So, the IPCC says "code red"? I will
guess: This is about carbon, CO2, in the
atmosphere, from humans, causing global
warming and climate change.
Okay, let's look at the observational
data:
There was a movie, An Inconvenient
Truth. With data from Antarctic ice
cores, the movie showed, for the
atmosphere, a graph of temperature and CO2
concentrations going back about 800,000
years.
As I watched the movie, it appeared that
the claim was that the graph showed
temperature and CO2 concentrations going
up and down together. Then the movie
concluded that the higher concentrations
of CO2 caused the higher temperatures.
Then there was a claim that currently more
CO2 from human activities would rapidly
cause significantly higher temperatures.
But, we could look at that graph more
closely, and doing that we will see three
situations:
(1) When temperature started to increase,
CO2 (concentration, here and below) was
low, not high. So, something caused the
warming, but it was not high CO2.
(2) About 800 years later, CO2 had
increased. Presumably the cause was more
biological activity from the higher
temperatures.
(3) Some thousands of years later, while
CO2 was high, the temperatures fell again.
There was a cause, but it was not low CO2.
Indeed, the high CO2 did not keep
temperatures from falling.
Net, from that 800,000 years of data,
there is no evidence that high CO2 caused
high temperatures. It would be more
accurate (though of course still wrong) to
say that the data supported that CO2
caused LOWER temperatures.
For some more recent data, there was some
significant warming during the time of the
Roman Empire and during the Medieval Warm
Period, and there is no evidence that the
cause was high CO2. There was some
significant cooling during the Little Ice
Age from roughly 1300 to 1900, but there
is no evidence that the cause was low CO2.
There was some cooling from 1940 to 1970
and concerns in the media about another
ice age, and those years were when there
was more CO2 from human activity from WWII
and the post-war economic boom. So, in
those years, with more CO2, we got some
cooling instead of warming.
Again it would be more accurate (though of
course still wrong) to say that the data
supported that CO2 caused COOLING.
For some details, can start with "Global
Cooling" at
which discusses the two famous magazine
stories, the 1974 <i>Time</i> story and
the 1975 <i>Newsweek</i> story, worrying
about "global cooling" and asking if we
were entering a new ice age. For more on
these magazine stories, at
can see the April 28, 1975,
<i>Newsweek</i> article “The Cooling
World”.
So, net, there is no data on temperature
and CO2 from the past that says that CO2
will cause warming.
Yes, CO2 is a <i>greenhouse</i> gas. This
means that it absorbs some light in the
infrared but not the visible. In the case
of CO2, it absorbs light out in the
infrared in three narrow bands. The
absorption spectrum is given at
Part of the mechanism is Planck black body
radiation.
We have had some warming since the Little
Ice Age. It may be that we are still
pulling out of the Little Ice Age, e.g.,
it can take a long time for the oceans to
warm up. But even with this warming, it's
cooler than in the Medieval Warm period
and the Roman times when the polar bears
didn't go extinct, the ice in Greenland
and the Antarctic didn't melt, the oceans
didn't rise and flood the coasts, and
humans didn't suffer. Apparently the main
effects were greater agricultural
productivity, e.g., in England, grapes
were grown for wine.
Could the warming since the Little Ice Age
be due to CO2? No: The warming is at the
surface, and CO2 absorbs high in the
troposphere with definition at Google:
<blockquote>the lowest region of the
atmosphere, extending from the earth's
surface to a height of about 3.7–6.2 miles
(6–10 km), which is the lower boundary of
the stratosphere. </blockquote>
which, from MIT climate scientist Richard
Lindzen, Alfred P Sloan Professor of
Atmospheric Sciences, Emeritus, at
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has
gotten cooler, not warmer.
Several attempts were made to model the
atmosphere and calculate and predict the
effects of human sources of CO2 on
temperature. Nearly all the efforts
predicted temperature increases that were
rapid and significant.
It has now been some years since the times
of the predictions, and the predictions
and reality are compared in the graph at
Summary: Nearly all the predictions were
way too high.
Result: The prediction have no meaningful
credibility.
Current Summary: There is no credible
evidence from either the 800,000 years of
the earth or the climate models that human
sources of CO2 have had, are having, or
will have significant effects on
temperature or climate.
As a result of this lack of evidence,
there is no scientific reason to attempt
to lower human sources of CO2.
In particular, wind and solar power are
intermittent and, thus, challenging for
use in our electric grid.
> Greenhouse effect is also settled
science (please see demo on youtube).
Of course. True but trivial and
essentially meaningless for the claims of
the alarmists.
