The Earth is 5% greener now than it was 20 years ago

[Borchester]

The problem I have with this is everything we have been told in the past has turned out to be a crock of shite .(there is going to be an ice age, acid rain will kill everything ,sea levels will rise  and  Vanutu will sink beneath the waves next year ,global warming ,the Ozone hole will grow and we will all get cancer , Polar bear will be extinct ect ect )

So why should we take any notice of the latest version of what people who spend their entire well paid careers have to tell us ?  For me all this climate change malarky is just as likely to to be added to the above list as it is to effect our lives apart from  paying more taxes

True.

As said, Climate Change is fine when you can go down to Trafalgar Square, shout whatever bollocks is currently in fashion and then have dinner in the National Gallery, but this Stop the Oil lark is growing old.

Time we had a new craze. Something along the lines of knock a penny of the income tax maybe ?

[Nick]

We have to be a bit more precise than that. Can you point to where "all the climate models predict"?

The models presict the lower atmosphere warming, but the upper atmosphere cooling. This cooling has recently been observed.

https://physicsworld.com/a/climate-change-fingerprint-is-identified-in-the-upper-atmosphere/

There is also the question of where you look (either via models or measurements) in the atmosphere.

This is a plot of temp deviation against altitude and latitude.  As you can see the atmosphere around the poles is cooling all the way down to 8km (the measurement technique is unreliable below about 8km)

But over the equator the atmosphere has been warming.

So a.skeptic can say "satalite readings show the atmosphere is cooling!' and be correct,

Physics tells us that the equator will be hotter and the poles cooler due to the angle of the Suns rays. Another indication that it is not the Greenhouse effect. The very wording tells us that the warming would be in the Troposphere, but it's not. The warming is at the surface.  

This guy is a PHD in climate temperature and has received the highest Honors from NASA for his research. He says it isn't CO2. 

https://www.uah.edu/science/departments/atmospheric-earth-science/faculty-staff/dr-john-christy

[BeElBeeBub]

The problem I have with this is everything we have been told in the past has turned out to be a crock of shite .(there is going to be an ice age, acid rain will kill everything ,sea levels will rise  and  Vanutu will sink beneath the waves next year ,global warming ,the Ozone hole will grow and we will all get cancer , Polar bear will be extinct ect ect )

So why should we take any notice of the latest version of what people who spend their entire well paid careers have to tell us ?  For me all this climate change malarky is just as likely to to be added to the above list as it is to effect our lives apart from  paying more taxes

"Global cooling" was never a consensus scientific position. In the 60's scientists had accumulated enough data to show the mean temperature had lowered a bit since the 40's but the concern was already starting to build about global warming. The press got wind of the cooling trend (not prediction) I the early 70's and I believe there was a TV documentary about it. This was born the myth of "scientists predicted global cooling! Can't they make up their minds?!", used by climate sceptics to this day. But it's wrong, scientists measured global cooling but predicted global warming.

Acid rain was killing fish and forests (though not in the UK, just places down wind of us). We saw the early effects. We changed our behaviour (stopped burig high sulphur coal) and the problem went away. I'd say that's evidence to support listening to scientists.

Sea levels are rising. They have risen 20+30cm.since.the late 1800's and about 3cm.lf that is the.last decade. High tide floods in costalmareas have become 3-9 times.more likely. Vanutu won't dissaper next year, but will become increasingly prone to catastrophic floods and at some point will become uninhabitable.  At that point I fully expect climate sceptics to film the island at low tide on a calm day and say "see it hasn't sunk"

The ozne layer did have a hole, it was increasing ground based UV exposure, particularly in the south.  The global community made changes, and now the ozone layer is recovering. That's hardly a great attack on science led global action.

As for.polar bears,they won't go extinct, they just won't be polar bears anymore. They'll eventually adapt just.like their ancestors did to become polar bears, but our great grand children will only see great white bears hunting amongst the ice floes in archive footage.

[BeElBeeBub]

No. All the climate models predict that as you go up through the atmosphere the rate of warming should increase, and using 2 data sets we know this is not happening. Both satellites and weather balloons show that as we go up there is a slight cooling, also that the earths surface is warming faster. This shows that the warming is not produced by greenhouse gasses.

We have to be a bit more precise than that. Can you point to where "all the climate models predict"?

The models presict the lower atmosphere warming, but the upper atmosphere cooling. This cooling has recently been observed.

https://physicsworld.com/a/climate-change-fingerprint-is-identified-in-the-upper-atmosphere/

There is also the question of where you look (either via models or measurements) in the atmosphere.

This is a plot of temp deviation against altitude and latitude.  As you can see the atmosphere around the poles is cooling all the way down to 8km (the measurement technique is unreliable below about 8km) 

But over the equator the atmosphere has been warming.

