GLOBAL OZONE RECOVERY, NASA, 04/17/01

http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/gsfc/earth/atmos/ozone.htm

The website above is just one of many articles on the web which shows the increase in stratospheric water vapor and the complexities of climate science and modeling challenges.

SATELLITE FINDS WARMING “RELATIVE” TO HUMIDITY, NASA, March 15, 2004 http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2004/0315humidity.html The above website discusses the NASA study mentioned by Norbetzangox concerning relative humidity in the upper troposphere.

SATELLITE TEMPERATURE MEASUREMENTS, BigPedia, July, 2004

http://www.bigpedia.com/encyclopedia/Satellite_temperature_record

The site above shows Christy’s and Spencer’s actual Satellite data mentioned by Norbetzangox

WARMING CHANGES ARCTIC LIFE, NZOOM.com, (Home page for New Zealanders), Apr 18, 2004

http://www.onenews.nzoom.com/onenews_detail/0,1227,268239-1-9,00.html

The above website is about the concerns of indigenous people.

PALEOCLIMATOLOGY: DECIPHERING MYSTERIES OF PAST CLIMATE FROM ANTARCTIC ICE CORES Earth in Space, American Geophysical Union. Vol. 8, No. 3, November 1995 http://www.agu.org/sci_soc/vostok.html

The above technical website is about ice core analysis.

GLOBAL WARMING: ANSWERS TO FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS, UK Weather world, Tom Rees, Last updated 7/24/04.

http://www.brighton73.freeserve.co.uk/gw/paleo/paleoclimate.htm

Below is a list of many frequent asked questions from the website listed above.

Is the earth getting warmer? Have surface temperatures risen? Is the observed temperature rise due to urban heat islands? Is the observed temperature rise an artifact of changes in coverage? Do satellite data show that the earth is not warming? Are the mountain glaciers melting? Is the Antarctic warming? Is the Arctic warming? Is Arctic ice melting? Is the permafrost thawing? Are the corals dying? Is the sea level rising? Is the rise in sea level normal? Is the North Atlantic (Arctic) Oscillation behaving normally? Are precipitation patterns changing? What is causing the increased warmth? Is there a natural greenhouse effect? Is water vapor the most important greenhouse gas? Are greenhouse gases increasing? What is causing the increase in CO2 and other greenhouse gases? Is the Earth absorbing more radiation than it emits? Is the recent warming caused by changes in solar activity? Is the recent warming caused by changes in volcanic activity? What are the predictions for the future? Are climate models accurate? Will increased plant growth absorb the excess CO2?

Another problem with GNP is that it doesn’t distinguish between “goods” and “bads,” and it fails to address externalities, such as environmental harms. For example, if hundreds of thousands are getting sick or their property gets damaged due to environmental harm (which is probably a good guesstimate of harm here in the U.S), then all their medical and repair expenses get calculated in the GNP as “productivity.” We could be swimming vigorously upriver, and that effort gets measured, while the current is taking us far down river.

The GNP may make it look like we are improving on paper, while we slowly kill our life-support systems in reality.

Mark Bahner

Here are five extracts from your post:

“Oy vey! Do you know how much like a Bible-quoting religious fundamentalist you seem, when you write something like that?! ... It is utter rubbish-completely irrational nonsense- ... So why in the world do you accept the completely irrational nonsense … I apologize for my bluntness, Mark, ... the greatest fraud in the history of environmental science. You have a better chance of running the 1500 meters in under 3 minutes and 40 seconds than … the utterly ludicrous belief—as in religious belief—...”

As you can see, these are embellishments to your argument, not integral to it. In my view they actually detract from your argument and also detract from the tone of this site. I can’t – and won’t – speak for Mark Lynas, but when I compare his measured contributions or those of, say, Dan Kellog, with your carelessly edited vituperations, I can’t help noticing the contrast.

I’m sure dissent and debate are welcome on this blog but – speaking personally – I hope we can keep the tone in line with with the models Mark Lynas, Dan Kellog and others set for us.

Best wishes

Keith (in Australia)

Dan wrote, “We cannot predict the actual weather and we may never be able to have the computing power to predict the weather events of 20 years hence. It is not necessary to have this level of precision with regard to the ability of the climate models to be a useful forecasting tool. So the worries you have about the models having to be absolutely perfect to show future trends are unfounded.”

For the record, I did not say that the models have to be perfect; I said that no two agree and that all are probably wrong because their creators calibrated them against faulty temperature data. In addition, I have not written about weather forecasting, which is separate and distinct from climate forecasting. The fact that the weather guy cannot predict the temperature next week is unrelated to the ability of climate forecasters to predict future trends in climate.

