Discussion:
"13 Most Ridiculous Predictions Made on Earth Day, 1970"
(too old to reply)
Lynn McGuire
2017-04-23 04:20:37 UTC
Permalink
"13 Most Ridiculous Predictions Made on Earth Day, 1970"

https://ricochet.com/424431/13-ridiculous-predictions-made-earth-day-1970/

Nice, my favorite is:

"13. “The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If
present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for
the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the
year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice
age.” — Kenneth Watt"

And they wonder why people like me don't buy the anthropogenic global
warming crap.

Lynn
William Hyde
2017-04-23 05:05:12 UTC
Permalink
Post by Lynn McGuire
"13 Most Ridiculous Predictions Made on Earth Day, 1970"
https://ricochet.com/424431/13-ridiculous-predictions-made-earth-day-1970/
"13. “The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If
present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for
the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the
year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice
age.” — Kenneth Watt"
He was a zoologist. Physicists and engineers say stupid things about biology all the time. Does it then follow that biologists are wrong?

And even he said "if".
Post by Lynn McGuire
And they wonder why people like me don't buy the anthropogenic global
warming crap.
Yes, we do, and the above gives you no cover at all.

William Hyde
J. Clarke
2017-04-23 11:39:02 UTC
Permalink
Post by William Hyde
Post by Lynn McGuire
"13 Most Ridiculous Predictions Made on Earth Day, 1970"
https://ricochet.com/424431/13-ridiculous-predictions-made-earth-day-1970/
"13. ?The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If
present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for
the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the
year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice
age.? ? Kenneth Watt"
He was a zoologist. Physicists and engineers say stupid things about biology all the time. Does it then follow that biologists are wrong?
And even he said "if".
Post by Lynn McGuire
And they wonder why people like me don't buy the anthropogenic global
warming crap.
Yes, we do, and the above gives you no cover at all.
Actually it does.

You have to understand that the average member of the public doesn't try to
evaluate the qualifications of one scientist vs another. All they get is
"scientists claim". In the '60s and '70s it was scientists claiming that
it's getting colder. Now it's scientists claiming that it's getting
warmer. 40 years from now what are the scientists going to be claiming.

Now, your defense, I know, because I keep hearing this, is "well
climatologists didn't say that". So where were all these climatologists on
Earth Day 1970? Why weren't they addressing the wrong information that was
being disseminated? Where were they when Carl Sagan and company were
holding forth about "Nuclear Winter" in the '90s? And what makes the three
professors of atmospheric science who were working with Sagan not "climate
scientists" other than that they don't toe the "global warming" party line?

And why all of a sudden are we supposed to believe them NOW? From the
viewpoint of a member of the public what I see is yet more "The End Is
Nigh" posturing from yet another bunch of loons in lab coats. So what
makes these loons in lab coats different?
Bill Gill
2017-04-23 13:22:42 UTC
Permalink
Post by J. Clarke
And why all of a sudden are we supposed to believe them NOW?
Because the earth is warming, whereas in 1970 it wasn't really.

Bill
J. Clarke
2017-04-23 14:15:54 UTC
Permalink
Post by Bill Gill
Post by J. Clarke
And why all of a sudden are we supposed to believe them NOW?
Because the earth is warming, whereas in 1970 it wasn't really.
Bill
Are you saying that the warming that the IPCC is on about is a new
phenomenon that started in the last 30 years?
Bill Gill
2017-04-23 16:47:50 UTC
Permalink
Post by J. Clarke
Post by Bill Gill
Post by J. Clarke
And why all of a sudden are we supposed to believe them NOW?
Because the earth is warming, whereas in 1970 it wasn't really.
Bill
Are you saying that the warming that the IPCC is on about is a new
phenomenon that started in the last 30 years?
No
J. Clarke
2017-04-24 03:01:21 UTC
Permalink
Post by J. Clarke
Post by Bill Gill
Post by J. Clarke
And why all of a sudden are we supposed to believe them NOW?
Because the earth is warming, whereas in 1970 it wasn't really.
Bill
Are you saying that the warming that the IPCC is on about is a new
phenomenon that started in the last 30 years?
No
And yet you claim the Earth was not warming in the '70s. So what do you
believe changed?
Titus G
2017-04-24 05:29:45 UTC
Permalink
Post by J. Clarke
says...
Post by Bill Gill
Post by J. Clarke
And why all of a sudden are we supposed to believe them NOW?
Because the earth is warming, whereas in 1970 it wasn't
really.
Bill
Are you saying that the warming that the IPCC is on about is a
new phenomenon that started in the last 30 years?
No
And yet you claim the Earth was not warming in the '70s. So what do
you believe changed?
Arithmetic for a start.
2017 minus 1970 equals 47.
Is that within the last 30 years?

I am not questioning your view on climate change. I am critical of what
appears to be dishonest debate.
J. Clarke
2017-04-24 10:34:48 UTC
Permalink
Post by Titus G
Post by J. Clarke
says...
Post by Bill Gill
Post by J. Clarke
And why all of a sudden are we supposed to believe them NOW?
Because the earth is warming, whereas in 1970 it wasn't
really.
Bill
Are you saying that the warming that the IPCC is on about is a
new phenomenon that started in the last 30 years?
No
And yet you claim the Earth was not warming in the '70s. So what do
you believe changed?
Arithmetic for a start.
2017 minus 1970 equals 47.
Is that within the last 30 years?
I am not questioning your view on climate change. I am critical of what
appears to be dishonest debate.
Does changing the number from 30 to 47 change the answer to the question in
any substantive way?

Seems to me that "honest debate" would involve considering that before
deciding to make an issue of the exact number of years. And "dishonest
debate" is sidetracking the conversation by changing it to personalities.
Dorothy J Heydt
2017-04-23 14:19:08 UTC
Permalink
Post by Bill Gill
Post by J. Clarke
And why all of a sudden are we supposed to believe them NOW?
Because the earth is warming, whereas in 1970 it wasn't really.
s/really/noticeably
--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com
Lynn McGuire
2017-04-23 18:42:28 UTC
Permalink
Post by Bill Gill
Post by J. Clarke
And why all of a sudden are we supposed to believe them NOW?
Because the earth is warming, whereas in 1970 it wasn't really.
Bill
Yes, the Earth is gradually warming. It has been warming for thousands
of years. However, we, the human race, are not the major cause.

Lynn
Carl Fink
2017-04-23 18:58:24 UTC
Permalink
Post by Lynn McGuire
Post by Bill Gill
Post by J. Clarke
And why all of a sudden are we supposed to believe them NOW?
Because the earth is warming, whereas in 1970 it wasn't really.
Bill
Yes, the Earth is gradually warming. It has been warming for thousands
of years. However, we, the human race, are not the major cause.
Because you say so.
--
Carl Fink ***@nitpicking.com

Read my blog at blog.nitpicking.com. Reviews! Observations!
Stupid mistakes you can correct!
J. Clarke
2017-04-24 03:06:52 UTC
Permalink
Post by Carl Fink
Post by Lynn McGuire
Post by Bill Gill
Post by J. Clarke
And why all of a sudden are we supposed to believe them NOW?
Because the earth is warming, whereas in 1970 it wasn't really.
Bill
Yes, the Earth is gradually warming. It has been warming for thousands
of years. However, we, the human race, are not the major cause.
Because you say so.
No, because the ice cores say so. You assume that those who disagree with
you have not actually looked at the data. If you yourself had looked at
the data you would have seen that the vast majority of the warming since
the last glacial maximum took place long before there were any significant
amounts of fossil CO2 being released by humans.
Carl Fink
2017-04-24 12:12:05 UTC
Permalink
Post by J. Clarke
Post by Carl Fink
Post by Lynn McGuire
Post by Bill Gill
Post by J. Clarke
And why all of a sudden are we supposed to believe them NOW?
Because the earth is warming, whereas in 1970 it wasn't really.
Bill
Yes, the Earth is gradually warming. It has been warming for thousands
of years. However, we, the human race, are not the major cause.
Because you say so.
No, because the ice cores say so. You assume that those who disagree with
you have not actually looked at the data. If you yourself had looked at
the data you would have seen that the vast majority of the warming since
the last glacial maximum took place long before there were any significant
amounts of fossil CO2 being released by humans.
But they don't. Look at the actual ice core data. Correlate it with CO2.
Apologize.
--
Carl Fink ***@nitpicking.com

Read my blog at blog.nitpicking.com. Reviews! Observations!
Stupid mistakes you can correct!
J. Clarke
2017-04-24 23:33:01 UTC
Permalink
Post by Carl Fink
Post by J. Clarke
Post by Carl Fink
Post by Lynn McGuire
Post by Bill Gill
Post by J. Clarke
And why all of a sudden are we supposed to believe them NOW?
Because the earth is warming, whereas in 1970 it wasn't really.
Bill
Yes, the Earth is gradually warming. It has been warming for thousands
of years. However, we, the human race, are not the major cause.
Because you say so.
No, because the ice cores say so. You assume that those who disagree with
you have not actually looked at the data. If you yourself had looked at
the data you would have seen that the vast majority of the warming since
the last glacial maximum took place long before there were any significant
amounts of fossil CO2 being released by humans.
But they don't. Look at the actual ice core data. Correlate it with CO2.
Apologize.
For what? Are you saying that all the CO2 found in the ice cores, even
those from before humans existed as a species, is man made? If not then
what are you saying?
Carl Fink
2017-04-25 00:29:33 UTC
Permalink
Post by J. Clarke
For what? Are you saying that all the CO2 found in the ice cores, even
those from before humans existed as a species, is man made? If not then
what are you saying?
It's remarkably clear that CO2 drives atmospheric warming.

It's remarkably clear that human activity is driving up the CO2 levels
enormously.

It's not at all clear why it's so important to you to pretend that this
doesn't mean what it means.
--
Carl Fink ***@nitpicking.com

Read my blog at blog.nitpicking.com. Reviews! Observations!
Stupid mistakes you can correct!
Cryptoengineer
2017-04-25 00:48:15 UTC
Permalink
Post by Carl Fink
Post by J. Clarke
For what? Are you saying that all the CO2 found in the ice cores,
even those from before humans existed as a species, is man made? If
not then what are you saying?
It's remarkably clear that CO2 drives atmospheric warming.
It's remarkably clear that human activity is driving up the CO2 levels
enormously.
It's not at all clear why it's so important to you to pretend that
this doesn't mean what it means.
Lynn's stated outright that his career is based on people burning
oil.

pt
Lynn McGuire
2017-04-25 02:26:02 UTC
Permalink
Post by Cryptoengineer
Post by Carl Fink
Post by J. Clarke
For what? Are you saying that all the CO2 found in the ice cores,
even those from before humans existed as a species, is man made? If
not then what are you saying?
It's remarkably clear that CO2 drives atmospheric warming.
It's remarkably clear that human activity is driving up the CO2 levels
enormously.
It's not at all clear why it's so important to you to pretend that
this doesn't mean what it means.
Lynn's stated outright that his career is based on people burning
oil.
pt
You are really hung up on the fact that I have a career. That is odd.

And you forgot burning natural gas. And converting natural gas to
various plastics. Or polyethylene. Or many other compounds necessary
for today's life. Or the extraction of H2S and CO2 from natural gas.
Or the conversion of natural gas to hydrogen (where 98% of hydrogen
comes from in the USA). Or fuel cells running on hydrogen. Or nitrogen
removal from natural gas. Or the formation of carbon black particles to
make car tires blackwalls instead of translucent.

There were three million people directly employed in the upstream oil
and natural gas industry in the USA. This has been reduced somewhat
over the last three years, maybe a 20% (SWAG) reduction. There are
another 8 ? 10 ? 15 ? million people that are in or provide services to
the midstream and downstream industries in the USA. This is my business.

Lynn
Cryptoengineer
2017-04-25 03:52:14 UTC
Permalink
Post by Lynn McGuire
Post by Cryptoengineer
Post by Carl Fink
Post by J. Clarke
For what? Are you saying that all the CO2 found in the ice cores,
even those from before humans existed as a species, is man made?
If not then what are you saying?
It's remarkably clear that CO2 drives atmospheric warming.
It's remarkably clear that human activity is driving up the CO2
levels enormously.
It's not at all clear why it's so important to you to pretend that
this doesn't mean what it means.
Lynn's stated outright that his career is based on people burning
oil.
pt
You are really hung up on the fact that I have a career. That is odd.
And you forgot burning natural gas. And converting natural gas to
various plastics. Or polyethylene. Or many other compounds necessary
for today's life. Or the extraction of H2S and CO2 from natural gas.
Or the conversion of natural gas to hydrogen (where 98% of hydrogen
comes from in the USA). Or fuel cells running on hydrogen. Or
nitrogen removal from natural gas. Or the formation of carbon black
particles to make car tires blackwalls instead of translucent.
There were three million people directly employed in the upstream oil
and natural gas industry in the USA. This has been reduced somewhat
over the last three years, maybe a 20% (SWAG) reduction. There are
another 8 ? 10 ? 15 ? million people that are in or provide services
to the midstream and downstream industries in the USA. This is my
business.
That you think that this has any bearing on the validity of AGW is
why I bring it up. You are deeply (and literally) invested in
continued carbon emission.

