The Ocean in Dangerous Denial of Global Warming
NPR reports that the ocean seems to be slightly cooling rather than warming. Let's give the ocean a government grant and see if it changes its mind.
Also, here is a special treat for those who prefer their weather forecasts sung.
Comments (35)
How do you water board the ocean?
Published: March 19, 2008 10:59 AM
Jeffery, I know you are being somewhat "tongue in cheek" but I also think you are being somewhat serious. Therefore...
You might also like to know that the Artic Oceans continue to show a warming trend, which is actually a stronger indicator of global warming in the short run. In the long wrong, it is true, the global oceans must show an overall warming trend if global warming is actually occuring. Indeed, despite the recent "cooling" the overall trend of the global oceans in the past 50 years has been one of significant warming; in fact, even though the oceans have been in an overall warming trend, there have been decades where they have cooled somewhat.
Hence, this recent decrease in tempature- a decrease of .055 degrees Farhenheit from 2003 to 2005, after an increase of .16 degrees Farhenheit from 1993 to 2003- does not really mean anything because: a.) This has happened before, despite the overall warming trend; b.) the Artic Oceans, a better gauge in the short run of global warming, continue to show a warming trend; and c.) in such massive and dynamic bodies like the ocean, such short run fluctuations are to be expected; in other words, short run fluctuations in either direction do not really mean anything in term of global warming. It is the overall trend that is important.
Published: March 19, 2008 2:18 PM
Qoute from DavidM: "Jeffery, I know you are being somewhat "tongue in cheek" but I also think you are being somewhat serious. Therefore..."
I think Mr. Tucker is being seriously tongue in cheek. The oceans are cooling, and they're only willing to say that the oceans are warming more slowly.
You say that the overall trend is what is important. How many years are in an overall trend? Obviously more than five. More than 100? 1000?
The theory is flawed, or at best incomplete (i.e., flawed).
Published: March 19, 2008 3:05 PM
Keith are you an atmospheric scientist? It seems to me the consensus view among professionals in the relevant fields that the data indicate a probability that warming is occurring. I also understand that there are dissenters, also professionals in the relevant fields. In my experience, most working professionals in the sciences have sufficient statistical judgment to form coherent opinions about the meaning of their data. Tendentious comments from people whose opinions seem based on their political views and who are generally no more qualified than I am to hold an opinion on the science involved here don't advance the argument.
So you know the theory is flawed; but the guys doing the work, they don't understand this crucial fact. Why should anybody listen to your opinion rather than the professional consensus?
Published: March 19, 2008 4:34 PM
oh come on, stop using the word consensus, how many times do we have to over this:
'92 - 'Statement by Atmospheric Scientists on Greenhouse Warming', '92 - 'Heidelberg appeal', '95, '95, '05 - 'Leipzig Declaration', '98 - 'Oregon Petition', '06 - 'Open Letter for Opening the Kyoto Debate'.
I'm not saying that I agree with all those people, but the word CONSENSUS seems... unapropriate.
Published: March 19, 2008 5:05 PM
The data need to be constantly evaluated and checked for errors, but recent satellite and balloon data seriously undermine AGW theory, if they hold up.
Different sources for warming produce their own unique "fingerprint" in the atmosphere. A solar induced forcing produces a much different pattern than a greenhouse gas forcing.
Greenhouse theory predicts a "hot spot" about 8-12 kms above the tropics.The latest data suggest that the greenhouse gas signature is minimal or completely absent.
There is, however, a great amount of longwave radiation emitting from the tropics, implicating the sun as the primary forcer of climate. This works its way towards the polar regions, where it does warm those areas.
So even if the Arctic has warmed, or the world has warmed, which it has to some extent, this in no way demonstrates that greenhouse gases are responsible. The most likely cause is the sun.
There are currently about 38 molecules of CO2 per 100,000 of atmosphere. We're adding about 1 molecule of CO2 every 5 years. Not much. If the atmosphere was that sensitive to trace gas fluctuations, we never would have gotten to this point.
Besides, CO2's effects on temperature are logarithmic. You need to add about 360 molecules of CO2 to produce the same effects as the first 40.
All the models predicting dangerous warming presuppose an enhanced climate sensitivity to CO2, which is just not evident in the real world. These models are often off by hundreds of percent.
I just hope the runaway train of climate alarmism can be derailed before it runs all of us over.
Published: March 19, 2008 6:04 PM
Singer's petitions aren't particularly persuasive on the matter of whether more than a minority disagree.
