Soren wrote on Dec 2^nd, 2009 at 9:50pm:


It's only resting

muso wrote on Dec 3^rd, 2009 at 5:54pm:


Long may it rest, in peace.

muso wrote on Dec 3^rd, 2009 at 5:42pm:



Hahaha, tres amusant

funny Indian fella, offsets his carbon thingy, hahaha, flat earth, hahaha, bottom (!) of barrel, hahaha, arseh@les (uhh, naughty) hahaha.




Muso,
I perceive a bit of a sh!t eating grin coming on in the distace when I read such posts.


The pertinent isuue is ignored:
Quote:


To me, the zealous agit-prop is the dead give away.

If AGW is true, it will prevail. All it would need is stating in the light of reason. Boosting it by agit-prop - when the scientific integrity is blown away - is just not going to be enough.

Scientists have been suspect for some time, in different contexts. Calling on their authority is no longer enough.

And that is exclusively the scientists' fault, I hasten to add.i

You asked for a causal link:


Step 1: There is a natural greenhouse effect.

The fact that there is a natural greenhouse effect (that the atmosphere restricts the passage of long wave (LW) radiation from the Earth’s surface to space) is easily deducible from i) the mean temperature of the surface (around 15ºC) and ii) knowing that the planet is roughly in radiative equilibrium. This means that there is an upward surface flux of LW around [tex]\sigma T^4[/tex] (~390 W/m2), while the outward flux at the top of the atmosphere (TOA) is roughly equivalent to the net solar radiation coming in (1-a)S/4 (~240 W/m2). Thus there is a large amount of LW absorbed by the atmosphere (around 150 W/m2) – a number that would be zero in the absence of any greenhouse substances.

Step 2: Trace gases contribute to the natural greenhouse effect.

The fact that different absorbers contribute to the net LW absorption is clear from IR spectra taken from space which show characteristic gaps associated with water vapour, CO2, CH4, O3 etc (Harries et al, 2001; HITRAN). The only question is how much energy is blocked by each. This cannot be calculated by hand (the number of absorption lines and the effects of pressure broadening etc. preclude that), but it can be calculated using line-by-line radiative transfer codes. The earliest calculations (reviewed by Ramanathan and Coakley, 1979) give very similar results to more modern calculations (Clough and Iacono, 1995), and demonstrate that removing the effect of CO2 reduces the net LW absorbed by ~14%, or around 30 W/m2. For some parts of the spectrum, IR can be either absorbed by CO2 or by water vapour, and so simply removing the CO2 gives only a minimum effect. Thus CO2 on its own would cause an even larger absorption. In either case however, the trace gases are a significant part of what gets absorbed.

Step 3: The trace greenhouse gases have increased markedly due to human emissions

CO2 is up more than 30%, CH4 has more than doubled, N2O is up 15%, tropospheric O3 has also increased. New compounds such as halocarbons (CFCs, HFCs) did not exist in the pre-industrial atmosphere. All of these increases contribute to an enhanced greenhouse effect.

Step 4: Radiative forcing is a useful diagnostic and can easily be calculated

Lessons from simple toy models and experience with more sophisticated GCMs suggests that any perturbation to the TOA radiation budget from whatever source is a pretty good predictor of eventual surface temperature change. Thus if the sun were to become stronger by about 2%, the TOA radiation balance would change by 0.02*1366*0.7/4 = 4.8 W/m2 (taking albedo and geometry into account) and this would be the radiative forcing (RF). An increase in greenhouse absorbers or a change in the albedo have analogous impacts on the TOA balance. However, calculation of the radiative forcing is again a job for the line-by-line codes that take into account atmospheric profiles of temperature, water vapour and aerosols. The most up-to-date calculations for the trace gases are by Myhre et al (1998) and those are the ones used in IPCC TAR and AR4.

