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Imagine being a prosecutor and trying getting a jury to buy an argument like this: "the bullet entered the deceased, after which - we will prove - the defendant fired a gun." Surely the rational answer to that comparison is that even if it's proven that the defendant fired a gun, the inconvenient truth is that he did so after the victim was hit, by the prosecutor's own admission.
One of the claims made in the movie Tully posted yesterday is that while Al Gore is correct that atmospheric Carbon Dioxide concentration correlates with average surface temperature, CO2 concentration lags rather than leads temperature changes. This claim is, to say the least, stunning if one accepts the climate change orthodoxy is that (or at least, as I understand it) CO2 is the engine driving climate change. For example: Al Gore's movie ends, as Wikpedia characterizes it, "with Gore noting that if appropriate action is taken soon, the effects of global warming can be successfully reversed by releasing less carbon dioxide and growing more plants or trees [to soak up existing atmospheric CO2]": surely, the assertion that global warming can be reversed purely by acting to reduce atmospheric CO2 must rest on the assumption that atmospheric CO2 is responsible for global warming.
I'm not a global warming skeptic, but this assertion puzzled me. Curiosity duly piqued, I wanted to know if this was right.
I started by looking at the graph on this page,1 and after importing it into photoshop and zooming in nice and close, started drawing vertical lines from the peaks and troughs.2 It became quickly apparent that if the graph was right: sure enough, the lines didn't match up. The Channel 4 documentary's claim seems, at first glance,3 to be correct: CO2 concentration lags temperature change. And as will become (IMO) significant in a moment, it isn't just the case that the beginning of warming periods predate rises in CO2 concentration: not only is it the case that when temperature goes up, it is shortly thereafter followed by CO2 concentration, but also, when the temperature goes down, it is followed - not led - by a roughly commensurate drop in CO2 concentration.
This struck me as crazy, so I went looking for some answers. Surely, this claim is so poisonous to what I had thought the conventional wisdom was that proponents must claim the numbers are wrong. But no: according to Jeff Severinghaus, Professor of Geosciences and global warming proponet, the numbers are right, just misunderstood:
At least three careful ice core studies have shown that CO2 starts to rise about 800 years (600-1000 years) after Antarctic temperature during glacial terminations. ...
Does this prove that CO2 doesn't cause global warming? The answer is no ... [because] the warming[] [phases] take about 5000 years to be complete[,] [and] [t]he lag is only 800 years. All that the lag shows is that CO2 did not cause the first 800 years of warming, out of the 5000 year trend. The other 4200 years of warming could in fact have been caused by CO2, as far as we can tell from this ice core data.
The 4200 years of warming make up about 5/6 of the total warming. So CO2 could have caused the last 5/6 of the warming, but could not have caused the first 1/6 of the warming.
In the warming phase starting a little after 350,000 years ago, the temperature reached almost half its eventual peak and receded somewhat before the CO2 concentation stopped dropping and started going up. If something else caused this warming phase, that something else accounts for almost half of the total increase. And thereafter, surely there are only three scenarios in which Severinghaus' theory to hold good: either whatever factor initiated the warming must drop out of the picture, or the temperature would have to start rising at a far greater rate once CO2 comes into play to augment that initial force, or if both operate at once, the acceleration from the rate of increase existing before CO2 came into play should tell us how significant a multiplying effect CO2 has. And looking at the graphs, it doesn't appear that the rate of temperature increase noticably accelerates once CO2 concentration starts to rise.
Moreover, this all seems like goalpost-moving: I thought that the claim was that CO2 drove climate change, but not so according to Severinghaus: "CO2 does not initiate the warmings, but acts as an amplifier once they are underway." Severinghaus admits that "other factors besides CO2 affect climate. Changes in the amount of summer sunshine, due to changes in the Earth's orbit around the sun that happen every 21,000 years, have long been known to affect the comings and goings of ice ages. Atlantic ocean circulation slowdowns are thought to warm Antarctica, also." If CO2 concentration merely amplifies, rather than causes, climate change, doesn't that beg two rather important (and inconvenient) questions: If "CO2 does not initiate the warmings," what does? If "other factors besides CO2 affect climate," to what extent does CO2 affect climate - and pendent to that question, how important a factor is it? And what happs to Gore's claim that "the effects of global warming can be successfully reversed by releasing less carbon dioxide"? Clearly not - we can't return to the status quo ante4 by regulating something that didn't actually start it and plays an unknown role in perpetuating it.
Seeking a comparison, Severinghaus suggesting that
[f]rom studying all the available data (not just ice cores), the probable sequence of events at a termination goes something like this. Some (currently unknown) process causes Antarctica and the surrounding ocean to warm. This process also causes CO2 to start rising, about 800 years later. Then CO2 further warms the whole planet, because of its heat-trapping properties. This leads to even further CO2 release. So CO2 during ice ages should be thought of as a "feedback", much like the feedback that results from putting a microphone too near to a loudspeaker.
That seems plausible at first glance, and it's roughly the same thesis advanced by the Channel 4 program. Also worth noting is that looking at the graph, it does seem that the major phases in which CO2 concentration rise -- the afore-mentioned 350,000 years ago, shortly after 250,000 years ago, shortly after 150,000 years ago and shortly after 25,000 years ago -- take place after the temperature reaches a certain threshold. And it does stand to reason that if the theory's that the extra CO2 comes from outgassing from warmed oceans, as the oceans cool, the CO2 would be reabsorbed, and so CO2 concentration would drop. Nevertheless, the comparison to a feedback loop is inapt. In a feedback loop, once you remove the original source (and all feedback has a source, even if it's only incidental), the process continues. That obviously isn't the case here: the temperature reaches a maximum level and starts to drop, followed shortly thereafter by the CO2 concentration. Why should that be the case? Suppose the mysterious original cause of the warming drops out somewhere along the line, leaving only the CO2 increase to drive temperature increase: surely even if the oceans completely outgas their total reserve of CO2, the rise in CO2 should halt before the temperature started dropping.