From Wikipedia: ">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statement_by_Atmospheric_Scientists_on_Greenhouse_Warming>
Published: March 19, 2008 6:13 PM
EEKS! In the second sentence of my second paragraph in my original post I meant to say "in the long RUN" not "in the long wrong". Sheesh.
Keith, good points, I will answer you later, when homework is out of the way.
Published: March 19, 2008 6:27 PM
"There has been a very slight cooling, but not anything really significant," Willis says. So the buildup of heat on Earth may be on a brief hiatus. "Global warming doesn't mean every year will be warmer than the last. And it may be that we are in a period of less rapid warming."
Not really what the headline in this blog screamed if you care to, you know, read?
Published: March 19, 2008 6:29 PM
I love it when I am told I have to stop thinking for myself because all the experts agree. BTW most of these guys(climatologists) are government employees and they know which way the wind is blowing.
One more thing, the last time this many government experts were in agreement we were told there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
Published: March 19, 2008 6:32 PM
The question is less about whether global warming is occurring than about what is causing it. The temperature of the climate has changed over the past eons without human intervention. Ice ages and warming periods happened long before the the invention of the Hummer.
The real issue is that what the people screaming about global warming want to do, which is basically to stop western civilization.
Doesn't anyone think we'd be better able to respond to climatic changes with a vibrant economy than with a moribund one?
Published: March 19, 2008 6:41 PM
That's a good question. I doubt that the premise is true, though. Assuming anthropogenic warming arguendo there's a lag between action and response. No matter how good the current economy is, you can't change what's already happened. And what happens to the economy when climate change transforms or destroys global agriculture? The downstream effect on the economy could be a disaster.
Published: March 19, 2008 6:59 PM
Vijay -
the hyperbole of the headline is probably meant to reflect the hyperbole of the climate change alarmists. the sentence you quoted shows the ridiculous lengths that people go to - the temp has cooled (albeit slightly) and the best the guy can admit to in the article is "less rapid warming". if you don't think such a statement is dishonest, i don't know what to tell you.
david -
do the math on putting the temp changes you cite on similar timelines (you say look at this large rise over 10 years, but just this little dip over 2/3 years - again, a dishonest or at least flawed comparison)
here is why i am skeptical of pursuing policy changes based on this infallible consensus:
"But in fact there's a little bit of a mystery. We can't account for all of the sea level increase we've seen over the last three or four years,"
"Unfortunately, we don't have adequate tracking of clouds to determine exactly what role they've been playing during this period," Trenberth says.
"I suspect that we'll able to put this together with a little bit more perspective and further analysis," Trenberth says. "But what this does is highlight some of the issues and send people back to the drawing board."
and of course the article ends with this awesome contradiction:
"Trenberth and Willis agree that a few mild years have no effect on the long-term trend of global warming. But they say there are still things to learn about how our planet copes with the heat."
so they don't know how the planet copes with heat yet they sure there is unalterable long term trend of heating.
slow down cimate change alarmists. we can't predict the weather next month, how are you gonna rely on these guys to predict the climate in decade.
Published: March 19, 2008 7:29 PM
Say it ain't so, Jeff! I'm really counting on global warming in my declining years, and I'm not really eager to move to Florida or Arizona. And considering how much in farm subsidies the U.S. government pays now, one has to wonder how much they will pay when farms are more productive from global warming. After all, we can't have farmers growing too much food!
Published: March 19, 2008 7:53 PM
I am certainly not a climatologist, but I am certain I read somewhere, and it makes surface sense to me, that the first result of global warming will be a cooling of the oceans.
The reasoning goes like this. Assume the current ocean water temperature is some number x above 32 degrees. As Arctic ice melts, the newly liquid Arctic water is some temperature y just above 32 degrees but nowhere near x. Thus as the newly liquid water at temperature y flows south and mixes with the current southern waters at x degrees, the temperature drops below x to some average of x and y depending upon the volumes of temeprature x water and temperature y water. But it will be a lower temperature than the previously recorded x temperature.
I think we should quit playing claimatologists at this site and get back to economic discussions such as why M2 is soaring while M1 and the monetary base are not. The answer to this question has very important inflation versus deflation ramifications for the economy.
Presumably we have significant economic knowledge at this site to possibly add insight to this question.
Published: March 19, 2008 8:14 PM
"Why should anybody listen to your opinion rather than the professional consensus?"
Why am I to dismiss non-consensus opinions on account of what establishmentarian hacks tend to think is the case? Since when have numbers established the truth (that is, for all but the most deluded individuals like Rorty)? The consensus, to the extent that it exists, is on GW. However, when referring to AGW, where is it?