Dan wrote, “You are not correct about the surface temperatures compromising the accuracy of the model’s predictions for the future.”

No, I am not wrong. I agree that the various models are empirical models having basis in physics. I agree that our knowledge of the number and importance of the parameters that affect climate is so superficial that it is not possible to construct an a priori, analytical model that will describe climate. The reasonable response of climate modelers was to provide a set of arbitrary parameters whose values they could change while trying to tune the models and enhance their accuracy. The calibration or tuning process is to make the models predict present-day conditions from a starting point early in the last century.

If they force the models to predict all of the currently available surface temperature data and it turns out that urban heat islands biased those data high, then they will have overestimated the amount temperature rise that the change in carbon dioxide than actually caused.

Let’s do a hypothetical example. Let’s assume the data show that the concentration of carbon dioxide increased by 50 parts per million and the surface data show that the temperature increased by 2 degrees. We now force the models to calculate a 2-degree temperature increase for in response to the 50-ppm increase in carbon dioxide. The model then would predict a 2-degree temperature rise for the next 50-ppm increase in carbon dioxide.

If the urban heat island data had unduly influenced the surface temperature record so that the real surface temperature rise during the last century was just one degree, then our model would over predict the temperature rise that the next 50-ppm rise in carbon dioxide concentration will cause.

The same error occurs if models attribute too little of the temperature rise of the last century to increased solar intensity, or to any of dozens of other physical parameters.

Warm water, not warm air melts floating Arctic ice. Water holds 4 times more heat per pound than air and there hundreds of times more pounds of water than there are of air. An air temperature rise of a degree or two over a year or two cannot change significantly the rate at which the ice melts. The warmth added to the oceans over the past 150 years will continue to melt ice even when the air temperature begins cooling again. And, as I maintained, the climate and the oceans have been warming for 10,000 years, the ice will continue to melt for years to come.

(Parenthetically, the GCMs treat the oceans as simple black body radiators; they ignore any air water interactions and any behavior of the water itself. It seems unwise to focus on the fluid, air, which is small relative to the major fluid, water.)

Dan then made points about the warming in the Arctic in general and the warming in Alaska in particular. He maintained that the Alaskan climate has warmed significantly because of increased carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere.

At http://pafc.arh.noaa.gov/climvar/climate-paper.html you can find a paper by John Papineau, Ph.D. of the National Weather Service in Anchorage, Alaska. I’ll not quote the entire paper, it is lengthy, but Dr. Papineau concludes (among other things) the following.

“Is there evidence of temperature increases in Alaska? Figures 8 & 9 show temperature trends at four stations across the state. . . . The most conspicuous element of these four plots (as well as data from other stations which is not plotted), is the large temperature increase which occurred around 1977. We noted earlier in this paper that during the 1976-1978 period there were two consecutive El Nino’s, the latter one being very strong. This period also corresponds to a shift in the PDO. Just prior to this warming trend, temperatures at most stations were well below normal, which made the warm-up all that more impressive. Notice, however, by the mid-to-late 1980’s, winter temperatures had returned to near normal values. “

In a subsequent paragraph Dr. Papineau says, “Overall the temperature trends correspond pretty well with the phases of the PDO. There is some evidence in the temperature record of a number of stations located in the interior of Alaska, that a slight warming has occurred (Stafford et al). However most of the temperature records in this area only span one complete cycle of the PDO, hence it is difficult to ascertain if the warming is ‘true’ or is an artifact of the warm cycle of the PDO which spanned the 1977-1997 period.”

And farther on, he says, “A number of people have attributed this current warm anomaly to global warming. It is the opinion of this researcher that the current warm anomaly occurring on the arctic slope represents a phase shift, which may or may not be linked to the PDO, but most likely to significant changes in the circulation of the atmosphere and ocean in the Arctic.”

Dan wrote, “Studies that include only stations that are north of 70 degrees North latitude show that the Arctic is not cooling at all” So does this mean Norbetzangox (sic) that the Arctic is actually warming after all? I will have to agree with your statement that the Arctic is not cooling at all! So why am I arguing with you when we apparently agree? I made a boo boo. I meant, as the preceding paragraph said, that the studies show that the Arctic is not “warming”, not “cooling” at all. Sorry for the typo. I believe the thorough analysis by Dr. Papineau supports my opinion that there is no ongoing warming trend in Alaska. There was a one-time step change between 1976 and 1977; subsequent years have returned the temperature to the norm.

