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wes george:
July 26th, 2011 at 3:03 pm
Hang on a second. What about the logarithmic effect of CO2? Wasn’t the first 15% (or whatever) of anthropogenic CO2 we put into the atmosphere before 1945 far more effective as a GHG than CO2 we added later?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/03/08/the-logarithmic-effect-of-carbon-dioxide/
The arrow “something caused seas to start rising” points right to the bottom of the Dalton Minimum.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalton_Minimum
We might expect sea levels to start rising as it naturally warms coming out of the Dalton minimum. Then the warming stalls before taking up —right at the beginning of the Industrial Age!—a remarkably consistent linear upward trajectory…. It’s this remarkable timing and linear correlation between rising sea levels and rising atmospheric CO2 that seems fits the implications of the AGW hypothesis perfectly. Correlation isn’t causation, but it looks pretty suspect…
Yet while this graph, does seem to support the AGW hypothesis, it only supports the mild version, not its CAGW cousin, since extrapolation of the trend doesn’t cause catastrophic sea-level rises. Furthermore, in your last post (and in Jevrejeva figure 3 here) you show that sea level rise acceleration has plateaued, which is also what the logarithmic effect of CO2 would predict. There’s no more significant warming to come from adding more CO2 to the atmosphere. So extrapolating the past trend forward might even overestimate the rise in sea levels, especially if another downturn in the ~60-cycle was to coincident with a new minimum.
Obviously, I’m not an expert, but I see don’t see this data as evidence against AGW hypothesis, in fact, it’s data like this that the AGW hypothesis was first created to explain. However, it also seems to show that AGW is a minor climate phenomena of little threat to humanity or the environment, much less worth scuttling the world’s economy over.
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Lionell Griffith:
July 26th, 2011 at 3:50 pm
wes george @ 13,
It’s this remarkable timing and linear correlation between rising sea levels and rising atmospheric CO2 that seems fits the implications of the AGW hypothesis perfectly.
The “rising sea levels” also correlates well with the price of postage stamps, the consumption of gin, teachers salaries, miles of highways built, and the progression of the years. I suspect we can find countless other things with a high correlation. So what?
Correlation is simply another statistical manipulation that you can perform between any two sets of numbers. The interpretation of which cannot be based upon neither the numbers nor the degree of correlation. The interpretation must be based upon a vast array of facts outside of the data itself.
Keep in mind, doing statistical calculations is easy. Most any scientific calculator or PC with Excel can do them. Validly interpreting the results of those calculations is the really hard part. You actually have to know something about reality to do it. Making up a story and then finding something that has a correlation with is not the way.
I suggest you get one of Crakar24′s BS meters. You might find it helpful. Quoting myself.
The fundamental principle here is one cannot properly go beyond the evidence and call it science. It becomes speculation at best and demagoguery or fraud at worst.