Published: March 19, 2008 8:57 PM
Quote from AemJeff: "So you know the theory is flawed; but the guys doing the work, they don't understand this crucial fact. Why should anybody listen to your opinion rather than the professional consensus?"
I don't expect anybody to listen to my opinion. I expect scientists to recognize facts and flaws in theories, not run around conducting some advertising and popularity campaign for their latest grant generating fad, and then expecting the whole world buy up the crap in order to keep the gravy train running. When the facts don't match the model and the model doesn't match the facts, its time to do more thinking, not scream about consensus.
Take for example the standard model in particle physics. Everybody recognizes that its flawed and doesn't work for all situations. So the physicists keep working to improve it or find something else, but they don't go running around screaming that there's a consensus and anybody that doesn't agree is a denier.
The present climate models are flawed and global warming theory doesn't work, but we're all expected to accept it anyway and accept all of the most extreme predictions as truth. Then we're supposed to change everything in the world in hopes of somehow preventing all of these terrible phantoms from materializing, even though the same flawed models tell us that all of these things that we might practically do will have virtually no effect on the models' predicted terrible outcomes.
Anybody who talks about consensus and not facts is talking politics or religion, not science.
Published: March 20, 2008 6:16 AM
That's exactly the kind of politically motivated tendentiousness that I was referring to.
I'm not advocating blindly believing whatever you're told by experts. Obviously, if you're even a a little scientifically literate you understand that any projection is flawed; and you have to assume that the assumptions made by experts take that into account as well.
The difference between particle physicists and people working in fields related to climate is that there are no well funded interest groups (e.g. AEI, for example) whose politics favor a particular viewpoint. A much better comparison would be evolutionary biologists who have to counter religious objections to their work and whose work product is thus similarly politicized. Your specious accusation that members of this specialty in particular are engaged in political machinations in greater proportion than those other fields is silly on its face.
Apparently my embedded links are being eaten by this interface. Here the Wikipedia URL for AEI:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Enterprise_Institute
Published: March 20, 2008 7:38 AM
I obviously shouldn't post before coffee:
The difference between particle physicists and people working in fields related to climate is that for the particle physicists there are no well funded interest groups (e.g. AEI, for example) whose politics favor a particular viewpoint.
Published: March 20, 2008 8:40 AM
Quotes from AemJeff: "Obviously, if you're even a a little scientifically literate you understand that any projection is flawed; and you have to assume that the assumptions made by experts take that into account as well."
"The difference between particle physicists and people working in fields related to climate is that there are no well funded interest groups (e.g. AEI, for example) whose politics favor a particular viewpoint."
Why would I assume that any "expert" doesn't have his own interests and agenda (or more reasonably, why would you assume that they don't). Because there's never been an "expert" advocating a position that later turned out to be incorrect or false? Science is all about skepticism, not accepting the opinions of experts.
I'm glad to see you agree that the hype about global warming is political, not scientific.
Published: March 20, 2008 11:03 AM
http://www.lewrockwell.com/miller/miller23.html
...
Published: March 20, 2008 11:44 AM
I've never said you should. Nor have I said you shouldn't question the "consensus," for that matter. What I did imply is that substituting your judgment for that of the collective judgment of professionals in the field ought to have better justification than what you seem to able to provide.
As far as I can tell, you have a preferred outcome - you've got a dog in this fight. You're willing to impugn the professionalism of people working in the field collectively in order to substantiate your point of view. That's not "skepticism" it's partisan political gamesmanship masquerading as scientific debate.
Please explain why scientists in this field are more incompetent and politicized than say, particle physicists - to use your example and to follow your clear implication.
Published: March 20, 2008 11:57 AM
I find it interesting the theory of evolution, a 150-year-old theory that predicts little or nothing and has no impact on policy is juxtaposed with the yet-untested (model-based) hypothesis of AGW, especially when there are admissions that the models do not account for real conditions (like clouds).
That aside, I agree with George Reisman's articles on this site that market forces are more likely to provide solutions to real problems than state-imposed central planning.
Published: March 20, 2008 3:14 PM
Quote from AemJeff: "Please explain why scientists in this field are more incompetent and politicized than say, particle physicists - to use your example and to follow your clear implication."
Because it is in their own self-interest to be so. Their theories claim a pending disaster and the need for immediate action. Action requires political and governmental power (i.e., coercion and force). Politicians and government bureaucrats eager for issues, more power and control accept the theories as a vehicle to such, and consequently support the scientists supporting the theories of pending disaster.