I’ll take some time to read your links tonight and continue this sometime tomorrow.

I just read what you just wrote and I cannot find anything substantive in your response back that merits another major response back from me.

Please do go back and visit all my websites I quoted and at least do a much better job at making your case!

Go for it and respond back to ALL of the points I made. Please! Please do not cherry pick it to death by misrepresenting the facts only to prove your case. You do a great job of that.

You appear on the defensive. The problem you will find is I often quoted from your own resources on points you failed to mention in what you previously posted.

You have failed miserably to make a believeable case and your credibility is at stake so keep trying!

And, the only one point you made in this recent post is that warm water is melting the ice. Great!

I stand corrected. Both warmer water and warmer air is melting the ice. Thanks for the insight! How wonderful!

At least you agree the ice is melting and finally we are making progress!

I do think we all have had good points to make on this site and I think that we have been quite respectful to one another. I think that we have a great dialogue and that we all benefit. It always seems for me that I am part of a larger global community on Mark’s site. You and I may fuss over a post about SUVs but we are always on the same page in the end.

The problem is when critics make a case against what the consensus of the group believes in strongly. We tend to support the thesis that climate change is a current threat to the planet as we know it and to us as well. We came to Mark’s site because of his writings and what he stands for. We tend to take climate issues to heart because we believe they merit serious attention.

My contribution is to focus more on preventative measures instilling hope and to encourage people to take a stand and to be proactive. I desire to go back to this focus but like all of us, I believe it is important to defend the current climate science from unwarranted attacks. I am not a climate scientist but I have more faith in the science than some of the critics who in my opinion go way too far trying to discredit the science and the scientists unfairly.

On the preventative side, I sometimes mention some crazy climate schemes or even appear to be a pro-nuclear guy. Honestly, I just like to explore all options only because I consider climate change to be a greater order of magnitude higher than other concerns we may have. I also bought hundreds of compact fluorescent light bulbs and gave them away as gifts to friends and family. I am trying to understand how to improve my own energy efficiency and helped some friends with their homes. I walk more than ever trying to reduce the use of my car.

I believe in being open minded and to be fair. I do believe that climate change is important to prevent as best we can as human beings and to take action and to always take the most responsible actions possible. I firmly believe that we should never sit back and just watch the earth go down without a fight to save it and I guess for me at times by any means possible as warranted.

I hope I have been civilized enough with regard to any of my statements but I can be a bit tenacious with a person who overly minimizes the risks of global warming or promotes any of us not to be proactive. I can step over the line with that and hope I do not go too far. I do feel obliged to defend Mark’s site from zealous critics and protect the visitors to this site from being confused about the facts based on the consensus of understanding we have as a global community on Mark’s site.

On a religious level, I consider Mark’s site as sacred ground to be defended. If you think I am ever out of line with any statements, please do correct me be it friend or foe. I for one do want to set a good example for myself as well as others and you have honored me with your kind words. I hope I will continue to live up to that standard.

Best Regards, Dan

Hello Norbertzangox,

Thankyou for the references for world populations. It shows population increasing from 50 million at 1000BC to 170 million at 1AD followed by stable populations until the Middle Ages. Many of these 170 million were early farmers, or hunter gatherers, and as the population increased they would have colonised new territory. Fire was often used to clear land for agriculture, or to make the land more open and suitable for hunting. One man with a fire stick could have polluted the atmosphere as much as one of us jumping into a SUV and driving round the world a few thousand times.

It is only after much of the forest has been destroyed, that it gets appreciated. Forests are now increasing in biomass in the USA, Europe, and my country, New Zealand.

My concern as a farmer and forester, is that climate change will increase the hazards for forests such as wildfire, windthrow, and pests and disease. The following web reference gives a detailed 39 page summary of how these hazards may already be affecting Borreal forests. I have included a quote to highlight the importance of photosynthesis to the atmospheric CO2 balance.

From www.dieoff.org/page129.htm

“A Treasure Chest of Carbon A VAST AMOUNT OF CARBON is locked up in the world’s forests. While the atmosphere currently contains about 750 billion tonnes in the form of carbon dioxide, forests contain about 2,000 billion tonnes of carbon. Roughly 500 billion tonnes is stored as trees and shrubs and 1,500 billion tonnes as peat bogs, soil and forest litter.[20] Each year about 5 percent of this amount, or 100 billion tonnes, is cycled through the atmosphere. This cycle is in rough balance, with about 100 billion tonnes absorbed through photosynthesis, 60 billion tonnes released by decomposition, and 40 billion released by respiration.[21] Until recently, the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has remained almost constant for 6,000 years, suggesting a remarkable system of ecological checks and balances.[22] Even a small change in photosynthesis, decomposition or respiration rates could, over a few decades, cause a major shift in carbon dioxide levels and global climate. And yet this has not happened. Until now.” Our ancestors may have enjoyed a warm period helped by a spot of deforestation. Our ability to extract and burn vast amounts of fossil fuel gives us the power to go one better. We will not have to go down to the seaside for a swim, because the seaside is coming to us.

