yossarian wrote:
gbaji wrote:
They simply ran calculations based on existing models to determine the relative effect on CO2 levels and temperature based on whether you included CO2 cycle effects or not. It looks like they were basically measuring a delta, not between whether a greenhouse effect is considered or not, but whether or not you assume certain CO2 cycles of air to soil and back to air would be prevalent and to what degree this might change the results.
A. See Fig 3.b. They compare two models and their model without CO2 induced climate change.
Yes. But the focus of this particular research was not to determine the temperature effects from increased CO2 levels, but to calculate the delta of CO2 levels based on inclusion of additional factors over time.
Which is valid science, but doesn't actually address the issue at hand. As I've stated repeatedly, the primary question isn't about whether or not human industry increases CO2 levels in the air (although there is certainly some debate over how much). It's about to what degree this will actually increase temperatures. The paper you linked doesn't address this question at all.
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gbaji wrote:
1. The absorption and release rates of carbon by soil and water on a very large scale are still basically guesses.
No, they are carefully considered
They are very carefully considered guesses. :)
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gbaji wrote:
They are basing their premise on data which is itself not fully proven.
There is no proof in science :) That is math :)
Please, please try to sound like you know something about science itself.
You go with the best data you have. None of it is irrefutable.
I'm well aware of that. Now could you please inform all the folks who insist that it is "settled" and "indisputable" about this revelation? Cause they're trying to force massive socio-political changes on the basis that the temperature predictions *are* irrefutable.
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gbaji wrote:
2. The entire thing is still based on other models which assume specific CO2 to temperature relationships.
Would you prefer to dispute that paper:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v376/n6540/abs/376501a0.html
Be my guest :)
Well. The abstract doesn't tell me much. But it does indicate that they only included one factor in addition to greenhouse gas emissions to test for reductive effects on global warming. And they also specified anthropogenic components instead of natural ones.
So, once again, the science is presumably accurate, but isn't actually testing for natural responses from the earth system itself to rising temperatures and/or greenhouse gas concentrations. Look. I get that this is confusing for some people to grasp, but science doesn't look at everything. We test pieces of the picture. That's not "wrong". What's wrong is when those who aren't aware of this somehow think that a paper showing these sorts of numbers in any way indicates that these are the sorts of results we'll actually see in the real world.
gbaji wrote:
Doesn't matter. CO2 is CO2. There's you baseline. Works fine.
That's an identity, not a baseline correlation. Not even sure why you thought this was a response to what I wrote. I was saying that we have no baseline by which to measure the effect of anthropogenic introduction of CO2 levels in the air will have on temperature. There simply isn't one. We only have a baseline to suggest what non-anthropogenic CO2 levels will do.
And so far, estimates based on models trying to guess what the baseline for the Anthropogenic CO2 introduction would be have all failed to accurately map temperature effects over time. Not just failed to predict future temperature, but have also failed to match past temperature curves.
When that happens, the correct response is to adjust your model, not just dismiss it as a minor error and move on. The reality is that there is so much political capital placed on those models being correct, that no one dares to question their accuracy. Not if they want to stay employed, continue to receive grants, and avoid being labeled a "denier" and a kook...
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gbaji wrote:
And it will cost us a lot of lives, money and comfort right now if they are wrong and we do what the politicians are proposing.
No, actually, not much at all. What the politicians are talking about is quite minor. The potential damaging effects are vast (entire nations under sea level).
Doubling the cost of energy is not "minor". It's incredibly major. This is what I don't think most of you grasp. If we assume that the models are correct, and we enact even most of the measures needed to reduce carbon emissions sufficiently to avoid the predicted disaster, it would have a massively harmful effect on all of us.
If you double energy costs, you've just made every single thing in the world cost twice as much. Surpluses which currently exist worldwide for things like food would become deficits. We will see massive starvation in many areas of the world which rely on surplus food production. Power will become less available to regular people. The poor will likely not be able to afford it anymore.
