From Al Gore:
Yikes! Consider the implications of our new CO2 threshold, along with this from James Delingpole:
Why pray tell would the observation that CO2 has risen to a record high, during a 15 year period in which there has been no global warming whatsoever, be interpreted as evidence supporting global warming alarmism?
If one were to imagine a scenario maximally supportive of global warming skepticism, it would be that CO2 reached record highs at the same time as temperature didn't change.
Sometimes you just want to slam your head against the wall.
Yesterday, for the first time in human history, concentrations of carbon dioxide, the primary global warming pollutant, hit 400 parts per million in our planet's atmosphere. This number is a reminder that for the last 150 years -- and especially over the last several decades -- we have been recklessly polluting the protective sheath of atmosphere that surrounds the Earth and protects the conditions that have fostered the flourishing of our civilization. We are altering the composition of our atmosphere at an unprecedented rate. Indeed, every single day we pour an additional 90 million tons of global warming pollution into the sky as if it were an open sewer. As the distinguished climate scientist Jim Hansen has calculated, the accumulated manmade global warming pollution in the atmosphere now traps enough extra heat energy each day to equal the energy that would be released by 400,000 Hiroshima-scale atomic bombs exploding every single day. It's a big planet -- but that is a LOT of energy. And it is having a destructive effect.
Now, more than ever before, we are reaping the consequences of our recklessness. From Superstorm Sandy, which crippled New York City and large areas of New Jersey, to a drought that parched more than half of our nation; from a flood that inundated large swaths of Australia to rising seas affecting millions around the world, the reality of the climate crisis is upon us.
Yikes! Consider the implications of our new CO2 threshold, along with this from James Delingpole:
There has been no global warming since 1998.
Why pray tell would the observation that CO2 has risen to a record high, during a 15 year period in which there has been no global warming whatsoever, be interpreted as evidence supporting global warming alarmism?
If one were to imagine a scenario maximally supportive of global warming skepticism, it would be that CO2 reached record highs at the same time as temperature didn't change.
Sometimes you just want to slam your head against the wall.
Remember, we're experiencing a so-called pause in global warming. To call it a pause assumes that it will begin again at some later date, which assumes that scientists have clairvoyance, which they don't. No one knows if it will start increasing again or when. So it's not really a pause at all, but a stoppage. Global warming has stopped and they simply expect us to take on faith that it will begin again. I thought that hard-headed scientific types didn't expect us to take anything on faith. What gives, guys?
ReplyDeleteHere's what we do know--temperature goes up and temperature goes down all the time, with no help at all from man and their dastardly internal combustion engines. There is no normal temperature that the world is supposed to be. A range, perhaps, but a fairly broad range.
It's stuff like this that gives the scientific establishment--not science--a bad name.
JQ
"Hard-headed scientific types" expect us to take lots of things on faith. Don't worry, the evidence will come later is their mantra.
DeleteJoey
They aren't very good at making predictions. Remember when they predicted 50 mil. climate refugees by 2010? Their estimates fell just a little bit short, by about 50 mil.
DeleteSo they scrubbed the page and pretended that they never made the prediction.
http://patterico.com/2011/04/15/un-caught-scrubbing-embarrassing-climate-refugee-prediction
The Torch
CO2! What CO2?
ReplyDeleteExcerpts:
Al Gore calls for a day of prayer...
The curious case of rising CO2 and falling temperatures...
...the effectiveness of CO2 as a greenhouse gas diminishes logarithmically with increasing concentration...
...more CO2 = more plants = more aerosols = cooling...
and the one I prefer!
It’s the Sun stupid – The minor significance of CO2
Pépé
DeleteRead an interesting paper from NASA just the other day. It is called the 'Sabre' report. Check it out. In it they seem to suggest that data gathered from the upper atmosphere and satellites indicates Co2 is actually resulting in a cooling effect.
Back to the 70's.
No matter. The sky is still falling and I am sure the control freaks will still find the need for 'efforts' to control the 'cancer' of humanity etc etc.
Crusader Rex,
DeleteEven "Watts up with that" reports it and gives two hypotheses as to why the upper atmosphere is cooling, including the one I prefer - that the solar output has declined recently due to a quiet solar cycle, resulting in less absorption by ozone and less warming.
Which makes the current 'pause' in global warming worrying, because the cooling Sun should have also resulted in a cooler lower atmosphere too. Before you even add in the effects of China's and India's rapid industrialisation and the burning of large amounts of dirty coal and the release of aerosols reflecting the Sun's radiation.