But this is tying ourselves in knots to escape an obvious conclusion. The far more logical way to read the data is that the causal relationship between CO2 increase and temperature increase is completely the other way around: that the rise in temperature causes the CO2 increase (oceanic outgassing, perhaps), and once the temperature falls, the CO2 follows suit. Conceivably, the CO2 exacerbates the temperature increase, but it cannot be the primary driver of it. That is, after all, exactly what the (seemingly-unchallenged) empirical data says. Why shouldn't we believe that? What am I missing?
I guess my question is this: Severignhaus' explanation is incoherent and simply doesn't match the empirical data. Is there a better one? CO2 changes lagging temperature changes seem like a silver bullet to me: I can't see any way in which the "CO2 drives climate change" model survives when the empirical data is plainly the other way around. At a maximum, the empirical evidence supports that CO2 is one component of warming events among many, but that still leaves proponents looking for a primary cause (which, to be clear, it is their burden to find as a theshold question for their version of events, since there is an alternative theory on the table which does seem to fit the empirical data), and it completely eviscerates the Algore thesis that global warming can be managed by reducing atmospheric CO2 concentration: I see no recorded occaision in the historical data where a significant drop in CO2 concentration lead rather than lagged a reduction in temperature. I'm open to persuasion on the point, but this is a serious challenge.
Update: Stuart Buck has more research here.
Post facto:
"[M]isinterpreting the weather is getting easier and easier" (1/1/08)
Our RSS feed
The great flaw in the True
The great flaw in the True Believer scenarios--they refuse to acknowledge the Something Elses. Any of them. It's gotta be catstrophic, and it's gotta be all our fault. Otherwise the motivation to do what they want is not present.
The far more logical way to
I also interpret the graph as showing temperature causes an increase in CO2. What it doesn't prove, is that CO2 doesn't have an effect on temperature. That was the point Severinghaus was trying to make ("Does this prove that CO2 doesn't cause global warming? The answer is no.").
Can CO2 be a primary driver of global warming? I can't see why not. As I commented in Tully's post: "CO2 is a greenhouse gas, and one of the reasons Venus is so damn hot". So just because it hasn't been the primary driver of global warming in the past, doesn't mean it can't cause an increase in temperature. The question, of course, is how much CO2 does it take to warm the planet? The Great Wiki tells me that CO2 causes 9-26% of the greenhouse effect (which, BTW, is a natural phenomenon) of the earth. Does that mean doubling the CO2 concentration will double its influence in the greenhouse? Well, no, as there are a lot of climate dynamics involved; that's why scientists use models to try and study the influence.
What's my view, you ask? (Ok, you didn't ask, but I'll give it anyways, so you can skip this part :). My concern is with the increase in the CO2 in recent times. When I look at the temperature-CO2 graph, I see a very "stable" dynamical system, where temperature and CO2 (and numerous other factors) all influence one another. Temperature rises, other changes happen, and eventually CO2 rises. The CO2 increase changes some other (or multiple) factors, and one/some of those eventually causes the temperature to start falling. All other parameters eventually follow suit.
When studying dynamical systems, you can test its stability by perturbing a parameter and seeing what happens. If the system comes back to its original state (or original trajectory), its considered stable. However---depending on the dynamics of the whole system of course---a large enough perturbation can cause the system to move to a completely different stable position (or stable trajectory). Adding all that CO2 is like perturbing the climate system. The question, of course, is whether we're causing a small or a large perturbation, and whether the system can recover.
What will eventually happen it's hard to say. That's what models are for, since climate timescales make difficult to reproduce in the laboratory. Temperature may increase dramatically eventually, or maybe it will initially increase and then drop to an ice age, or maybe nothing. Regardless, I'd be more comfortable with manmade contributions to CO2 levels much lower than natural levels, at least until we know more.
A few points. The earth's
A few points. The earth's climate isn't remotely a "stable" dynamic system, other than as measured in terms of human lifetimes. It's decidedly variable and shows complicated periodical swings. Obviously we can't use it as an experimental laboratory, or at least shouldn't. The Great Wiki is a useful jumping-off point for casual research, but by itself it's a lousy primary source.
There's a HUGE difference between "we don't know" and "we have certain knowledge." Take CO2 modeling. As a forcing factor CO2 clearly exhibits decreasing "returns" of additional focing with increasing concentrations. (Each additional unit of CO2 causes less forcing than the previous unit.) But the models don't generally factor that. They have other bad assumptions as well.
If you feed in bad data and faulty assumptions to a partial model of a complicated dynamic system, you get bad results. If you then take multiple partial models that use the same methods and assumptions and aggregate them (which is what the IPCC compilers have done) what you get is apparently consistent modeling results that show similar patterns in similar bounds and ranges. Chaotic patterning. This is touted as confirmatory.
The problem is that what that really shows are the inherent boundaries of the assumptions and methods, not those of the thing being modeled. (This is, BTW, almost exactly where Mann went wrong with his "hockey stick" graph--a bad output the TB's continue to rationalize today.) This is exacerbated by the resolution and accuracy problems of using extrapolated data running back millenia--such data is simply incapable of showing very-short-term swings in climate.
