First Excitement!

"The bottom line? Scenario B is pretty close and certainly well within the error estimates of the real world changes. And if you factor in the 5 to 10% overestimate of the forcings in a simple way, Scenario B would be right in the middle of the observed trends. It is certainly close enough to provide confidence that the model is capable of matching the global mean temperature rise!"

Then reality sets in:

"But can we say that this proves the model is correct? Not quite."

Then finally all of the air is let out of the balloon!

"Hansen stated that this comparison was not sufficient for a 'precise assessment' of the model simulations and he is of course correct. However, that does not imply that no assessment can be made, or that stated errors in the projections (themselves erroneous) of 100 to 400% can't be challenged."

The above brings to mind the quote from the famous statistician G.E.P. Box:

"All Models Are Wrong But Some Are Useful."*

Climate science (on the global warming side of the issue) is the only science I know of where all models are automatically deemed correct and useful! Failure of a model is never admitted.
Terms such as "the model underestimated" or "the model exceeded" are often used to describe the failure of the models, yet there is never a suggestion that these models may not work under all of the assumptions and conditions that are necessary for the models to describe a highly complex natural system.

It is likely that all of the climate models on both sides of the global warming issue are wrong. The only way to determine the usefulness of any of the models is to let the scientific method take its course and let both sides of the issue present their results.

* From ; George E.P. Box ("Robustness is the Strategy of Scientific Model Building" in Robustness in Statistics.
eds., R.L. Launer and G.N. Wilkinson, 1979,
Academic Press, p. 202.)

I have a question What percent of global warming is caused by increase in sun activity and what percent because of the burning of fossil fuels? Thanks, John

Usually it is a pretty safe bet to extrapolate linearly the current trend for a short period of time. Of course if you provide three different possible extrapolations, that nearly guarantees later you will be able to claim one of them to be correct.

The beauty of AGW is that you can attribute any past, present or future behavior to it and be adored by proponents of doom and gloom.

I predict that Manchester United will most likely win their next match. If not, there is a 50/50 likelihood that they will either lose or it will end in a draw. Check back next week to see if any of my three predictions turned out to be correct.

This is Nobel worthy.

The global warming debate is over! Both sides of the argument are correct, to a degree. Please take 5 minutes and read this to its CONCLUSION. You'll see why.

Carbon dioxide (CO2) and other gases react and dissolve with water, especially COLD water. WARMER waters help to introduce water vapor into the atmosphere. This increased moisture content builds and builds and is eventually worked to the upper levels of the atmosphere through wind. Conditions in the upper levels of the atmosphere are very cold, clearly colder than the surface of the earth. Condensation happens, eventually creating rain and even hail. Storm systems create a cooling effect. CO2 is a cooling agent. Ever hear of dry ice? Anyway.

This churning of the environment is introducing H2O into the atmosphere which reacts with CO2. When they react, they form dissolved inorganic carbon, ionic(positive electrical charge) and non-ionic. The dissolved CO2/H2O produces carbonic acid(H2CO3), carbonate(CO32-), and bicarbonate(HCO3-). Remember the following. These new compounds fall back to the soil or into the ocean. This affects the oceans ph, its balance. This increase of ions is always naturally more positive. To regain balance, the ocean is naturally active and increases CO2 solubility to gain more of the negative. Why? The earth is a vast, complex, energized battery. It has 2 magnetic poles for a reason, balance.

You've heard of El Nino and La Nina? This natural phenomenon causes winds that are instrumental in helping to balance atmospheric CO2 concentrations. These gas filled winds keep hurricanes over open water, pushes hurricanes toward cooler water and shears the tops of the hurricanes off. Why open water, cooler water and the tops of the hurricanes? The CO2 gases dissolve more quickly where the cooler, atmospheric H2O is. These winds pound the immense moist air. This really allows for a great amount of CO2 absorption. How much CO2 is removed from the atmosphere by this combination of energy and returned to earth to create new energy? I am convinced that this phenomenon is nature doing its balancing act.

Storms generate lightning. Lightning produces ozone. Ozone is a good thing.

As snow and ice recede, vegetation takes its place. The slightly warming temperature increases CO2 absorption, due to less plant dormancy and quicker growth. Ice is located further away from the equator. What kind of plant life grows further away from the equator? Conifers. Typical examples of conifers include cedars, cypresses, Douglas-firs, firs, junipers, kauris, larches, pines, redwoods, spruces, and yews.

Question: Why does your lawn not grow well around trees, but moss, ferns, etc. do?

Answer: The ph content of the soil, the acidity. The trees are releasing the carbon back into the soil naturally through decomposition. If you want more grass, you can neutralize or balance this by spreading lime, alkalinity.