So a.skeptic can say "satalite readings show the atmosphere is cooling!' and be correct, 

[Streetwalker]

Now the nitty gritty of *exactly* how it is done is a bit above my (and most people's) grade. But they basically use ratios of gas isotopes that change with differing temperatures. Not dissimilar to carbon dating. It relies on the measurable radioactive properties of these siotopes and the assumptions that the rules of physics like half lives, haven't changed in a few million years.

They can use different combinations of isotopes to get different estimates. They can then compare these together to get a cross check. This also where looking at other records like stalictites, sedimentary mud, tree rings etc to get other independent estimates and checking back comes in.

You can't tell exactly what temperature it was on a Tuesday 800,546 years ago. But you can say "the average temp for this century was X plus or minus"

And yes, contamination can be an issuez just like contaminating contact lens solution or a crime scene or baby powder can be an issue. So lots of very smart people spend lots of time (that gravy train again) tyiniig about how to stop it and how to detect if it does happen, and tonwuarofy the errors we would see and what errors we might miss. 

This isn't Sven and Olaf wandering out with a spade into the woods.

The ice record is heavily scrutinised and entire careers have been spent calibrating and checking it.

The problem I have with this is everything we have been told in the past has turned out to be a crock of shite .(there is going to be an ice age, acid rain will kill everything ,sea levels will rise  and  Vanutu will sink beneath the waves next year ,global warming ,the Ozone hole will grow and we will all get cancer , Polar bear will be extinct ect ect )

So why should we take any notice of the latest version of what people who spend their entire well paid careers have to tell us ?  For me all this climate change malarky is just as likely to to be added to the above list as it is to effect our lives apart from  paying more taxes 

[Nick]

You don't specify exactly what you mean, but I assume you mean the University of Huntsville Alabama dataset from satellite measurements, as this is a common sceptic/denier talking point.

This originated in the late 2010 from the leads at UHA's satellite measurements team.

Their argument was their data showed the lower atmosphere wasn't warming as fast as the models predicted. There was disagreement as their readings were lower than other datasets, which did show warming along predicted lines.  Direct measurement via balloon & rockets also tended to agree with the models.

Various arguments over which data set was the most accurate have continued to rage.

I mentioned the "slower rise than predicted" statements came out in 2010. The UHA rise was 0.14C a decade, compared to the 0.2C/decade the models predicted.

Here are the current UHA results below.



The temp was about 0.4 below baseline in 1980 (I'm picking round numbers) and you could say, if all you had was data to 2010 the temp at the end of the 00's (3 decades later) was a hair above baseline.  That means the rise was 0.45C (a figure they specifically mentioned) over 3 decades, close to the 0.14C they stated, and below the 0.2C/decade modeled.

But now we have more data, and I think we can say we are at about 0.4C above baseline by 2020.  That makes the rise 0.8C in 4 decades or 0.2C/decade. Much closer to the models.

Finally, other effects predicted like a shrinking and cooling upper atmosphere have recently been observed (I think without controversy, but who knows).

No. All the climate models predict that as you go up through the atmosphere the rate of warming should increase, and using 2 data sets we know this is not happening. Both satellites and weather balloons show that as we go up there is a slight cooling, also that the earths surface is warming faster. This shows that the warming is not produced by greenhouse gasses. 

[BeElBeeBub]

And what about the fact the warming is occurring in the wrong part of the atmosphere?

BTW, there was no need to disrespect John before, it wasn't a great look.

You don't specify exactly what you mean, but I assume you mean the University of Huntsville Alabama dataset from satellite measurements, as this is a common sceptic/denier talking point.

This originated in the late 2010 from the leads at UHA's satellite measurements team.

Their argument was their data showed the lower atmosphere wasn't warming as fast as the models predicted. There was disagreement as their readings were lower than other datasets, which did show warming along predicted lines.  Direct measurement via balloon & rockets also tended to agree with the models. 

Various arguments over which data set was the most accurate have continued to rage.

I mentioned the "slower rise than predicted" statements came out in 2010. The UHA rise was 0.14C a decade, compared to the 0.2C/decade the models predicted.

Here are the current UHA results below.



The temp was about 0.4 below baseline in 1980 (I'm picking round numbers) and you could say, if all you had was data to 2010 the temp at the end of the 00's (3 decades later) was a hair above baseline.  That means the rise was 0.45C (a figure they specifically mentioned) over 3 decades, close to the 0.14C they stated, and below the 0.2C/decade modeled.

But now we have more data, and I think we can say we are at about 0.4C above baseline by 2020.  That makes the rise 0.8C in 4 decades or 0.2C/decade. Much closer to the models.

Finally, other effects predicted like a shrinking and cooling upper atmosphere have recently been observed (I think without controversy, but who knows).

