About cogitator
cogitator posted a flimsy, unsupported attack on my papers posted on www.rocketscientistsjournal.com. That was his comment 171. I responded in post 178 putting about eight questions or challenges to him. He posted a lengthy response in the form of a rational dialog. It is categorical, organized as quotation/response, a style which cog uses with some regularity.
However the categorical appearance is misleading because cogitator doesn’t actually answer any of the matters put to him. He gives a hint of his upcoming nonresponsiveness in his opening paragraph of post 207 where he whines that he isn’t able to answer 100 questions in every post. So he answers approximately none.
cogitator’s pretends to be authoritative, but his style is attacking by flailing. His work includes snippettes of real science, plus citations which he does not quote, or quotes which he does not cite, each of which frequently proves tangential to the subjects. As a result, a response requires an investment in research to maintain a semblance of a dialog.
In post 171 addressed to palmer, cog says one of my main points was “utterly wrong”, and suggests it was obviously so. He refuses to defend that attack, or even state what he thought wrong. So one must search for what “main point” he means.
Here may be a clue. In post 177, palmer later says incorrectly, “Glassman’s main point is correct, that for the most part, CO2 lags temperature.” To the contrary, my main point is that the CO2 in the Vostok record is entirely represented by the solubility of CO2 in water, indicating that pre-man, CO2 was supplied by the oceans. Whether this is the best model is secondary to the problem it poses to climate modeling. For natural CO2, the model is obliged to produce a concentration record curved in relation to temperature as shown by the solubility curve. Otherwise, the model will not fit the data and it will be invalided. Thus in climatologists’ terms, natural CO2 is a feedback and not a forcing as they currently implement it. That is the main point.
Contrary to palmer’s reading, and as stated in my paper, the fact that CO2 lags temperature in the paleo record is confirming of the main point. To say it was decisive would be to place correlation above cause and effect. While this is the crux of the AGW conjecture, it is not good science.
More than once in post 207, cogitator says the issue is the cause of the increase in CO2 concentration. This is not so and is disruptive.
In my paper, the fact that the PALEO record is all natural is implicit. cog changed the subject by trying to establish that the increase seen in the MODERN record was manmade. He even failed in his diversion.
cog’s method was to rely on little extracts from papers on the isotopic ratio of carbon in atmospheric CO2. He implies by the placement of his citations that the isotopic ratio measurements are taken from the INCREASE in atmospheric CO2. No investigator makes a claim that the isotopic measurements are made from the increase in CO2, and indeed it would be quite impossible. When challenged on these points, cogitator says effortlessly, “what contradiction”, for all the world sounding like Dumb and Dumber. cog doesn’t want to be engaged on points.
In 171, cogitator complains of the “tone and attitude” of my work, saying it is “pure pseudoscience at its best”. He refused to defend that insult. In post 177, palmer follows suit with the stinging remark about my work, “Sure, his physics is weak”. palmer owes everyone an explanation. His remark appears to be a parroting of Gavin Schmidt’s unsupported accusation, which is fully rebutted on my blog.
Also in 171, cog asserted that Schmidt’s reference was to the physics of solar insolation! That, too, is false and unsupported, as I stated in 178 and which cog subsequently ignored. Neither Schmidt’s accusation nor my papers said anything about solar insolation.
Just as cog’s snippettes are vaguely relevant, so are his citations.
Conclusion
cogitator is able to construct reasonably coherent sentences and paragraphs on the subject of climatology, and they invite debate. He shows enough familiarity with the subject to give the appearance of a scientific literacy. However he lacks a scientist’s ability to argue.
He refuses to engage in the point/counterpoint of a dialog. He shows no ordinary, much less scientific, debating skills. His posts burden the readers with verbosity and tangential diversions. He is spring-loaded to recite AGW dogma. He cannot be pinged. Instead of helping the argument converge on issues or points of disagreement, his style is to cause the discussion to diverge in each response. In spite of a multiplicity of long posts, we have converged on nothing on the subject of climate. On climate and in this forum, cog is a virus.
I don't care what you think of me. If you want to make progress, let's do it one step at a time. All of the issues you want to discuss are documented in your previous posts, and can be referenced and cited when necessary.
I need the answer to one question to get started:
Do you (or your thesis, if you prefer) contend that the observed increase in atmospheric CO2 concentrations commencing approximately 1850 A.D. (as seen in ice core data) is due entirely to degassing of CO2 from a warming oceanic water column?
I apologize for the flimsiness of my attack. If you want to go through it step-by-step, we can. It will take a while. I wouldn't want the discussion to "diverge".
Yes and no. I admit the remark was flippant and I should support it. But then I bashed the physics on both sides in this "debate". My comment was meant to be very general in that physicists tend to argue in static terms rather than be forced to model complex dynamic systems. Your own work, with all due respect, has the same weakness. You admit there is a complex ocean circulation that controls the uptake and release of CO2, you prove its existence, and you have strong arguments that it is the dominant flow of CO2. But you don't model it to show quantitative proof. Hence your arguments, while strong, are qualitative.
In the same way, as you state: "[i]n a stronger CO2 greenhouse climate it is hypothesized that the hydrologic cycle will intensify". Numerous physicists on the AGW side take this to mean warming will occur based on an average increase in water vapor. This is an unsupportable conclusion since an average water vapor can not be predicted or even measured. Anyone making a water vapor claim without making detailed models of weather is not going to obtain accurate quantitative results. To give one small example, tropical convection that is concentrated (localized) will produce negative feedback (a cooler climate) and weaker convection will warm the climate, all other things being equal. There is absolutely no way to determine cumulative feedback effect without models. Numerous claims are made to the contrary (e.g. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/08/climate-feedbacks/) but they are rather spurious and look like a lot of cherry picking of positive feedbacks while ignoring negative ones.
A quick note about this forum, it is political, not scientific, so expect a lot of quick flippant answers like mine and not a lot of deep analysis. But we appreciate you coming here and giving us yours. And one quick question: what do you think of (admittedly very crude) measurements showing rises in oceanic CO2 (e.g. http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/ftp/cdiac140/cdiac140.pdf) table 8?
Thanks for your comments and replies.
I don't think that was cogitator's implication at all. I believe he was saying that the amount of the decline in the 13C/12C ration shows an 85% attribution to anthro CO2 when that anthro CO2 is mixed into the entire atmosphere. Personally I am suspicious of the numbers since I have yet to see a quantitative analysis. But I believe some portion of the decline of 13C is due to fossil fuel, it could be small or large, I just don't know. Also the charts in a link that cogitator provided in another thread (http://www.holivar2006.org/abstracts/pdf/T3-032.pdf) show that for some proxies, the decline the C13/C12 ratio started well before the industrial revolution.