And here's what the combination of the two dreaded impending catastrophes looks like: 
Posted on 05/25/2006 9:02:16 AM PDT by cogitator
The Flipping Point
How the evidence for anthropogenic global warming has converged to cause this environmental skeptic to make a cognitive flip
By Michael Shermer
In 2001 Cambridge University Press published Bjørn Lomborg's book The Skeptical Environmentalist, which I thought was a perfect debate topic for the Skeptics Society public lecture series at the California Institute of Technology. The problem was that all the top environmental organizations refused to participate. "There is no debate," one spokesperson told me. "We don't want to dignify that book," another said. One leading environmentalist warned me that my reputation would be irreparably harmed if I went through with it. So of course I did.
My experience is symptomatic of deep problems that have long plagued the environmental movement. Activists who vandalize Hummer dealerships and destroy logging equipment are criminal ecoterrorists. Environmental groups who cry doom and gloom to keep donations flowing only hurt their credibility. As an undergraduate in the 1970s, I learned (and believed) that by the 1990s overpopulation would lead to worldwide starvation and the exhaustion of key minerals, metals and oil, predictions that failed utterly. Politics polluted the science and made me an environmental skeptic.
Nevertheless, data trump politics, and a convergence of evidence from numerous sources has led me to make a cognitive switch on the subject of anthropogenic global warming. My attention was piqued on February 8 when 86 leading evangelical Christians--the last cohort I expected to get on the environmental bandwagon--issued the Evangelical Climate Initiative calling for "national legislation requiring sufficient economy-wide reductions" in carbon emissions.
Then I attended the TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) conference in Monterey, Calif., where former vice president Al Gore delivered the single finest summation of the evidence for global warming I have ever heard, based on the recent documentary film about his work in this area, An Inconvenient Truth. The striking before-and-after photographs showing the disappearance of glaciers around the world shocked me out of my doubting stance.
Four books eventually brought me to the flipping point. Archaeologist Brian Fagan's The Long Summer (Basic, 2004) explicates how civilization is the gift of a temporary period of mild climate. Geographer Jared Diamond's Collapse (Penguin Group, 2005) demonstrates how natural and human-caused environmental catastrophes led to the collapse of civilizations. Journalist Elizabeth Kolbert's Field Notes from a Catastrophe (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2006) is a page-turning account of her journeys around the world with environmental scientists who are documenting species extinction and climate change unmistakably linked to human action. And biologist Tim Flannery's The Weather Makers (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2006) reveals how he went from being a skeptical environmentalist to a believing activist as incontrovertible data linking the increase of carbon dioxide to global warming accumulated in the past decade.
It is a matter of the Goldilocks phenomenon. In the last ice age, CO2 levels were 180 parts per million (ppm)--too cold. Between the agricultural revolution and the industrial revolution, levels rose to 280 ppm--just right. Today levels are at 380 ppm and are projected to reach 450 to 550 by the end of the century--too warm. Like a kettle of water that transforms from liquid to steam when it changes from 99 to 100 degrees Celsius, the environment itself is about to make a CO2-driven flip.
According to Flannery, even if we reduce our carbon dioxide emissions by 70 percent by 2050, average global temperatures will increase between two and nine degrees by 2100. This rise could lead to the melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet, which the March 24 issue of Science reports is already shrinking at a rate of 224 ±41 cubic kilometers a year, double the rate measured in 1996 (Los Angeles uses one cubic kilometer of water a year). If it and the West Antarctic Ice Sheet melt, sea levels will rise five to 10 meters, displacing half a billion inhabitants.
Because of the complexity of the problem, environmental skepticism was once tenable. No longer. It is time to flip from skepticism to activism.
And my Phillip-Morris example shows up once again. I said on this thread, I don't remember if it was to you or to another member, that I would not trust a Phillip-Morris study on smoking consequences on health. I said this to compare it with the Exxon-funded institutes and the people who work for them. Here is what it is said about it:
There are times when it is prudent to suspicious of a person's claims, such as when it is evident that the claims are being biased by the person's interests. For example, if a tobacco company representative claims that tobacco does not cause cancer, it would be prudent to not simply accept the claim. This is because the person has a motivation to make the claim, whether it is true or not. However, the mere fact that the person has a motivation to make the claim does not make it false. For example, suppose a parent tells her son that sticking a fork in a light socket would be dangerous. Simply because she has a motivation to say this obviously does not make her claim false.And of course I'm not asserting that it is a proven fact that McKitrick's views are manufactured to please Exxon. Im simply being prudent. Like the quotation says, even if he's telling the truth, the motivation is there. And the truth is hard to find out by you and me, due to our lack of sufficient expertise on highly technical data.