Quote from AemJeff: "As far as I can tell, you have a preferred outcome - you've got a dog in this fight."
I think this is very telling. You assume that I have some ulterior motive for not accepting global warming. Yet anybody who supports it should be assumed to have no ulterior motives.
The only dog I have in this fight is my scientific integrity, my belief that liberty is more important than government, and the best interests and future of my family.
I don't believe in global warming because there are too many flaws in the theory. Such an event is without precedence in the history of the planet. Such extreme claims demand extreme evidence, and they haven't even come close.
Published: March 20, 2008 6:59 PM
I have followed the GW issue since the late 1980's when it was a real scientific issue and the debate was about science. But anyone paying attention could clearly see that socialists took over the cause after the collapse of the USSR. Having their economic argument for socialism die in front of them, socialists began fishing around for another justification for their religion. GW fit the bill and they took over. The issue quit being scientific and became political. As Vaclav Klaus said recently, it's not about the environment at all; it's about power.
Published: March 20, 2008 10:55 PM
Always ignore the scientific conclusions of those whose future income depends on pleasing taxmen.
Also: warming vs. cooling is irrelevant. Whichever it may be, humans aren't the cause.
Published: March 20, 2008 11:54 PM
Quote from Vanmind: Also: warming vs. cooling is irrelevant. Whichever it may be, humans aren't the cause."
I think "warming vs. cooling" is the only relavant question, but only from the point that I keep waiting for somebody to tell me what is the optimum temperature for the planet? History tells us that climate has fluctuated greatly over billions of years. What makes todays climate the "right" one? If it isn't the "right" one, then what is?
It reminds me of the Army Corps of Engineers and flood control on the Mississippi River. They are trying to preserve the river as it was, based on some snapshot in time. Nature isn't like that. Trying to maintain a snapshot will only drive the change in a different direction.
Published: March 21, 2008 6:07 AM
Keith: "I keep waiting for somebody to tell me what is the optimum temperature for the planet?"
That's a good point! No one knows. Radical environmentalists must be the most conservative people on the planet because they want the temperature to stay where it was 100 years ago.
I remember seeing a documentary on the plague of the middle ages which claimed that the bacteria causing the disease thrived in cold weather and died out in warm. So the worst incidents of plague occurred during cold spells.
Of course, people in different places will have different ideas about the optimum temp. Those in Siberia might want it warmer than those on the equator, and those on the coast might prefer it colder than those in the mountains. Maybe we should have a worldwide vote and decide the optimum temp for the planet democratically.
Published: March 21, 2008 8:53 AM
Keith, IMO the fact that there is no optimum global temperature is the very reason why discussions of warming vs. cooling are irrelevant.
Published: March 21, 2008 12:48 PM
I misspoke, so allow me to backpedal a bit...
Discussions of "human-caused" warming vs. cooling are irrelevant. Of course we can (and history suggests we always do) discuss what to do to adjust our lifestyles for the constant natural changes in Earth's climate.
You know, things like "Toronto is the new Miami, so pack your sunscreen."
Or maybe "Miami is the new Toronto, so pack your mukluks."
The big question is: should I invest in sunscreen futures or mukluk futures?
Published: March 21, 2008 1:08 PM
If you are looking for an approach to consesus...
http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p1845.htm
19000 (Yes ninteen thousand) Peer reviewed scientists:
ABSTRACT A review of the research literature concerning the environmental consequences of increased levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide leads to the conclusion that increases during the
20th and early 21st centuries have produced no
deleterious effects upon Earth’s weather and climate. Increased carbon dioxide has, however, markedly increased plant growth. Predictions of harmful climatic effects due to future in creases in hydrocarbon use and minor green house gases like CO2 do not conform to current experimental knowledge. The environmental effects of
rapid expansion of the nuclear and hydrocarbon energy industries are discussed.
It is not that there is a lack of scientific or economic review of data undermining the validity of AGW...
Being a "faith" facts simply do not matter.
Published: March 21, 2008 2:35 PM
Assuming anthropogenic warming, [...] there's a lag between action and response. No matter how good the current economy is, you can't change what's already happened. And what happens to the economy when climate change transforms or destroys global agriculture? The downstream effect on the economy could be a disaster.
You beg the question. Do not assume disaster in order to argue in favor of stemming disaster - you cannot know that.
Published: March 21, 2008 3:46 PM
Francisco, you dropped a word from the passage you quoted. The meaning of the word you neglected is "for argument's sake."
