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Post by alancalverd on Apr 3, 2013 9:16:32 GMT 1
Very little water vapour on Mars. Exactly the point. Water dominates the earth's atmospheric transmission absorption and energy transport mechanisms to such an extent that nothing else matters. The problem with water is that its distribution in four dimensions and at least three states (several forms of ice exist in the atmosphere) is too complex to model. We can however generate ex nihilo long term temperature fluctuations as observed, simply by adding harmonics of atmospheric water content, using the simple observations that warm air can hold more water and clouds form at high level.
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Post by mrsonde on Apr 3, 2013 9:30:07 GMT 1
Very little water vapour on Mars. Exactly the point. Water dominates the earth's atmospheric transmission absorption and energy transport mechanisms to such an extent that nothing else matters. I think you're overstating the case. Greenhouse gases certainly do matter. Water is the most important, certainly - but methane and CO2 are very effective greenhouse gases. It doesn't help a refutation of the AGW theory to simply deny this: nearly every scientist will merely think you're ignorant, and your whole argument has been built on a false premise. No doubt we can. That's the problem with any model. Like you, I prefer to make real observations.
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Post by alancalverd on Apr 3, 2013 23:53:35 GMT 1
The problem with models based on methane or carbon dioxide forcing is that they don't and can't explain the cyclic sawtooth shape of the historic temperature graph, nor the consistent lag of the CO2 curve behind the temperature curve. You need a non-magical, self-amplifying, and inherently cyclic greenhouse gas. If we discount phlogiston, aether, dark matter, or Acts of God, water is the only atmospheric gas that meets the criteria, and the predictive model only demands O level maths.
The observations have been made and the data has been in the public domain for at least 20 years. I have seen no other explanation that does not invoke an unknown force of geological proportions, commanded by a wholly unknown but remarkably persistent timing mechanism.
The day the light goes on before the switch is pressed will be the day that CO2-driven climate change becomes plausible. Until then, I remain not merely a sceptic but a scientist - one who thinks that causes always precede effects.
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Post by mrsonde on Apr 4, 2013 13:09:43 GMT 1
The problem with models based on methane or carbon dioxide forcing is that they don't and can't explain the cyclic sawtooth shape of the historic temperature graph I don't think they've ever attempted to. Natural variation. Until very recently, the claim has been that there has been a very rapid and historically unusual abrupt rise in temp caused by that forcing, superimposed on whatever might have been the natural background changes. There are many issues with that claim, of course; but a rejecion of the greenhouse gas theory isn't part of them. Historically, that's not a relevant issue. If it's satisfactorily confirmed that it applies since 1950, then it becomes an interesting one for this question - but we're not there yet. It's called CO2. To account for the historical temp record? Errr...we're certainly not there yet. The scientific evidence for solar activity accounting for 75-85% of those recorded fluctuations is now overwhelming. A model predicting how water behaves in the ocean-atmosphere? I fear you're overstating your case again, alan. This is a vastly complex question: nobody understands it but a tiny fraction of the problem, or pretends to. What data are you referring to? Ah, sadly not: it's all too plausible. The people who believe it are not imbeciles, you know.
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Post by marchesarosa on Apr 4, 2013 18:17:59 GMT 1
It is plausible, I agree, Mr Sonde, but only when you don't consider the other alternative hypotheses! Then it looks distinctly second rate.
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Post by alancalverd on Apr 4, 2013 23:41:33 GMT 1
Mr S
Science is not about consensus. It doesn't matter how many intelligent people believe the earth is flat or that climate is driven by carbon dioxide, if the facts show otherwise.
Ice core data clearly shows that historically, the temperature curve leads the CO2 curve, therefore CO2 cannot be the cause of temperature variation.
If anyone seriously thinks, despite that clear evidence to the contrary, that CO2 is the driver, they need to explain the sawtooth shape of the curves. There is no self-amplifying and inherently cyclic mechanism for the abiotic generation of atmospheric CO2, and its subsequent sequestration is either temperature- and water-dependent (i.e. effect, not cause), or magic.
Many intelligent people still believe in magic, it seems.
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Post by mrsonde on Apr 5, 2013 16:19:51 GMT 1
It is plausible, I agree, Mr Sonde, but only when you don't consider the other alternative hypotheses! Then it looks distinctly second rate. It's plausible on its own terms. How alarming or not it is comes down to understanding other aspects of what drives climate change, and most importantly how the climate system responds to the effects of adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.