If you regard that as evidence supporting
the alarmists, then you have been taken in
by trivia.
I learned about the greenhouse effect, the
role of Planck black body radiation, etc.
relatively thoroughly in ugrad physics
where the prof was big on such stuff and
had measured atmospheric absorption
spectra to help the US Navy with the
design of radar, etc.
Broadly, no doubt the people who
did the predictions reported in
knew about the greenhouse effect, but
their predictions, and, thus, their
<i>science</i> was wildly wrong.
Now, let's look at some data, initially by
far the favorite data of the alarmists and
their early leader, Saint Laureate Al Guru
and his famous movie where he put up, from
ice core data, a big plot of temperature
and CO2 concentrations over the last
800,000 years or so.
Standing back, Al Guru claimed that the
CO2 and temperature went up and down
together and took that as proof that CO2
and its greenhouse effect caused the
temperature changes.
Nonsense. Total nonsense. Right there in
his data, total nonsense. Flim-flam
nonsense. Middle school level outrageous
incompetence.
If actually look at the data not from far
back but close enough to see actual
effects, then make three simple but
totally devastating observations:
(1) When temperature started to rise, CO2
was low, not high. So, something caused
the warming, but it was not CO2.
(2) About 800 years later, CO2 had
increased. Presumably the cause was more
biological activity from the higher
temperatures.
(3) Some thousands of years later, while
CO2 was high, the temperatures fell again.
There was a cause, but it was not low CO2.
Indeed, the high CO2 did not keep
temperatures from falling.
Net, from that 800,000 years of data,
there is no evidence that high CO2 caused
warming. It would be more accurate
(though of course still wrong) to say that
the data supported that CO2 caused
COOLING.
For some more recent data, there was some
significant warming during the time of the
Roman Empire and during the Medieval Warm
period, and there is no evidence that the
cause was high CO2. There was some
significant cooling during the Little Ice
Age from roughly 1300 to 1900, but there
is no evidence that the cause was low CO2.
There was some cooling from 1940 to 1970
and concerns in the media about another
ice age, and those years were when there
was more CO2 from human activity from WWII
and the post-war economic boom. So, in
those years, with more CO2, we got some
cooling instead of warming.
Again it would be more accurate (though of
course still wrong) to say that the data
supported that CO2 caused COOLING.
For some details, can start with "Global
Cooling" at
which discusses the two famous magazine
stories, the 1974 <i>Time</i> story and
the 1975 <i>Newsweek</i> story, worrying
about "global cooling" and asking if we
were entering a new ice age. For more on
these magazine stories, at
can see the April 28, 1975,
<i>Newsweek</i> article “The Cooling
World”.
So, net, there is no data on temperature
and CO2 from the past that says that CO2
will cause warming.
Yes, CO2 is a <i>greenhouse</i> gas. This
means that it absorbs some light in the
infrared but not the visible. In the case
of CO2, it absorbs light out in the
infrared in three narrow bands. The
absorption spectrum is given at
We have had some warming since the Little
Ice Age. It may be that we are still
pulling out of the Little Ice Age, e.g.,
it can take a long time for the oceans to
warm up. But even with this warming, it's
cooler than in the Medieval Warm period
and the Roman times when the polar bears
did fine, the ice in Greenland and the
poles didn't melt, the oceans didn't rise
and flood the coasts, and humans didn't
suffer. Apparently the main effects were
greater agricultural productivity, e.g.,
in England, grapes were grown for wine.
Could the warming since the Little Ice Age
be due to CO2? No: The warming is at the
surface, and CO2 absorbs high in the
troposphere with definition at Google:
<blockquote>the lowest region of the
atmosphere, extending from the earth's
surface to a height of about 3.7–6.2 miles
(6–10 km), which is the lower boundary of
the stratosphere. </blockquote>
which, from MIT climate scientist Richard
Lindzen, Alfred P Sloan Professor of
Atmospheric Sciences, Emeritus at
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has
gotten cooler, not warmer.
So, net, CO2 really is a greenhouse gas,
but its warming effects are too small to
be significant or detected in the data on
temperature and CO2.
The usual for bad Internet debating and communications: Attack the person and not the arguments. If you have some credible evidence, trot it out.
It is my writing here that is rational and the responses to it that are irrational -- my post was down voted and "flagged" out of view with no meaningful responses.
Again, the alarmist predictions of disaster were made and found wildly wrong; I referenced the data.
Bluntly no one knows how to take data on CO2 from human activities and accurately predict CO2 concentration and temperature or in any meaningful sense the effect of the CO2 on temperature. Nearly all the attempts to do this were wildly wrong.