Phil, that paper isn't any more convincing than it was when somebody brought it up yesterday. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statement_by_Atmospheric_Scientists_on_Greenhouse_Warming
Keith, I'm sorry. I didn't understand the depth of your "scientific integrity." Good luck with that.
Published: March 21, 2008 7:09 PM
Jeff, interesting post. I especially liked the liked the link to the chanting.
As for NPR and NASA`s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, who can trust what they have to say? They just want more government regulation. So reporting that the oceans appear to be cooling slightly is simply intended to help strengthen the case for government regulation to slow global warming - right? But why would either of them torpedo their own obvious rent-seeking purpose by reporting a statistically insignificant cooling in recent years? Maybe you can help me figure that out.
And as for those who think that there might be something to what Josh Willis has to say, it`s interesting that no one seems particularly interested in actually referring to any of it. Rather, we have the simplistic view that AGW must be linear and swamp all other natural, variable factors and cycles - therefore, if the ocean appears to be cooling, then no AGW. QED.
Nor do we have any interest in exploring what it is that Willis has actually said about whether the cooling is real, simply an artifact of a new partial system of sensors (of limited depth), or otherwise explicable (addition of cooling from a rapid rise in melting ice that is also boosting rates of sea level rise).
Nor do we have any discussion other related and important ocean issues, such as climbing ocean pH levels and their impact on corals, diatoms and other calcium-using creatures.
But that`s just about par for the course here. Since issues are more complex than most of us care to make the effort to understand, so many of us welcome information that seems to allow us to easily dismiss any concerns altogether.
Published: March 22, 2008 10:10 AM
Jeff:
Allow me to make a few more notes:
1. Cooling is expected during a La Niña, but temperatures are still warmer than during prior La Niñas. According to the UK's meteorological office (the Met Office):
"Global temperature for 2008 is expected to be 0.37 °C above the long-term (1961-1990) average of 14.0 °C, the coolest year since 2000, when the value was 0.24 °C.
"For 2008, the development of a strong La Niña in the tropical Pacific Ocean will limit the warming trend of the global climate. During La Niña, cold waters upwell to cool large areas of the ocean and land surface temperatures. The ... current La Niña event will weaken only slowly through 2008, disappearing by the end of the year.
"'[T]he current strong La Niña will act to limit temperatures in 2008. However, mean temperature is still expected to be significantly warmer than in 2000, when a similar strength La Niña pegged temperatures to 0.24 °C above the 1961-90 average. Sharply renewed warming is likely once La Niña declines.'"
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2008/pr20080103.html
This is much as I earlier noted in a blog post: http://mises.com/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2008/01/15/did-global-warming-stop-in-1998-jim-hansen-says-no.aspx. Jim Hansen of NASA indicates that, in addition to the La Nina, there is a solar irrandiance cycle that we have now reached the bottom of:
"Solar irradiance will still be on or near its flat-bottomed minimum in 2008. Temperature tendency associated with the solar cycle, because of the Earth’s thermal inertia, has its minimum delayed by almost a quarter cycle, i.e., about two years. Thus solar change should not contribute significantly to temperature change in 2008."
2. The Argo system that Josh Willis is interpreting is relatively new and they are still obviously working the bugs out of it. Even in this piece Willis comments that something could be wrong with the temperature data, since the rate of satellite-measured sea level rise has increased, and part of that is expected to be due to thermal expansion of the ocean.
Willis also recently backtracked (2007) on an earlier claim (2006) that ocean temperatures were rapidly falling, having found that the "falling" temperatures were due to instrumental errors: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2006-112
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/mg19426013.300-upper-oceans-are-warming-after-all.html
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/04/ocean-cooling-not/#more-436
3. Rising ocean temperatures have already damaged corals globally. But irrespective of temperatures, rapid ocean acidification (falling pH levels) due to increased levels of atmospheric CO2 is directly threatening coral and reef systems, and pose challenges to all ocean life that builds calcium shells or frameworks, from diatoms on up:
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/12/13/carbon-dioxide-is-double-threat-to-reefs/
http://www.eoearth.org/article/Coral_reefs_and_climate_change
http://iodeweb3.vliz.be/oanet/FAQacidity.html
http://www.reefcheck.org/PDFs/world_without_corals.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification
http://www.ocean-acidification.net/
http://www.aims.gov.au/pages/about/communications/issues/coral-reefs-and-climate-change-2007.html
What institutions are in place that allow communities and individuals to express their respective preferences and concerns about coral reefs and other ocean resources affected by GHG emissions (or unregulated use)?
Regards,
Tom
Published: March 24, 2008 4:02 AM