BTW, Burning natural gas produces about half the C02 per unit
energy as does coal (oil is somewhere in between).

pt
Lynn McGuire
2017-04-25 20:28:12 UTC
Permalink
Post by Cryptoengineer
Post by Lynn McGuire
Post by Cryptoengineer
Post by Carl Fink
Post by J. Clarke
For what? Are you saying that all the CO2 found in the ice cores,
even those from before humans existed as a species, is man made?
If not then what are you saying?
It's remarkably clear that CO2 drives atmospheric warming.
It's remarkably clear that human activity is driving up the CO2
levels enormously.
It's not at all clear why it's so important to you to pretend that
this doesn't mean what it means.
Lynn's stated outright that his career is based on people burning
oil.
pt
You are really hung up on the fact that I have a career. That is odd.
And you forgot burning natural gas. And converting natural gas to
various plastics. Or polyethylene. Or many other compounds necessary
for today's life. Or the extraction of H2S and CO2 from natural gas.
Or the conversion of natural gas to hydrogen (where 98% of hydrogen
comes from in the USA). Or fuel cells running on hydrogen. Or
nitrogen removal from natural gas. Or the formation of carbon black
particles to make car tires blackwalls instead of translucent.
There were three million people directly employed in the upstream oil
and natural gas industry in the USA. This has been reduced somewhat
over the last three years, maybe a 20% (SWAG) reduction. There are
another 8 ? 10 ? 15 ? million people that are in or provide services
to the midstream and downstream industries in the USA. This is my
business.
That you think that this has any bearing on the validity of AGW is
why I bring it up. You are deeply (and literally) invested in
continued carbon emission.
BTW, Burning natural gas produces about half the C02 per unit
energy as does coal (oil is somewhere in between).
pt
Do you know why burning natural gas produces half the the CO2 that
burning coal does or are you just spouting the party line ? Hint, there
are two reasons.

Lynn
Peter Trei
2017-04-25 21:58:29 UTC
Permalink
Post by Lynn McGuire
Post by Cryptoengineer
Post by Lynn McGuire
Post by Cryptoengineer
Post by Carl Fink
Post by J. Clarke
For what? Are you saying that all the CO2 found in the ice cores,
even those from before humans existed as a species, is man made?
If not then what are you saying?
It's remarkably clear that CO2 drives atmospheric warming.
It's remarkably clear that human activity is driving up the CO2
levels enormously.
It's not at all clear why it's so important to you to pretend that
this doesn't mean what it means.
Lynn's stated outright that his career is based on people burning
oil.
pt
You are really hung up on the fact that I have a career. That is odd.
And you forgot burning natural gas. And converting natural gas to
various plastics. Or polyethylene. Or many other compounds necessary
for today's life. Or the extraction of H2S and CO2 from natural gas.
Or the conversion of natural gas to hydrogen (where 98% of hydrogen
comes from in the USA). Or fuel cells running on hydrogen. Or
nitrogen removal from natural gas. Or the formation of carbon black
particles to make car tires blackwalls instead of translucent.
There were three million people directly employed in the upstream oil
and natural gas industry in the USA. This has been reduced somewhat
over the last three years, maybe a 20% (SWAG) reduction. There are
another 8 ? 10 ? 15 ? million people that are in or provide services
to the midstream and downstream industries in the USA. This is my
business.
That you think that this has any bearing on the validity of AGW is
why I bring it up. You are deeply (and literally) invested in
continued carbon emission.
BTW, Burning natural gas produces about half the C02 per unit
energy as does coal (oil is somewhere in between).
pt
Do you know why burning natural gas produces half the the CO2 that
burning coal does or are you just spouting the party line ? Hint, there
are two reasons.
Two reasons? I'm aware of this one:

Coal is pretty well pure carbon, so all the energy comes from combining carbon
with oxygen.

Natural gas is CH4. Burning does create heat by combining C with 02, but it also
combines 2H with 0 to form water vapor. Breaking the C-H bond takes less
energy than making the H-O bond, so that makes more heat, without creating C02.

2 CH4 + 4 O2 -> 2 C02 + 4 H2O

What's the other?

pt
Greg Goss
2017-04-25 06:39:31 UTC
Permalink
Post by Lynn McGuire
You are really hung up on the fact that I have a career. That is odd.
And you forgot burning natural gas. And converting natural gas to
various plastics. Or polyethylene. Or many other compounds necessary
for today's life. Or the extraction of H2S and CO2 from natural gas.
Or the conversion of natural gas to hydrogen (where 98% of hydrogen
comes from in the USA). Or fuel cells running on hydrogen. Or nitrogen
removal from natural gas. Or the formation of carbon black particles to
make car tires blackwalls instead of translucent.
Natural gas produces much less CO2 per unit of energy output than
coal, and somewhat less than oil.

Production of plastics or tires? Would these be impaired by a
cap'n'trade or other carbon taxing scheme? At least until the tires
are sold to Lafarge to make their concrete, but then Lafarge would be
billed for the CO2.
--
We are geeks. Resistance is voltage over current.
J. Clarke
2017-04-25 02:15:19 UTC
Permalink
Post by Carl Fink
Post by J. Clarke
For what? Are you saying that all the CO2 found in the ice cores, even
those from before humans existed as a species, is man made? If not then
what are you saying?
It's remarkably clear that CO2 drives atmospheric warming.
It's remarkably clear that human activity is driving up the CO2 levels
enormously.
It's not at all clear why it's so important to you to pretend that this
doesn't mean what it means.
CO2 levels have increased in the past and we still got glaciation despite
the increasing CO2. So the picture is not nearly as simple as you make it
out to be.
Lynn McGuire
2017-04-25 03:00:43 UTC
Permalink
Post by J. Clarke
Post by Carl Fink
Post by J. Clarke
For what? Are you saying that all the CO2 found in the ice cores, even
those from before humans existed as a species, is man made? If not then
what are you saying?
It's remarkably clear that CO2 drives atmospheric warming.
It's remarkably clear that human activity is driving up the CO2 levels
enormously.
It's not at all clear why it's so important to you to pretend that this
doesn't mean what it means.
CO2 levels have increased in the past and we still got glaciation despite
the increasing CO2. So the picture is not nearly as simple as you make it
out to be.
A very clear statement of my point exactly. The material and energy
balance around the Earth is extremely complicated. I doubt that we even
understand half of it yet.

Lynn
Carl Fink
2017-04-25 19:55:20 UTC
Permalink
Post by J. Clarke
CO2 levels have increased in the past and we still got glaciation despite
the increasing CO2. So the picture is not nearly as simple as you make it
out to be.
Cite? Or is this one of those absurd cherrypick things? That's the
historical trend in no geological time period.
--
Carl Fink ***@nitpicking.com

Read my blog at blog.nitpicking.com. Reviews! Observations!
Stupid mistakes you can correct!
Bill Gill
2017-04-23 23:23:06 UTC
Permalink
Post by Lynn McGuire
Post by Bill Gill
Post by J. Clarke
And why all of a sudden are we supposed to believe them NOW?
Because the earth is warming, whereas in 1970 it wasn't really.
Bill
Yes, the Earth is gradually warming. It has been warming for thousands
of years. However, we, the human race, are not the major cause.
Lynn
You're right, it has been. However, in the last 150 years the
'gradual' warming has increased to a significant level. It is
'gradually' warming at a much faster rate than it did before the
industrial revolution.

As far as the effect of carbon dioxide on the temperature of the
earth I refer to the book "Colonial Survey" by Murray Leinster.
One of the stories in the book concerns a planet in a solar
system where their sun is unexpectedly cooling. This means
that the planet is also cooling. But the really big problem
is that it will get cold enough to freeze the carbon dioxide
out of the air. At that point the temperature will drop to
an unihabitable level very quickly, because there won't be any
thing to keep the heat from radiating directly into empty
space. The copyright on the book is 1957. It is amazing that
a science fiction author knew about the importance of carbon
dioxide in keeping a planet warm. He was looking at the other
end, but he did know that the carbon dioxide level was what
maintained the temperature level. If too little carbon dioxide
causes a catastrophic freeze, wouldn't too much cause a
catastrophic heat spell?

Bill
J. Clarke
2017-04-24 03:10:12 UTC
Permalink
Post by Bill Gill
Post by Lynn McGuire
Post by Bill Gill
Post by J. Clarke
And why all of a sudden are we supposed to believe them NOW?
Because the earth is warming, whereas in 1970 it wasn't really.
Bill
Yes, the Earth is gradually warming. It has been warming for thousands
of years. However, we, the human race, are not the major cause.
Lynn
You're right, it has been. However, in the last 150 years the
'gradual' warming has increased to a significant level. It is
'gradually' warming at a much faster rate than it did before the
industrial revolution.
What constitutes "a significant level"? The level that existed prior to
the industrial revolution was sufficient to bring about a sea level rise of
something like 120 meters.
Post by Bill Gill
As far as the effect of carbon dioxide on the temperature of the
earth I refer to the book "Colonial Survey" by Murray Leinster.
One of the stories in the book concerns a planet in a solar
system where their sun is unexpectedly cooling. This means
that the planet is also cooling. But the really big problem
is that it will get cold enough to freeze the carbon dioxide
out of the air. At that point the temperature will drop to
an unihabitable level very quickly, because there won't be any
thing to keep the heat from radiating directly into empty
space. The copyright on the book is 1957. It is amazing that
a science fiction author knew about the importance of carbon
dioxide in keeping a planet warm. He was looking at the other
end, but he did know that the carbon dioxide level was what
maintained the temperature level. If too little carbon dioxide
causes a catastrophic freeze, wouldn't too much cause a
catastrophic heat spell?
You are citing a science fiction novel as _evidence_?
Cryptoengineer
2017-04-24 03:53:48 UTC
Permalink
Post by J. Clarke
Post by Bill Gill
Post by Lynn McGuire
Post by Bill Gill
Post by J. Clarke
And why all of a sudden are we supposed to believe them NOW?
Because the earth is warming, whereas in 1970 it wasn't really.
Bill
Yes, the Earth is gradually warming. It has been warming for
thousands of years. However, we, the human race, are not the major
cause.
Lynn
You're right, it has been. However, in the last 150 years the
'gradual' warming has increased to a significant level. It is
'gradually' warming at a much faster rate than it did before the
industrial revolution.
What constitutes "a significant level"? The level that existed prior
to the industrial revolution was sufficient to bring about a sea level
rise of something like 120 meters.
Post by Bill Gill
As far as the effect of carbon dioxide on the temperature of the
earth I refer to the book "Colonial Survey" by Murray Leinster.
One of the stories in the book concerns a planet in a solar
system where their sun is unexpectedly cooling. This means
that the planet is also cooling. But the really big problem
is that it will get cold enough to freeze the carbon dioxide
out of the air. At that point the temperature will drop to
an unihabitable level very quickly, because there won't be any
thing to keep the heat from radiating directly into empty
space. The copyright on the book is 1957. It is amazing that
a science fiction author knew about the importance of carbon
dioxide in keeping a planet warm. He was looking at the other
end, but he did know that the carbon dioxide level was what
maintained the temperature level. If too little carbon dioxide
causes a catastrophic freeze, wouldn't too much cause a
catastrophic heat spell?
You are citing a science fiction novel as _evidence_?
He can correctly cite it as evidence that people in 1957 knew that
CO2 levels could effect global temperature.

pt
J. Clarke
2017-04-24 10:29:57 UTC
Permalink
Post by Cryptoengineer
Post by J. Clarke
Post by Bill Gill
Post by Lynn McGuire
Post by Bill Gill
Post by J. Clarke
And why all of a sudden are we supposed to believe them NOW?
Because the earth is warming, whereas in 1970 it wasn't really.
Bill
Yes, the Earth is gradually warming. It has been warming for
thousands of years. However, we, the human race, are not the major
cause.
Lynn
You're right, it has been. However, in the last 150 years the
'gradual' warming has increased to a significant level. It is
'gradually' warming at a much faster rate than it did before the
industrial revolution.
What constitutes "a significant level"? The level that existed prior
to the industrial revolution was sufficient to bring about a sea level
rise of something like 120 meters.
Post by Bill Gill
As far as the effect of carbon dioxide on the temperature of the
earth I refer to the book "Colonial Survey" by Murray Leinster.
One of the stories in the book concerns a planet in a solar
system where their sun is unexpectedly cooling. This means
that the planet is also cooling. But the really big problem
is that it will get cold enough to freeze the carbon dioxide
out of the air. At that point the temperature will drop to
an unihabitable level very quickly, because there won't be any
thing to keep the heat from radiating directly into empty
space. The copyright on the book is 1957. It is amazing that
a science fiction author knew about the importance of carbon
dioxide in keeping a planet warm. He was looking at the other
end, but he did know that the carbon dioxide level was what
maintained the temperature level. If too little carbon dioxide
causes a catastrophic freeze, wouldn't too much cause a
catastrophic heat spell?
You are citing a science fiction novel as _evidence_?
He can correctly cite it as evidence that people in 1957 knew that
CO2 levels could effect global temperature.
No, he can correctly cite it as evidence that a science fiction writer put
this in a story. Whether it was "known" in any sense other than "somebody
speculated and the writer did a 'what if'" is another story entirely.
Peter Trei
2017-04-24 13:20:11 UTC
Permalink
Post by J. Clarke
Post by Cryptoengineer
Post by J. Clarke
Post by Bill Gill
Post by Lynn McGuire
Post by Bill Gill
Post by J. Clarke
And why all of a sudden are we supposed to believe them NOW?
Because the earth is warming, whereas in 1970 it wasn't really.
Bill
Yes, the Earth is gradually warming. It has been warming for
thousands of years. However, we, the human race, are not the major
cause.
Lynn
You're right, it has been. However, in the last 150 years the
'gradual' warming has increased to a significant level. It is
'gradually' warming at a much faster rate than it did before the
industrial revolution.
What constitutes "a significant level"? The level that existed prior
to the industrial revolution was sufficient to bring about a sea level
rise of something like 120 meters.
Post by Bill Gill
As far as the effect of carbon dioxide on the temperature of the
earth I refer to the book "Colonial Survey" by Murray Leinster.
One of the stories in the book concerns a planet in a solar
system where their sun is unexpectedly cooling. This means
that the planet is also cooling. But the really big problem
is that it will get cold enough to freeze the carbon dioxide
out of the air. At that point the temperature will drop to
an unihabitable level very quickly, because there won't be any
thing to keep the heat from radiating directly into empty
space. The copyright on the book is 1957. It is amazing that
a science fiction author knew about the importance of carbon
dioxide in keeping a planet warm. He was looking at the other
end, but he did know that the carbon dioxide level was what
maintained the temperature level. If too little carbon dioxide
causes a catastrophic freeze, wouldn't too much cause a
catastrophic heat spell?
You are citing a science fiction novel as _evidence_?
He can correctly cite it as evidence that people in 1957 knew that
CO2 levels could effect global temperature.
No, he can correctly cite it as evidence that a science fiction writer put
this in a story. Whether it was "known" in any sense other than "somebody
speculated and the writer did a 'what if'" is another story entirely.
Of course, you didn't bother to check if you're wrong - you knew you might not
like the answer.

http://history.aip.org/climate/timeline.htm

John Tyndall discovered in 1859 that C02 and water vapor absorb IR, while O2
and N2 do not. He suggested that C02 levels might be linked to climate change.