You provided a reference to a Greenpeace document that points out that the concentration of carbon dioxide has remained relatively constant for the past 6,000 years. You can see at http://www.co2science.org/scripts/Template/0_CO2ScienceB2C/images/subject/other/figures/tenthousnd_co2.jpg, that the concentration of carbon dioxide has been constant for the past 10,000 years. There have been no extended periods of high carbon dioxide concentrations. Yet we know of at least two historical eras during which the climate has warmed significantly and three eras of extended cold. The concentration of carbon dioxide remained relatively constant throughout all 5 of those episodes. It is also clear that the present warming spell began in the 1700s, long before the concentration of carbon dioxide began rising.

All of which leads to the questions, “If carbon dioxide is such an important player in global climate, what caused those temperature anomalies?”, and “If something else caused the anomalies, why do we not look for those causes rather than blame our current warming on carbon dioxide?”

The Greenpeace tract also contained a speculative statement, “Even a small change in photosynthesis, decomposition or respiration rates could, over a few decades, cause a major shift in carbon dioxide levels and global climate”. I could find no technical support for this speculation anywhere in the document. Nor have I ever seen any technical argument that climate could possibly change for a period as short as a few decades.

I have no quarrel with the contention that the climate is warming and that the warming is causing changes in the environment. My quarrel is with the contention that the increase in carbon dioxide is causing the increase in temperature.

I repeat, there seem to be no physical data that confirm the hypothesis that increasing carbon dioxide has caused warming and will cause future warming. Many folks appear to believe that the output of the computer models proves that carbon dioxide will cause warming. Those models are the only indication that we have that carbon dioxide is causing the warming.

Yet, the models are simple and superficial imitators of climate, which their authors have forced, by addition and adjustment of arbitrary parameters, to attribute 100 years of temperature rise to the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Of course, the models predict gloom and doom.

What if they are wrong? Should we cripple our economies and our ability to adapt by artificially constricting carbon dioxide emissions? IPCC has said that full implementation of the original Kyoto Protocol would have had no measurable effect on their model predictions.

I agree, the climate probably will continue warming in colder areas and the effects might be harsh. I believe that it would be foolish for us to sacrifice our ability to adapt to a changing climate on the altar of IPCC computer models.

The Greenpeace article also gave some estimates for the carbon content of various portions of the earth’s surface. Their estimates for soil (1,500 tonnes), vegetation (500 tonnes) and the atmosphere (750 tonnes) correspond to other estimates that I have seen. However, they failed to point out that there are 5,000 tonnes bound in fossil fuels, which must have been part of the air and water at some time in the past (http://www-das.uwyo.edu/~geerts/cwx/notes/chap01/co2_cycle.html).

They also neglected the 35,000 tonnes of carbon that the oceans hold. I am continually amazed by the total lack of attention that the oceans receive in modeling studies.

Hello norbertzangox

Thankyou for the detailed reply.

Starting from the bottom, I appreciate that 4000 billion tonnes of carbon have been tied up in fossil fues and 35 or 40,000 billion tonnes at the bottom of the ocean, mostly as calcium carbonate. All this carbon has been extracted from the atmosphere over the last 4,500,000 years.

The article I quoted is from Greenpeace as you rightly pointed out. I take their articles with a grain of salt, but this article did include many valid points to do with how vulnerable forests, particularly borreal forests are to human actions.

What interests me is the influence that individuals can have on the carbon cycle. The average westerner might emit up to 20 tonnes of CO2 per year. Someone working with nature, such as a farmer or forester can easily have 100 times that influence.

I have burned whole hillsides to clear the way to run sheep, or to plant trees. Lighting one match can release many thousands of tonnes of CO2. Likewise, planting a hillside in trees can store a thousand tonnes of CO2 per year.

When 2000 billion tonnes of carbon is locked up in forests, forest soils and associated peat bogs, it is quite easy for man to change that storage by a few percent. This has far more influence on the 750 billion tonnes already in the atmosphere than a few people changing to more fuel efficient cars, or changing light bulbs.