Humans aren't a 'cancer'. But humans' love of fossil fuel is, particularly since fossil fuel use is so unfairly apportioned across the world.
bachfiend: "[Shriek! Global Warming/Cooling/Stasis!!! WE"RE ALL GONNA DIE!!! ... unless everyone gives leftists complete control of everything!]" and "... Humans aren't a 'cancer'. But humans' love of fossil fuel is, particularly since fossil fuel use is so unfairly apportioned across the world.
DeleteSpoken like the leftist hypocrite he is.
Ilion,
DeleteYou don't even bother to comment on my main point. The fact that the upper atmosphere is cooling indicates that the Sun is cooling too, which should have led to global cooling.
And when the Sun comes out of its current quiet period? I don't expect you to know the answer. That would require common sense.
Human use of fossil fuels is exactly analogous to a cancer, which is characterised by cancer cells using more than its fair share of the body's energy in order to grow.
Exactly what America, Canada and Australia are doing in using much more energy from fossil fuels than the rest of the world, making it much more expensive for poor countries to buy.
Two things to remember:
ReplyDelete(1) When Galileo made his claims about the solar system, the Ptolemaic model had been settled science for 1000 years. And, in terms of prediction error, Ptolemy's model worked a lot better than the climate "models" do today. Paraphrasing Feynman, no matter how slick your theory is, if it doesn't agree with the data it's wrong.
(2) Note the clever use of the phrase "human history". As it happens, human history on this planet is rather short. And what the phrase "human history" conceals is the marked decline of atmospheric CO2in the last couple million years or so. At 400 ppm, the planet is going to be just fine. You can safely ignore the Four Horsemen of the Idiopocalypse.
1998 was the warmest year on record in the NOAA data set, but is the third warmest year on record, behind 2005, and the record holder 2010 in other data sets including NASA. 1998 is the only one of the top ten warmest years to occur in the last century, and was a strong El Nino year.
ReplyDeleteClimate changes for many reasons. When the effects of the El Nino Southern Oscillation, changes in solar irradiance, and volcanic activity are filtered out, 1998 becomes a largely unremarkable year in a steady increase in anthropomorphic global warming.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/pics/FR11_All.gif
Global surface temperatures aren’t rising as fast as some models predicted for two reasons. First, the increased coal burning in India and China is producing more aerosols that reflect solar radiation than the models assumed, and second, the deep oceans are warming faster than predicted. The result is that the total heat content of the planet continues to increase, while the continued rise of surface temperatures has been somewhat mitigated.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/pics/Nuccitelli_Fig1.jpg
-KW
KW:
Delete"Warmest years on record" are not the issue. The Medieval Warm Period was damn warm (Greenland was green), but it was not evidence for AGW.
Climate sensitivity to CO2 is the issue. It seems that the warmists were dead wrong about climate sensitivity to CO2. CO2 has risen to a record high, and climate hasn't warmed for 15 years.
Point me to the climate models and warmists who specifically predicted the rise of CO2 and the absence of warming, before the absence occurred.
Face it: the AGW theorists got it wrong. Why can't they just admit that the data simply doesn't support their hypothesis? Scientists in other fields get it wrong all the time. They just admit it, and move on. It's part of doing honest science.
Why aren't warmists acting like honest scientists?
“Climate hasn't warmed for 15 years.”
DeleteYou’re wrong, it has. Your whole claim is based on cherry picking from one data set showing 1998 being a particularly hot year (it was), but falls apart rapidly when climate effects other than CO2, and the warming of the deep ocean, are taken into account.
The medieval warming period undoubtedly had a cause (as you often argue), just as the current warming has a cause. This time, the cause is us.
-KW
KW, your comments are simply a work of staggering genius. To have inferred that the Medieval Warming had a cause... amazing! How did you do that??? And you know such complicated, grown-up words! Oscillation, solar, and mitigated come to mind.
DeleteWhy, you're almost the equal of an African Grey Parrot, a species noted for its amazing mimicry.
Give the boy a cracker!
I thought KW was going to call Michael Egnor a racist. I don't understand the relevance of racism to climate change but then again I don't understand the relevance of racism to most of the issues that cause KW to foam at the mouth and accuse everyone else of racism.
DeleteThe Torch
"Why aren't [warm-mongers] acting like honest scientists?"
DeleteAt the risk of going beyond the data (ha!) ... maybe because they're neither honest nor scientists?
Off topic: By the way, it begins... an IRS racketeer is pleading the Fifth.
ReplyDeleteHeh.
I love when they plead the Fifth. It makes me tingle.
Delete"Sometimes you just want to slam your head against the wall".
ReplyDeletePlease do. It will improve your intelligence.
Ah! The voice of experience.
Delete