In the 1890s Arrhenius published the first numeric estimates of the effect.

In 1938, G.S. Callendar was the first to note that atmospheric C02 was rising,
and linked that to climate changes which were already apparent.

So the idea was very much in the air.

pt
J. Clarke
2017-04-24 23:23:30 UTC
Permalink
Post by Peter Trei
Post by J. Clarke
Post by Cryptoengineer
Post by J. Clarke
Post by Bill Gill
Post by Lynn McGuire
Post by Bill Gill
Post by J. Clarke
And why all of a sudden are we supposed to believe them NOW?
Because the earth is warming, whereas in 1970 it wasn't really.
Bill
Yes, the Earth is gradually warming. It has been warming for
thousands of years. However, we, the human race, are not the major
cause.
Lynn
You're right, it has been. However, in the last 150 years the
'gradual' warming has increased to a significant level. It is
'gradually' warming at a much faster rate than it did before the
industrial revolution.
What constitutes "a significant level"? The level that existed prior
to the industrial revolution was sufficient to bring about a sea level
rise of something like 120 meters.
Post by Bill Gill
As far as the effect of carbon dioxide on the temperature of the
earth I refer to the book "Colonial Survey" by Murray Leinster.
One of the stories in the book concerns a planet in a solar
system where their sun is unexpectedly cooling. This means
that the planet is also cooling. But the really big problem
is that it will get cold enough to freeze the carbon dioxide
out of the air. At that point the temperature will drop to
an unihabitable level very quickly, because there won't be any
thing to keep the heat from radiating directly into empty
space. The copyright on the book is 1957. It is amazing that
a science fiction author knew about the importance of carbon
dioxide in keeping a planet warm. He was looking at the other
end, but he did know that the carbon dioxide level was what
maintained the temperature level. If too little carbon dioxide
causes a catastrophic freeze, wouldn't too much cause a
catastrophic heat spell?
You are citing a science fiction novel as _evidence_?
He can correctly cite it as evidence that people in 1957 knew that
CO2 levels could effect global temperature.
No, he can correctly cite it as evidence that a science fiction writer put
this in a story. Whether it was "known" in any sense other than "somebody
speculated and the writer did a 'what if'" is another story entirely.
Of course, you didn't bother to check if you're wrong - you knew you might not
like the answer.
Wrong about what? I said that the contents of a story are evidence only
that the author put something in a story. That is a statement about
stories, not about CO2. Now, you can go on citing stuff that is irrelevant
to that point if you want to or you can whine about how I trimmed all your
irrelevancies or you can try actually addressing the point.
Lynn McGuire
2017-04-24 03:52:35 UTC
Permalink
Post by Bill Gill
Post by Lynn McGuire
Post by Bill Gill
Post by J. Clarke
And why all of a sudden are we supposed to believe them NOW?
Because the earth is warming, whereas in 1970 it wasn't really.
Bill
Yes, the Earth is gradually warming. It has been warming for thousands
of years. However, we, the human race, are not the major cause.
Lynn
You're right, it has been. However, in the last 150 years the
'gradual' warming has increased to a significant level. It is
'gradually' warming at a much faster rate than it did before the
industrial revolution.
As far as the effect of carbon dioxide on the temperature of the
earth I refer to the book "Colonial Survey" by Murray Leinster.
One of the stories in the book concerns a planet in a solar
system where their sun is unexpectedly cooling. This means
that the planet is also cooling. But the really big problem
is that it will get cold enough to freeze the carbon dioxide
out of the air. At that point the temperature will drop to
an unihabitable level very quickly, because there won't be any
thing to keep the heat from radiating directly into empty
space. The copyright on the book is 1957. It is amazing that
a science fiction author knew about the importance of carbon
dioxide in keeping a planet warm. He was looking at the other
end, but he did know that the carbon dioxide level was what
maintained the temperature level. If too little carbon dioxide
causes a catastrophic freeze, wouldn't too much cause a
catastrophic heat spell?
Bill
Not necessarily. First, I believe that we are not competent yet to
build an acceptable energy and mass balance around the Earth. An
acceptable model should be able to run backwards over the planet's
historical weather patterns for the last several hundred years with an
absolute tolerance of 0.1% or less. Heck, I would be impressed even
with an absolute tolerance of 1.0%.

Second, I am concerned that we do not understand the thermodynamics of
increasing CO2 upon the Earth's energy absorption. Many thermodynamic
relationships have saturation limits yet the AGW people are proposing an
ever increasing amount of energy absorption by the CO2, methane, and
water vapor in the atmosphere.

Lynn
h***@gmail.com
2017-04-24 03:58:10 UTC
Permalink
Post by Lynn McGuire
Not necessarily. First, I believe that we are not competent yet to
build an acceptable energy and mass balance around the Earth.
So until we have perfect knowledge we should assume that nothing's wrong...

Also note that Lynn does not state that global warming is not proven but that it's wrong, proven incorrect and fraudulent.
Post by Lynn McGuire
An
acceptable model should be able to run backwards over the planet's
historical weather patterns for the last several hundred years with an
absolute tolerance of 0.1% or less. Heck, I would be impressed even
with an absolute tolerance of 1.0%.
Nobody is every going to be able to predict weather patterns with a 1% accuracy, the volatility is too high.
However the general trend can be modeled pretty well and we seem to be finding more things that speed the process up than that slow it down...
Post by Lynn McGuire
Second, I am concerned that we do not understand the thermodynamics of
increasing CO2 upon the Earth's energy absorption.
Clearly no scientists have ever considered this and examined it...
Post by Lynn McGuire
Many thermodynamic
relationships have saturation limits yet the AGW people are proposing an
ever increasing amount of energy absorption by the CO2, methane, and
water vapor in the atmosphere.
check Venus...
J. Clarke
2017-04-24 10:28:07 UTC
Permalink
Post by Lynn McGuire
Post by Bill Gill
Post by Lynn McGuire
Post by Bill Gill
Post by J. Clarke
And why all of a sudden are we supposed to believe them NOW?
Because the earth is warming, whereas in 1970 it wasn't really.
Bill
Yes, the Earth is gradually warming. It has been warming for thousands
of years. However, we, the human race, are not the major cause.
Lynn
You're right, it has been. However, in the last 150 years the
'gradual' warming has increased to a significant level. It is
'gradually' warming at a much faster rate than it did before the
industrial revolution.
As far as the effect of carbon dioxide on the temperature of the
earth I refer to the book "Colonial Survey" by Murray Leinster.
One of the stories in the book concerns a planet in a solar
system where their sun is unexpectedly cooling. This means
that the planet is also cooling. But the really big problem
is that it will get cold enough to freeze the carbon dioxide
out of the air. At that point the temperature will drop to
an unihabitable level very quickly, because there won't be any
thing to keep the heat from radiating directly into empty
space. The copyright on the book is 1957. It is amazing that
a science fiction author knew about the importance of carbon
dioxide in keeping a planet warm. He was looking at the other
end, but he did know that the carbon dioxide level was what
maintained the temperature level. If too little carbon dioxide
causes a catastrophic freeze, wouldn't too much cause a
catastrophic heat spell?
Bill
Not necessarily. First, I believe that we are not competent yet to
build an acceptable energy and mass balance around the Earth. An
acceptable model should be able to run backwards over the planet's
historical weather patterns for the last several hundred years with an
absolute tolerance of 0.1% or less. Heck, I would be impressed even
with an absolute tolerance of 1.0%.
Second, I am concerned that we do not understand the thermodynamics of
increasing CO2 upon the Earth's energy absorption. Many thermodynamic
relationships have saturation limits yet the AGW people are proposing an
ever increasing amount of energy absorption by the CO2, methane, and
water vapor in the atmosphere.
Third, we really don't understand the biological effects--"mass extinctions
and we're all gonna die" is not "understanding".

Fourth, we don't understand the ice age trigger mechanism. Clearly there
is one--clearly Something Happens at a certain point and a warming trend
turns into a cooling trend with a fairly regular pattern. And clearly at
the other end when the temperature has cooled to a certain point Something
Else Happens and turns it back to a warming trend, but we don't know
_what_. We do know that we are near the point where the trigger should be
going off and any climate model that doesn't show that trigger being pulled
in at least some scenarios is far too simplified to be trustworthy.
Greg Goss
2017-04-25 06:43:24 UTC
Permalink
Post by J. Clarke
Fourth, we don't understand the ice age trigger mechanism. Clearly there
is one--clearly Something Happens at a certain point and a warming trend
turns into a cooling trend with a fairly regular pattern. And clearly at
the other end when the temperature has cooled to a certain point Something
Else Happens and turns it back to a warming trend, but we don't know
_what_. We do know that we are near the point where the trigger should be
going off and any climate model that doesn't show that trigger being pulled
in at least some scenarios is far too simplified to be trustworthy.
As someone who grew up in a region where most of the electricity comes
from annual snowpack melt, it's clear that it takes a LOT of energy to
remove water from the oceans and pile it on top of a two-mile-high
snowbank. I've always wondered if a cooling trend can really build
the glaciers for an ice age, or if you just end up with cold deserts?
--
We are geeks. Resistance is voltage over current.
h***@gmail.com
2017-04-25 10:05:29 UTC
Permalink
Post by Greg Goss
Post by J. Clarke
Fourth, we don't understand the ice age trigger mechanism. Clearly there
is one--clearly Something Happens at a certain point and a warming trend
turns into a cooling trend with a fairly regular pattern. And clearly at
the other end when the temperature has cooled to a certain point Something
Else Happens and turns it back to a warming trend, but we don't know
_what_. We do know that we are near the point where the trigger should be
going off and any climate model that doesn't show that trigger being pulled
in at least some scenarios is far too simplified to be trustworthy.
As someone who grew up in a region where most of the electricity comes
from annual snowpack melt, it's clear that it takes a LOT of energy to
remove water from the oceans and pile it on top of a two-mile-high
snowbank. I've always wondered if a cooling trend can really build
the glaciers for an ice age, or if you just end up with cold deserts?
My understanding is that ice ages happen because ice and snow falls and it doesn't melt over summer.
So over time the snow and ice builds up and spreads.

I won't claim that I'm 100% sure of this being an accurate summary or that it's the current view of experts.
William Hyde
2017-04-25 19:41:43 UTC
Permalink
Post by h***@gmail.com
Post by Greg Goss
Post by J. Clarke
Fourth, we don't understand the ice age trigger mechanism. Clearly there
is one--clearly Something Happens at a certain point and a warming trend
turns into a cooling trend with a fairly regular pattern. And clearly at
the other end when the temperature has cooled to a certain point Something
Else Happens and turns it back to a warming trend, but we don't know
_what_. We do know that we are near the point where the trigger should be
going off and any climate model that doesn't show that trigger being pulled
in at least some scenarios is far too simplified to be trustworthy.
As someone who grew up in a region where most of the electricity comes
from annual snowpack melt, it's clear that it takes a LOT of energy to
remove water from the oceans and pile it on top of a two-mile-high
snowbank. I've always wondered if a cooling trend can really build
the glaciers for an ice age, or if you just end up with cold deserts?
My understanding is that ice ages happen because ice and snow falls and it doesn't melt over summer.
So over time the snow and ice builds up and spreads.
That is the Koppen-Wegener hypothesis, almost a century old now, but it seems to be pretty much correct.

Prior to that time many thought that colder than average winters were the key, but that does not match the data (or make much sense, actually)
Post by h***@gmail.com
I won't claim that I'm 100% sure of this being an accurate summary or that it's the current view of experts.
There are refinements, as you would expect. But ice age initiation does occur when the orbital situation produces cooler summers and warmer winters. The dynamics of the ice sheet itself can modify this somewhat when it comes to deglaciation.

William Hyde
J. Clarke
2017-04-25 11:10:45 UTC
Permalink
Post by Greg Goss
Post by J. Clarke
Fourth, we don't understand the ice age trigger mechanism. Clearly there
is one--clearly Something Happens at a certain point and a warming trend
turns into a cooling trend with a fairly regular pattern. And clearly at
the other end when the temperature has cooled to a certain point Something
Else Happens and turns it back to a warming trend, but we don't know
_what_. We do know that we are near the point where the trigger should be
going off and any climate model that doesn't show that trigger being pulled
in at least some scenarios is far too simplified to be trustworthy.
As someone who grew up in a region where most of the electricity comes
from annual snowpack melt, it's clear that it takes a LOT of energy to
remove water from the oceans and pile it on top of a two-mile-high
snowbank. I've always wondered if a cooling trend can really build
the glaciers for an ice age, or if you just end up with cold deserts?
Now you're getting into the right mindset.
William Hyde
2017-04-25 19:36:31 UTC
Permalink
Post by Greg Goss
Post by J. Clarke
Fourth, we don't understand the ice age trigger mechanism. Clearly there
is one--clearly Something Happens at a certain point and a warming trend
turns into a cooling trend with a fairly regular pattern. And clearly at
the other end when the temperature has cooled to a certain point Something
Else Happens and turns it back to a warming trend, but we don't know
_what_. We do know that we are near the point where the trigger should be
going off and any climate model that doesn't show that trigger being pulled
in at least some scenarios is far too simplified to be trustworthy.
As someone who grew up in a region where most of the electricity comes
from annual snowpack melt, it's clear that it takes a LOT of energy to
remove water from the oceans and pile it on top of a two-mile-high
snowbank. I've always wondered if a cooling trend can really build
the glaciers for an ice age, or if you just end up with cold deserts?
You are correct that it does take a lot of energy. But it doesn't take a lot of power. Even deglaciation, far more rapid than glaciation, involves a change in the energy balance of less that one watt per square meter. Ice sheets build up over a much longer period, so the power requirement is less.