[BeElBeeBub]

And what about the fact the warming is occurring in the wrong part of the atmosphere?

BTW, there was no need to disrespect John before, it wasn't a great look.

Yeah I'm a bit swlty today, but "weather changes* is pretty much the most childish response.  Say childish things be prepared to be called childish. 

I remember seeing a coal executive say "well those climate scientists are predicting 3 or 4 degree rise in temperature! I'm from Texas and it can go from freezing to 110 in a day! So I ain't bothered!" - and I thought "T@@@ - you're either to stupid to understand the problem or think we're too stupid to understand the problem"

That said I was snappy. My apologies to JoG.

[BeElBeeBub]

Tell me, how do you confirm that an ice core record gives you the correct temperate the Earth was 800,000 years ago within 1 degree? Who knows what almost a million years locked in ice can do to samples? The fact of removing them could change the composition. But you won't acknowledge that 2 different tests, on samples separated by 800,000 years can't have a 1 degree error.

Now the nitty gritty of *exactly* how it is done is a bit above my (and most people's) grade. But they basically use ratios of gas isotopes that change with differing temperatures. Not dissimilar to carbon dating. It relies on the measurable radioactive properties of these siotopes and the assumptions that the rules of physics like half lives, haven't changed in a few million years.

They can use different combinations of isotopes to get different estimates. They can then compare these together to get a cross check. This also where looking at other records like stalictites, sedimentary mud, tree rings etc to get other independent estimates and checking back comes in.

You can't tell exactly what temperature it was on a Tuesday 800,546 years ago. But you can say "the average temp for this century was X plus or minus"

And yes, contamination can be an issuez just like contaminating contact lens solution or a crime scene or baby powder can be an issue. So lots of very smart people spend lots of time (that gravy train again) tyiniig about how to stop it and how to detect if it does happen, and tonwuarofy the errors we would see and what errors we might miss. 

This isn't Sven and Olaf wandering out with a spade into the woods.

The ice record is heavily scrutinised and entire careers have been spent calibrating and checking it.

[Nick]

That experiment was first conducted in the early 1900's (not with lasers).  But I'd doesn't take into account how the atmosphere, in particular the upper atmosphere, trap heat.

Computer models have been built from first principles of physics to simulate the effect of increasing CO2 concentrations (and other gasses) on how much IR is radiated into space. it is not as simple as how much IR can pass through varying concentration ls of CO2. Reemission of energy at differing wavelength in all directions plays a crucial part and isn't captured (ha!) By the simple "shine a laser thru some CO2" experiments.

Those models predicted increasing IR capture (or rather reduced IR emissions to space) with increasing CO2 levels past our current levels.

And then, just to make sure this wasn't an artifact of the models....

They compared  the outputs from these models to readings taken from high altitude research planes and balloons.... And they agreed extremely well.

So on the one hand you have a century old desktop experiment and on the other we have a first principles physics model validated by actual readings.

Which to believe?....

And what about the fact the warming is occurring in the wrong part of the atmosphere?

BTW, there was no need to disrespect John before, it wasn't a great look. 

[BeElBeeBub]

Another piece of the jigsaw is that we have already gone passed the saturation point for CO2, it's at its maximum bend already. When you shine a laser through a glass of water and start adding black paint, once the laser doesn't pass through the liquid it doesn't matter how much paint you add it makes no difference. 

Climate models are built on the premise that raising the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere increases temperature. It must have come as a big shock when they input more CO2 and the temperature rose!

That experiment was first conducted in the early 1900's (not with lasers).  But I'd doesn't take into account how the atmosphere, in particular the upper atmosphere, trap heat.

Computer models have been built from first principles of physics to simulate the effect of increasing CO2 concentrations (and other gasses) on how much IR is radiated into space. it is not as simple as how much IR can pass through varying concentration ls of CO2. Reemission of energy at differing wavelength in all directions plays a crucial part and isn't captured (ha!) By the simple "shine a laser thru some CO2" experiments.

Those models predicted increasing IR capture (or rather reduced IR emissions to space) with increasing CO2 levels past our current levels.

And then, just to make sure this wasn't an artifact of the models....

They compared  the outputs from these models to readings taken from high altitude research planes and balloons.... And they agreed extremely well.

So on the one hand you have a century old desktop experiment and on the other we have a first principles physics model validated by actual readings.

Which to believe?....

[Nick]

Oh my! You cracked it! If only one of the many scientists had thought to cross check modern temperature reading methods with other methods! <Does Columbo palm to forehead gesture>

Offsets and variabilities of all the various methods are qualified. Some of the "gravy train" you refer to are PhD and post doc candidates who spend their entire PhD working on a project to cross check some ice cores with sedimentary mud or fossilised tree rings or some other esoteric bit of science. You can get a doctorate fornprovinf or disproving that the ice core record agrees with carbon ratios of stalicmites and whatnot.