Now that's just a very partial check of one factor modeled.
But it's on research like this (in itself quite valid, but a very long ways from either definitive or comprehensive) that the hype that we must act NOW in extremely expensive ways is based. And we're looking at just one factor out of an unknown number, when we don't know the major influences that caused HUGE climate variability in the past--variability that was obviously not anthropogenic. And when we don't know even remotely all the MAJOR factors involved with any precision.
The TB crowd wants to silence debate, saying the science is "settled." Heh. It's very far from settled, even if some general facts are known. But one must have impending doom in order to motivate immediate action, so impending doom is what they provide. The complete dismissers, of course, also wish to promote an agenda. Namely complete resistance to the "prescriptions" of the TB brigade. Top that up with any rational skepticism of the TB pronouncements (the way science really works--"show me, then show me how accurate") being labelled as dismissive denial.
We're in the Age of Carbon Energy. The TB's want to end that by fiat (and did long before AGW became an issue) and in practical terms it simply can't be done without a worldwide dictatorship. But the Stone Age didn't end because we ran out of stone, and the Bronze Age didn't end because we ran out of bronze. They ended because better alternatives were found. Our "solution space" doesn't lie in dictatorial rationing. It lies in improved technology and adaptation, regardless of causations.
The Great Wiki is a useful
I was quite surprised - as I mention in a footnote - just how hard it was to find actual primary data sources. Even when I figured out that what I wanted was the Vostok ice core data (often you start researching without a clear idea of what you're looking for, so the first period of research is a little meta), it took some time to find, and when I eventually found it, it was in a form that was practically unusable. I'd have to manually go through over three hundred lines from the CO2 results and find a match fromthe three thousand line temperature results.
Call me crazy, but I found myself getting noticably more skeptical just fromthe inability to find the primary data. If the data alone is so persuasive and compelling, as we're told, if this is such a slam-dunk case, surely the raw data should be everywhere. It should be the first link on the IPCC website, and every other climate change website. You should be able to go to Starbucks and buy the raw climate change data on a CD with your mocha latte. And yet, so far as I can find, there is no source of the raw numbers that doesn't require investing massive amounts of time to get into usable form. Why is that?
The earth's climate isn't
Well, "stable" does not necessarily mean the variables are fixed at specific values. In nonlinear systems, you can have a stable limit cycle, where the variables within the system follow self-sustained oscillations.
Predator-prey dynamics demonstrate this idea, where the predator population tends to follow the prey population. In the ideal case (i.e., no outside perturbations/influences to the system), the populations are oscillatory (see first figure on the above link), and would be considered "stable" even though the two population values vary periodically. Actual population plots of predator and prey (second figure in the above link), show more variability due to outside influences (or perturbations). (Of course, this is a loose example, as in the second figure there may be other dynamics---other prey, other predators---that are at work there, in which case they wouldn't be considered pertubations but additional variables.)
Looking at the CO2-temperature figure, that to me looks like a the earth is a stable system undergoing---with a rough periodicity---various perturbations. Obviously CO2 and temperature are not the only variables. And perturbations can be numerous things: volcanic eruptions, asteroids hitting the earth, etc, etc.
Anyways, maybe a better term to use would be CO2 and temperature are "balanced" in the sense that they follow each other (not perfectly) such that when temperature is around 0C, CO2 is close to 300ppm; when temperature is around -8C, CO2 is around 200ppm (just eye-balling the figure).
My concern is that we (humans) have added an additional 100ppm from where it should be. Is that enough to mess up the system? Right now, I doubt it. But CO2 release is growing---and will even more thanks to China and India---that concerns me.
I don't agree with grinding economies to a halt, especially given that there are plenty of unknowns(/problems) in current models (and believe me, I've modelled complex nonlinear systems so I understand that assumptions are made to work with today's computing power). I think encouraging a movement (now) towards technology that is less CO2-emitting is a great start, sooner rather than later. And I'd like to see the US being the leader in this area.
Yup. I was using the term "Great Wiki" a little facetiously.
Mitch, I agree that the lag
Mitch,
I agree that the lag doesn't prove CO2 isn't involved in causing global warming, and you're right that given its properties, it stands to reason that increased atmospheric CO2 concetration would amplify warming. But I had thought - which is why I complained that Severinghaus was moving the goalposts - that the claim was that CO2 caused global warming, not that it was one exacerbating element among many.
Doesn't the lag not lead problem rip the heart of out Gore's thesis? And why -- I mean, I think Tully pointed this out in his thread, although I already had most of my post written when I saw it -- is it not risible for Severinghaus to causually say "well, okay, CO2 isn't actually responsible, but it's involved. What does cause it? Oh, we don't know." Surely that's bad enough, but worse yet when there's another model on the field, one which explains rising and falling temperature and which has a mechanism that accounts for the rise in CO2 concentration after temperature rise.
As to the Venus comparison. Earth has a mean surface temperature of 14?C, and Venus has a surface temperature of 461.85?C. Okay, so Venus' surface temperature is 33 times greater than Earth's - but on the other hand, Venus' atmosphere has 2539.474 times the CO2 concentration that ours does (96.5% compared to 0.038%,and on top of that, it's an awful lot closer to that really big heat source in the middle of the solar system (approx 67 million miles, compared to our 92 million miles). I'm not saying that you're wrong to point to Venus, but you surely can't do so without beginning to quantify and normalize for the difference in size, orbital distance from the sun, atmospheric composition and so forth.
The atmosphere of Mars is
The atmosphere of Mars is 95% CO2, and there's "global warming" on Mars. Of course, I think we already located the cause of that!