But yes, .1 W/M2 over a few million square kilometers for a hundred thousand years is indeed a lot of energy.

As an exercise: look up the amount of water in the atmosphere and its residence time. How much energy is required to evaporate that much water? How much to raise it to, say 5km?

William Hyde
William Hyde
2017-04-24 19:52:54 UTC
Permalink
Post by Lynn McGuire
Post by Bill Gill
Post by Lynn McGuire
Post by Bill Gill
Post by J. Clarke
And why all of a sudden are we supposed to believe them NOW?
Because the earth is warming, whereas in 1970 it wasn't really.
Bill
Yes, the Earth is gradually warming. It has been warming for thousands
of years. However, we, the human race, are not the major cause.
Lynn
You're right, it has been. However, in the last 150 years the
'gradual' warming has increased to a significant level. It is
'gradually' warming at a much faster rate than it did before the
industrial revolution.
As far as the effect of carbon dioxide on the temperature of the
earth I refer to the book "Colonial Survey" by Murray Leinster.
One of the stories in the book concerns a planet in a solar
system where their sun is unexpectedly cooling. This means
that the planet is also cooling. But the really big problem
is that it will get cold enough to freeze the carbon dioxide
out of the air. At that point the temperature will drop to
an unihabitable level very quickly, because there won't be any
thing to keep the heat from radiating directly into empty
space. The copyright on the book is 1957. It is amazing that
a science fiction author knew about the importance of carbon
dioxide in keeping a planet warm. He was looking at the other
end, but he did know that the carbon dioxide level was what
maintained the temperature level. If too little carbon dioxide
causes a catastrophic freeze, wouldn't too much cause a
catastrophic heat spell?
Bill
Not necessarily. First, I believe that we are not competent yet to
build an acceptable energy and mass balance around the Earth. An
acceptable model should be able to run backwards over the planet's
historical weather patterns for the last several hundred years with an
absolute tolerance of 0.1% or less. Heck, I would be impressed even
with an absolute tolerance of 1.0%.
Chaos theory tells us that can never happen. For that matter we don't have the data to evaluate any such hindcast to one percent. Or ten.

Fortunately climate is not meteorology.

Climate models have been used to simulate the past, producing decent reproductions of the last ice age, Holocene and Eemian warm periods, and so on.
Post by Lynn McGuire
Second, I am concerned that we do not understand the thermodynamics of
increasing CO2 upon the Earth's energy absorption. Many thermodynamic
relationships have saturation limits yet the AGW people are proposing
Here you make a fundamental error. We "propose" nothing. AGW is the consequence of the equations that govern our physical world, Newton's laws, QM, radiative transfer, and thermodynamics.

Put them together in a model and you will get the same results.

an
Post by Lynn McGuire
ever increasing amount of energy absorption by the CO2, methane, and
water vapor in the atmosphere.
Because it is both experimentally and theoretically valid. In fact, if this were suddenly not to be true the sun would go out.

This is a variation of the old "saturation" argument, one of two fallacies that prevented further investigation of AGW after Arhennius.

The idea being that if a photon from the surface is never going to get to space without being absorbed anyway, further addition of greenhouse gases is irrelevant.

This is incorrect for two reasons. The trivial one is just that we have not reached saturation over the entire spectrum. There are many points in the spectrum at which absorption is low. With increasing density of GHGs (including the extra H2O in a warmer atmosphere) the Vogt profile of absorption bands widens, and these gaps shrink.

More significant is the fact that saturation is not the relevant parameter here. Molecules that absorb and emit a photon of the same wavelength do not contribute to warming. Warming occurs when a molecule in an excited state collides with another molecule and loses this extra energy in the form of kinetic energy. This is called collisional de-excitation.

In short, if the photon escapes to space, no matter how many times it is absorbed and re-emitted, no warming. But if it is absorbed by a molecule which in a collision passes that energy on in the form of kinetic energy, warming. So if the atmosphere is barely saturated, and a photon is absorbed only, say, twice before escaping to space, there are only two chances for it to be lost as heat. If it is absorbed a hundred times, clearly it is far more likely to warm us.

Saturation is not a limiting factor. That's just physics.

The key variable is the mean free path of the photon, which shortens as the concentration of absorbers increases. Astronomers have known this for decades - it isn't controversial at all.

The temperature of the core of the sun depends on the mean free path of the photons generated there. if we were to thin the sun's atmosphere until it was "only" saturated, the mfp of a solar photon would be in the tens of thousands of miles, the core would freeze, and fusion stop. Mind you, the initial outpouring of energy as the solar atmosphere cooled would be very supernova-like.

We know this subject quite well enough for these purposes.

William Hyde
J. Clarke
2017-04-24 23:40:11 UTC
Permalink
Post by William Hyde
Post by Lynn McGuire
Post by Bill Gill
Post by Lynn McGuire
Post by Bill Gill
Post by J. Clarke
And why all of a sudden are we supposed to believe them NOW?
Because the earth is warming, whereas in 1970 it wasn't really.
Bill
Yes, the Earth is gradually warming. It has been warming for thousands
of years. However, we, the human race, are not the major cause.
Lynn
You're right, it has been. However, in the last 150 years the
'gradual' warming has increased to a significant level. It is
'gradually' warming at a much faster rate than it did before the
industrial revolution.
As far as the effect of carbon dioxide on the temperature of the
earth I refer to the book "Colonial Survey" by Murray Leinster.
One of the stories in the book concerns a planet in a solar
system where their sun is unexpectedly cooling. This means
that the planet is also cooling. But the really big problem
is that it will get cold enough to freeze the carbon dioxide
out of the air. At that point the temperature will drop to
an unihabitable level very quickly, because there won't be any
thing to keep the heat from radiating directly into empty
space. The copyright on the book is 1957. It is amazing that
a science fiction author knew about the importance of carbon
dioxide in keeping a planet warm. He was looking at the other
end, but he did know that the carbon dioxide level was what
maintained the temperature level. If too little carbon dioxide
causes a catastrophic freeze, wouldn't too much cause a
catastrophic heat spell?
Bill
Not necessarily. First, I believe that we are not competent yet to
build an acceptable energy and mass balance around the Earth. An
acceptable model should be able to run backwards over the planet's
historical weather patterns for the last several hundred years with an
absolute tolerance of 0.1% or less. Heck, I would be impressed even
with an absolute tolerance of 1.0%.
Chaos theory tells us that can never happen.
It does? Sorry, but chaos theory is not "the theory that due to 'chaos'
somethings are forever incalculable", it is the search for methods of
making such calculations.
Post by William Hyde
For that matter we don't have the data to evaluate any such hindcast to
one percent. Or ten.
And yet we are supposed to believe the calculations.
Post by William Hyde
Fortunately climate is not meteorology.
Climate models have been used to simulate the past, producing decent reproductions of the last ice age, Holocene and Eemian warm periods, and so on.
They have? Which climate models, when, where, by who, published where?
I've been looking for a simulation that show the ice age trigger and have
never seen one. Do you have a cite for such?
Post by William Hyde
Post by Lynn McGuire
Second, I am concerned that we do not understand the thermodynamics of
increasing CO2 upon the Earth's energy absorption. Many thermodynamic
relationships have saturation limits yet the AGW people are proposing
Here you make a fundamental error. We "propose" nothing. AGW is the consequence of the equations that govern our physical world, Newton's laws, QM, radiative transfer, and thermodynamics.
Nothing there about chemistry or biology. Sounds like a grossly
oversimplified model to me.
Post by William Hyde
Put them together in a model and you will get the same results.
Right, sure you will. With the number of variables in a typical climate
model by fiddling with the estimated assumptions you can make it say just
about anything.
Post by William Hyde
an
Post by Lynn McGuire
ever increasing amount of energy absorption by the CO2, methane, and
water vapor in the atmosphere.
Because it is both experimentally and theoretically valid. In fact, if this were suddenly not to be true the sun would go out.
Huh? The sun uses fusion, not energy absorption by CO2. What experiment
demonstrates that your calculation works on a planetary scale?
Post by William Hyde
This is a variation of the old "saturation" argument, one of two fallacies that prevented further investigation of AGW after Arhennius.
The idea being that if a photon from the surface is never going to get to space without being absorbed anyway, further addition of greenhouse gases is irrelevant.
This is incorrect for two reasons. The trivial one is just that we have not reached saturation over the entire spectrum. There are many points in the spectrum at which absorption is low. With increasing density of GHGs (including the extra H2O in a warmer atmosphere) the Vogt profile of absorption bands widens, and these gaps shrink.
More significant is the fact that saturation is not the relevant parameter here. Molecules that absorb and emit a photon of the same wavelength do not contribute to warming. Warming occurs when a molecule in an excited state collides with another molecule and loses this extra energy in the form of kinetic energy. This is called collisional de-excitation.
In short, if the photon escapes to space, no matter how many times it is absorbed and re-emitted, no warming. But if it is absorbed by a molecule which in a collision passes that energy on in the form of kinetic energy, warming. So if the atmosphere is barely saturated, and a photon is absorbed only, say, twice before escaping to space, there are only two chances for it to be lost as heat. If it is absorbed a hundred times, clearly it is far more likely to warm us.
Saturation is not a limiting factor. That's just physics.
The key variable is the mean free path of the photon, which shortens as the concentration of absorbers increases. Astronomers have known this for decades - it isn't controversial at all.
The temperature of the core of the sun depends on the mean free path of the photons generated there. if we were to thin the sun's atmosphere until it was "only" saturated, the mfp of a solar photon would be in the tens of thousands of miles, the core would freeze, and fusion stop. Mind you, the initial outpouring of energy as the solar atmosphere cooled would be very supernova-like.
We know this subject quite well enough for these purposes.
Yep, grossly oversimplified. Youre NOT selling your story.
Lynn McGuire
2017-04-25 00:24:21 UTC
Permalink
Post by William Hyde
Post by Lynn McGuire
Post by Bill Gill
Post by Lynn McGuire
Post by Bill Gill
Post by J. Clarke
And why all of a sudden are we supposed to believe them NOW?
Because the earth is warming, whereas in 1970 it wasn't really.
Bill
Yes, the Earth is gradually warming. It has been warming for thousands
of years. However, we, the human race, are not the major cause.
Lynn
You're right, it has been. However, in the last 150 years the
'gradual' warming has increased to a significant level. It is
'gradually' warming at a much faster rate than it did before the
industrial revolution.
As far as the effect of carbon dioxide on the temperature of the
earth I refer to the book "Colonial Survey" by Murray Leinster.
One of the stories in the book concerns a planet in a solar
system where their sun is unexpectedly cooling. This means
that the planet is also cooling. But the really big problem
is that it will get cold enough to freeze the carbon dioxide
out of the air. At that point the temperature will drop to
an unihabitable level very quickly, because there won't be any
thing to keep the heat from radiating directly into empty
space. The copyright on the book is 1957. It is amazing that
a science fiction author knew about the importance of carbon
dioxide in keeping a planet warm. He was looking at the other
end, but he did know that the carbon dioxide level was what
maintained the temperature level. If too little carbon dioxide
causes a catastrophic freeze, wouldn't too much cause a
catastrophic heat spell?
Bill
Not necessarily. First, I believe that we are not competent yet to
build an acceptable energy and mass balance around the Earth. An
acceptable model should be able to run backwards over the planet's
historical weather patterns for the last several hundred years with an
absolute tolerance of 0.1% or less. Heck, I would be impressed even
with an absolute tolerance of 1.0%.
Chaos theory tells us that can never happen. For that matter we don't have the data to evaluate any such hindcast to one percent. Or ten.
Fortunately climate is not meteorology.
Climate models have been used to simulate the past, producing decent reproductions of the last ice age, Holocene and Eemian warm periods, and so on.
Post by Lynn McGuire
Second, I am concerned that we do not understand the thermodynamics of
increasing CO2 upon the Earth's energy absorption. Many thermodynamic
relationships have saturation limits yet the AGW people are proposing
Here you make a fundamental error. We "propose" nothing. AGW is the consequence of the equations that govern our physical world, Newton's laws, QM, radiative transfer, and thermodynamics.
Put them together in a model and you will get the same results.
an
Post by Lynn McGuire
ever increasing amount of energy absorption by the CO2, methane, and
water vapor in the atmosphere.
Because it is both experimentally and theoretically valid. In fact, if this were suddenly not to be true the sun would go out.
This is a variation of the old "saturation" argument, one of two fallacies that prevented further investigation of AGW after Arhennius.
The idea being that if a photon from the surface is never going to get to space without being absorbed anyway, further addition of greenhouse gases is irrelevant.
This is incorrect for two reasons. The trivial one is just that we have not reached saturation over the entire spectrum. There are many points in the spectrum at which absorption is low. With increasing density of GHGs (including the extra H2O in a warmer atmosphere) the Vogt profile of absorption bands widens, and these gaps shrink.
More significant is the fact that saturation is not the relevant parameter here. Molecules that absorb and emit a photon of the same wavelength do not contribute to warming. Warming occurs when a molecule in an excited state collides with another molecule and loses this extra energy in the form of kinetic energy. This is called collisional de-excitation.
In short, if the photon escapes to space, no matter how many times it is absorbed and re-emitted, no warming. But if it is absorbed by a molecule which in a collision passes that energy on in the form of kinetic energy, warming. So if the atmosphere is barely saturated, and a photon is absorbed only, say, twice before escaping to space, there are only two chances for it to be lost as heat. If it is absorbed a hundred times, clearly it is far more likely to warm us.
Saturation is not a limiting factor. That's just physics.
The key variable is the mean free path of the photon, which shortens as the concentration of absorbers increases. Astronomers have known this for decades - it isn't controversial at all.
The temperature of the core of the sun depends on the mean free path of the photons generated there. if we were to thin the sun's atmosphere until it was "only" saturated, the mfp of a solar photon would be in the tens of thousands of miles, the core would freeze, and fusion stop. Mind you, the initial outpouring of energy as the solar atmosphere cooled would be very supernova-like.
We know this subject quite well enough for these purposes.
William Hyde
Are you really equating high temperature plasma thermodynamics with
Earth atmospheric thermodynamics ? Please, pull the other leg.

