Posted on 11/25/2011 5:29:44 PM PST by SeekAndFind
The climate may be less sensitive to carbon dioxide than we thought – and temperature rises this century could be smaller than expected. That's the surprise result of a new analysis of the last ice age. However, the finding comes from considering just one climate model, and unless it can be replicated using other models, researchers are dubious that it is genuine.
As more greenhouse gases enter the atmosphere, more heat is trapped and temperatures go up – but by how much? The best estimates say that if the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere doubles, temperatures will rise by 3 °C. This is the "climate sensitivity".
But the 3 °C figure is only an estimate. In 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said the climate sensitivity could be anywhere between 2 and 4.5 °C. That means the temperature rise from a given release of carbon dioxide is still uncertain.
There have been several attempts to pin down the sensitivity. The latest comes from Andreas Schmittner of Oregon State University, Corvallis, and colleagues, who took a closer look at the Last Glacial Maximum around 20,000 years ago, when the last ice age was at its height.
They used previously published data to put together a detailed global map of surface temperatures. This showed that the planet was, on average, 2.2 °C cooler than today. We already know from ice cores that greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere at the time were much lower than they are now.
Schmittner plugged the atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations that existed during the Last Glacial Maximum into a climate model and tried to recreate the global temperature patterns. He found that he had to assume a relatively small climate sensitivity of 2.4 °C if the model was to give the best fit.
(Excerpt) Read more at newscientist.com ...
If Schmittner wants to keep his job, he better check with the gubmint, and see what "they" want the temps to be.
Politicians, environmentalists, et al never pay attention to factual evidence.
Any presumably educated person conversant with science (chemistry, physics, biology) would be presumptuous to pretend to understand the painfully complex process of worldwide weather and climate based on simple laboratory experiments.
Any self-described "scientist" who would do so, is simply --- well, incompetent.
It may not warm the planet as much as they thought... But they still want us to reorder our lives and pay trillions more in taxes. Go figure.
DUH.
Have to agree that it is much more likely that they will drop it down the memory hole and change the subject than admit they were wrong.
Locally here in NM, what this new release of documents does immediately is give credence to those who say the “global warming” science is far from being settled and should make easier the job of experts testifying in two state regulatory hearings to overturn regulations reducing/capping industrial CO2 emissions. These were rushed to adoption in the waning days of the Richardson administration after the new Republican governor Susana Martinez had been elected. She fired the regulatory board and appointed new members more in line with reality than environmental hand-wringing.
I'm shocked. Shocked.
So True. I was just using their quote against them, but even that wasn’t true.
Indeed. But now we must stamp out all water vapor! </sarcasm>
Maybe I shouldn't give them any ideas.
No, there has to be enough for the plants to breathe in. Beyond that, 392 parts per million (0.0392%) is utterly minuscule.
There is virtually NO CO2 in the atmosphere
Anyone with any significant level of understanding of quantum mechanics or even just absorption spectra knows that CO2 is a non-factor re climate “change.” Why? Current densities of CO2 absorp all the IR radiation of the frequencies that they can in the first ten or so meters of air. Double the CO2, and all you do is move that down to 5 or so meters, but no more net energy is absorbed.
AGW is complete junk science!
Models are only as good as the assumptions made when creating them. How about we stick to science where we measure actually occuring things and leave the make believe to philosophers.
CO2 is essentially irrelevant to the climate.
New Climate Report Claims Global Warming's Toll on Extreme Weather
Global Warming on Free Republic
To visualize what your comment is saying, a green garden pea dropped in an empty 5 gal bucket fairly represents to ratio of CO2 to the entire atmosphere.
Anyways, CO2 is just fertilizer which plants use to produce more oxygen.
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