You raise interesting points though. http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/circumstantial-ad-hominem.html
And here's what the combination of the two dreaded impending catastrophes looks like:
Oops, that chart is from "Scientific American", March 2005.
Apologies in advance for the very long post and multiple spellings of "modeling".
I read all these abstracts to look for weather paramaterizations and their effects: http://www.ccsm.ucar.edu/publications/PhD%20and%20Masters%20Theses.htm This is a well-known and widely used GCM used directly or tangently in these theses.
Many theses show the model to be inaccurate compared to paleoclimatological records. Specifically the model shows linear warming as compared to the abrupt warming and reversals in the paleo record.
Comparing the model to current measurements, the model sometimes performs well with correlation of anomalies. Anomalies in, for example, SST's that autocorrelate with the previous year's SST do so both in the model and in reality. This shows that the behavior of a small, specific portion of reality can be accurately modeled. In other cases, particular climate regions or areas (e.g. mid latitudes) don't match up as well with real measurements (e.g. long wave radiation measured by satellite).
In another comparison to current measurements, the model compared well to spatial variability in actual measurements of outgoing LWR, but not well in temporal variability. Further examination of those results revealed modelling deficiencies in ocean currents, mid-latitude clouds and temperatures in the boundary layer and stratosphere. Another study revealed inadequate modeling of seasonal trends in humidity for more variable locations (typically inland).
Other real-world comparisons showed difficulty in modeling soil moisture following runoff and snowmelt. Modeling the topography and soil characteristics is difficult (not done in this model), and soil moisture parameterizations turned out to be inadequate (biased towards dryness). The topographic effect on weather is modeled to some extent and is accurate for some areas mostly when those areas have limited seasonal variation (e.g. Hawaii). Otherwise it is not very accurate especially with changes over time (e.g. seasonal variations).
Real world and the model were compared for the effects of tropical convection on upper tropo moisture. The model is found to perform well against reality for mid-frequency convection but not for highly and infrequent convection. But the frequency related strongly to ariel coverage of convection which was the determining factor for upper troposphere moisture (concentrated convection yields drier upper tropo). The model suffers from overestimated convection frequency and ariel coverage leading to an incorrect estimate of upper tropo humidity. Another study improved the modeled temporal convection variability by adding a parameter for downdrafts and a RH threshold for convection initiation. One of the main problems with the model seems to be its inability to organize tropical precipitation events into mesoscale structures. I'm not sure if that is a simulation granularity problem or not.
The model is often use to compare its output while varying parameters, for example with and without aerosol forcings, while not comparing those results to real world measurements except sometimes with a discussion. Typical parametric assumptions are proxies like industrialization for aerosol origination and equations to transport the chemicals rather than weather. Alternatively, aerosols can be measured at limited numbers of specific sites and inputted to an area model. But without real world comparisons on worldwide inputs and worldwide effects, it is difficult to verify the models. It is literally true that if a modeler needs some amount of cooling, he can adjust aerosols parameters to make it happen. I saw no studies with any sort of worldwide measurement of aerosol effects.
Modeling vegetation has a similar problem, there were no studies comparing model results to worldwide measurements of the effect of vegetation (if it is even possible), although there were studies showing a substantial effect of vegetation on climate. Needless to say, burning vegetation produces aerosols and the greatest effects on model results, again without any real world verification of model results. The main problem with vegetation simulations appears to be the sensitivity to clouds and the inadequacy of the cloud simulation particularly in paleo eras with markedly different weather. Thus, in one study the vegetation estimates from pollen samples did not match the model results.
Link to model abstracts and my summary of them in 444.
Oversimplification is not an erroneous assumption; it is a product of the necessity of "summarizing" processes with a resolution that allows computations to proceed. You can bang the drum about how poorly the models might handle weather-scale processes, but when I provide the estimates of what's going to happen over the next century, GCMs are what provide the predictions. That's all I can do, and that's all that is available.
As God as my witness and swearing on the Bible, I hope that you're right. I hope the negative feedbacks are sufficient to cancel out the potential warming, and I hope the models are wrong (especially the ones that kick out the higher estimates). But for the sake of honesty, I will continue, when asked, to provide information on the current level of scientific understanding. You can provide context all you want, but that doesn't change the predictions, despite model deficiencies.