Lynn
Lynn McGuire
2017-04-25 00:27:17 UTC
Permalink
Post by William Hyde
Post by Lynn McGuire
Post by Bill Gill
Post by Lynn McGuire
Post by Bill Gill
Post by J. Clarke
And why all of a sudden are we supposed to believe them NOW?
Because the earth is warming, whereas in 1970 it wasn't really.
Bill
Yes, the Earth is gradually warming. It has been warming for thousands
of years. However, we, the human race, are not the major cause.
Lynn
You're right, it has been. However, in the last 150 years the
'gradual' warming has increased to a significant level. It is
'gradually' warming at a much faster rate than it did before the
industrial revolution.
As far as the effect of carbon dioxide on the temperature of the
earth I refer to the book "Colonial Survey" by Murray Leinster.
One of the stories in the book concerns a planet in a solar
system where their sun is unexpectedly cooling. This means
that the planet is also cooling. But the really big problem
is that it will get cold enough to freeze the carbon dioxide
out of the air. At that point the temperature will drop to
an unihabitable level very quickly, because there won't be any
thing to keep the heat from radiating directly into empty
space. The copyright on the book is 1957. It is amazing that
a science fiction author knew about the importance of carbon
dioxide in keeping a planet warm. He was looking at the other
end, but he did know that the carbon dioxide level was what
maintained the temperature level. If too little carbon dioxide
causes a catastrophic freeze, wouldn't too much cause a
catastrophic heat spell?
Bill
Not necessarily. First, I believe that we are not competent yet to
build an acceptable energy and mass balance around the Earth. An
acceptable model should be able to run backwards over the planet's
historical weather patterns for the last several hundred years with an
absolute tolerance of 0.1% or less. Heck, I would be impressed even
with an absolute tolerance of 1.0%.
Chaos theory tells us that can never happen. For that matter we don't have the data to evaluate any such hindcast to one percent. Or ten.
Fortunately climate is not meteorology.
Climate models have been used to simulate the past, producing decent reproductions of the last ice age, Holocene and Eemian warm periods, and so on.
Post by Lynn McGuire
Second, I am concerned that we do not understand the thermodynamics of
increasing CO2 upon the Earth's energy absorption. Many thermodynamic
relationships have saturation limits yet the AGW people are proposing
Here you make a fundamental error. We "propose" nothing. AGW is the consequence of the equations that govern our physical world, Newton's laws, QM, radiative transfer, and thermodynamics.
Put them together in a model and you will get the same results.
an
Post by Lynn McGuire
ever increasing amount of energy absorption by the CO2, methane, and
water vapor in the atmosphere.
Because it is both experimentally and theoretically valid. In fact, if this were suddenly not to be true the sun would go out.
This is a variation of the old "saturation" argument, one of two fallacies that prevented further investigation of AGW after Arhennius.
The idea being that if a photon from the surface is never going to get to space without being absorbed anyway, further addition of greenhouse gases is irrelevant.
This is incorrect for two reasons. The trivial one is just that we have not reached saturation over the entire spectrum. There are many points in the spectrum at which absorption is low. With increasing density of GHGs (including the extra H2O in a warmer atmosphere) the Vogt profile of absorption bands widens, and these gaps shrink.
More significant is the fact that saturation is not the relevant parameter here. Molecules that absorb and emit a photon of the same wavelength do not contribute to warming. Warming occurs when a molecule in an excited state collides with another molecule and loses this extra energy in the form of kinetic energy. This is called collisional de-excitation.
In short, if the photon escapes to space, no matter how many times it is absorbed and re-emitted, no warming. But if it is absorbed by a molecule which in a collision passes that energy on in the form of kinetic energy, warming. So if the atmosphere is barely saturated, and a photon is absorbed only, say, twice before escaping to space, there are only two chances for it to be lost as heat. If it is absorbed a hundred times, clearly it is far more likely to warm us.
Saturation is not a limiting factor. That's just physics.
The key variable is the mean free path of the photon, which shortens as the concentration of absorbers increases. Astronomers have known this for decades - it isn't controversial at all.
The temperature of the core of the sun depends on the mean free path of the photons generated there. if we were to thin the sun's atmosphere until it was "only" saturated, the mfp of a solar photon would be in the tens of thousands of miles, the core would freeze, and fusion stop. Mind you, the initial outpouring of energy as the solar atmosphere cooled would be very supernova-like.
We know this subject quite well enough for these purposes.
William Hyde
If you cannot run your climate model backwards and match reality then it
is not a model, it is a conjecture.

Lynn
James Nicoll
2017-04-23 13:57:16 UTC
Permalink
Post by William Hyde
Post by William Hyde
Post by Lynn McGuire
"13 Most Ridiculous Predictions Made on Earth Day, 1970"
https://ricochet.com/424431/13-ridiculous-predictions-made-earth-day-1970/
"13. ?The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If
present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for
the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the
year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice
age.? ? Kenneth Watt"
He was a zoologist. Physicists and engineers say stupid things about
biology all the time. Does it then follow that biologists are wrong?
Post by William Hyde
And even he said "if".
Post by Lynn McGuire
And they wonder why people like me don't buy the anthropogenic global
warming crap.
Yes, we do, and the above gives you no cover at all.
Actually it does.
You have to understand that the average member of the public doesn't try to
evaluate the qualifications of one scientist vs another. All they get is
"scientists claim". In the '60s and '70s it was scientists claiming that
it's getting colder. Now it's scientists claiming that it's getting
warmer. 40 years from now what are the scientists going to be claiming.
Now, your defense, I know, because I keep hearing this, is "well
climatologists didn't say that". So where were all these climatologists on
Earth Day 1970? Why weren't they addressing the wrong information that was
being disseminated? Where were they when Carl Sagan and company were
holding forth about "Nuclear Winter" in the '90s? And what makes the three
professors of atmospheric science who were working with Sagan not "climate
scientists" other than that they don't toe the "global warming" party line?
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/cooling-climate-%E2%80%98consensus%E2%80%99-1970s-never-was
--
My reviews can be found at http://jamesdavisnicoll.com/
My Livejournal at http://www.livejournal.com/users/james_nicoll
My patreon is at https://www.patreon.com/jamesdnicoll
J. Clarke
2017-04-23 14:34:24 UTC
Permalink
Post by James Nicoll
Post by William Hyde
Post by William Hyde
Post by Lynn McGuire
"13 Most Ridiculous Predictions Made on Earth Day, 1970"
https://ricochet.com/424431/13-ridiculous-predictions-made-earth-day-1970/
"13. ?The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If
present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for
the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the
year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice
age.? ? Kenneth Watt"
He was a zoologist. Physicists and engineers say stupid things about
biology all the time. Does it then follow that biologists are wrong?
Post by William Hyde
And even he said "if".
Post by Lynn McGuire
And they wonder why people like me don't buy the anthropogenic global
warming crap.
Yes, we do, and the above gives you no cover at all.
Actually it does.
You have to understand that the average member of the public doesn't try to
evaluate the qualifications of one scientist vs another. All they get is
"scientists claim". In the '60s and '70s it was scientists claiming that
it's getting colder. Now it's scientists claiming that it's getting
warmer. 40 years from now what are the scientists going to be claiming.
Now, your defense, I know, because I keep hearing this, is "well
climatologists didn't say that". So where were all these climatologists on
Earth Day 1970? Why weren't they addressing the wrong information that was
being disseminated? Where were they when Carl Sagan and company were
holding forth about "Nuclear Winter" in the '90s? And what makes the three
professors of atmospheric science who were working with Sagan not "climate
scientists" other than that they don't toe the "global warming" party line?
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/cooling-climate-%E2%80%98consensus%E2%80%99-1970s-never-was
What of it? Perhaps there was no consensus but NOBODY WAS GETTING THE
MESSAGE OUT. Where were they? What were they doing?

Marketing is a matter of perceptions, not facts. And the perception is
that the scientific community has flip-flopped on this. To fix that
perception you need to do better than "believe them because science".
j***@gmail.com
2017-04-24 18:38:32 UTC
Permalink
Post by J. Clarke
Post by James Nicoll
Post by William Hyde
Post by William Hyde
Post by Lynn McGuire
"13 Most Ridiculous Predictions Made on Earth Day, 1970"
https://ricochet.com/424431/13-ridiculous-predictions-made-earth-day-1970/
"13. ?The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If
present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for
the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the
year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice
age.? ? Kenneth Watt"
He was a zoologist. Physicists and engineers say stupid things about
biology all the time. Does it then follow that biologists are wrong?
Post by William Hyde
And even he said "if".
Post by Lynn McGuire
And they wonder why people like me don't buy the anthropogenic global
warming crap.
Yes, we do, and the above gives you no cover at all.
Actually it does.
You have to understand that the average member of the public doesn't try to
evaluate the qualifications of one scientist vs another. All they get is
"scientists claim". In the '60s and '70s it was scientists claiming that
it's getting colder. Now it's scientists claiming that it's getting
warmer. 40 years from now what are the scientists going to be claiming.
Now, your defense, I know, because I keep hearing this, is "well
climatologists didn't say that". So where were all these climatologists on
Earth Day 1970? Why weren't they addressing the wrong information that was
being disseminated? Where were they when Carl Sagan and company were
holding forth about "Nuclear Winter" in the '90s? And what makes the three
professors of atmospheric science who were working with Sagan not "climate
scientists" other than that they don't toe the "global warming" party line?
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/cooling-climate-%E2%80%98consensus%E2%80%99-1970s-never-was
What of it? Perhaps there was no consensus but NOBODY WAS GETTING THE
MESSAGE OUT. Where were they? What were they doing?
Marketing is a matter of perceptions, not facts. And the perception is
that the scientific community has flip-flopped on this. To fix that
perception you need to do better than "believe them because science".
The truth of what is scientifically valid isn't dramatic enough to be useful. It's not _nothing_, but it's not enough to justify a political agenda, either. It's vague, uncertain, hedged about with caveats, and also obscure. For ex, it's hard to convey the idea that:

'A world-wide warming effect could increase snowfall in some regions because a warmer atmosphere can carry more moisture and increase evaporation rates, but that increased snowfall might increase reflectivity and thus reduce the overall effect of the warming trend to some degree, but that in turn depends on the level of atmospheric particulates which form the nuclei of raindrops and snowflakes. The availability of the particulates in turn depends in part of the level of air pollution, and the type. Also, where the excess moisture ends up falling depends on wind patterns which depend on temperature gradients which are shaped by the amount of solar radiation trapped. Of course precipitation can take the form of snow, which increases reflectivity and tempers temperature increases, or rain, which can melt snow and ice and reduce it, and the difference is one degree and which effect predominates is sensitively dependent on where the temperature line falls and that can be sensitively dependent on 193 other factors."

Sum all that up in a slogan that can be said in 15 seconds and still mean something politically useful. I dare you. Of course all that's only a tiny fraction of what valid scientific analysis of the climate involves.

So they make stuff up. They point at every given weather-related event that seems dramatic and claim it's 'evidence'. Which is easy enough to refute.

Ten years is the magic number, I've noticed. The usual line from the activists is that we have 'about ten years' to do something or it's Too Late. That's because 10 years is long enough to seem like a reasonable envelope and short enough to feel threatening, so you can use it to fund raise.

Which is the point. Ultimately, the activists mostly don't care if AGW is scientifically valid or not, it's still _useful_. If global cooling was still useful, that's what the IPCC and the activists and the NGOs would be pushing.

Same reason polar bears make a better symbol of 'threatened nature' than an obscure (but genuinely threatened) breed of insect. It's all about agitprop.
Robert Woodward
2017-04-23 17:18:14 UTC
Permalink
<SNIP controversy over Man's effect on the climate - is this as bad of
flame bait as gun control has been?>
Post by James Nicoll
Post by J. Clarke
Now, your defense, I know, because I keep hearing this, is "well
climatologists didn't say that". So where were all these climatologists on
Earth Day 1970? Why weren't they addressing the wrong information that was
being disseminated? Where were they when Carl Sagan and company were
holding forth about "Nuclear Winter" in the '90s? And what makes the three
professors of atmospheric science who were working with Sagan not "climate
scientists" other than that they don't toe the "global warming" party line?
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/cooling-climate-%E2%80%98consensus%E2%80%9
9-1970s-never-was
James, that is for subscribers only. I am starting to wonder about you.

I have mentioned this before, but I distinctly remember the local PBS
station in the mid 70s broadcasting something on climate that discussed
the then recent 20+ years cooling trend (at least in North America and,
BTW, not sufficient to negate pre-WWII warming). There was even a brief
segment on CO2 concentration in the atmosphere (it had been going up
steadily for decades).

