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David Lucifer
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New proof that man has caused global warming
« on: 2005-02-19 12:21:57 » |
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http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1489955,00.html
The strongest evidence yet that global warming has been triggered by human activity has emerged from a major study of rising temperatures in the world’s oceans.
The present trend of warmer sea temperatures, which have risen by an average of half a degree Celsius (0.9F) over the past 40 years, can be explained only if greenhouse gas emissions are responsible, new research has revealed.
The results are so compelling that they should end controversy about the causes of climate change, one of the scientists who led the study said yesterday.
"The debate about whether there is a global warming signal now is over, at least for rational people," said Tim Barnett, of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California. "The models got it right. If a politician stands up and says the uncertainty is too great to believe these models, that is no longer tenable."
In the study, Dr Barnett’s team examined more than seven million observations of temperature, salinity and other variables in the world’s oceans, collected by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and compared the patterns with those that are predicted by computer models of various potential causes of climate change.
It found that natural variation in the Earth’s climate, or changes in solar activity or volcanic eruptions, which have been suggested as alternative explanations for rising temperatures, could not explain the data collected in the real world. Models based on man-made emissions of greenhouse gases, however, matched the observations almost precisely.
"What absolutely nailed it was the greenhouse model," Dr Barnett told the American Association for the Advancement of Science conference in Washington. Two models, one designed in Britain and one here in the US, got it almost exactly. We were stunned. They did it so well it was almost unbelieveable."
Climate change has affected the seas in different ways in different parts of the world: in the Atlantic, for example, rising temperatures can be observed up to 700 metres below the surface, while in the Pacific the warming is seen only up to 100m down.
Only the greenhouse models replicated the changes that have been observed in practice. "The fact that this has gone on in different ways gives us the chance to figure out who did it," Dr Barnett said.
"All the potential culprits have been ruled out except one.
"This is perhaps the most compelling evidence yet that global warming is happening right now, and it shows that we can successfully simulate its past and its likely future evolution. The statistical significance of these results is far too strong to be merely dismissed and should wipe out much of the uncertainty about the reality of global warming."
Dr Barnett said the results, which are about to be submitted for publication in a major peer-reviewed journal, should put further pressure on the Bush Administration to sign up to the Kyoto Protocol, which came into force on Wednesday. "It is now time for nations that are not part of Kyoto to reevaluate and see if it would be to their advantage to join," he said.
"We have got a serious problem ahead of us. The debate is not have we got a clear global warming signal, the debate is what we are going to do about it."
In a separate study, also presented to the conference, a team led by Ruth Curry of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Connecticut has established that 20,000 square kilometres of freshwater ice melted in the Arctic between 1965 and 1995.
Further melting on this scale could be sufficient to turn off the ocean currents that drive the Gulf Stream, which keeps Britain up to 6C warmer than it would otherwise be. "It is taking the first steps, the system is moving in that direction," Dr Curry said.
"The new ocean study, taken together with the numberous validations of the same models in the atmosphere, portends far broader changes. Other parts of the world will face similar problems to those expected, and being observed now, in the western US.
"The skill demonstrated by the climate models in handling the changing planetary heat budget suggests that these scenarios have a high enough probability of actually happening that they need to be taken seriously by decision-makers."
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deadletter-j
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Re:New proof that man has caused global warming
« Reply #1 on: 2005-02-19 18:01:51 » |
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I see here an important component of the vacuum that I am seeing.
This scientist says, "if a politician stands up and says..."
there's a vacuum there. If we can get in from the angle of 'helpers', and as positive intent ActionScientists, to coin Dave Hall's phrase, we can win these people's loyalty completely. They will be our pipelines into society at every level.
Us, the workers, the thinkers of the world. We are tired of having our solutions brought low, denied before tried.
I feel that I am not coming very clear on the CoV. Partially it is because I am used to a certain give-and-take that helps me get oriented in a new community.
This one seems quiet. Too quiet! Where is the hybrid vigor?
We have preaching to the choir on one hand, and we have everyone ignoring Joe Dees on the other.
Danger!
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David Lucifer
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Re:New proof that man has caused global warming
« Reply #2 on: 2005-02-21 14:02:20 » |
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Quote from: deadletterb on 2005-02-19 18:01:51
I feel that I am not coming very clear on the CoV. Partially it is because I am used to a certain give-and-take that helps me get oriented in a new community. |
I suspect most of those that read your messages cannot make enough sense of them to engage in meaningful conversation.
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deadletter-j
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Re:New proof that man has caused global warming
« Reply #3 on: 2005-02-21 16:32:34 » |
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I'm practicing talking to lots of different groups of people. Some groups of people want to talk about real life projects as examples. Some will talk about hypothetical situations involving two people talking.
Some want to talk about the conversation that we are having - self-reflective.
Given Blunderov's post to the virus list, I think the _language_ that this community is most interested in is that of the existing sciences.
