Is Global Warming Unstoppable?

I believe RadioPrius revealed his real motivation in post # 404 (Just in case anyone missed it!)

"Sorry, I'm not willing to give up my freedoms and pay more taxes due to something we aren't sure of. Before you permanently cripple me you better be sure the problem is legit. And after everything I've seen I am more than sure that AGW, as the IPCC would have you believe, is not legit."

To wit I posted (#414):
"First off, how is changing energy and climate policy going to cripple you? As it is, marginal tax rates across the board have NEVER been lower. Are you suggesting that ~5% more to battle climate change would "cripple" you? I suggest you live in someone less fortunate's shoes once in a while. You may not think you take home as much money as you think you should, but I would guess you do better than a significant percentage of Americans.

Are you afraid you might have to give up what to pay for the good of your grandchildren, your golf club membership? Beach house? Ski Chalet? Vacation in France?

Second, don't you think it would be equally valid for me to say, "before you poison future generations, and leave them an environmental debt they cannot repay, you better be damn sure you are right?"


Since RP didn't bother to answer, I thought I would post again for all to see, in case it has gotten too far in the back ground.

 

And now more from the EPA on the troposhere. Remember that the troposhere is the part of the atmosphere that life exists.

Tropospheric Temperature Change

Measurements of the Earth’s temperature taken by weather balloons (also known as radiosondes) and satellites from the surface to 5-8 miles into the atmosphere - the layer called the troposphere - also reveal warming trends. According to NOAA's National Climatic Data Center:

• For the period 1958-2006, temperatures measured by weather balloons warmed at a rate of 0.22°F per decade near the surface and 0.27°F per decade in the mid-troposphere. The 2006 global mid-troposphere temperatures were 1.01°F above the 1971-2000 average, the third warmest on record.
• For the period beginning in 1979, when satellite measurements of troposphere temperatures began, various satellite data sets for the mid-troposphere showed similar rates of warming — ranging from 0.09°F per decade to 0.34°F per decade, depending on the method of analysis.

 

And now the stratoshere (the next layer up).



Stratospheric Temperature Change

Weather balloons and satellites have also taken temperature readings in the stratosphere – the layer 9-14 miles above the Earth’s surface. This level of the atmosphere has cooled. The cooling is consistent with observed stratospheric ozone depletion since ozone is a greenhouse gas and has a warming effect when present. It’s also likely that increased greenhouse gas concentrations in the troposphere are contributing to cooling in the stratosphere as predicted by radiative theory (Karl et al., 2006).

 

I would rather err on the side of the climate than on the side of big business and communism (CHINA).

 

This is really stupid. You're trying to bait me into a political debate that I'm not interested in having. My failure to accept AGW as currently presented is not at all related to my political beliefs. As I said before, I used to wholly accept AGW until I started actually learning about it. In fact, politically, I was completely unaware that "denialists" tended to be part of a certain political party and "alarmist" tended to be of the other political party.

It's almost like you think you can make it seem like I'm completely wrong about the science behind AGW by saying my inquiries are politically motivated. You couldn't be further from the truth. If you wish to debate me, you should actually read and learn about AGW - you know, the thing you think you know about (but really don't.) You are literally barking up the wrong tree.

It is funny how ready and willing you are to take money out of other peoples pockets for something that is so controversial and not even for sure happening in the manner presented. It almost sounds like you're jealous because I probably lead a better lifestyle than you. Typical, you'd rather bring everyone down to your level than be brought up to mine.

And, lastly, none of this has anything to do with the science behind AGW. In case you still don't get the point - the science behind AGW is the only thing I'm here to discuss. I am here to try to find out everything I can about it, not to debate the politics surrounding it.

BTW - Breaking: Copenhagen climate summit negotiations ’suspended’ Watts Up With That?

 

Yes - let's see how modeled global warming predictions of the troposphere hold up against empirical observations, in this peer reviewed paper from the International Journal of Climatology.

In it they conclude:

Model results and observed temperature trends are in disagreement in most of the tropical troposphere, being separated by more than twice the uncertainty of the model mean. In layers near 5 km, the modelled trend is 100 to 300% higher than observed, and, above 8 km, modelled and observed trends have opposite signs. These conclusions contrast strongly with those of recent publications based on essentially the same data.