I also reading decades ago a speculation from what I thought at the time
was a reputable source (but quite possibly in devil's advocate mode)
that the industrial revolution stopped the glaciers from advancing over
the lowlands of Eurasia and North America.
--
"We have advanced to new and surprising levels of bafflement."
Imperial Auditor Miles Vorkosigan describes progress in _Komarr_.
‹-----------------------------------------------------
Robert Woodward ***@drizzle.com
Greg Goss
2017-04-23 18:12:31 UTC
Permalink
Post by Robert Woodward
I also reading decades ago a speculation from what I thought at the time
was a reputable source (but quite possibly in devil's advocate mode)
that the industrial revolution stopped the glaciers from advancing over
the lowlands of Eurasia and North America.
I read an article comparing the timing of our current interglacial
with previous ones in the current glaciation cycle. I think it was in
SciAm about a decade ago.

If I recall it correctly, we started departing from the expected curve
before the Brits started a coal-fired industrial revolution - he
blamed artificial rice paddies releasing swamp gas methane in the far
east. In his projections from previous cycles we should be seeing
lowland glaciation around Churchill MB by now.
--
We are geeks. Resistance is voltage over current.
William Hyde
2017-04-24 02:31:08 UTC
Permalink
Post by Greg Goss
Post by Robert Woodward
I also reading decades ago a speculation from what I thought at the time
was a reputable source (but quite possibly in devil's advocate mode)
that the industrial revolution stopped the glaciers from advancing over
the lowlands of Eurasia and North America.
I read an article comparing the timing of our current interglacial
with previous ones in the current glaciation cycle. I think it was in
SciAm about a decade ago.
If I recall it correctly, we started departing from the expected curve
before the Brits started a coal-fired industrial revolution - he
blamed artificial rice paddies releasing swamp gas methane in the far
east. In his projections from previous cycles we should be seeing
lowland glaciation around Churchill MB by now.
The idea is due to the distinguished geologist/geochemist William Ruddiman. It is still controversial, neither accepted nor rejected.

I attended one of his seminars, and he made a pretty good but not watertight case. There was another extended interglaical about 400,000 years ago, and we can be pretty sure Homo Erectus wasn't putting out much in the way of GHGs. It has a similar orbital configuration to the current one, and I've always suspected that to be the cause. But without better ice/climate models, I can't prove or disprove that.

Nor did he convince me that the GHG history of this interglacial, until recently, was that much of an outlier among the previous twenty or so. Data quality is an issue here - it may be that if we had real data, as opposed to proxies, his hypothesis would be very clear. Unfortunately, random errors in past reconstructions would tend to make this interglacial seem less unusual. Signal buried in noise.

It's a good idea - wish I'd thought of it. Check again in a few years to see its status.

William Hyde
Cryptoengineer
2017-04-24 00:38:18 UTC
Permalink
Post by Robert Woodward
<SNIP controversy over Man's effect on the climate - is this as bad of
flame bait as gun control has been?>
Post by James Nicoll
Post by J. Clarke
Now, your defense, I know, because I keep hearing this, is "well
climatologists didn't say that". So where were all these
climatologists on Earth Day 1970? Why weren't they addressing the
wrong information that was being disseminated? Where were they when
Carl Sagan and company were holding forth about "Nuclear Winter" in
the '90s? And what makes the three professors of atmospheric
science who were working with Sagan not "climate scientists" other
than that they don't toe the "global warming" party line?
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/cooling-climate-%E2%80%98consensus
%E2%80%9 9-1970s-never-was
James, that is for subscribers only. I am starting to wonder about you.
I have mentioned this before, but I distinctly remember the local PBS
station in the mid 70s broadcasting something on climate that
discussed the then recent 20+ years cooling trend (at least in North
America and, BTW, not sufficient to negate pre-WWII warming). There
was even a brief segment on CO2 concentration in the atmosphere (it
had been going up steadily for decades).
I also reading decades ago a speculation from what I thought at the
time was a reputable source (but quite possibly in devil's advocate
mode) that the industrial revolution stopped the glaciers from
advancing over the lowlands of Eurasia and North America.
I certainly recall that 'we're overdue for an ice age' was the dominant
position up through at least the mid-70s, even for people very engaged
with science, such as myself.

Of course, back then atmospheric C02 was much closer to the 280 ppm level
of the pre-industrial world. In 1980, it was up to 336. Now, its over 400
ppm, the highest for at least 800,000 years, and possibly for 20 million
years.

The facts on the ground changed, and anthropogenic global warming moved
from being a guess as what was holding up the predicted ice age, to a
slow catastrophe accepted by the overwhelming majority of experts in the
field. Its not suprising that 40 years ago, few climatologists were
sounding the alarm - the fire was only smoldering.

Thosw who are still "skeptics" appear, to a very large extent, to be
composed of people who's livelyhood and wealth are threatened by
the changes required to prevent the problems which we're already
seeing. They are strongly motivated to deny the scientific consensus.

pt
J. Clarke
2017-04-24 03:04:51 UTC
Permalink
Post by Cryptoengineer
Post by Robert Woodward
<SNIP controversy over Man's effect on the climate - is this as bad of
flame bait as gun control has been?>
Post by James Nicoll
Post by J. Clarke
Now, your defense, I know, because I keep hearing this, is "well
climatologists didn't say that". So where were all these
climatologists on Earth Day 1970? Why weren't they addressing the
wrong information that was being disseminated? Where were they when
Carl Sagan and company were holding forth about "Nuclear Winter" in
the '90s? And what makes the three professors of atmospheric
science who were working with Sagan not "climate scientists" other
than that they don't toe the "global warming" party line?
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/cooling-climate-%E2%80%98consensus
%E2%80%9 9-1970s-never-was
James, that is for subscribers only. I am starting to wonder about you.
I have mentioned this before, but I distinctly remember the local PBS
station in the mid 70s broadcasting something on climate that
discussed the then recent 20+ years cooling trend (at least in North
America and, BTW, not sufficient to negate pre-WWII warming). There
was even a brief segment on CO2 concentration in the atmosphere (it
had been going up steadily for decades).
I also reading decades ago a speculation from what I thought at the
time was a reputable source (but quite possibly in devil's advocate
mode) that the industrial revolution stopped the glaciers from
advancing over the lowlands of Eurasia and North America.
I certainly recall that 'we're overdue for an ice age' was the dominant
position up through at least the mid-70s, even for people very engaged
with science, such as myself.
Of course, back then atmospheric C02 was much closer to the 280 ppm level
of the pre-industrial world. In 1980, it was up to 336. Now, its over 400
ppm, the highest for at least 800,000 years, and possibly for 20 million
years.
The facts on the ground changed, and anthropogenic global warming moved
from being a guess as what was holding up the predicted ice age, to a
slow catastrophe accepted by the overwhelming majority of experts in the
field. Its not suprising that 40 years ago, few climatologists were
sounding the alarm - the fire was only smoldering.
Thosw who are still "skeptics" appear, to a very large extent, to be
composed of people who's livelyhood and wealth are threatened by
the changes required to prevent the problems which we're already
seeing. They are strongly motivated to deny the scientific consensus.
And by saying "deny the scientific consensus" you eliminate any possibility
of actual discussion.

Find the names and occupations of the participants in this "consensus" and
then compare them with "all scientists" and see how big a "consensus" it
really is.
Post by Cryptoengineer
pt
David Johnston
2017-04-24 05:07:11 UTC
Permalink
Post by J. Clarke
Post by Cryptoengineer
Post by Robert Woodward
<SNIP controversy over Man's effect on the climate - is this as bad of
flame bait as gun control has been?>
Post by James Nicoll
Post by J. Clarke
Now, your defense, I know, because I keep hearing this, is "well
climatologists didn't say that". So where were all these
climatologists on Earth Day 1970? Why weren't they addressing the
wrong information that was being disseminated? Where were they when
Carl Sagan and company were holding forth about "Nuclear Winter" in
the '90s? And what makes the three professors of atmospheric
science who were working with Sagan not "climate scientists" other
than that they don't toe the "global warming" party line?
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/cooling-climate-%E2%80%98consensus
%E2%80%9 9-1970s-never-was
James, that is for subscribers only. I am starting to wonder about you.
I have mentioned this before, but I distinctly remember the local PBS
station in the mid 70s broadcasting something on climate that
discussed the then recent 20+ years cooling trend (at least in North
America and, BTW, not sufficient to negate pre-WWII warming). There
was even a brief segment on CO2 concentration in the atmosphere (it
had been going up steadily for decades).
I also reading decades ago a speculation from what I thought at the
time was a reputable source (but quite possibly in devil's advocate
mode) that the industrial revolution stopped the glaciers from
advancing over the lowlands of Eurasia and North America.
I certainly recall that 'we're overdue for an ice age' was the dominant
position up through at least the mid-70s, even for people very engaged
with science, such as myself.
Of course, back then atmospheric C02 was much closer to the 280 ppm level
of the pre-industrial world. In 1980, it was up to 336. Now, its over 400
ppm, the highest for at least 800,000 years, and possibly for 20 million
years.
The facts on the ground changed, and anthropogenic global warming moved
from being a guess as what was holding up the predicted ice age, to a
slow catastrophe accepted by the overwhelming majority of experts in the
field. Its not suprising that 40 years ago, few climatologists were
sounding the alarm - the fire was only smoldering.
Thosw who are still "skeptics" appear, to a very large extent, to be
composed of people who's livelyhood and wealth are threatened by
the changes required to prevent the problems which we're already
seeing. They are strongly motivated to deny the scientific consensus.
And by saying "deny the scientific consensus" you eliminate any possibility
of actual discussion.
Find the names and occupations of the participants in this "consensus" and
then compare them with "all scientists" and see how big a "consensus" it
really is.
All scientists? Frankly I don't see the relevance of the organic
chemists.
j***@gmail.com
2017-04-24 18:47:19 UTC
Permalink
Post by Cryptoengineer
Thosw who are still "skeptics" appear, to a very large extent, to be
composed of people who's livelyhood and wealth are threatened by
the changes required to prevent the problems which we're already
seeing. They are strongly motivated to deny the scientific consensus.
pt
Whereas the supporters appear, to a very large extent, to be composed of people who stand to gain, politically, ideologically, or monetarily, by pushing changes to the supposed problems.

The UNO and the IPCC are just a motivated by money and power as Inhofe and the oil companies.

Also note that now that the energy companies have begun to sink investments into subsidized projects like wind farms, they're suddenly pretending to care about 'greenness', because of that and PR concerns.

It's all about money and power on both sides.
j***@gmail.com
2017-04-24 18:27:08 UTC
Permalink
On Sunday, April 23, 2017 at 8:57:18 AM UTC-5, James Nicoll wrote:
\
Post by James Nicoll
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/cooling-climate-%E2%80%98consensus%E2%80%99-1970s-never-was
That's the spin now, yes. It's bogus.

Keep in mind that science has _nothing to do_ with either the 'global cooling' scam of 30 years ago or the AGW scam now. Yeah, there's some evidence that a certain amount of climate change might reasonably be ascribed to human action, though how much and how important the effect is deeply uncertain, and certainly not an established (even to the degree that any scientific position can ever be established) with solidity.

But the fire and energy and driving organization of AGW is not scientific, it's social/political. It's not about science any more than the global cooling nonsense was, it's about electing people, transferring money, it's about power for various organizations and bureaucracies, and pretexts for pre-existing agendas.

Al Gore and Nancy Pelosi (for ex) don't argue for action on climate change because they believe in it, they argue for it because it's useful for them. Inhofe and the like don't oppose it out of sincere doubt (though they may well doubt it, that's not the point), they oppose it because it's a threat to their own agendas.

The UNO pushes it because it offers the possibility of power for the UNO Secretariat and their NGO allies. Which drives people opposing the latter to disclaim the validity of the former. Both sides routinely twist data to support their pre-existing preferences. The goal is not to determine the truth, the goal is to _win_.

Science is no more immune to corruption than any other field of activity, and a lot of the 'science' on AGW is driven by grant money, too.

Heck, even the phrase 'climate change' is agitprop. 'Global warming' is difficult to use as a slogan whenever the weather and climate appear to be cooling (and that isn't helped by activists making claims like 'no more snow in 'x' place in 10 years, which has happened). 'Climate change', though, can mean anything, and makes it possible to site every unusually violent storm or apparently unusual drought or flood as 'proof' for the political agenda.

Science is tangential to it all, at best.
Carl Fink
2017-04-24 19:29:48 UTC
Permalink
Post by j***@gmail.com
Keep in mind that science has _nothing to do_ with either the 'global
cooling' scam of 30 years ago or the AGW scam now. Yeah, there's some
evidence that a certain amount of climate change might reasonably be
ascribed to human action, though how much and how important the effect is
deeply uncertain, and certainly not an established (even to the degree
that any scientific position can ever be established) with solidity.
And by "keep in mind" you of course mean "I am asserting this without any
evidence because I want it to be true."

I could, of course, be wrong. Present some evidence other than your bare
assertion.
--
Carl Fink ***@nitpicking.com

Read my blog at blog.nitpicking.com. Reviews! Observations!
Stupid mistakes you can correct!
Mike Van Pelt
2017-04-24 23:51:58 UTC
Permalink
Post by James Nicoll
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/cooling-climate-%E2%80%98consensus%E2%80%99-1970s-never-was
I am in my 60s.

Thus, I remember, personally, that there indeed *was* a "global
cooling impending ice age" thing in the 70s. Attempts to drop
that one down the memory hole do not convince me. *I* *remember*.

The fix being demanded back then was, oddly enough, the same as
the fix today. Quit burning coal. (The cooling was SO2 and
particulates, I think I recall; those have been mostly cleaned.)

That said, the increase in CO2 in the atmosphere is real, and
isotopic measurements show that it's from fossil fuels.

Whatever the actual hazard of the stuff, it's an uncontrolled
experiment we really ought not to be doing on the only biosphere
we've got.

The thing is, if you oppose nuclear power, *I do not believe that
you care about CO2/climate change*. Not really.