OK, that's partially just playful snark, but "global warming" has indeed been noted not just on Mars, but on Saturn, Neptune, Pluto, and the moons of Saturn and Neptune. There's also indications of warming on Jupiter. Pretty damn obviously this is not due to anthropogenic CO2 forcing...there's some "cosmic" factors at work. Recent research indicates it's not just solar, but that the influx of cosmic radiation also plays a part.
The claim that the current terrestrial warming is entirely or mostly due to anthropogenic CO2 forcing has some pretty serious holes in it. I certainly don't want the researchers to stop researching--but if the claim were true, that the science was "settled," we could pull the plug on their governmental funding yesterday, couldn't we?
But it's not remotely settled. There's a hell of a lot more that we don't know than we do know.
But I had thought - which
It is possible that not all people who worry about global warming claim CO2 as the primary cause (I don't know Severinghaus views specifically). But even for those who do believe that CO2 only amplifies warming, targetting CO2 still makes sense since it's the man-made element in all this, and it's something that we can try and fix.
Possibly, but to be honest it's been a while since I saw the movie (and I haven't read his book). What I took from the movie was:
I picked up the third point since I already knew CO2 was a greenhouse gas (and can cause the earth to warm up). I don't know if that makes me a True Believer or not.
Yeah, I understand there are huge differences atmospheric CO2 on Venus and on Earth, I was trying to make the point the CO2 is a greenhouse gas and can cause warming (but to be clear, I'm not saying it has been the primary cause of previous warmings). On a similar note to your last point (though still no numbers), looking at the Wikipedia entry for Venus says the following:
Mercury ranges from ?180 to 430?C, with "the subsolar point being the hottest and the bottoms of craters near the poles being the coldest".
But even for those who do
I'll leave the claim that CO2 is "the man-made element in all this" to Tully, but even setting that problem aside: I agree that it could make sense, but not necessarily so. It depends how much it amplifies warming by, doesn't it? I mean, this isn't a cost-free option; reducing CO2 emissions has practical consequences, some of which (in the developing world in particular) are highlighted in the Channel 4 documentary. So answering the question of whether it makes sense to go through inordinate effort to reduce CO2 emissions depends on knowing how much of an effect CO2 actually has, which is why it's so utterly inadequate for Severinghaus to relegate CO2 to a supporting role to "[s]ome (currently unknown) process."
I'd also go back to a point in my original post, viz., looking at the historical data, there doesn't seem to be any evidence that the amplification effect is especially pronounced unless we also assume that the "(currently unknown) process" that kicks off warming also drops out of the picture for some (currently unknown) reason after a (currently unknown) period of time, leaving the CO2 increase to do all the heavy lifting. There's scant enough evidence of that with what isn't (currently unknown), but isn't it impossible to say for sure just how much of the warming is attributable to this apparently secondary process of CO2 concentration without knowing what the X Factor is?
I'm all for reducing CO2
I'm all for reducing CO2 emissions, Mitch. The question is the cost I'm willing to pay to do so. Given 2 equally costly systems, I'd certainly pick the one which emits less CO2. For myself, if I had the option of paying just a tad more for electricity generated by water, wind, solar, or geothermal power, I'd probably opt to pay it, to encourage additional research and economies of scale to bring the price down further.
But am I willing to shut down every coal plant in the country to reduce CO2 emissions? Ban the sale of incandescent light bulbs? Ban gasoline cars? Establish emission control requirements that would increase the price of cars by $1,000, or the cost of electricity more than about 10%? No, not on the basis of the alarmism spread by Gore et al. Anything which would act as a substantial drag on the economy, I'm not in favor of based on the evidence so far.
I'm all in favor of additional research into alternative fuels, and tax incentives to adopt more energy-efficient practices and use of things like geothermal heating and cooling systems. While "peak oil" predictions of disaster constantly being made and then proven wrong, it's a given that ONE day, oil will run out. There is in fact a limited supply on the planet earth, so it would be nice to come up with new sources. But I don't wish to drop everything and destroy our economy, and those of nations like China and India which are just beginning to really develop.
It aggravates me to no end that Gore et al. are essentially demanding that we all agree that it's a crisis instead of presenting up with particular policy options that we can decide on individually.
I'm all for reducing CO2
I'm not, unless it actually helps in some quantifiable sense. And what disturbed me enough to write this post is that now it seems that it might not. A commenter at Althouse nailed it the other day, on a different issue: there's a certain politicians mindset that says (1) something must be done, (2) this is something, (3) we must do this. I'm all for reducing CO2 emissions if it'll have some quantifiable effect, but now we're being given evidence that CO2 might not be the primary driver, without any attempt to quantify the extent to which it's a driver or what is the primary driver.
I look at it this way, Simon...
Remember the old camping adage, take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but footprints (or something like that). There's over 6 billion people on the planet. As a general rule, we should strive to minimize our impact on the planet... what we add to the water, what we add to the air. One thing that is for certain is that we've added a whole lot of CO2 into the atmosphere, and the rate is probably accelerating as more nations increase their development. If it costs nothing or very little to reduce those emissions, we should, to minimize our impact on whatever may be happening. Even if nothing's happening, it's still a good idea on general principles.
But like I said, that's only if it costs nothing or very little.