Trees, especially conifers are great at absorbing CO2 and acid. They are a natural and ever expanding CO2 sink. The carbon when combined with other elements found on earth, naturally create energy. Plants need this energy! The earth is creating energy through chemistry which creates and sustains the growing life on earth.

Most peoples look into greenhouse gases is incomplete. It's not all about retaining warmth. It�s also about what is contained IN the gas and how it chemically reacts, which makes it crucial in sustaining the expanding life.

The expanding atmosphere is currently made up of:

78 percent nitrogen.
21 percent oxygen.
1 percent water vapor
0.93 percent argon
0.038 percent carbon dioxide
0.002 percent other gases.

With that, yes atmospheric CO2 concentrations have increased. The evidence is well, quite evident. Why? The earth needs more greenhouse gases, because it is becoming a bigger greenhouse. This is natural, not unnatural. Animals, plants and humans are life. The earth is our greenhouse. Imagine that you are in a greenhouse. There is a lot of vibrant life in there. If the life in that greenhouse is expanding, you obviously need an increase in greenhouse gas to sustain it.

As we release more CO2, the earth doesn't know if this is from cars or from species. It doesn't care. All it does is reacts and expands its energy to balance and sustain the expanding demand for its energy. As the population grows, we need and are tapping into the earth�s potential energy, by warming, which in turn is creating kinetic energy, life. Warming creates and sustains life. Warming provides the earth with vegetation. Vegetation provides us with food and medicine. Vegetation provides shelter for the animals. The rain and sun provide the vegetation with the energy it needs to grow.

Side note: Newton�s Three Laws of Motion are much more complex than most people realize. Look into them. The earth is in constant motion for a reason, balance. The earth is in constant motion because of the energy from wind and ocean currents. This is clearly also life sustaining.

Conclusion:

It is impossible for us to stop nature. Human contribution to global warming is natural. HOWEVER, we can and must slow the natural reaction down (reduce CO2 emissions) by using more efficient energy. This is absolutely imperative! If we want to prolong life and its energy, we need to conserve it and use it more efficiently. Technology is here and we need to take advantage, now! It is starting to happen through free market enterprise. If there is a growing demand for efficient, alternative energy, and there are profits to be made, it will happen because of competition through capitalism. Competition in energy will reduce the cost of oil. Reducing our dependence on oil, especially foreign oil, will help us in so many ways! Do not force this change by imposing social and economic sanctions. The human spirit and economy will not respond well to this. We must make each other aware through education, not indoctrination. This blog is a good start. If we all agree and logically accept this perspective, then we are better off as a society. Pass the word! You are all logical, innovative and caring people. Let us unite!

John B., there's no precise answer to that, but see this RealClimate post for a detailed discussion.

Samian wrote: "It is likely that all of the climate models on both sides of the global warming issue are wrong." Interesting! Where can I find any climate models on the other side?

Steve B., You have got to be kidding!

As an example - just go to Real Climate. Everytime someone publishes research (e.g. proposes a climate model at some scale)that does not fit their AGW presuppostions - the research will show up on their website. Just look at all of the comments that are generated on their site concerning research that does not support or agree with the AGW model(s).

Real Climate often refers to these researchers as contrarians or deniers.

The test for a model that needs a long run time is its ability to start in the past and model up to the present accurately. As pointed out by the soccer "prediction", you can three value stuff and claim to be "correct". If a climate model cannot start back in the 50s and accurately show the cooling then heating of the next few decades, it has a serious problem, especially when you have real data you can insert from historical events (say in this case, actual volcanic explosions) to improve accuracy.

I'm still waiting to see a model that does that and has been vetted by others to make sure that any "bad" data is truly bad. People (including scientists publishing papers) have been know to fudge ("best fit") data to make it "work" for their theory.

Anyway, the most devastating critique of AGW stupidity was posted here a while back, where the guy testifying before Congress totally accepted AGW in public, but then pointed out that for a fraction of the proposed (demanded) expenditures, vastly more lives could be saved or improved by using other means.

For the deniers, identify all of the grossly inaccurate occurences with the climate models.

Mark,
The above cited post to this thread is one good example: since when do scientists give scenarios? Either thier models are on, or they are off. All Hansen did was create 3 near linear extrapolations, and say all 3 are correct, kind of, well sort of. Maybe.

As far as "operational" global circulation models (those used by operational forecasters), none have any accuracy in and of themselves. Medium and Long Range Forecasters must constantly massage, re-run, and correct these modesls against real world data- otherwise, they'd be useless. When I was a forecaster, we made it a point to call compute models "forecast guidence".

Heck, we cannot even get a consensus on what the past climate looked like, or even the current climate; to say we've got the future climate figured out is absurd.