The near-term (decades) options are (1) coal and (2) nuclear.
Or end industrial civilization. All else is arithmetic denial.

I've been advocating phasing out coal in favor of nuclear for
almost 40 years now.
--
"The urge to save humanity is almost | Mike Van Pelt
always a false front for the urge to rule." | mvp at calweb.com
-- H.L. Mencken | KE6BVH
Lynn McGuire
2017-04-25 00:15:24 UTC
Permalink
Post by Mike Van Pelt
Post by James Nicoll
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/cooling-climate-%E2%80%98consensus%E2%80%99-1970s-never-was
I am in my 60s.
Thus, I remember, personally, that there indeed *was* a "global
cooling impending ice age" thing in the 70s. Attempts to drop
that one down the memory hole do not convince me. *I* *remember*.
The fix being demanded back then was, oddly enough, the same as
the fix today. Quit burning coal. (The cooling was SO2 and
particulates, I think I recall; those have been mostly cleaned.)
That said, the increase in CO2 in the atmosphere is real, and
isotopic measurements show that it's from fossil fuels.
Whatever the actual hazard of the stuff, it's an uncontrolled
experiment we really ought not to be doing on the only biosphere
we've got.
The thing is, if you oppose nuclear power, *I do not believe that
you care about CO2/climate change*. Not really.
The near-term (decades) options are (1) coal and (2) nuclear.
Or end industrial civilization. All else is arithmetic denial.
I've been advocating phasing out coal in favor of nuclear for
almost 40 years now.
We are phasing out coal for natural gas and wind here in The Great State
of Texas. The wind is federally subsidized. The coal power plants
require an unbelievable amount of expensive maintenance every year. The
coal fuel is $2/mmbtu at 30% efficiency. The natural gas fuel is
$3/mmbtu at 65% efficiency with a lot less operations and maintenance
cost. Natural gas wins every day on these numbers, especially when you
consider the staff is about 1/4 (SWAG) that of a coal plant.

Lynn
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
2017-04-25 11:29:48 UTC
Permalink
Post by Mike Van Pelt
Post by James Nicoll
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/cooling-climate-%E2%80%98consensus%E2%80%99-1970s-never-was
I am in my 60s.
Thus, I remember, personally, that there indeed *was* a "global
cooling impending ice age" thing in the 70s. Attempts to drop
that one down the memory hole do not convince me. *I* *remember*.
And memory is a tricky thing.

Also, the fact that a *few* people believed that and there was ballyhoo
in the press about that doesn't change the fact that MOST of the
scientists working in the field DIDN'T. It just means that you are
recalling popular press stuff which was not -- as is par for the course
in science journalism -- accurate in its overall slant or many of the
details.
--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Website: http://www.grandcentralarena.com Blog:
http://seawasp.livejournal.com
Johnny1A
2017-04-25 19:38:38 UTC
Permalink
Post by Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
Post by Mike Van Pelt
Post by James Nicoll
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/cooling-climate-%E2%80%98consensus%E2%80%99-1970s-never-was
I am in my 60s.
Thus, I remember, personally, that there indeed *was* a "global
cooling impending ice age" thing in the 70s. Attempts to drop
that one down the memory hole do not convince me. *I* *remember*.
And memory is a tricky thing.
Also, the fact that a *few* people believed that and there was ballyhoo
in the press about that doesn't change the fact that MOST of the
scientists working in the field DIDN'T. It just means that you are
recalling popular press stuff which was not -- as is par for the course
in science journalism -- accurate in its overall slant or many of the
details.
Which it has in common with most of the coverage of AGW today.
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
2017-04-25 23:29:44 UTC
Permalink
Post by Johnny1A
Post by Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
Post by Mike Van Pelt
Post by James Nicoll
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/cooling-climate-%E2%80%98consensus%E2%80%99-1970s-never-was
I am in my 60s.
Thus, I remember, personally, that there indeed *was* a "global
cooling impending ice age" thing in the 70s. Attempts to drop
that one down the memory hole do not convince me. *I* *remember*.
And memory is a tricky thing.
Also, the fact that a *few* people believed that and there was ballyhoo
in the press about that doesn't change the fact that MOST of the
scientists working in the field DIDN'T. It just means that you are
recalling popular press stuff which was not -- as is par for the course
in science journalism -- accurate in its overall slant or many of the
details.
Which it has in common with most of the coverage of AGW today.
Um, no, rather the opposite. Today, the vast majority of people in the
field DO agree with the AGW theory, and rather than the evidence for it
fading away, it is pretty much piling up like a landslide.

While some details are of course exaggerated or wrongly reported
("Melting of all icecaps by 2013", for instance) the basic thrust of the
concept is in fact accepted by those in the field. Which is the dead
opposite of the 1970s Ice Age business.
--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Website: http://www.grandcentralarena.com Blog:
http://seawasp.livejournal.com
J. Clarke
2017-04-26 01:53:36 UTC
Permalink
Post by Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
Post by Johnny1A
Post by Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
Post by Mike Van Pelt
Post by James Nicoll
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/cooling-climate-%E2%80%98consensus%E2%80%99-1970s-never-was
I am in my 60s.
Thus, I remember, personally, that there indeed *was* a "global
cooling impending ice age" thing in the 70s. Attempts to drop
that one down the memory hole do not convince me. *I* *remember*.
And memory is a tricky thing.
Also, the fact that a *few* people believed that and there was ballyhoo
in the press about that doesn't change the fact that MOST of the
scientists working in the field DIDN'T. It just means that you are
recalling popular press stuff which was not -- as is par for the course
in science journalism -- accurate in its overall slant or many of the
details.
Which it has in common with most of the coverage of AGW today.
Um, no, rather the opposite. Today, the vast majority of people in the
field DO agree with the AGW theory, and rather than the evidence for it
fading away, it is pretty much piling up like a landslide.
What, exactly, defines a person as being "in the field"? How is this
decided?
Post by Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
While some details are of course exaggerated or wrongly reported
("Melting of all icecaps by 2013", for instance) the basic thrust of the
concept is in fact accepted by those in the field. Which is the dead
opposite of the 1970s Ice Age business.
I want to see a poll where it was decided in advance what constitutes "in
the field", the criteria were clearly established, and every person "in the
field" was contacted and hounded until they gave some kind of answer. So
far all I've seen is surveys of people who subscribe to particular
magazines or belong to particular organizations, some of whom responded and
some of whom didn't. This gives a great deal of potential for selection
bias.
J. Clarke
2017-04-26 01:48:46 UTC
Permalink
Post by Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
Post by Mike Van Pelt
Post by James Nicoll
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/cooling-climate-%E2%80%98consensus%E2%80%99-1970s-never-was
I am in my 60s.
Thus, I remember, personally, that there indeed *was* a "global
cooling impending ice age" thing in the 70s. Attempts to drop
that one down the memory hole do not convince me. *I* *remember*.
And memory is a tricky thing.
Also, the fact that a *few* people believed that and there was ballyhoo
in the press about that doesn't change the fact that MOST of the
scientists working in the field DIDN'T.
MOST didn't? Do you have statistics to support that?
Post by Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
It just means that you are
recalling popular press stuff which was not -- as is par for the course
in science journalism -- accurate in its overall slant or many of the
details.
So?

You don't seem to grasp that no matter how right some guy in an ivory tower
might be, if the body politic doesn't trust him they aren't going to make
massive disruptions in their society on his say-so.
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
2017-04-26 01:56:40 UTC
Permalink
Post by J. Clarke
Post by Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
Post by Mike Van Pelt
Post by James Nicoll
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/cooling-climate-%E2%80%98consensus%E2%80%99-1970s-never-was
I am in my 60s.
Thus, I remember, personally, that there indeed *was* a "global
cooling impending ice age" thing in the 70s. Attempts to drop
that one down the memory hole do not convince me. *I* *remember*.
And memory is a tricky thing.
Also, the fact that a *few* people believed that and there was ballyhoo
in the press about that doesn't change the fact that MOST of the
scientists working in the field DIDN'T.
MOST didn't? Do you have statistics to support that?
https://skepticalscience.com/ice-age-predictions-in-1970s.htm

62% predicted warming. 10% predicted cooling. The remainder didn't make
a prediction of either. Thus, SIX TIMES as many people in the field were
predicting warming during that period of time, which also amounted to a
significant majority (i.e., "most"). So, yeah.
Post by J. Clarke
Post by Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
It just means that you are
recalling popular press stuff which was not -- as is par for the course
in science journalism -- accurate in its overall slant or many of the
details.
So?
You don't seem to grasp that no matter how right some guy in an ivory tower
might be, if the body politic doesn't trust him they aren't going to make
massive disruptions in their society on his say-so.
It's not "some guy", and the point is that there's a concerted effort
out there to obfuscate and outright lie about the phenomenon.
--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Website: http://www.grandcentralarena.com Blog:
http://seawasp.livejournal.com
James Nicoll
2017-04-25 03:36:01 UTC
Permalink
Post by Mike Van Pelt
Post by James Nicoll
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/cooling-climate-%E2%80%98consensus%E2%80%99-1970s-never-was
I am in my 60s.
Thus, I remember, personally, that there indeed *was* a "global
cooling impending ice age" thing in the 70s. Attempts to drop
that one down the memory hole do not convince me. *I* *remember*.
I remember being dressed in shorts, wading through Montreal snow in
1966. My mother's passport, on the other hand, clearly shows we got
there in August. Memory is not reliable.
--
My reviews can be found at http://jamesdavisnicoll.com/
My Livejournal at http://www.livejournal.com/users/james_nicoll
My patreon is at https://www.patreon.com/jamesdnicoll
Robert Woodward
2017-04-25 04:59:20 UTC
Permalink
Post by James Nicoll
Post by Mike Van Pelt
Post by James Nicoll
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/cooling-climate-%E2%80%98consensus%E2%80
%99-1970s-never-was
I am in my 60s.
Thus, I remember, personally, that there indeed *was* a "global
cooling impending ice age" thing in the 70s. Attempts to drop
that one down the memory hole do not convince me. *I* *remember*.
I remember being dressed in shorts, wading through Montreal snow in
1966. My mother's passport, on the other hand, clearly shows we got
there in August. Memory is not reliable.
Or perhaps it was snowing in Montreal in August 1966. I distinctly
remember seeing snow in Stratford (Ontario) in August (but I can't
remember which year, but it had to have been between 1964-1970).
--
"We have advanced to new and surprising levels of bafflement."
Imperial Auditor Miles Vorkosigan describes progress in _Komarr_.
‹-----------------------------------------------------
Robert Woodward ***@drizzle.com
J. Clarke
2017-04-25 11:05:44 UTC
Permalink
Post by Robert Woodward
Post by James Nicoll
Post by Mike Van Pelt
Post by James Nicoll
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/cooling-climate-%E2%80%98consensus%E2%80
%99-1970s-never-was
I am in my 60s.
Thus, I remember, personally, that there indeed *was* a "global
cooling impending ice age" thing in the 70s. Attempts to drop
that one down the memory hole do not convince me. *I* *remember*.
I remember being dressed in shorts, wading through Montreal snow in
1966. My mother's passport, on the other hand, clearly shows we got
there in August. Memory is not reliable.
Or perhaps it was snowing in Montreal in August 1966. I distinctly
remember seeing snow in Stratford (Ontario) in August (but I can't
remember which year, but it had to have been between 1964-1970).
Regardless, fallible or otherwise, a lot of us DO remember famous
scientists or people we were led to believe were famous scientists telling
us how it was going to get cold in the future.

Saying "no you didn't" or "scientists didn't say that" is not an effective
tactic for countering such memories.
James Nicoll
2017-04-25 13:54:35 UTC
Permalink
Post by J. Clarke
Post by Robert Woodward
Post by James Nicoll
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/cooling-climate-%E2%80%98consensus%E2%80
Post by Mike Van Pelt
Post by James Nicoll
%99-1970s-never-was
I am in my 60s.
Thus, I remember, personally, that there indeed *was* a "global
cooling impending ice age" thing in the 70s. Attempts to drop
that one down the memory hole do not convince me. *I* *remember*.
I remember being dressed in shorts, wading through Montreal snow in
1966. My mother's passport, on the other hand, clearly shows we got
there in August. Memory is not reliable.
Or perhaps it was snowing in Montreal in August 1966. I distinctly
remember seeing snow in Stratford (Ontario) in August (but I can't
remember which year, but it had to have been between 1964-1970).
Regardless, fallible or otherwise, a lot of us DO remember famous
scientists or people we were led to believe were famous scientists telling
us how it was going to get cold in the future.
Saying "no you didn't" or "scientists didn't say that" is not an effective
tactic for countering such memories.
There's a big difference between "Newsweek claimed scientists said this" and
"climate scientists as a whole were saying this."
--
My reviews can be found at http://jamesdavisnicoll.com/
My Livejournal at http://www.livejournal.com/users/james_nicoll
My patreon is at https://www.patreon.com/jamesdnicoll
Johnny1A
2017-04-25 19:37:39 UTC
Permalink
On Tuesday, April 25, 2017 at 8:54:38 AM UTC-5, James Nicoll wrote:
\
Post by James Nicoll
There's a big difference between "Newsweek claimed scientists said this" and
"climate scientists as a whole were saying this."
--
Not really, because it, like the AGW of today, is _about_ media presentation and politics. Whatever science content is involved is secondary.
J. Clarke
2017-04-26 01:56:47 UTC
Permalink
Post by James Nicoll
Post by J. Clarke
Post by Robert Woodward
Post by James Nicoll
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/cooling-climate-%E2%80%98consensus%E2%80
Post by Mike Van Pelt
Post by James Nicoll
%99-1970s-never-was
I am in my 60s.
Thus, I remember, personally, that there indeed *was* a "global
cooling impending ice age" thing in the 70s. Attempts to drop
that one down the memory hole do not convince me. *I* *remember*.
I remember being dressed in shorts, wading through Montreal snow in
1966. My mother's passport, on the other hand, clearly shows we got
there in August. Memory is not reliable.
Or perhaps it was snowing in Montreal in August 1966. I distinctly
remember seeing snow in Stratford (Ontario) in August (but I can't
remember which year, but it had to have been between 1964-1970).
Regardless, fallible or otherwise, a lot of us DO remember famous
scientists or people we were led to believe were famous scientists telling
us how it was going to get cold in the future.
Saying "no you didn't" or "scientists didn't say that" is not an effective
tactic for countering such memories.
There's a big difference between "Newsweek claimed scientists said this" and
"climate scientists as a whole were saying this."
A big difference to WHO?