And that's just the obvious stuff which will kill lots of people. The impact on standard of living for everyone else would be massive. The worst case predictions of the global warming fanatics are likely far less harmful than what we'll do to ourselves if we fully pursue the proposals needed to correct for that much CO2 concentration.
Of course. It wont come to that, and everyone knows it. We'll do just enough of those proposals to come near to collapse. We'll do just enough of those things to make food and power scarce and make people realize we might just not have enough. And when the people of the world are right on the edge of a panic, that's when their leaders will loosen restrictions. But only on industries they deem to be "critical" or "necessary". And they'll tightly regulate them. Everything else will be subject to full reduction requirements and will likely be at or near collapse from that point on.
It's not really about climate change. It's not about saving the polar bear, or preventing the rise of the oceans. It's certainly not about keeping temperatures lower. It is entirely about using the fear of such things to gain greater power over the industries of the world. Like almost all emotionally driven causes, it's about control and power. Always has been. Sadly, most people can't see the pattern now, and wont see the pattern until it's too late.
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Yet again with tireless regularity gbaji goes back on the hard fought central ground: CO2 is a greenhouse gas. It heats the Earth. We don't know by how much. So by analogy, yes, there is a disease, but it may give us a 0.1 F fever, or kill us. Our best estimates is that it will be very uncomfortable but we can, with some work and expense now, prevent its most severe effects.
But what you're doing is going in for major surgery, cutting off your limbs, and getting a full set of organ transplants, because you've got a condition which historically might cause you to run a minor fever.
It is a massive over reaction to the problem. There is no reason to assume at all that temperatures will rise outside of normative ranges as a result of Anthropogenic CO2 generation. There just isn't. There is every reason to assume that the earth itself has massively strong breaking forces in it's climate system which keep the temperature between two very specific "high" and "low" levels. Within that range, other minor effects (like CO2 levels) will have some impact, but they cannot push things outside that range.
Again. Look at the chart Ash posted waaaay back in the thread. Or the famous "Al Gore chart". See a pattern? Those of us who've been involved in signal analysis recognize it. It's a high/low pattern. It's what you see from a system which has a maximum and minimum value and is "unbalanced" in between. They occur in nature all the time (and are coincidentally used for signaling systems because they allow a digitalish 0/1 type mechanism). Temperatures tend to either stay high or stay low, with relatively rapid changes in between. That's what we see in those long term graphs. And what all the science fails to tell you is *why* that happens.
It happens because any system has bounds. In the case of climate, the bounds are defined by some very constant values. The total number of molecules of various gases on the entire earth. The total mass of the earth (and thus gravity). And the distance from the sun (solar radiation levels). This determines the range of possible temperature effects on earth. Period. Barring some alien species flying along with a massive vacuum cleaner and sucking away portions of our atmosphere, or changing the distance from the sun, or changing the total mass of the earth, those factors will overwhelmingly act to force a range of temperature and gas levels at all times.
I'd explain why this is true, but it would make an already long post longer. If you spend some time thinking about it, you might just noodle out why. It's also why Venus is the way it is, and why Mars is the way it is. These are planetary norms. They can't be changed. Certainly not by just shifting some CO2 from the ground into the air artificially...
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So I'm not so interested in the economic side. My evidence is reality: all these world leaders are doing this because it's cheaper now. gbaji thinks they are all wrong. I'd at least like some idea as to why: some evidence indicating that it is cheaper to do nothing in the long run.
How much will it cost you if the worlds oceans rise by 8 inches over the next 50 years? Strange that you demand a cost value for one side, but not for the other.
Double energy cost. That's just *one* of the proposals on the table. The cost is massive if we do what the GW proponents want. What is the cost if we do nothing?
I understand there are some promising technologies which could reverse the warming trend without reducing CO2, and some which will absorb CO2. I think that consideration of these is meritorious. I don't think we need any tech to do this. The earth will do it all by itself. Sometimes, the correct answer is to "do nothing".
Edited, Dec 11th 2009 5:22pm by gbaji