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Post by mrsonde on Apr 5, 2013 16:30:12 GMT 1
Mr S Science is not about consensus. It doesn't matter how many intelligent people believe the earth is flat or that climate is driven by carbon dioxide, if the facts show otherwise. The facts show unequivocably that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. It's nothing to do with consensus. Your ergo is misplaced. The reasons CO2 increases when temp increases are fairly well understood, and not disputed. This does not bear on the separate question of to what extent increasing CO2 causes temp rise. CO2 and other greenhouse gases clearly are a driver. The world would be a lifeless block of ice were that not so. The sawtooth shape of the curves is explicable by a host of other factors operating at the same time. A proponent of cAGW merely has to counter your argument by pointing out that what they're concerned with are clear trends. And that's another argument altogether. Plants. Plants. How the fossil fuels got there in the first place. No - this won't do, and will persuade absolutely nobody, except for the unintelligent. The argument must be joined on rational, scientific grounds, with full respect for the integrity of all those scientists who believe AGW is a serious problem. People like Al Gore, Hansen, Jones, Mann etcetera are another matter - but if this had been treated as a serious and respectful scientific problem, these crooks would have been exposed and drummed out of the forum by their own side first.
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Post by alancalverd on Apr 5, 2013 18:43:19 GMT 1
Plants are not abiotic. At least not on the planet I inhabit. Nor does their sequestration of CO2 naturally create a sawtooth concentration of the gas with a rapid rise and a slow fall, as observed - in fact the very opposite.
Yes, we all know that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. So indeed is any gas with more than one atom in its molecule. But as it is a tightly-bound, linear molecule and only present in tiny quantities (and one phase) in air, its contribution to the net greenhouse effect on earth is trivial in comparison with water, and always has been, and its historic behaviour, coupled with its tiny contribution to net heat exchange and transport, shows that it cannot have been or now be the driver of climate change.
I cannot have respect for any so-called scientist who "believes" anything. You can formulate a working hypothesis on the basis of incomplete information, but the essence of science is unbelief. Climate change is a very serious problem for politicians and agronomists, but AGW is a fatuous mantra.
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Post by nickrr on Apr 6, 2013 12:14:56 GMT 1
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Post by nickrr on Apr 6, 2013 12:38:18 GMT 1
Ozone is present at a far lower concentrations in the atmosphere yet it is responsible for filtering out UV which could otherwise make life on earth (arguably) impossible. Hand waving arguments like this are not scientific. The difference is that water in the atmosphere has a rapid self-regulating system - it falls out of the atmosphere as rain when the concentration rises. Once CO2 goes into the atmosphere it stays there for decades. Added to this, CO2 is a more powerful greenhouse gas than water so even at low concentrations it's effect is sizeable. An estimate is that water causes 36-72% of the greenhouse effect and CO2 9-26% so your statement that CO2 contribution is trivial is incorrect. Of course the CO2 contribution will rise as it's concentration rises - which is guaranteed over the coming decades. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas#Greenhouse_gasesThe arguments that you've provided so far don't back up this statement.
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Post by alancalverd on Apr 6, 2013 13:02:33 GMT 1
I fail to see what ozone has to do with climate change. But then I'm only a scientist - what do I know about religion?
The supposed "power" of CO2 as a greenhouse gas does not correlate with its very limited infrared spectrum compared with that of water. But who knows, perhaps the laws of physics have changed since I studied IR spectroscopy. I note that some of the approved A level textbooks now show water as a linear molecule, so clearly the AGW consensus has banned the hydrogen bond and is well on the way to changing the IR spectrum of water to fit the hypothesis. Which is a pity as the shape of the water molecule it is a bit fundamental to both climate and life. But why let the facts get in the way of the subsidy-farming industry?
Not that I want to challenge anyone's faith, but perhaps a believer can tell me why the ice cores show cyclic sharp rises in CO2 concentration followed by millennia of slow decline.