I dont see any need for doom and gloom, or for any big downturn in GDP. The climate change issue just needs to be tackled in a level headed way, just as the ozone depletion issue was tackled.

Maybe you are right about suspecting UNFCCC computer models. I have spent enough years programming computers to know how easy it is to bend results your way. I have doubts about methane predictions as methane is an unstable gas with an average lifespan of 11 years. I feel very uncomfortable with rising CO2 levels however, from what I have read, and from seeing how easy it is for individual farmers to change the landscape of their farm. My big fear is that if the climate changes, farmers will not be able to cope with the consequences.

I am sure that the key to stabilising the climate is to understand the carbon cycle. I am enjoying the learning process.

Sorry Mark – I only just noticed this post. I’m afraid I do defend my report on the IPCC SRES scenarios. You have misunderstood their intention. They are supposed to constitute ‘storylines’ for the coming century, varying from high emissions to low emissions (and with different estimates from different models of the earth’s climate sensitivity) which are defined as equally likely – in other words, the IPCC is not passing judgement on which scenario is most likely to come to pass. Hardly very religious, is it?

It seems to me that global warming deniers, as illustrated by the Michael Crichton novel, love conspiracy theories (such as the one about the IPCC being a big commie plot to bankrupt the US). Like all conspiracy theorists, they would rather believe in things for which there is no evidence rather than in things for which there is ample evidence. That’s why, Mark, you provide not a shred of evidence to support your irrational dismissal of the entire body of global warming science. Sorry, but you’ll have to do better than that. You can keep your head in the sand, but the rest of us need to look at the future with our eyes open.

My book is called Six Degrees because this is precisely the temperature range that the best world scientists suggest we could experience over this century. You seem to think you know better. Well, I’ll stick to the scientific journals – you stick to your dreamworld, and silly works of conspiracy fiction.

Mark

I have reviewed part one of my response and find it to be logical and on point. If you did not understand it, I suggest that you read it more carefully.

I did find one point that I did not make clearly, that being the reason why it is important to use stations north of 70 degrees N latitude when assessing the temperature trend in the Arctic. The reason is that using that demarcation excludes nearly all urban temperature records. The reason for excluding urban temperature records is that the urban heat island effect taints all of them.

I did review the work at the links that you provided. The first two, http://www.npca.org/magazine/2004/summer/globalwarming.asp, and http://www.clivar.ucar.edu/recent/nat_alaska_climate.htm, were discussions on activist web sites. Both were long on opinion and conjecture and short on documentation, though the second one at least included 6 references. I believe that the Papineau paper that I linked provided more pertinent information and that it directly contradicted the contention that carbon dioxide is causing warming in Alaska.

I will discuss the fourth link before discussing the third because the third contains part of the data discussed by the fourth link.

The third reference contains an analysis of Alaskan temperatures during the period between 1943 and 1995. The main points appear to be that the urban heat island effect creates a positive bias of up to 13-Celsius degrees in winter and that the effect appears to be more severe in the summer. The author says that that all of the apparent temperature increase near Fairbanks is the result of increasing severity of the urban heat island. The paper goes on to examine the apparent upward shift in temperature in Alaska between 1976 and 1977, asking the question, “Is it real?” The answer, according to the author is that the step change appears to have been real and it appears to have been caused by a shift in wind patterns. This conclusion is strangely reminiscent of the conclusions made by Dr. Papineau in the paper that I linked. We now are 2 for 2, both my link and your link contend that there has been no substantial warming in Alaska since 1977, certainly no warming that would support the contention that the Alaskan climate is warming at a rate of 2- to 3-Celsius degrees per century.

This is an excellent paper; it supports my position exactly. The temperature in Alaska rose suddenly about 30 years ago but carbon dioxide has caused none of the apparent warming. It also reinforces my contention that the urban heat island effects have caused the surface temperature record to exaggerate the recent temperature rise.

The following are some quotes from the Station History sections of the FANB temperature records.

Fairbanks—”Length good, data completeness good, site continuity very poor even in recent years. High apparent minimum temperatures from 1970 through 1991 are to be regarded with particular suspicion.”

Anchorage—”Given the combination of site changes and a probable strong heat island, the record must be considered highly questionable. The disagreement between the station history given in the Local Climatological Data annual summaries and that in the digitized record needs to be cleared up.”

Nome—”Site continuity poor, with numerous moves and instrument changes.”

Barrow—”Site continuity reasonable, but changes in summer exposure to ocean, and albedo changes due to growth of town, moves, snow clearance, dirt on snow, etc. could result in false long-term trends. Suggest reoccupatio