Perhaps a better old adage would be your mother's: "If you took it out, you put it up." We're taking a lot of carbon and releasing it into the atmosphere as CO2, carbon that otherwise would have remained locked in the ground. We took it out, so we should put it up... if it's cheap enough to do so, or if the evidence were to become far clearer that dire consequences really would happen if we don't.
gross big picture
Agreed. There are certainly questions about the nature and scope of the effects of rising CO2, but at a gross level it's pretty easy to look at Earth and its trends and see certain things. I work from a basic presumption that the Earth is a fairly stable and relatively closed system. Yeah, lots of stuff is changing slowly, but we have a fixed size and a relatively stable climate, and a pretty much closed atmosphere. All other things being equal, big changes we make ought to be regarded as risks that might eff with whatever stability we do have.
And there has been a general trend of more people breathing more oxygen and generating more CO2 from breathing and other processes. And concurrently, development (whatever its merits) does seems to be decreasing the amount of space devoted to the plants that consume CO2 and release oxygen.
So at a basic level, I am down with the idea that since there's so much we DON'T know about our planet and its atmosphere, there's much to be said for not gratuitously tweaking with the nature of our atmosphere. It has to do with a combination of respect for what we have been given and acknowledgement of our enduring ignorance as to how it works and how easy it might be to mess up.
But even for those who do
But even for those who do believe that CO2 only amplifies warming, targetting CO2 still makes sense since it's the man-made element in all this, and it's something that we can try and fix.
That's where cost/benefit analysis enters the picture, as Pat notes. And do note that the increase in CO2 emissions is coming from developing countries. Our own CO2 emissions are near-stable. You simply cannot stop those new emissions without that world dictatorship I spoke of, or a leap in technology--and doing so at this point in the absence of new technology would doom billions to poverty.
Predator-prey population patterns are a poor comparitive. System oscillation in climate shows a definite downward trend with increasing oscillation in geological-time terms. It's not stable. Indeed, if you accept the AGW hypothesis at all, in any degree, the case can then be made that human activity is preventing the next abrupt glaciation, and the continued slow cooling of the planet. By available measures we're definitely into the peak interglacial, and the length of the interglacials is inconsistent.
In any case, in stable limit-cycle systems, perturbations of included factors simply move the current function location within the established limit-space, they don't change the space boundaries itself. Generalizations are poor ideas when speaking of systems that are individually sui generis for a given locale (the globe, in this case). Yeah oh yeah, I've modeled non-linear systems myself. Exactly what I mean when I speak of the problems of bad assumptions defining the model space, not necessarily the reality. And chaos theory has been a great eye-opener there the last couple of decades.
I think encouraging a movement (now) towards technology that is less CO2-emitting is a great start, sooner rather than later. And I'd like to see the US being the leader in this area.
No argument at all there. Which brings us back to cost/benefit analysis.
As all of you have said, it
As all of you have said, it is a cost/benefit decision. And obviously, what people consider 'acceptable' as a cost depends on their view of the whole situation.
Predator-prey population patterns are a poor comparitive.
True 'dat. It was more for illustrating the difference between a fixed stable point and stable oscillations in a nonlinear systems. Predator-prey has only two variables; atmospheric dynamics are obviously much more complex.
System oscillation in climate shows a definite downward trend with increasing oscillation in geological-time terms.
Well, to be picky, a change in the oscillation's period does not mean the system is not approaching a limit cycle (or is unstable). Only if the system trajectory is the limit cycle (which of course, would be impossible), will it have a constant period. Approaching a limit cycle (especially if it takes many cycles to get close to it) could show different periods. And noise in the system (i.e., perturbations) does not necessarily mean the change in the period is monotonic.
That all said, obviously if you go back sufficiently far, the Earth's atmosphere was significantly different, and so were the system dynamics. Assumptions of stability could probably be made depending on what time scale one is looking at, but again, as you correctly pointed out, assumptions can be dangerous things. Anyways, this is all really a roundabout way of saying atmospheric dynamics are really complicated; models can only suggest outcomes but are far from definite.
In any case, in stable limit-cycle systems, perturbations of included factors simply move the current function location within the established limit-space, they don't change the space boundaries itself.
If by 'included factors' you mean the model's variables, then perturbations of the variables will shift the system to a different point in its state space but not affect the shape of the limit cycle. After the perturbation, the system will again approach the stable limit cycle. If by 'factors' you mean model parameters, then modifying those parameters will change the shape of the limit cycle (or even abolish it).
As all of you have said, it
Right, but what do you mean by "the whole situation"? I mean surely, the elephant in the room is the big, unanswered questions about what is the primary driver of climate change and to what extent Carbon Dioxide exacerbates the problem. That is, it doesn't necessarily show any lack of concern about the consequences of climate change to say that the cost/benefit analysis doesn't turn on how serious an issue global warming is, but to what extent man-made carbon dioxide plays a role, and thus how much difference it would make even if we could shut down all man-made CO2 emissions.
The cost/benefit analysis has to rest on an understanding of what the benefit is. And honestly, what I'm hearing in the last 72 hours is that we have no idea what the answer to that question is.
Cost is also important, Simon...
And that's my point, that the actual policies being seriously proposed have not gotten much attention. We know some of them have massive costs, and some have much lesser costs. So far, Gore and his crowd have mostly focused on shoving DOOM down our throats, trying to get us to buy a pig in a poke, without offering much in the way of specific legislative proposals.
We're certainly not clear on the benefit side of the equation, and we can't leave that behind while we discuss the costs of new policies, but if anybody on the "we're dying" side actually cares about accomplishing something, they need to start going after the low-hanging fruit, rather than an all-or-nothing type of prescription.