These calculations can be condensed into simplified fits to the data, such as the oft-used formula for CO2: RF = 5.35 ln(CO2/CO2_orig) (see Table 6.2 in IPCC TAR for the others). The logarithmic form comes from the fact that some particular lines are already saturated and that the increase in forcing depends on the ‘wings’ (see this post for more details). Forcings for lower concentration gases (such as CFCs) are linear in concentration. The calculations in Myhre et al use representative profiles for different latitudes, but different assumptions about clouds, their properties and the spatial heterogeneity mean that the global mean forcing is uncertain by about 10%. Thus the RF for a doubling of CO2 is likely 3.7±0.4 W/m2 – the same order of magnitude as an increase of solar forcing by 2%.

There are a couple of small twists on the radiative forcing concept. One is that CO2 has an important role in the stratospheric radiation balance. The stratosphere reacts very quickly to changes in that balance and that changes the TOA forcing by a small but non-negligible amount. The surface response, which is much slower, therefore reacts more proportionately to the ‘adjusted’ forcing and this is generally what is used in lieu of the instantaneous forcing. The other wrinkle is depending slightly on the spatial distribution of forcing agents, different feedbacks and processes might come into play and thus an equivalent forcing from two different sources might not give the same response. The factor that quantifies this effect is called the ‘efficacy’ of the forcing, which for the most part is reasonably close to one, and so doesn’t change the zeroth-order picture (Hansen et al, 2005). This means that climate forcings can be simply added to approximate the net effect.

The total forcing from the trace greenhouse gases mentioned in Step 3, is currently about 2.5 W/m2, and the net forcing (including cooling impacts of aerosols and natural changes) is 1.6±1.0 W/m2 since the pre-industrial. Most of the uncertainty is related to aerosol effects. Current growth in forcings is dominated by increasing CO2, with potentially a small role for decreases in reflective aerosols (sulphates, particularly in the US and EU) and increases in absorbing aerosols (like soot, particularly from India and China and from biomass burning).

Good work Muso, you have provided an extensive scientific answer to what causal link is there between man made co2, and global warming, but while the judges confer to decide if they will allow a position based purely on scientific evidence, and cold hard facts, to stand, we will continue with;

"Who Wants To Be A Denial Lair?"

Now get ready for the next question;
We have seen a furore over the stolen emails, but can you tell me, when was the last Denialist Schill, caught telling the truth??

a) 1997
b)1998
c)1999
d)none of the above

You chose D, and you are corrrrrreeccctttt, it was in fact a trick question, because NO, denialist schills have ever been caught telling the truth.

Now we have the next question in two parts, and you will need to supply both parts for the answer to be accepted,
The Arctic has always been melting, and having bits fall off it, but name the vessel that bumped into one of those bits and sank in 1912, and if you get that right, you will get the next part of the question, and remember, only a full answer is acceptable.

"The Titanic"?

Keeeerreeccttt, and now for the second part,
provide a scientific argument proving the causal link between the boat sinking, and the 1,517 souls lost that day.

"There is none, they did not perish, they were merely resting."

Keeeereeccttt, you are a denial lair.

Here's an interesting exchange. First is a downplaying attempt regarding the 'Climategate' scandal and the second is a response on the Boston.com green blog:

Harvard professor weighs in on climategate
E-mail|Link|Comments (66) Posted by bdaley December 2, 2009 06:12 PM ]

James McCarthy, a respected Harvard professor who was a former Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change lead author, sent a letter to Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) today stressing that e-mails stolen from climate scientists do not undermine the evidence for manmade global warming.

McCarthy is board chair of both the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS).

The letter reads "The scientific process depends on open access to methodology, data, and a rigorous peer-review process. The robust exchange of ideas in the peer-reviewed literature regarding climate science is evidence of the high degree of integrity in this process. The body of evidence that human activity is prominent agent in global warming is overwhelming. The content of these a few personal emails has no impact what-so-ever on our overall understanding that human activity is driving dangerous levels of global warming.”

The reply:

I am a climate scientist, and it is clear that the evidence that "human activity is prominent [sic] agent in global warming" is NOT overwhelming. The repeated statement that it is does not make it so. Further, even if we accepted the hypothesis, cap-and-trade legislation does not do anything about it.