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Post by mrsonde on Apr 7, 2013 4:32:03 GMT 1
Plants are not abiotic. At least not on the planet I inhabit. The "abiotic" part of your claim was irrelevant. You have made a very simple error in reasoning. Apparently you believe that in order for CO2 to affect climate it needs to be the only - or even the principal - driver of that climate. Thus you point to the sawtooth pattern of temp change and declare there is no known mechanism for CO2 to have caused this. So what, even if true, (which it isn't)? Your "therefore CO2 can't be a driver of temperature rise" is a non sequitur. Again - irrelevant. And a serious misunderstanding of the carbon cycle. Then it is a driver of climate change! Well - more than two, actually, strictly speaking. But what matters is the molecules' absorbence of IR - there's no problem with oxygen or nitrogen, for example. The greenhouse effect doesn't work this way. Its contribution is far from trivial, and I know of no scientist who claims it is. What the climate sensitivity actually turns out to be is the only real question. Now, it's possible that it's effectively zero - thanks almost certainly to how the water in the coupled climate system behaves in response to the increased temp CO2 causes: it may well be, as opposed to the purely mathematical prediction of one. It seems indisputable to me that the empirical evidence so far is it's about a quarter, perhaps a third, of a degree for a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere, and that thankfully the IPCC estimate has been grossly and consistently exaggerated. It can't be more, but it could very well be less - the data just isn't definitively in yet. But this has nothing to do with the greenhouse effect of water, note. No, you're simply making a very basic error. Historically, clearly it is not "the" driver of climate change - or we'd have frazzled away millenia ago. Something must be more powerful than it, or we'd have a runaway vicious circle - more CO2, higher temp, higher temp, more CO2...all the way to hell. But that basic fact does not in itself negate the argument that our rapidly near-doubling the CO2 content of the atmosphere may well (and should, according to the simple mathematical theory) have increased global temp; and nor is there any clear agreed understanding of what this "something more powerful" to reverse the warming might be, how long it might take to work, or even if, given the (purported) lack of precedence, whether it even will. Semantic quibbling, it would seem, seeing as you've just very emphatically stated several unsubstantiated "beliefs" of your own. Most of which are just plain wrong, as a matter of fact. Scepticism? Yes. But there are such things as facts. And good theories, and bad theories. Possibly. That's not really the question we're concerned with though, is it? For the moment, it's: are we causing it, and what can we do about it? Well, as a serious scientist you should have learned by now to be very wary of such certainty, and such dismissiveness of a scientific argument given wide credence by a great many highly trained and intelligent scientists. You should take great care to listen and try to understand that argument. And take even greater care if you "believe" you have one of your own that contradicts it. As it stands, what you've presented here shows, one, you don't understand what the AGW case is; and two, you've made very basic errors in what you believe is your refutation of it. Maybe it's a matter of sloppy or hurried presentation; but so far you haven't got to grips with the argument of an AGW proponent at all.
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Post by mrsonde on Apr 7, 2013 4:49:22 GMT 1
I fail to see what ozone has to do with climate change. This is worth a read, then. I'm not saying Happ is completely right in his conclusions - that would be unlikely. Like you, and Nick, and most others enjoying this debate, he's far too confident in what he thinks he knows. But it's a valuable perspective: climatechange1.wordpress.com/ I agree Nickrr's estimates seem a bit wild, as far as my reading goes. How does that follow? You're suggesting that approved textbooks ignore the hydrogen bonds in water? I find that very hard to believe. Increased temp produces a rise in atmospheric CO2. You know this, I presume? I'd be a little more circumspect in how much reliability you accord the ice core method of measuring CO2 concentration in the distant past, by the way. It's very far from being a problem-free method; nor do we know what undiscovered problems there might be yet to throw the whole data set in the trashcan.
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Post by mrsonde on Apr 7, 2013 5:00:02 GMT 1
Let me try and make this clearer, alan.
My body temperature fluctuates in a sawtooth pattern every two hours, amongst other time periods, both longer and shorter: there's a five-minute sawtooth pattern buried in this, and superimposed on them both, plus others, is a day-night rhythm. There's a quasi-weekly and a monthly rhythm too.
However - there's nothing in the environment corresponding to this basic two-hour sawtooth pattern - a consequence of a pulsatile release of certain hormones, themselves timed by a natally set electrical rhythm in my reticular formation. That rhythm will tick away whatever the temp I'm surrounded by. The main driver is my body clock, or two or three inter-related body clocks, to be more accurate: but this does not mean there aren't other drivers that can affect how warm or cold I am. Whether it's sunny or snowing, I'm clothed or naked, for example.
So, this two-hour sawtooth pattern will be discernible in a temp record of my body, whether made during a process of my freezing to death, or boiling. It will still be there, whatever the downwards or upwards trend in my overall temperature.
By the way - in reference to your puzzle about the slow falling off of the CO2 content following a temp rise. You're aware that the greenhouse effect is logarithmic? It's very effective to begin with, when concentration is increased, but that effect is not linear - the more CO2 you add, the less extra temp you get.
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