Right, I don't disagree -
Right, I don't disagree - but what I'm saying is, benefit is a threshold question. If it isn't going to help, we shouldn't do it, no matter how little we can make it cost! ;)
The nice thing about
The nice thing about low-hanging fruit is that it gets picked anyway. But we could have been a couple of decades farther along in safe nuclear generation, like France and Japan. What stalled that out again? ;-)
In front of Congress Gore
In front of Congress Gore basically said we should have:
A stronger Kyoto
Higher CAFE standards
Increase in carbon tax offset by cut in payroll tax
Creation of a distribution network modeled off the infrastructure of the internet where everyone can be both a buyer/seller of electricity and individuals could start generating their own.
The first is obviously a global thing that you can argue is impossible to implement well and would require too much government interference. It also doesn't have much to do with becoming energy independent.
However the rest have varying degrees of fulfilling carbon cuts and energy independence. The CAFE standards can again argued to be big government and that it would hurt carmakers, but the increased efficiency would save us a lot in the long run (I read that if counted as an energy source, the increase in efficiency the last 40 years would be the #1 energy source in the US).
The tax stuff is supported by several economists I've read across the ideological spectrum that agree it's the best way to get people to change behavior with minimum intrusion.
The last part sounds like a free-marketers wet dream. I think it could cause a ton of innovation.
So what are your guys' thoughts on these things (besides Kyoto that's obvious)?
And to be even pickier, if
And to be even pickier, if you increase the timescale we're looking at, it's still clear we're hitting a "trough" in the very-long-range (500M yr) scale and a "peak" in the short-range (5M yr) scale. But we don't have even remotely good enough resolution of the variability and oscillations ("noise") from previous cycles to know if the current (5 million year scale) oscillations are out of the ordinary--just that they've been increasing over the last few million years.
Yes, I mean the variables. Of course, we don't even know all the real-world parameters, which is another thing that gets me chuckling when reading the modeling prognostications--tweaking the variables only results in a different location in the solutions space, but the shape of the solution space is determined by the primary factor assumptions. When the models all use the same general factor assumptions, it's hardly startling that all the models produce results in the defined solution space. That the models are consistent with each other does not mean they're consistent with what's being modeled.
The modeling assumptions for CO2 forcing in IPCC3 and IPCC4 are (to put it very kindly) somewhat at variance with the observations, and produce results somewhat at variance with observations. The ongoing efforts to find "adjustors" to explain that reminds me of the cumulative build-up of epicyclical layering in Ptolemaean astronomy. A multiplying of "patches." The more likely explanation is simply that the forcing assumption itself is overstated, and the forcing factor much less than assumed in the models. The alternative is that the forcing assumptions are correct, but that the "ignorance coefficient" of unknown factor influence is huge. Either way, it highlights that the science is very far indeed from settled, as the TB's claim.
Yeh i agree. I think
Yeh i agree. I think something else might trigger the warming but i think that i have a reason for the rise in co2 which lags the rise in temperature: rises in volcanic activity! It may sound bizzare but an increase in scientists are realising that rising temperatures can cause more volcanoes to erupt (and hence more co2!). The reason is to do with water and that its pressure increases with rising global temperatures. Of course this could "runaway" into a runaway greenhouse effect with ever increasing volcanoes, more co2, higher temperatures, yet more volcanoes etc (possibly this was what happened on venus?). Luckily it does look that something stops this cycle (well it has to obviously or else we would be a venus!) and this is probably rain falling on basalt rocks which causes mass absorbsion of co2, fewer volcanoes, lower temperatures etc until eventually something causes temperatures to rise again.
Therefore, if global warming is real, much of the co2 will come from volcanoes, not us and the temperature will be very different to the forecasts as they obviously havent yet worked out this link. Fortunatly, heavy rain from increased water evaporation will fall onto this basaltic rock, absorbing huge amounts of co2 and sending us plumeting into an ice age.....or even a snowball earth and theres plenty of evidence our climate has see-sawed between these two extremes aprox 600-750 myr ago. That would be an interessting climate outcome!
This is a nice post...
...and I wish folks would notice that a lot of this boils down to questions about correlation v. causation (CvC). The CvC question is fundamental to the practice of all science, yet those who would like it answered in the AGW debate are somehow beyond the pale???? I will never understand that.
I tend to doubt they can prove CO2 causation (they certainly haven't done so to this point), and I think they tend to doubt it too. That is why you get campaigns of propoganda and intimidation against those who raise legitimate scientific questions.
Replying to mikkel....
Earlier in the comments, Mikkel asked about our thoughts on several policies which Gore called for in his testimony before Congress. I'm posting my response in a new thread for the sake of the margins...
1. A stronger Kyoto.
As you say, this one's obvious. It's a non-starter. Even the signatories aren't actually complying with it. Anything with enforceable teeth (and since when have international agreements been strictly enforced by the world at large?) would put a severe damper on further economic development around the world. The costs are far too large to undertake based on models as flawed as the current ones are.
2. Higher CAFE standards.
Depends on the costs. Even looking solely at the supply of oil, without any climatic implications, I think that the American motoring consumer does not pay for the full price of keeping the spigots turned on. The price of oil is subsidized by the taxpayer, in the form of military involvement in the Middle East (no, the war is not "all about oil"... if it were, the price would have come down a lot more... but if the world didn't need oil, our military expenditures would be a lot less). So I'm open to making sure that the consumer pays the full freight, on free market grounds. As I said in an earlier comment, if the extra compliance cost $100 per car, sure. If they cost $1,000 per car, I don't think so. And the impact of higher CAFE standards won't be seen at all for DECADES, given the number of used cars on the road. It took a good 30 years or more to phase out leaded gasoline.
