Just another indication of what makes climate models useless. There are so many unpredictable variables - volcanoes, war, solar activity, war - not to mention ocean currents, cloud behavior, industrial pollution ....

The arrogance of people making 100 year predictions is astonishing. They have absolutely no clue what will happen next year much less in 100 years - as the recent backtracking for 2007-2008 by the Met proved.

In January, the Met predicted that 2007 would be the warmest year ever.
Thursday, 4 January 2007 - 2007 to be 'warmest on record' The world is likely to experience the warmest year on record in 2007, the UK's Met Office says. The global surface temperature is projected to be 0.54C (0.97F) above the long-term average of 14C (57F), beating the current record of 0.52C (0.94F), which was set in 1998.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6228765.stm

Suddenly in August they said that global warming is being "held in check" by ocean currents but will pick up again after 2009. As late as April the Met also predicted a hot summer for the UK.

Amazing that anyone still listens to these people. It appears they will say just about anything to keep the funding coming in.

Wow. A win win win scenario for the AGW faithful. This could be the solution Gore and followers have been looking for. Stops global warming, reduces global population and destroys the industrial ecomonies of the world. All stated goals of the AGW left. Perfect.
Could we suggest starting in europe first though?

hmmmm, 12F of cooling for over a decade per 20,000 explosions.

That works out to 0.0006F of cooling per bomb.

The US admits to 215 above ground explosions between 1945 to 1963.

I would guess the Soviets had similar totals. The Chinese probably a little less and the British and French even less.

Believe the last above ground test was in 1968 by the Chinese.

So, the world total for above ground explosions is probably somewhere in the range of 500 to 750.

Using the 0.0006F/bomb factor yields 0.3 to 0.45F of cooling over that period.

Wonder if the stabilization of Global Temperatures between 1944 to 1970's could be at least partially due to weapons testing?

Antedotially, I know that fallout was still being detected in the Northeast US in the early 1980's. So, it does take a while to settle out of the stratosphere.

Just like Patrick said, there are so many factors when it comes to Earth's climate and nobody knows what will happen in years to come. To make any kind of predict is just a shot in the dark and when they are wrong they blame it on an "unexpected event". Earth's entire climate and weather pattern is "unexpected", I don't see how anyone can make a one year forecast or decade forecast or century forecast! It's all done with guesses, lies, and vague descriptions that can go either way.

Considering the very insightful first 3 comments on this post it doesn't bode well for your Alma Mater or its grads does it Brad? Andrew's post is especially damaging to this load of baloney.

Reply: I think you mean Brett. BTW, my alma mater is doing just fine. Football season is also looking promising. I have been called Brad on the radio, and come to think of it, I've also been called Brent, Brat, Fred, BA etc when introduced on the radio, so don't fret, I am used to it. Those one syllable names can get you in trouble.

Andrew,

If Iran , USA, Isreal, India and Pakistan decide to go at it, there will be a few thousand nukes going off within a few days. If Russia gets involved it will increase dramatically.

@Patrick Henry

Mr Patrick

I think I have to at least partially disagree with you that cilamte models are "useless." First of all, responsile scientists use models responsibly, whichmeans they use modesl as an aid or tool to understanding, not as an end-all be-all prediction of what is going to happen in the world. I, like you, am kind of disgusted when the media seizes on every single alarmist prediction as a set instone etailing of how the future will turn out. However, model simulations can be helpful in learning about weather and climate, not the least of which when one looks at discrepancies in models vs reality in order to discover previously unconsidered factors that may effect the system under study.

Second of all, I think you over estimate the unpredictability of climate. Weather is a choatic (in the scientific use of the term choas)phenomenon. Climate is to, to a certain degree, but the long tem averaging of climatic effect elimnates some of the inherent unpredictability of weather. That doesn't mean that climate is easily predictable, or that every global warming alarmist knows what he or she is talking about, but it also doesn't mean we shouldn't even try.

Andrew,

The Atmospheric Test Ban Treaty went into effect in 1963. I have seen temperature graphs which show 1945 and 1963 as inflection points. That was also considered a time of "global dimming" so it seems entirely possible that dust from nuclear testing was at least partly responsible.

I have a friend in Los Alamos who commented to me about 25 years ago that "the weather was much better in the days of atomic testing." I think he was only half joking. He said that the skiing and snow was much more reliable in the 1950s and 1960s.

Someone has already thought of this....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enJW4UuTU3A

Newsflash for Andrew. Night time lows in Memphis for August still running below normal as of 8/24. No rain to cool it off and temps at 100+ nearly every day. Now that is weird. Not.

Don't know where else to put this, but what about soft drinks? Doesn't the tons of sodas produced and consumed bubble CO2 into the air? I'm waiting on Gore (misspelled on purpose) to start a ban on them because they cause glo-bull warming.

While this was probably a nice little side project for the crew at Rutgers, they left out something's much more problematic. For example there's the initial explosion, the electromagnetic pulse, and the radioactive fallout. All of that would cause a total collapse of civilization. A nuclear winter would only be the final straw for those left alive.

They should have done the exercise using small tactical weapons and the subsequent effects on the environment. In any case, the use of even one nuke would most likely cascade into a full out nuclear exchange with every country using their stockpile.

In the end it wouldn't matter because no one would be left.

cmbclean,

Perhaps useless is the wrong word, as the models do have value as academic prototypes. Maybe "dangerous" is better. A former vice-president is using the models as fodder for proposed policies which would cost the world 50% of GNP according to a Harvard economist.

I wouldn't blame the media either. It is NOAA, NASA and the Met who keep making the press releases.

If you are proposing that we base long term temperature predictions on a linear fit of trends for the past 30 years, well then any third grader with a ruler and a graph will suffice. However, climate is more likely cyclical than linear.