Here are the facts. We have known for years that the Mann hockey stick model was wrong, and we know why it was wrong (Mann used only selected data to normalize the principal component analysis, not all of it). He retracted the model. We have known for years that the Medieval Warm period occurred, where the temperatures were higher than they are now (Chaucer spoke of vineyards in northern England). Long before ClimateGate it was known that the IPCC people were trying to fudge the data to get rid of the MWP. And for good reason. If the MWP is "allowed" to exist, this means that temperatures higher than today did not then create a "runaway greenhouse" in the Middle Ages with methane released from the Arctic tundra, ice cap albedo lost, sea levels rising to flood London, etc. etc.), and means that Jim Hansen's runaway greenhouse that posits only amplifying feedbacks (and no damping feedbacks) will not happen now. We now know that the models on which the IPCC alarms are based to not do clouds, they do not do the biosphere, they do not explain the Pliocene warming, and they have never predicted anything, ever, correctly. As the believers know but, like religious faithful, every wrong prediction (IPCC underestimated some trends) is claimed to justify even greater alarm (not that the models are poor approximations for reality); the underpredictions (where are the storms? Why "hide the decline"?) are ignored or hidden. As for CO2, we have known for years that CO2 increases have never in the past 300,000 years caused temperature rise (CO2 rise trails temperature increase). IPCC scientists know this too (see their "Copenhagen Diagnosis"); we know that their mathematical fudges that dismiss the fact that CO2 has not been historically causative of temperature rise are incorrect as well. We have also known for years that the alleged one degree temperature rise from 1880 vanishes if sites exposed to urban heat islands are not considered. We have long known that Jones's paper dismissing this explanation (Jones, et al. 1990. Assessment of urbanization effects in time series of surface air temperature over land, Nature 347 169- 172) is wrong and potentially fraudulent (see the same data used to confirm urban heat islands in Wang, W-C, Z. Zeng, T. R Karl, 1990. Urban Heat Islands in China. Geophys. Res. Lett. 17, 2377-2380). Everyone except Briffa knows that the Briffa conclusions are wrong, and why they are wrong; groups in Finland, Canada (lots of places actually) show cooling by this proxy, not warming; the IPCC even printed the Finn's plot upside down to convert the fact (cooling) into the dogma (warming).

Prof. McCarthy is, of course, part of the IPCC that has suppressed dissenting viewpoints based on solid climate science. His claim to support by "peer review" is nonsense; he has helped corrupt the peer review process. We now have documentary evidence that Jones, Mann, and the other IPCC scientists have been gaming peer review and blackballing opponents. On this point, the entire IPCC staff, including Prof. McCarthy, neither have nor deserve our trust.
We have tolerated years of the refusal of Mann and Jones to release data. Now, we learn that much of these data were discarded (one of about 4 data sets that exist), something that would in any other field of science lead to disbarment. We have been annoyed by Al Gore, who declared this science "settled", refused to debate, and demonized skeptics (this is anti-science: debate and skepticism are the core of real science, which is never settled). The very fact that Prof. McCarthy attempts to bluff Congress by asserting the existence of fictional "overwhelming evidence" continues this anti-science activity.

By an "ANONYMOUS"??????? climate scientist PJ?

You would think if he had the bravado to try and defend the ridiculous lies, he would have attached his name, and citations to the studies which corroborate his points, which just coincidentally fall into the zombie lie/denialist fanboy favourites category.

It is just more total PR denialist garbage, fair dinkum, you guys just flat out refuse to ever read any facts, and jusat believe any idiot denial blogger.

What next, a TV campaign with a shot of the back of someone's head with;
"this man is a climate scientist, we can't show his face, but he uses total bulldust to impress cretins, and only ever accepts disproven lies as the basis for all his opinions, but he just knows this must be a big cconspiracy to keep real scientists like him in the dark, because he has not had a single paper published, which could not be because he is a smacking great ninny, so it must be a conspiracy to silence him"

At least you do not have to use your brains to be a denialist, you do not even need a good memory, you repeat the same lies so often, you must know them all by heart.