The current trend is a culmination of historical cycles, non-cyclical changes and CO2-induced warming. Your contentions are that the current increases are all or mostly due to CO2 (unknowable), that any deviations from the trend are anthropogenic (a marriage of convenience), and that CO2 increases combined with modeled increases in water vapor will continue the trend linearly (ridiculous).
My contention only follows what has been said numerous times about the trend; that the trend of the last 30 years is primarily anthropogenically-forced. There is quite a bit of supporting research for that view. Michaels, despite any opinion you may have of him, compiled several different lines of analysis to conclude that this century's warming will end up between 1.2 and 1.9 C. I think I provided you with that reference previously.
It is not good enough to quote a skeptic who you otherwise criticize, so at least get one of your own ilk to quote on the linear increase. (I personally could care less what Michaels thinks, he has been wrong about a lot of stuff).
Michaels, Christy, Spencer, Lindzen, Legates, McKitrick -- examples of scientifically-grounded skeptics who all admit the likelihood of anthropogenically-forced warming this century. 10 years ago they wouldn't have said that. They have been forced by weight of evidence and honesty to come to this view. They all now emphasize low-end estimates and minimal impacts. Again, it would be nice if they're right.
Second, you need to show why the assumptions in a climate model can adequately model the weather to show that (a) water vapor can increase and (b) those increases can be distributed evenly enough to allow warming (e.g. stratospheric water vapor increases). I would be happy to review your results, but that burden is on you since you have made the laughable linear increase claim.
The linear increase claim is not mine; it is merely an "if-then" illustration. I do not claim the linear increase will continue; I only say IF it continues, the result will be X amount of warming. There are plausible reasons that the trend could flatten, and there are also plausible reasons that it could steepen. I don't know -- all that can be examined are the models that make the predictions. I don't make the models -- take up your criticisms of them with the modelers and see what they say. I'd be interested in any responses you get.
I don't provide any analysis of 21st century warming, or if I did, I didn't mean to without caveats. The caveats are trends, cycles, and one-time events both terrestrial and non-terrestrial that will reverse the current warming, enhance it, or keep it constant, but above all, vary it. Your "example" of a linear increase is highly unscientific and misleading since it reverses most of ancient and recent history (despite your relativistic "stability" arguments).
I'm not going to "argue" with modelers as you would like everyone with an interest in this to do, because as you know and you do, they will ignore any arguments they don't like with appeals to authority as long as they are the authorities. In fact, I have downloaded the model that I mentioned in 444, and will study it myself. This will take lots of time, so don't expect results very soon.
Climate is still variable. El Nino, PDO, NAO, QBO -- it's not static and it's not linear.
What we have to worry about is the landlocked ice - most especially the West Antartica Ice Sheet. But this is not even close to melting, so this rising oceans scare a bunch of bunk.
James Hansen has stated several times that the "dangerous anthropogenic influence" would lead to ice sheet collapse. He's the one saying that it is necessary to start acting within the next decade to attempt to prevent something that could happen a century or more from now. Most people would admit that an ice sheet collapse wouldn't be a good thing.
If you recall, it was absolutely "proven" that CFCs would cause dramatic climate change.
I don't recall that the danger from CFCs and ozone depletion was expressed as a climate-change problem. My sense is that it was expressed as an environmentally-damaging problem.
You might keep in mind that an honest assessment of any climate model predicting the future is to see how well it predicts the past. So far, no climate model has a very good track record in this regard.
When this topic has been raised, I have referred to a discussion of the subject, which is below. You can evaluate it at your convenience; I can't add significantly to it.
http://mustelid.blogspot.com/2005/09/junkscience-is-junk.html
But even given that, is global warming necessarily bad? I know the assumption is, but just a few degrees change increases the crop land available.
It really depends on the rate of warming; ecosystems only adapt slowly. A perfect example is how treelines move in response to warming or cooling. Trees don't walk up or down mountains; if climate changes such that the habitable zone of a given species changes altitude, trees that fall out of the habitable zone will die, and new trees in the new habitable zone range will have to take root and grow. Some trees grow fairly fast, other's don't.
Not sure which chart you meant, but in the glacial-interglacial cycles, the warming and cooling cycles are driven by Milankovitch forcing. The climate science view of CO2 in that context is that it responds (warming oceans release CO2, cooling oceans absorb it, and there are other effects), and the atmospheric concentration of CO2 amplifies the warm or cold climate "setting".
We are currently in a relatively stable warm interglacial, and human activities have caused the atmospheric concentration of CO2 to increase about 30% above the maximum natural CO2 peak of any previous interglacial. The climate science view of that would be (and is) that this condition would promote further warming.