This is a variation of the "urban heat island" argument where they say "oh but 50 years ago that temperature station was in the countryside and now it's near a town" - well scientists have worked out how to account for that. Of course when they apply these corrections you lot lose your shit about them tampering with the data.

It doesn't contradict itself. Orbital cycles and the resulting increase and decrease in solar radiation are.one factor in climate change. Raw solar output is another, ice caps and the resulting reflectance another, atmospheric composition another and so on.  They all play apart.  The part the orbital plays is too small and slow to be responsible for this change. It's like saying plate tectonics are responsible for your house subsiding.  Yes plate tectonics are thing and over thousands of years then movement is significant.  But it's not a big enough effect to cause your conservatory to fall down.

Tell me, how do you confirm that an ice core record gives you the correct temperate the Earth was 800,000 years ago within 1 degree? Who knows what almost a million years locked in ice can do to samples? The fact of removing them could change the composition. But you won't acknowledge that 2 different tests, on samples separated by 800,000 years can't have a 1 degree error.

I also note you totally swerved the saturation issue BTW. 

[Nick]

Ha! This gravy train was fueled by not wanting to have a nuclear accident so nope, F@@@ all to do with your imaginary climate hoax.  But it did involve complex modeling and verification of those models. As I said my role was not creating the models. It was in helping verify the outputs and then creating things that relied on those models being correct to function safely.

The greater part of my past activities were to with things that Greenpeace and those you would classify as liberal greenies would definitely not want to encourage.

Green Peace , an organisation whose founder left because he said they had crossed a line. They had to get shriller and shriller to keep in the news, culminating in wanting a world wide ban on Chlorine!! Trying to ban an element on the periodic table, Patrick said it was a bit above their pay grades to start banning elements. 

As for verifying a model, it's futile, the model will do exactly what you tell it to do. How about verifying the fact that adding more CO2 drives temperature increase? 
Oh wait, that's what your model does, it self prophesies's that CO2 is the driver because putting more CO2 into a model that increases temperature proves that adding more CO2 increases temperature. Well you convinced me

[BeElBeeBub]

Do you acknowledge that we have changed the way we measure the temperature? For 800,000 years we have had to rely on isotopes from ice cores, now we have uber accurate electronic measuring kit. The error between the 2 systems is unknown

No, we can't rule out Mikankovitch cycles, your NASA article is useless. It contradicts its self.

So how do we know Milankovitch cycles aren't to blame?

Second, Milankovitch cycles are just one factor that may contribute to climate change, both past and present.

We have in the past had over 1000 PPM CO2 and it has ALWAYS lagged temperature by 800 years. Mr Gore got it wrong!!

Another piece of the jigsaw is that we have already gone passed the saturation point for CO2, it's at its maximum bend already. When you shine a laser through a glass of water and start adding black paint, once the laser doesn't pass through the liquid it doesn't matter how much paint you add it makes no difference.

Oh my! You cracked it! If only one of the many scientists had thought to cross check modern temperature reading methods with other methods! <Does Columbo palm to forehead gesture>

Offsets and variabilities of all the various methods are qualified. Some of the "gravy train" you refer to are PhD and post doc candidates who spend their entire PhD working on a project to cross check some ice cores with sedimentary mud or fossilised tree rings or some other esoteric bit of science. You can get a doctorate fornprovinf or disproving that the ice core record agrees with carbon ratios of stalicmites and whatnot.

This is a variation of the "urban heat island" argument where they say "oh but 50 years ago that temperature station was in the countryside and now it's near a town" - well scientists have worked out how to account for that. Of course when they apply these corrections you lot lose your shit about them tampering with the data.

It doesn't contradict itself. Orbital cycles and the resulting increase and decrease in solar radiation are.one factor in climate change. Raw solar output is another, ice caps and the resulting reflectance another, atmospheric composition another and so on.  They all play apart.  The part the orbital plays is too small and slow to be responsible for this change. It's like saying plate tectonics are responsible for your house subsiding.  Yes plate tectonics are thing and over thousands of years then movement is significant.  But it's not a big enough effect to cause your conservatory to fall down.

[BeElBeeBub]

So you're another who has a salary that depends on there being a problem, I'm sorry to tell you that the gravy train is pulling in soon.

Ha! This gravy train was fueled by not wanting to have a nuclear accident so nope, F@@@ all to do with your imaginary climate hoax.  But it did involve complex modeling and verification of those models. As I said my role was not creating the models. It was in helping verify the outputs and then creating things that relied on those models being correct to function safely.

The greater part of my past activities were to with things that Greenpeace and those you would classify as liberal greenies would definitely not want to encourage.