Scientists give scenarios all the time. In fact, models are always used in conjunction with different scenarios. Most engineering and scientific documents I've read provide a range of scenarios. So I'm not sure what you're talking about there.

This argument that Hansen simply took a few guesses and one of them had to be correct is quite simplistic, and shows how petty the deniers have become when it comes to their arguments.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: thus far, climate models have been quite accurate. Or, another way of putting it -- the state of today's climate is not that different from what the models predicted many years ago. In fact, there are some elements of the climate that have accelerated faster than the models have predicted.

Deniers throw out these claims that the models are disastrously unreliable. But since their predictions 20-25 years ago have come pretty close to the state of today's climate, there is no real-world data that shows us that they are unreliable. Maybe that could change, but we don't see it right now.

See, that's the thing about the contrarian crowd. They throw out all these claims that models are unreliable, the Earth will cool soon, yadda, yadda. But our real-world observations show otherwise. The deniers' claims will never be taken seriously unless real-world data reverses itself.

Somehow, I don't think that's likely.

Mark,
In phyisics you are either right, or you are wrong. There are no multiple choices. Dr Hansen never gave a climate forecast - he gave three seperate scenarios (or gradient increases) for "mean" temperature of the lower boundary layer of the tropesphere. Since 1978, the rate of increase of surface temps has been "overall" constant. He did no more than extrapolate the rate of change in temperatures that was in fact already occuring. To hedge his bets, he gave 2 extra gradients; one higher and one lower. In all cases, he can point out he is correct. That is not science.

Mark, I gave you one clear way to show a working model. Working models are wonderful things and I'm still waiting to see one from the AGW crowd that can start at point X in the past, then run until point Y today (while showing the correct climate changes) and then it might have some validity in prophecying accurately point Z in the future.

Otherwise, go see the National Enquirer and ask for Jeanne Dixon's job. Or go read the entrails of a goat. Or toss some sticks to read the patterns.

One thing "deniers" have on their side: They don't belong to or are in agreement with groups who are pushing the exact same pagan Gaianesque scenario of control they did when the Ice Age was coming.

Another thing: We can figure out that spending X on maybe, kinda sorta, "just in case, cause what if we are RIGHT!!!!" for miniscule benefit is no wear near as good as spending a small fraction of X on a real problem with a real world solution that will really save people.

I gave you a put up or shut up at the top. I'll be waiting to hear from you. Otherwise I can definitely chalk up yet another difference, at least between me and thee: I have a much better technical education and training.

In phyisics you are either right, or you are wrong. There are no multiple choices. Dr Hansen never gave a climate forecast - he gave three seperate scenarios (or gradient increases) for "mean" temperature of the lower boundary layer of the tropesphere. Since 1978, the rate of increase of surface temps has been "overall" constant. He did no more than extrapolate the rate of change in temperatures that was in fact already occuring. To hedge his bets, he gave 2 extra gradients; one higher and one lower. In all cases, he can point out he is correct. That is not science.

Horse pucky.

This all sounds like sour grapes to me. The man made a projection. He offered a low-side and a high-side, and a "most-likely". It turns out he nailed it.

Whatever it is, if it isn't "science", it's a darn sight better than anything the deniers have had to say during the same time period. Maybe it's "engineering" -- engineers do this all the time. I think some are just ticked off because he nailed it. Maybe it's time to let go of the professional envy and get on with what we do about it.

Is there anybody able to fathom why "Mark" and "BrooklineTom" would find themselves compelled to resort to name-calling?

Isn't that a strong sign of them themselves not believing that AGW is strong enough to stand any critique?

BT,

In Laura's other post she mentions the phenomenon of the mesoscale eddies and plankton and the influence it has on the net amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. Scientists just don't know the impact of that phenomenon.

Ironically they do however claim that 99.88 percent of all C02 doesn't matter in greenhouse calcs and climate models. What does matter is the .12 percent that comes from humans apparently. So they plug in a value into a model that says, "This percentage will effect the atmosphere by X amount. We don't know about plankton and ocean currents, we'll ignore the sun and cosmic rays. we'll say that water vapor and clouds don't really come into play because they're "constant" and voila! human CO2 rocks the world more than anything else..."

Yes he nailed one of his models pretty well, but until one can unequivacally and without doubt, claim that humanity's .12% impact is greater than any other mechanism and that the inherent noise (or other phenomena present causing warming) in the system is less than the .12%, his model just confirms that he has found *a* variable that influences climate, call it CO2, call it George, it's just a good model...

BT, the "deniers" have said the same thing over and over again. I'll put this very clearly for you so you can understand: "Deniers" do not deny that we are in a long term warming trend after the centuries spent in the Little Ice Age. "Deniers" deny that of all the historical and prehistorical temperature fluctuations detected this last one somehow stems from an anthropogenic cause.