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While you are at it, why don't you explain this chart of the troposphere, which shows almost no warming whatsoever from 1979 - 1997, a sudden spike in warming during 1998 (ever heard of El Nino) and again, no warming from 2002 onward.

That leaves you with about 3 years of warming trend for a 30 year period. I guess CO2 didn't like the other 27 years.

PS - for clarification, it is the lower troposphere that is the part of the atmosphere where life exists, not the mid-troposphere.

 

An interesting development on the CRUhack:

What’s going on? CRU takes down Briffa Tree Ring Data and more Watts Up With That?

Apparently the CRU has taken down Briffa's tree ring data, and more. When trying to access the old page it redirects to another page, claiming too much traffic. Some people are reporting that the whole website is screwed, so this may be just an system admin error that's causing havoc on the whole website. Or, they could be hiding his data.

This sounds very conspiracy theory, but some people are suggesting that Briffa himself was the source of the leak:

The Strata-Sphere Is Keith Briffa The Climategate Whistleblower?

Not entirely implausible when you consider the pressure Briffa was under to present a nice simple story for AGW.

NOTE: I am not posting the above to disprove AGW, just showing more details and shedding more light on the possible/probably corruption and data manipulation.

 

Actually life can and has been found in all of the troposphere.

 

Now look at the results of the man made global warming.

Precipitation Changes

Increasing temperatures tend to increase evaporation which leads to more precipitation (IPCC, 2007). As average global temperatures have risen, average global precipitation has also increased. According to the IPCC, the following precipitation trends have been observed:
United States Precipitation Changes

Observations compiled by NOAA's National Climatic Data Center show that over the contiguous U.S., total annual precipitation increased at an average rate of 6.1 percent per century since 1900, although there was considerable regional variability. The greatest increases came in the East North Central climate region (11.6 percent per century) and the South (11.1 percent). Hawaii was the only region to show a decrease (-9.25 percent).

​

Figure 1: Annual Precipitation Trends 1901-2005. Click on Thumbnail for full size image. Data courtesy NOAA's National Climatic Data Center.

• Precipitation has generally increased over land north of 30°N from 1900-2005, but has mostly declined over the tropics since the 1970s. Globally there has been no statistically significant overall trend in precipitation over the past century, although trends have varied widely by region and over time.
• It has become significantly wetter in eastern parts of North and South America, northern Europe, and northern and central Asia, but drier in the Sahel, the Mediterranean, southern Africa and parts of southern Asia.
• Changes in precipitation and evaporation over the oceans are suggested by freshening of mid- and high-latitude waters (implying more precipitation), along with increased salinity in low-latitude waters (implying less precipitation and/or more evaporation).
• There has been an increase in the number of heavy precipitation events over many areas during the past century, as well as an increase since the 1970s in the prevalence of droughts—especially in the tropics and subtropics.

In the Northern Hemisphere's mid- and high latitudes, the precipitation trends are consistent with climate model simulations that predict an increase in precipitation due to human-induced warming. By contrast, the degree to which human influences have been responsible for any variations in tropical precipitation patterns is not well understood or agreed upon, as climate models often differ in their regional projections (IPCC, 2007).

 

More results of man made global warming.

Storm Changes

There is large natural variability in the intensity and frequency of mid latitude storms and associated features such as thunderstorms, hail events and tornadoes. To date, there is no long-term evidence of systematic changes in these types of events over the course of the past 100 years (IPCC, 2007). Analyses of severe storms are complicated by factors including the localized nature of the events, inconsistency in data observation methods, and the limited areas in which studies have been performed.
The frequency and intensity of tropical storm systems have also varied over the 20th century on annual, decadal and multi-decadal time scales. For example, in the Atlantic basin, the period from about 1995-2005 was extremely active both in terms of the overall number of tropical storm systems including hurricanes as well as in storm intensity. However, the two to three decades prior to the mid-1990s were characterized as a relatively inactive period.