Am I correct in that? Dump all attempts to explain it metaphorically or situationally and go straight for the
ecological model
systems management
network design
scientific method
information structure
collaborative thinking
mathematics organization
neural mapping
I will try that, see what response I get.
Obviously, the hippies want to hear it in terms of 'global oneness'
The punk rock people want to hear in terms of global revolution and action
The Level 3 people want to hear it in the communication model
The education people, I talk about transforming mathematical education.
To me, there is a single Idea that I am trying to get a grip on, at the center of all of this.
Imagine all of the world's thinkers were linked in a successful computer web that promoted collaborative thinking? Then what?
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David Lucifer
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Re:New proof that man has caused global warming
« Reply #4 on: 2005-02-21 18:04:38 » |
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Quote from: deadletterb on 2005-02-21 16:32:34
Imagine all of the world's thinkers were linked in a successful computer web that promoted collaborative thinking? Then what?
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I dream of that quite often. What form do you envision?
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Ophis
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Re:New proof that man has caused global warming
« Reply #5 on: 2005-02-22 16:20:36 » |
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To get back on the topic of the article, I think it'll take a while for a study like this to be understood and generally agreed upon (or not) by other researchers; according to the article, the study hasn't even been submited for peer review yet.
I'll admit that I myself am very skeptical of these reports and "proofs" of man-made global warming; I am skeptical for a number of reasons:
- It is very trendy to support "green" causes
- It has also always been very trendy to call for "end of the world" scenarios
- Climate has to change, it has to go up or down. Fears of Ice Ages or Global Warming remind me of the "anti-competitive pricing" debate whereby one is guilty whether one under-prices, over-prices, or matches the competition's prices. There is just no way to win an argument.
- Weather is composed of cycles within cycles within cycles. Many of the challenges that I've read on global warming relate to our lack of data points, modelling capabilities, and historical perspective needed to make an accurate diagnosis, let alone a prognosis, of the situation.
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deadletter-j
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Re:New proof that man has caused global warming
« Reply #6 on: 2005-02-22 16:31:21 » |
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I'll jump back on topic:
Larry Niven put out an interesting book called 'Fallen Angels'. In it, the Naderites and Greens have taken over, ending CO2 emissions.
Unfortunately, this brings us INTO an Ice Age because of the sun going into a refractive period of less radiation emission.
Footnotes on the book claim this is a true concern, that our sun may actually be in a less radiative period, and that global warming is preventing an Ice Age. Speculation?
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the.bricoleur
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making sense of change
 
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Re:New proof that man has caused global warming
« Reply #7 on: 2005-02-24 13:03:13 » |
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Greetings,
Thanks for posting this article Lucifer.
The Tom Barnett group found ocean warming since 1969. No surprise - a corresponding warming has been found by others too. The work by Igor Polyakov shows that there were two similar heating periods in the Arctic, one before 1940 and one before 2000. Now the arctic temperatures are about the same as during the 1930’s. Of course it makes sense that the similar periods are discovered by means of ocean temperature measurements also. But then it is claimed that the first period is natural but the second period is anthropogenic because the models say so. Now the important question is: Are the models capable to fully describe the first period too? Do the models give the same results as measured: Similar high temperatures in the 1930’s as in the 1990’s? If the models cannot do that, (according to what I have seen, they underestimate the arctic heat in the 1930’s to a great extent), they cannot prove that the reason for recent heating is anthropogenic.
"Human-Produced Warming in the World's ocean" is a contradiction. The greenhouse effect takes places in the troposphere. Therefore tropospheric measurements should be used to discover this effect. Benjamin Santer (one of the persons behind of the ocean report!) tried that a couple of years ago, but his "proof" was unreliable. Going into the deep see in searching for the greenhouse warming sounds like searching in the wrong place. All forcings (natural, anthropogenic) are added in the ocean. Long-term circulation oscillations between the deep water and the surface can hardly be taken into account when looking at data only since 1969. You need hundreds of years and more. The accelerated Greenhouse effect should be proven by discovering a rapid heating of the lower troposphere and a much slower heating on the surface. When you find that, you can convince me too.
And why are certain researchers always running out to mass media with "final proof" of the accelerated greenhouse effect? You don't have to prove anything; people already believe what has been drilled in during all these years. The problem is that your fellow scientists are more difficult to convince, and a report like this does not change anything.
Even assuming that Barnett's data are accurate and that the models have not been "tweaked" to produce agreement, there is a lot wrong here:
1. Nowhere is there any real support for an anthropogenic greenhouse effect (AGH). It's simply a statement thrown out after Barnett claims to have taken care of natural climate forcing, such as solar and volcanic. This is nonsense. We don't know the solar contribution well enough (see IPCC 2001 report), and the volcanic effect is short-lived compared to the timescale of Deep Ocean warming.