The global warming alarmists are as irrational as using leach bleeding to forestall another eruption of Yellowstone, of old religions making "sacrifices" to ensure good climate. The Mayans killed people to pour their blood on a rock to keep the sun moving across the sky -- the global warming alarmists are following the same irrationality.
Since my post was "flagged" out of view, I will repeat the post here now:
There is a lot of hand wringing, worrying,
blaming about evil, short sighted,
negligent, irresponsible humans doing
serious damage to the environment and the
planet and causing disastrous, dangerous,
destructive world wide climate change,
global warming, rising sea levels, etc.
There is no end of what we can worry
about, e.g., Yellowstone erupting, another
Krakatoa, having the atmosphere of the
earth blown off by the blast from a
supernova, etc.
But just now the claim that human sources
of CO2 are having significant effects on
the climate, temperature, sea level, etc.
are the source of a lot of angst and
anxiety.
So, we need to filter, separate possible
disasters for which we have good evidence
and can do something about from the
endless number of disasters for which we
have no credible evidence.
For human sources of CO2: So far there is
no, none, nichts, nada, nil, zip, zilch,
zero credible evidence that human sources
of CO2 have had, are having, or will have
a significant effect on the climate,
temperature, sea level, etc. No evidence
that is credible.
All the credibility was lost, blown,
thrown away, destroyed by the many
predictions of significant temperature
increases that didn't happen, as in the
well known
As a result, the alarm, angst, anxiety,
hand wringing about human sources of CO2
is irrational, foolish, irresponsible, and
supporting an industry of hysteria that is
just a flim-flam, fraud, scam on the backs
and in the pockets of billions of people
and making a few people rich.
While we know very well how to measure
temperature and how to average it, we
don't even have meaningful measures of
climate.
For the science that might be relevant,
essentially all of it fails to be science
because it has long shown to have no
predictive value.
In response, until there is credible
evidence that human activities can do good
things for the climate, we should just
junk the alarmists and forget about human
sources of CO2.
Again, once again, over again, yet again, one more time, you have another of the alarmist, angst, anxiety statements with no science support -- all the attempts at science to support such statements have no predictive value and, thus, are not science. I gave a link to solid evidence of the lack of predictive value.
And the doomsday predictions such as your "it'll already be 20-30 years too late" are irrational, irresponsible, dangerous, destructive guesses that stand to do serious damage to our economy, hurt billions of people, and make a few people rich. It's a flim-flam, fraud, scam. We need to grow up, be adults, and not fall for such a brain-dead scam.
The potential damage to the economy is obvious and solid; that we are doing or even can do anything significant to the temperature, climate, sea level, etc. is just wild, irresponsible, dangerous, destructive guessing, shooting ourselves in our guts for no good reason.
Again, no credible evidence. Loss of credibility from alarmist predictions that didn't come true. No science with predictive value, that is, no science at all.
There is a lot of hand wringing, worrying,
blaming about evil, short sighted,
negligent, irresponsible humans doing
serious damage to the environment and the
planet and causing disastrous, dangerous,
destructive world wide climate change,
global warming, rising sea levels, etc.
There is no end of what we can worry
about, e.g., Yellowstone erupting, another
Krakatoa, having the atmosphere of the
earth blown off by the blast from a
supernova, etc.
But just now the claim that human sources
of CO2 are having significant effects on
the climate, temperature, sea level, etc.
are the source of a lot of angst and
anxiety.
So, we need to filter, separate possible
disasters for which we have good evidence
and can do something about from the
endless number of disasters for which we
have no credible evidence.
For human sources of CO2: So far there is
no, none, nichts, nada, nil, zip, zilch,
zero credible evidence that human sources
of CO2 have had, are having, or will have
a significant effect on the climate,
temperature, sea level, etc. No evidence
that is credible.
All the credibility was lost, blown,
thrown away, destroyed by the many
predictions of significant temperature
increases that didn't happen, as in the
well known
As a result, the alarm, angst, anxiety,
hand wringing about human sources of CO2
is irrational, foolish, irresponsible, and
supporting an industry of hysteria that is
just a flim-flam, fraud, scam on the backs
and in the pockets of billions of people
and making a few people rich.
While we know very well how to measure
temperature and how to average it, we
don't even have meaningful measures of
climate.
For the science that might be relevant,
essentially all of it fails to be science
because it has long shown to have no
predictive value.
In response, until there is credible
evidence that human activities can do good
things for the climate, we should just
junk the alarmists and forget about human
sources of CO2.