3. Increase in carbon tax offset by cut in payroll tax.
Cutting the payroll tax would probably only increase the problems with Social Security and Medicare. As I've argued before, the conservative "tragedy of the commons" premise should be seen as supporting pollution control measures, such as a carbon tax. Again, the question is HOW MUCH of a carbon tax. To calculate the appropriate amount, we'll need to know the benefits to be obtained from reducing carbon consumption, which leads us back to the main issue. I'd be in favor of a small carbon tax to start out with, on the general principle I outlined for Simon earlier, "if you take it out, put it up."
4. Distributed electrical generation.
The market's moving that way already. The states already heavily regulate utilities. I've got no problem with them requiring meters which run backward, and everything I've read indicates that the industry doesn't have any problem with that. The market's going that direction already. National legislation would likely just entomb a particular way of doing so, hindering future improvements.
3. Increase in carbon tax, offset by cut in payroll tax.
When speaking of higher CAFE
When speaking of higher CAFE standards and cost/benefit, do not forget the cost in human lives. It's a real one. For every extra 100 lbs shaved off of new-model vehicle weights, national traffic fatalities can be expected to rise by 500-600 people per new model-year.
The U.S., a non-signatory, actually comes closer to Kyoto targets than Euro signatories. Heh. Arguably we have more low-hanging fruit being picked off by the markets. But the cost/benefit effectiveness of Kyoto-style schemes is dubious at best. And to implement same globally still requires that world dictatorship, and that accompanying "enhanced poverty" (and resulting higher mortality rates/reduced lifespan) in developing nations. The most optimistic estimatede "temperature avoidance" through complete Kyoto implementation is seven-hundredths of one degree C. and the most conservative cost estimate of that 0.07C is $150 billion/yr. Full implementation under less-optimistic scenarios reduces the amount of warming avoided and greatly balloons the cost in both dollars and lives.
As far as carbon taxes replacing payroll taxes, remember the behavior produced by consumption taxes. Consumption taxes reduce the consumption of the good taxed. Indeed, that's the whole point of a carbon tax! So a carbon tax meant to "replace" payroll tax revenues would inevitably be a perpetually rising per-unit tax, as consumption reduced in response. In addition, consumption taxes tend to be highly regressive. Not that the payroll taxes aren't already regressive, but consumption taxes are even more so. So that scheme adds up to a highly regressive tax that has to keep rising on a per-unit basis. Yes, a carbon tax would reduce or restrain consumption, but the suggestion that it could replace payroll tax revenues is a pure dog & pony show tactic.
The last bit is more fun, and has potential.
Creation of a distribution network modeled off the infrastructure of the internet where everyone can be both a buyer/seller of electricity and individuals could start generating their own.
Partially doable now in rural areas with some major capital investment. The average urban/suburban household simply does not have the available infrastructural capability to produce electricity on an urban/suburban lot under current technology. For the most part, to make a big dent requires new technology and/or MAJOR price reductions in current tech, and we're back to the "waiting for quantum technology leap" area. Which is not in the least impossible, but is unpredictable. Like accurately guessing the speed and cost of portable PC processing in the year 2007 from the vantage point of 1980--the year I built my first PC, a Heathkit H-8. Which ran at 2mhz and had a whopping 16k of memory...yeah, yeah, I know. Barefoot, uphill, both ways....
So a carbon tax meant to
By "replace" I assume you're talking about from the government revenue perspective. This is fully true and is something that should be considered. Before I read this I always thought that "replace" meant from the business/consumer perspective where if someone used the average amount (calculated every ten year or such) of energy it'd offset the payroll tax cut completely (if they made the average amount of money) and if they used less they'd get more money. If they did that then it'd work as intended I believe.......but good luck getting the government to take a cut in revenues.
Yes it is a problem that it would be a regressive tax. Off topic sorta: it seems like all the best taxes for encouraging saving/growth and adjusting demand are regressive -- does anyone know of any economists that are studying how to implement these giving a lot of people undue burden other than the current way of just having insanely complicated tax codes?
I also disagree that the average household doesn't have available infrastructure to make a big impact on energy usage (maybe not generating electricity for use by others but severely cutting back on energy use). In most of the US, if houses were designed smartly they could easily get most of their heating/cooling needs from geothermic exchange pumps. From the US dept of energy "Even though the installation price of a geothermal system can be several times that of an air-source system of the same heating and cooling capacity, the additional costs are returned to you in energy savings in 5?10 years. System life is estimated at 25 years for the inside components and 50+ years for the ground loop." I also think that communities could get together to create compost piles to generate methane and other gases that can be turned into energy...and even use generators that run on used grease.
Plus I do believe that within the next 10-15 years we will see a quantum leap in solar cell technology based on the numerous advances in material science that will allow us to create materials molecule by molecule. Look up graphene for an instance of making a very unusual material from something that's common.
Pipe dream....
Sorry, I couldn't resist. :-)
also disagree that the average household doesn't have available infrastructure to make a big impact on energy usage (maybe not generating electricity for use by others but severely cutting back on energy use). In most of the US, if houses were designed smartly they could easily get most of their heating/cooling needs from geothermic exchange pumps.
Expensive up-front capital cost. Peachy keen for new construction of mid- to high-end housing with sufficient space in appropriate soil substructure types. Lousy for single-household low-end affordable housing in limited space, and VERY expensive install costs in existing housing with limited available yard space. Also requires pretty much destroying most of existing landscaping--a geothermal exchange system requires more undergound piping than a leach field for a septic system does, and GTX piping has to be deeper. Also not good in areas with shifting soils, which will rupture the piping grids. If you think replacing a collapsed sewer main is expensive....