Understand?

So, what the AGWers need to do is first somehow explain the previous several cooling and heating cycles which cannot be related to anthropogenic causes. Then after you have that and can model those cycles correctly we will know if by extending the model through the current warming phase if any other cause might be relevant to the current flap. Otherwise, it is just another "coming Ice Age" example.

As for now, every claimed proAGW model run that attempts to predict climate starting in the early/mid 20th Century and run until today (when we can actually check its accuracy) fails miserably.

"In physics you are either right, or you are wrong. There are no multiple choices"

This makes absolutely no sense.

In complex systems -- especially one as complicated as our climate -- there are multiple choices. You can't predict these things in absolutes, especially considering that the future rates of growth in greenhouse emissions can be uncertain as well.

In fact, I don't think I've seen any model, regardless of what field it is in, that doesn't provide its answers using different scenarios and different ranges.

Science rarely deals with absolutes. So your claim of things being either right or wrong is ridiculous. Sure, there are some things that become scientific law and are unquestionable, but most of our scientific knowledge is based on consensus; you rarely - if ever - see unanimous agreement with science. For example, most scientists agree that tobacco is a carcinogen, but there are a few crackpots in the scientific community who believe it's not. (Ironically, many of these same scientists also do not believe in AGW. I find that very interesting.)

Mark says:

I've said it before and I'll say it again: thus far, climate models have been quite accurate. Or, another way of putting it -- the state of today's climate is not that different from what the models predicted many years ago.

--That is FALSE. U.N. scientists have relied heavily on computer models to predict future climate change, and these crystal balls are notoriously inaccurate. According to the models, for instance, global temperatures were supposed to have risen in recent years. Yet according to the U.S. National Climate Data Center, the world in 2006 was only 0.03 degrees Celsius warmer than it was in 2001--in the range of measurement error and thus not statistically significant.

Deniers throw out these claims that the models are disastrously unreliable. But since their predictions 20-25 years ago have come pretty close to the state of today's climate, there is no real-world data that shows us that they are unreliable.

--25 years ago there wasn't a computer on the planet that had the power to compute what YOU are claiming.....period.

The models also predicted that sea levels would rise much faster than they actually have. The models didn't predict the significant cooling the oceans have undergone since 2003--which is the opposite of what you'd expect with global warming. Cooler oceans have also put a damper on claims that global warming is the cause of more frequent or intense hurricanes. The models also failed to predict falling concentrations of methane in the atmosphere, another surprise.

Sorry, YOUR spin is not working here. Facts are getting in your way.

"According to the models, for instance, global temperatures were supposed to have risen in recent years. Yet according to the U.S. National Climate Data Center, the world in 2006 was only 0.03 degrees Celsius warmer than it was in 2001--in the range of measurement error and thus not statistically significant."

This is one of my favorite arguments from the deniers. "B-b-b-but since last year was the warmest year on record, and this year is only the 2nd warmest, this means we're....cooling!!"

LOL.

Again, show me how the models have been proven grossly inaccurate. You're grasping at straws, Dave, and you know it.

"25 years ago there wasn't a computer on the planet that had the power to compute what YOU are claiming.....period.

"The models also predicted that sea levels would rise much faster than they actually have. The models didn't predict the significant cooling the oceans have undergone since 2003--which is the opposite of what you'd expect with global warming. Cooler oceans have also put a damper on claims that global warming is the cause of more frequent or intense hurricanes. The models also failed to predict falling concentrations of methane in the atmosphere, another surprise. "

I haven't seen much discussion about ocean currents. That's an argument you've conveniently made up to suit your purpose here. The Pacific waters were expected to cool around this time. It's called the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. Your claim that the Pacific cooling was unexpected is completely ridiculous and shows that you're not paying attention, because the Pacific - especially the Northern Pacific - has been expected to cool for years.

Now, the interesting thing is that when the PDO switches, a popular theory held by deniers is that global temperatures should start cooling. We haven't seen that yet.

It's time to debate solutions. Debating the 'realness' of AGW is over in the minds of logical people.

Mark: "This is one of my favorite arguments from the deniers. "B-b-b-but since last year was the warmest year on record, and this year is only the 2nd warmest, this means we're....cooling!!"

LOL."

Amusing since AGWers focus on the warming of the last couple of decades, so they start from a cooling cycle.

"Again, show me how the models have been proven grossly inaccurate. You're grasping at straws, Dave, and you know it."

You've been asked to show one that can start in the early/mid 20th century and correctly model up to today. Actually, even come close. This means it will have to show the "coming Ice Age" of the 70s. You know, that cool period that AGWers use as a starting point to get a nicer delta on the temperature rise.

"It's time to debate solut