2. Barnett completely ignores the atmospheric AGH effect; but to account for ocean GH warming, the energy must come from the atmosphere. But the satellite and balloon data of the past 25 years don't show any appreciable warming. Barnett then makes this strange claim: Speaking at an annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Barnett said climate models based on air temperatures are weak because most of the evidence for global warming is not even there. "The real place to look is in the ocean," Barnett told a news conference in Washington, DC.
3. Nowhere does Barnett mention the time factor. It takes years or decades for any surface trend to show itself in the deep ocean. But when we consult an earlier paper of his [Science 2001] that used the same basic data, we can see a cooling trend in the deep ocean between 1976 and 1985. He gives no explanation for this and his models don't show it. [Note: There was a strong warming of the atmosphere and sea surface between 1976 and 1980.]
Any clear thinking person would see that Barnett is simply claiming that his models seem to be reasonably accurate for some situations but become inaccurate in other situations unless he includes some factor for anthropogenic warming.
If you believe that this proves man-made warming then you would need to assume that his computer models were absolutely perfect - and that would be an inconceivably huge leap forward in climatology!
1. We are not told how accurate his models were or whether this accuracy has been independently verified.
2. We are not told about the workings of his models (eg. algorithms, parameters, assumptions, climatic factors dealt with).
3. We are not told if he considered other factors, and if so, why they were discarded (e.g. Work at Florida State University has suggested that warming from El Nino conditions takes 6 to 8 years to reach the poles and the warming we are seeing may be due to the severe 1998 El Nino) Did Barnett consider this?
Barnett's statement is nothing more than hype lapped up by the unquestioning journalism community - and, it would seem, by some of the scientific community.
I am curious to see if this paper is published with its conclusions intact.
Iolo
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David Lucifer
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Re:New proof that man has caused global warming
« Reply #8 on: 2005-02-24 23:50:02 » |
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Thanks for that analysis, Iolo, very good questions indeed.
On a related tangent, let's suppose for the sake of argument that it turns out that anthropogenic global warming is a fact. What would be the correct course of action?
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Ophis
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Re:New proof that man has caused global warming
« Reply #9 on: 2005-03-02 11:45:14 » |
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The Mises Institute has published an interesting article on this topic: The Climate Debate: When Science Serves the State (http://www.mises.org/fullstory.aspx?Id=1755)
On the same tangent, I just started reading "State of Fear" (http://www.lfb.com/index.php?stocknumber=EN8927), in which Crichton refers to a number of interesting studies. The book is a work of fiction (pretty good so far), but the references Crichton makes to publications in his footnotes are real. Of particular interest are the mentions that temperatures in Antartica and in the Greenland region have been dropping over the last 50 years; another interesting claim is that the ice shelf in Iceland and Antartica have been growing over the same period.
In trying to find out more information on these statements, I came across a web site that seems to (I haven't read enough of the site yet) reflect my perspective on the issue: The Commons, Markets Protecting the Environment (http://commonsblog.org/about_commons.php).
It's hard for non-experts to discriminate between the tremendous amount of information and propaganda that gets published on this topic. My general opinion is that this is a perfect situation for using "The Wisdom of Crowds" (http://www.lfb.com/index.php?stocknumber=CL8904) approach (the book promotes market solutions for discovery and decision making). One thing is for sure, there is no consensus on the topic and given how this issue has been politicised, I don't think we're going to find any "scientific" consensus anytime soon.
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David Lucifer
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Re:New proof that man has caused global warming
« Reply #10 on: 2005-03-02 15:26:47 » |
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Quote from: Ophis on 2005-03-02 11:45:14
An enjoyable article. A little histrionic maybe, but I largely agree.
Quote:| Peer review, the overrated orthodoxy-dominated system by which journal articles are supposedly vetted, has turned into a mechanism for enforcement of the ruling paradigm, if it was ever anything else. |
Maybe science needs Meridion... 
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Ophis
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Re:New proof that man has caused global warming
« Reply #11 on: 2005-03-02 16:03:39 » |
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Wow, I actually had to lookup the word "histrionic" in the dictionary. I would agree with the comment :-)
Re: Meridion: I think society needs Meridion. The difficulty is in finding a way to market and profit from it. Maybe it needs to be turned into an architecture and a protocol whereby anyone could setup a Meridion server that could exchange its data with other servers.
I guess we'll have to wait for the establishment of a global Meridion network to know whether global warming is a fact or not and, assuming that it is, whether it is caused by humans or not. :-)
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deadletter-j
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Re:New proof that man has caused global warming
« Reply #12 on: 2005-03-02 19:46:52 » |
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I can't say I understand 'meridion' - isn't that the rating system we are in here? Can you explain further?
interested...
-b
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David Lucifer
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Re:New proof that man has caused global warming
« Reply #13 on: 2005-03-11 21:55:51 » |
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Yes, Meridion is a reputation system and the CoV is the first beta site. More generally it is a new way of governing, a meritocracy (as decided by the community) as opposed to a democracy or oligarchy.
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