Hmm...so that could be the explanation for what happens in Revalation (The Bible). Wow...Joel 2:32

Dear posters,

There are many things that cause climate to change, but the dominant cause in the past half century has been greenhouse gases emitted by human activities. The 2007 IPCC report has all the information you need, in summaries or in detail, available at:

http://www.ipcc.ch/

With regard to my recent work, I have posted all the papers at:

http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/nuclear/

It would be great for you to actually read them before posting comments. But I can summarize the bottom line:

A nuclear war between India and Pakistan using 100 Hiroshima-size weapons could kill more than 20,000,000 people and produce climate change unprecedented in recorded human history, drastically affecting agriculture for many millions of others. It clearly is not a solution to global warming.

The US and Russia still have enough weapons to produce a full nuclear winter, leading to starvation of billions.

Nuclear disarmament is the only way to remove this threat to the planet, and the US and Russia should begin immediately, to set an example for the rest of the world. Nuclear weapons can never be used.

Reply: Thank you very much Alan for responding. I and hopefully others will check out the link. Brett Anderson (moderator)

Another bad effect is the Ozone Layer would be toasted for a while (recovers naturally eventually). This would blind (via cataracts) all livestock and all non-burrowing animals, starving them to death.

It would be nice to know at approximately what point a nuclear winter is initiated. 100 nukes could do it if detonated over cities (loaded with flameable sooty synthetics). This information would help determine what theatres represent true threats to starving civilization. India and Pakistan don't have enough warhead to initiate a nuclear winter, but India and China would. Unfortunately, to maintain the strategy of MAD, you probably need over 100 warheads unless you have some fairly advanced MIRV-ing capabilities or modern subs.

Patrick Henry

You make a good point about the NOAA, NASA etc. They do tend to take an alarmist tack. However, at least some of that alarmism is probably caused by their genuine belief that the data they are recording is alarming. (Of course, somebody like the NOAA probably has a vested interest in alarming the public in order to make them selves seem more important.)

I'm not proposing that we base prediction on linear trends. I'm just saying that it's not inconceivable that a model of sufficient complexity could predict certain aspects of future climate with reasonable accuracy.

Alan,

Thanks for posting. You sound very confident in your understanding of climatic change and the role of humans. Rather than commenting, I am going to ask you a few questions.

1. What caused the MWP? What caused us to come out of the MWP?

2. What caused the LIA? What caused us to come out of the LIA?

3. What caused the last ice age? What caused us to come out of the last ice age, despite the feedback of extremely high albedo from massive snow cover?

4. Atmospheric absorption charts show CO2 infrared bands close to being 100% absorbed, and overlapping with H20. Please explain how additional CO2 could increase absorption further.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7c/Atmospheric_Transmission.png

Thanks in advance,
Patrick

4. Atmospheric absorption charts show CO2 infrared bands close to being 100% absorbed, and overlapping with H20. Please explain how additional CO2 could increase absorption further.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7c/Atmospheric_Transmission.png

Nice chart. That fact that the absorption isn't 100% answers the question. The farthest right absorption parabola of CO2 is cut off at the top (100% absorption), its sides provide extra Greenhouse potential where not overlapped by water vapour or other GHG's. The devastating effects of climate change will be unleashed by an increased # of GHG molecules of only 1/3000 in the atmosphere (+333 ppm).

Patrick said: "Someone has already thought of this....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enJW4UuTU3A"

Oh my God! What's wrong with the guy who created the video. It says, "If you really love the earth, help Iran's president to start a nuclear war"... It's both fun and scary to see what people think. If there's a nuclear war, no one will be left after the detonation of the bombs... so it's not going to work. The video also says that population should be reduced to 1 billion, like in 1900. How are we supposed to do that? Killing people with nuclear weapons? CRAZY.

Emiliano,

Looks like sarcasm and irony to me.

Emiliano, yeah, looks like a double joke to me, but since I happened to be in college when the nuke winter flap started, I got to watch some of the most interesting little tidbits (ditto for SDI) coming out of scientists with certain political agendas. For example, the original "work" that garnered such huge headlines was sent over to the Soviets, who sent it back with the numbers greatly reduced citing the fact that the earth is not solid land but mostly is covered in water. Ooooops, talk about a modelling error........

What do you think is sarcasm? What I wrote or the video I'm talking about?

There was a movie out in the early 80s. It was actually a TV documentary, come to think of it. The film depicted a fictional family and a series of events that led up to a simulated nuclear "exchange'. Does anyone remember this? It caught quite a bit of airplay in 1983. It was frighteningly real. And sometime back, a few years back, India and Pakistan were saber - rattling their nukes and on the brink of an exchange.... With the volitility it is probably only a matter of time before missles fly; we need to be ready>>>

Well taking all of that into consideration could the bombs dropped and tested already be partly responsable for our current climate issues?

I've been wonderting about this for a while now. If the bombs are partly responsable, one could explain the cooling to warming theory this way. A bomb no metter how small creates fine and large particles to disperse, correct? Yes.

Given the size of the explosions from dropping and testing the bombs most of which were larger than any created by a volcano in the known history of man. It is likely that the particles put into the atmosphere could have filtered or blocked enough solar radiation to cause global cooling much like the eruption of Krakatoa did in 1883, just on a larger scale. Repeated testing would only make things worse.

Now taking into consideration that in the 80's we started recording a rise in global temps, you can theorize that the particles had started to thin out allowing more solar radiation to pass through and warm the earth. With decades of testing and now decades of basically fall out from it we could see temp continue to rise with no limit in sight once you consider that we really have no idea how far it can go. Ever heard of a nueclear winter?