Nice idea in some applications (especially if you have a quarter-acre or more of yard w/out existing underground utilities) but not practical for the average urban/suburban household, and the high-capital upfront implementation makes it unaffordable for many households. Good for "new-build" stuff with some yard space, but not low-end.
I also think that communities could get together to create compost piles to generate methane and other gases that can be turned into energy...and even use generators that run on used grease.
Methane capture reduces consumption of fossil fuels, still produces some carbon. Neat where it's feasible. A lot of communities already have "compost piles," even if they don't know it. Landfill outgassing is the #1 cause of anthropogenic methane release, and larger landfills are required to capture and burn same under EPA regs. Those that have enough "capture" already use it for power generation rather than just flaring it off. The smart ones, anyway. Same with sewage treatment plants--when they're big enough and designed properly. All in the design.
Bio-deisel is neat stuff, and more of it will be used as it becomes more cost-competitive. God Bless Willy Nelson. :-) But there's only so much used grease and vegetable oil to go around, and there's already a market for it. Current U.S. production capabilities are limited to maybe 2% or so of existing deisel usage.
All pretty much fall into the category of good ideas with limited applications. Nibbling at the edges, which is good but not large-scale. My favorite "work smart not hard" idea using existing tech to date. It's all in the timing.
huge part of the dynamic
Bingo. I think the difference in cost for building new versus retrofitting the old is a humongous part of the dynamic if you want to be realistic about what individual households will be willing to do. Seems it always costs twice as much or more to re-do an existing space for new things.
That means that almost no one who is capable of doing a rudimetary cost analysis is going to be doing too many updates for green purposes unless [1] they're already doing a remodel for other reasons or [2] numbers change so that the cost savings is substantial. I think its extremely unrealistic to expect individuals to look at such changes without estimating the payback time, IOW, the amount of time until the change puts the adopter in the black for his investment. Changes are goign to occur on the type of timetable those dynamics predict, not on an artifically accelerated one driven by government mandates. And IMO that's a good thing.
Home generation of electricity...
I remember a few years ago reading about new microturbines, powered by natural gas, which emitted very few byproducts. They were approaching the price point were it would be feasible for a well-off homeowner or a small neighborhood to purchase one.
I can't find the article I'm thinking of, but this company makes some. No indication of prices on their site, though... and they seem to be having some problems.
Still, I can buy a 20kw emergency generator, running on natural gas, for just $5,759. That'll power just about everything in my house. I pretty much doubt that it converts the natural gas to electricity as efficiently as the big power company turbines, but given the losses of running electrical current over long power lines, it may not need too much improvement to make it a reasonable alternative to buying the electricity itself. As for CO2 releases? Well, I rather doubt that local production by burning fossil fuels will ever be as clean as a modern gas-powered turbine at the power company's end.
And solar's not there yet. Geothermal's getting there and shows some promise, from what I've seen.
At any rate, it does make sense for the states to begin to require the electric companies to gradually phase in dual-direction meters, to the extent they're not already doing so.
I have problems seeing local
I have problems seeing local generation of power as ever becoming more than an niche. It works on a smaller scale; but would seem to be problematic if everyone starts doing it. It makes more sense in a commercial environment. However, at the same time it would conflict with many company efficiencies by adding a non-core product. On the local home front, I can only imagine dealing with HOA's.
Stand-by generation is a completely different bird than long run generation. Solar would seem to be the most viable residential option, assuming you have plentiful sun and the technology improves. I don't know if I want to live in a place with the droning hum of generators. Others would likely be offended by wind turbines.
Plus, if you increase home generation, at some point, the line gets crossed where load management on the grid starts to get quite complex. The power grid, itself, is an odd bird. The hidden cost of electrical service. Are power companies going to want to extend grids to new neighborhoods that opt to generate their own power?
Home generation sounds like a nice goal. It is just one that makes about as much sense to me as everyone wanting to run their own phone company.
It is good to see the CO2
It is good to see the CO2 lag issue being raised.
It should be noted that the total change in C02 between ice ages is only 100 ppm. CO2 is around 180 ppm in the peak of the ice ages to a high of 280 ppm in the interglacials.
That small change in CO2 is not nearly enough to account for the temperature changes between ice ages. It certainly lags the temperature increase but it also cannot contribute much afterwards to the total increase in temperatures.
The temperatures globally change by 5C between ice ages (10C at the poles). An increase of 100 ppm in CO2 is only capable of explaining about 1C of those temperature changes (according to global warming theory.)
Al Gore convienently did not tell you the scales don't match up and the CO2 lags the temperature change when he went way up in his lift.
I'm not saying that there
I'm not saying that there isn't an answer. I'm just saying that the lag raises some serious questions, that I've yet to see a serious answer (Severinghaus' effort notwithstanding), and the deafening silence creates an elephant in the room problem.
And I'd like to see a serious attempt at an answer - y'know, I'm not a skeptic poking fun, but I'm seriously disturbed by what appears to be a gaping wound in the evidence and a complete lack of seriousness by proponents in addressing it. This isn't a minor "gotcha" point, it eviscerates what I had thought their theory held.
co2 is literally amplifying
co2 is literally amplifying the primary driver. The temperature anomoly at any point is the sum of the warming provided by the primary driver and the warming provided by the co2 level. As the co2 level is determined by the temperature level itself, the actual temperatue can be roughly described as
Temperature = P + nP
Where P is the warming provided by the primary driver, and 'n' is the amplifying factor of the co2 (less than 1).