Nice summary effort. That's exactly what drives research.
The problem with the discussion in the link you gave is it fails to mention the parameters that can be arbitrarily adjusted to produce results that match the climate record. They mostly repeat your "best tool we have" argument. As I showed in post 444, there are parameterizations that can be adjusted to produce any result particularly over a short time span such as a century. The dissenters in your link almost got it when they pointed out that the 20th century can be modelled with a 3 or 4 parameters in an algebraic equation. But that misses the precise point that the parameters used in the models are not verified or verifiable in reality except in a few limited and insufficient cases.
That effort, sir, is highly admirable, and I would wish that a lot more people would display such an inquiring mind -- and have the time to do what you're doing.
As for oversimplification, I think everybody wants a better, more detailed model; but even at Gflops/second computing rates, there's still a limit.
Thanks, it took most of the weekend and there are sure to be mistakes. But it gave me a pretty good feel of the model strengths and weaknesses.
As for my interest, I have had that interest since I worked in a weather station over 30 years ago. I became an engineer instead of a weather scientist mostly because my dad was an engineer (a doer, not a cogitator).
Please address the point raised by poster "GregoryFul", viz., if temperature increases have preceeded CO2 increases, how could CO2 increases, from any source, CAUSE the temperature increase?
Also re your conclusion in post 449 that human activities have caused C02 to increase 30% etc... what is your PROOF for this assertion?
Yet another REAL expert declares "Global Warming" to be a non-scientific HOAX:
Gray acknowledges that we've had some warming the past 30 years. "I don't question that," he explains. "And humans might have caused a very slight amount of this warming. Very slight. But this warming trend is not going to keep on going. My belief is that three, four years from now, the globe will start to cool again, as it did from the middle '40s to the middle '70s."
The only inconvenient truth about global warming, contends Colorado State University's Bill Gray, is that a genuine debate has never actually taken place. Hundreds of scientists, many of them prominent in the field, agree.
Gray is perhaps the world's foremost hurricane expert. His Tropical Storm Forecast sets the standard. Yet, his criticism of the global warming "hoax" makes him an outcast.
"They've been brainwashing us for 20 years," Gray says. "Starting with the nuclear winter and now with the global warming. This scare will also run its course. In 15-20 years, we'll look back and see what a hoax this was."
References:
http://www.denverpost.com/harsanyi/ci_3899807 (June 5, 2006)
climatesci.atmos.colostate.edu
Increasing CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere alter Earth's radiative balance by increasing the amount of longwave (thermal) radiation that does not escape from the atmosphere. Absent all other processes that affect global temperature, this would have a warming effect.
Also re your conclusion in post 449 that human activities have caused C02 to increase 30% etc... what is your PROOF for this assertion?
There are multiple lines of conclusive evidence for this. The following two links contain a good summary:
How much of the recent CO2 increase is due to human activities?
How do we know that recent CO2 increases are due to human activities?
The latter explains the stable carbon isotope dilution effect ("Suess effect") that is one of the best (and most understandable) ways that increased atmospheric CO2 can be directly attributed to human activities.
ice cores, tree rings, and a grotesque assumption that human based CO2 should equate to 500PPM absent moderating natural effects. Not to mention further dependence on demonstrateably unreliabily historic temperature data (pre 1979 and all earth reporting).
Your theories apparently depend on everything but tea leaves. But would probably be more accurate if they took them into account.
By the way your response to the question of how temperature increases could precede CO2 inceases was a complete non-sequitor.
Consider what a more intellectually honest researcher who believes in GW has to say about its significance and implications:
Roger A. Pielke Sr. Research Group.
Update April 4 2006
The Climate Science Weblog has clearly documented the following conclusions since July 2005:
Global warming is not equivalent to climate change. Significant, societally important climate change, due to both natural- and human- climate forcings, can occur without any global warming or cooling.
The spatial pattern of ocean heat content change is the appropriate metric to assess climate system heat changes including global warming.
In terms of climate change and variability on the regional and local scale, the IPCC Reports, the CCSP Report on surface and tropospheric temperature trends, and the U.S. National Assessment have overstated the role of the radiative effect of the anthropogenic increase of CO2 relative to the role of the diversity of other human climate climate forcing on global warming, and more generally, on climate variability and change.
Global and regional climate models have not demonstrated skill at predicting climate change and variability on multi-decadal time scales.
Attempts to significantly influence regional and local-scale climate based on controlling CO2 emissions alone is an inadequate policy for this purpose.
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