Following the Atlantic hurricane season of 2005, which set a record with 27 named storms, a great deal of attention has focused on the relationship between hurricanes and climate change. Numerous studies were published on possible linkages, with a range of conclusions. To provide an updated assessment of the current state of knowledge of the impact of global warming on tropical systems, the World Meteorological Organization’s hurricane researchers published a consensus statement. Their conclusions include (WMO, 2006):
“Though there is evidence both for and against the existence of a detectable anthropogenic signal in the tropical cyclone climate record to date, no firm conclusion can be made on this point.”
There is general agreement that no individual events in [2004 and 2005] can be attributed directly to the recent warming of the global oceans…[but] it is possible that global warming may have affected the 2004-2005 group of events as a whole.”

 

Here is how well the models predict the troposphere - way off.



Figure 1: Models said "Good bye" to reality. At the key altitudes, reality is about 6 uncertainties of the mean (measured as the standard deviation of the model ensemble divided by the square root of 22-1) away from the models. If you include "submodels" or "realizations", there are 67 of them and the discrepancy jumps to 10 sigma (this is why copying a model many times, as in the "consensus science", will be used against you by the rules of science). If you count the discrepancy in the experimental standard deviations, they will exceed 5 sigma, too. Regardless of these numbers, the picture above says a lot by itself.

 

"More results of man-made global warming?" Did you even read this before posting it? It is inconclusive! LOL

 

He's just copy pasting everything. It's absurd. If he were anti-AGW he'd be banned by now.

 

I know. Absurd is the right word for it.

And just where are the copyright police that always come out and complain when anyone who doubts AGW happens to post something in full and without attribution?

 

Err...and what is it you guys do? You not only copy, you copy blog posts and opinion rather than actual information.

 

Sure, if you use HadCRUT data which does not monitor or account for arctic temperatures - coincidentally where the largest amount of warming has taken place (see melting arctic ice). That is a well-known limitation of the HadCRUT data.

Shall we make a friendly bet?

If it must meet all those criteria - we will never prove anything but the status quo. Any significant amount of warming (or cooling) will bring out the alarmists.

Solar activity data is notoriously difficult to track via proxy (with only two types of Carbon dating really vial) and has produced wildly varying results.

Either way, solar activity appears to have remained relatively constant the past 50 years - so it does not explain the recent warming trend.

Your hockey-stick graph from wikipedia conveniently stops at 1900. Funny how you failed to mention that, especially considering that the X-axis goes to 2000.

Thanks for explaining why temperatures have remained relatively constant the past decade. What will happen when solar forcing starts goes back up next year along with El Nino?

 

RadioPrius.

Post #440 writes:
"This is really stupid. You're trying to bait me into a political debate that I'm not interested in having. My failure to accept AGW as currently presented is not at all related to my political beliefs."

I think you are being completely disingenuous if you think any of this conversation is devoid of politics. If politics were not at the core, perhaps we would be doing something about it.

You have stated that you are not willing to be taxed for the public good/public benefit of reducing greenhouse gases. That is indeed your right, but I am also permitted to posit that I think that your position on the entire question is biased by that stance.

 

Isn't it interesting that whenever people start pushing you against your beliefs and threatening your comfort zone, you wish them to be banned?

Like you wish that I had been banned a few hundred posts ago.

 

BTW, the correct version and interpretation of this graph can be found here:

Data @ NASA GISS: GISS Surface Temperature Analysis: Graphs

It includes the most current data. It also includes the correct Y-axis in terms of units and range. Hmm..no decline right there at the end..



Please most of all note that the attribution to TimBike's graph is a blog while the attribution to these graphs and interpretation is NASA.

 

The GISTEMP data shows it as well:

You are free to believe whatever you want. It doesn't change the fact that you are wrong.

I wished for you to be banned because you only came in to insult people, as I said before. (ie, you posted multiple times that the insane people were running the asylum, or similar.) You have never challenged my beliefs because you have never posted anything related to the science behind AGW. Had you done so, you may have challenged my beliefs. The only person who has ever challenged them on this board is F8L. He is a gentleman and I miss his input in this thread. I don't blame him though - I'm to the point where I wouldn't touch this thread with a 10 foot pole.

Sincerely, I wish to learn as much as I can about the science behind AGW.

If you were implying that priushippie is challenging my beliefs, again you couldn't be further from the truth. I'm frustrated because there was some decent discussion going on, but someone came in and just started posting a ton of random junk from the internet, making dozens and dozens of posts that contributed nothing.