James Nicoll
2017-04-25 13:53:11 UTC
Permalink
Post by Robert Woodward
Post by James Nicoll
Post by Mike Van Pelt
Post by James Nicoll
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/cooling-climate-%E2%80%98consensus%E2%80
%99-1970s-never-was
I am in my 60s.
Thus, I remember, personally, that there indeed *was* a "global
cooling impending ice age" thing in the 70s. Attempts to drop
that one down the memory hole do not convince me. *I* *remember*.
I remember being dressed in shorts, wading through Montreal snow in
1966. My mother's passport, on the other hand, clearly shows we got
there in August. Memory is not reliable.
Or perhaps it was snowing in Montreal in August 1966. I distinctly
remember seeing snow in Stratford (Ontario) in August (but I can't
remember which year, but it had to have been between 1964-1970).
That would be a more satisfactory explanation than the one I came
up with to explain that memory, which is that my mother didn't get
around to buying me proper Canadian long trousers until after the
first snow. Happily, anyone who grew up in the short trouser era
of the UK -- which does get snow, if nowhere near the amount
Canada does -- essentially becomes indifferent to frozen legs.
--
My reviews can be found at http://jamesdavisnicoll.com/
My Livejournal at http://www.livejournal.com/users/james_nicoll
My patreon is at https://www.patreon.com/jamesdnicoll
h***@gmail.com
2017-04-23 14:42:04 UTC
Permalink
Post by J. Clarke
Post by William Hyde
Post by Lynn McGuire
"13 Most Ridiculous Predictions Made on Earth Day, 1970"
https://ricochet.com/424431/13-ridiculous-predictions-made-earth-day-1970/
"13. ?The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If
present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for
the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the
year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice
age.? ? Kenneth Watt"
He was a zoologist. Physicists and engineers say stupid things about biology all the time. Does it then follow that biologists are wrong?
And even he said "if".
Post by Lynn McGuire
And they wonder why people like me don't buy the anthropogenic global
warming crap.
Yes, we do, and the above gives you no cover at all.
Actually it does.
You have to understand that the average member of the public doesn't try to
evaluate the qualifications of one scientist vs another. All they get is
"scientists claim".
In the '60s and '70s it was scientists claiming that
it's getting colder.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11639-climate-myths-the-cooling-after-1940-shows-co2-does-not-cause-warming/

Read it and learn ffs
Post by J. Clarke
Now it's scientists claiming that it's getting warmer.
Now it is getting warmer, have a look at the temperature records.
Post by J. Clarke
40 years from now what are the scientists going to be claiming.
Now, your defense, I know, because I keep hearing this, is "well
climatologists didn't say that". So where were all these climatologists on
Earth Day 1970? Why weren't they addressing the wrong information that was
being disseminated? Where were they when Carl Sagan and company were
holding forth about "Nuclear Winter" in the '90s?
Nuclear Winter was based on the idea of 100s or 1000s of firestorms caused by at least hiroshima sized nuclear explosions
Now seeing as this hasn't happened how do you think a nuclear winter would have happened?
Post by J. Clarke
And what makes the three
professors of atmospheric science who were working with Sagan not "climate
scientists" other than that they don't toe the "global warming" party line?
Which ones and what were they looking at?
Post by J. Clarke
And why all of a sudden are we supposed to believe them NOW? From the
viewpoint of a member of the public what I see is yet more "The End Is
Nigh" posturing from yet another bunch of loons in lab coats. So what
makes these loons in lab coats different?
Because people who aren't steadfastly ostriching realize that we learn more as time goes on?
Because people should be aware that there was not a general consensus of a new ice age back in the 70s?
Because you could actually go off and get educated rather than celebrating your ignorance and arguing that it means more than knowledge?

In short stop being a Wilson level moron.
Greg Goss
2017-04-23 16:18:55 UTC
Permalink
Post by J. Clarke
Now, your defense, I know, because I keep hearing this, is "well
climatologists didn't say that". So where were all these climatologists on
Earth Day 1970? Why weren't they addressing the wrong information that was
being disseminated? Where were they when Carl Sagan and company were
holding forth about "Nuclear Winter" in the '90s? And what makes the three
professors of atmospheric science who were working with Sagan not "climate
scientists" other than that they don't toe the "global warming" party line?
How is Sagan's "nuclear winter" at all relevant here? We didn't hold
a nuclear war, so there is no failure of prediction here. Then you
mention Sagan again with "three professors", presumably with some
connection to the "nuclear winter" of the previous line.

You *DO* know what is meant by "nuclear winter", don't you?
--
We are geeks. Resistance is voltage over current.
J. Clarke
2017-04-24 02:54:40 UTC
Permalink
Post by Greg Goss
Post by J. Clarke
Now, your defense, I know, because I keep hearing this, is "well
climatologists didn't say that". So where were all these climatologists on
Earth Day 1970? Why weren't they addressing the wrong information that was
being disseminated? Where were they when Carl Sagan and company were
holding forth about "Nuclear Winter" in the '90s? And what makes the three
professors of atmospheric science who were working with Sagan not "climate
scientists" other than that they don't toe the "global warming" party line?
How is Sagan's "nuclear winter" at all relevant here? We didn't hold
a nuclear war, so there is no failure of prediction here. Then you
mention Sagan again with "three professors", presumably with some
connection to the "nuclear winter" of the previous line.
You *DO* know what is meant by "nuclear winter", don't you?
<sigh> And people like you call ME ignorant.

It seems to have escaped your notice that according to Sagan et al Iraq I
was supposed to result in "nuclear winter".
h***@gmail.com
2017-04-24 03:24:26 UTC
Permalink
Post by J. Clarke
Post by Greg Goss
Post by J. Clarke
Now, your defense, I know, because I keep hearing this, is "well
climatologists didn't say that". So where were all these climatologists on
Earth Day 1970? Why weren't they addressing the wrong information that was
being disseminated? Where were they when Carl Sagan and company were
holding forth about "Nuclear Winter" in the '90s? And what makes the three
professors of atmospheric science who were working with Sagan not "climate
scientists" other than that they don't toe the "global warming" party line?
How is Sagan's "nuclear winter" at all relevant here? We didn't hold
a nuclear war, so there is no failure of prediction here. Then you
mention Sagan again with "three professors", presumably with some
connection to the "nuclear winter" of the previous line.
You *DO* know what is meant by "nuclear winter", don't you?
<sigh> And people like you call ME ignorant.
It seems to have escaped your notice that according to Sagan et al Iraq I
was supposed to result in "nuclear winter".
No, oil fires in Iraq were meant to produce some cooling.
Different models had different predictions in terms of how much cooling and how much it affected.

The results were local cooling which did not extend as far as Asia.
David Johnston
2017-04-24 05:08:58 UTC
Permalink
Post by J. Clarke
Post by Greg Goss
Post by J. Clarke
Now, your defense, I know, because I keep hearing this, is "well
climatologists didn't say that". So where were all these climatologists on
Earth Day 1970? Why weren't they addressing the wrong information that was
being disseminated? Where were they when Carl Sagan and company were
holding forth about "Nuclear Winter" in the '90s? And what makes the three
professors of atmospheric science who were working with Sagan not "climate
scientists" other than that they don't toe the "global warming" party line?
How is Sagan's "nuclear winter" at all relevant here? We didn't hold
a nuclear war, so there is no failure of prediction here. Then you
mention Sagan again with "three professors", presumably with some
connection to the "nuclear winter" of the previous line.
You *DO* know what is meant by "nuclear winter", don't you?
<sigh> And people like you call ME ignorant.
It seems to have escaped your notice that according to Sagan et al Iraq I
was supposed to result in "nuclear winter".
Oh I think that one escapes everyone except you.
William Hyde
2017-04-24 19:09:44 UTC
Permalink
Post by J. Clarke
Post by Greg Goss
Post by J. Clarke
Now, your defense, I know, because I keep hearing this, is "well
climatologists didn't say that". So where were all these climatologists on
Earth Day 1970? Why weren't they addressing the wrong information that was
being disseminated? Where were they when Carl Sagan and company were
holding forth about "Nuclear Winter" in the '90s? And what makes the three
professors of atmospheric science who were working with Sagan not "climate
scientists" other than that they don't toe the "global warming" party line?
How is Sagan's "nuclear winter" at all relevant here? We didn't hold
a nuclear war, so there is no failure of prediction here. Then you
mention Sagan again with "three professors", presumably with some
connection to the "nuclear winter" of the previous line.
You *DO* know what is meant by "nuclear winter", don't you?
<sigh> And people like you call ME ignorant.
It seems to have escaped your notice that according to Sagan et al Iraq I
was supposed to result in "nuclear winter".
You need not read this, Mr Clarke. This is just general information of the situation as I know it. Corrections welcome.

At the time Sagan and others claimed that the smoke from massive oil well fires would enter the stratosphere, causing cooling as in 1816, the "year without a summer". I do not know if this was a back-of-the-envelope estimate or whether they ran their models on it (the NW models lack dynamics, so I'd doubt any answer in a quantitative sense). Not a nuclear winter, though I don't doubt the press spun it that way. The atmospheric science community disagreed.

Sagan's belief was based on the idea that the soot in the smoke would absorb sunlight, thus warming the air around it and causing it to rise further, eventually entering the stratosphere, which is a necessary condition for worldwide cooling.

This is not an inherently unreasonable idea, but it was based on what turned out to be an erroneous estimate of the soot content of the smoke. The free convection never happened, and the smoke didn't rise above 6km, producing only local cooling.

Even with more soot, I find the idea unconvincing. Cold air always entrains into rising columns of that kind. A quick check of the literature shows that if the fires have a much larger base (i.e. a city) this is less of a problem and smoke does reach the stratosphere.

Sagan did admit that he had been wrong, and followup work by others (including Peter Hobbs, who co-authored a book on atmospheric science I've been recommending for a while now) clarified how wrong.

Now that I think of it, that's the reason a very left wing atmospheric scientist I once new had no tolerance for lingering beliefs in NW. He had been a student of Peter Hobbs, and was no doubt familiar with his work in this area.

So "oil well winter", never accepted by the community, made a false prediction and was abandoned. Meanwhile, AGW predictions made in the 1960s are here. How many other predictions made in the 60s have come true? Ecological collapse? Starving billions? End to poverty? Flying cars? Communist takeover?


William Hyde
J. Clarke
2017-04-24 23:31:20 UTC
Permalink
Post by William Hyde
Post by J. Clarke
Post by Greg Goss
Post by J. Clarke
Now, your defense, I know, because I keep hearing this, is "well
climatologists didn't say that". So where were all these climatologists on
Earth Day 1970? Why weren't they addressing the wrong information that was
being disseminated? Where were they when Carl Sagan and company were
holding forth about "Nuclear Winter" in the '90s? And what makes the three
professors of atmospheric science who were working with Sagan not "climate
scientists" other than that they don't toe the "global warming" party line?
How is Sagan's "nuclear winter" at all relevant here? We didn't hold
a nuclear war, so there is no failure of prediction here. Then you
mention Sagan again with "three professors", presumably with some
connection to the "nuclear winter" of the previous line.
You *DO* know what is meant by "nuclear winter", don't you?
<sigh> And people like you call ME ignorant.
It seems to have escaped your notice that according to Sagan et al Iraq I
was supposed to result in "nuclear winter".
You need not read this, Mr Clarke. This is just general information of the situation as I know it. Corrections welcome.
At the time Sagan and others claimed that the smoke from massive oil well fires would enter the stratosphere, causing cooling as in 1816, the "year without a summer". I do not know if this was a back-of-the-envelope estimate or whether they ran their models on it (the NW models lack dynamics, so I'd doubt any answer in a quantitative sense). Not a nuclear winter, though I don't doubt the press spun it that way. The atmospheric science community disagreed.
Sagan's belief was based on the idea that the soot in the smoke would absorb sunlight, thus warming the air around it and causing it to rise further, eventually entering the stratosphere, which is a necessary condition for worldwide cooling.
This is not an inherently unreasonable idea, but it was based on what turned out to be an erroneous estimate of the soot content of the smoke. The free convection never happened, and the smoke didn't rise above 6km, producing only local cooling.
Even with more soot, I find the idea unconvincing. Cold air always entrains into rising columns of that kind. A quick check of the literature shows that if the fires have a much larger base (i.e. a city) this is less of a problem and smoke does reach the stratosphere.
Sagan did admit that he had been wrong, and followup work by others (including Peter Hobbs, who co-authored a book on atmospheric science I've been recommending for a while now) clarified how wrong.
Now that I think of it, that's the reason a very left wing atmospheric scientist I once new had no tolerance for lingering beliefs in NW. He had been a student of Peter Hobbs, and was no doubt familiar with his work in this area.
So "oil well winter", never accepted by the community, made a false prediction and was abandoned. Meanwhile, AGW predictions made in the 1960s are here. How many other predictions made in the 60s have come true? Ecological collapse? Starving billions? End to poverty? Flying cars? Communist takeover?
You don't do the apologetics thing at all well you know.

It could have been known with absolute certainty from Biblical times that
anthropenic global warming was taking place.

That is NOT the point I am addressing.

The point I am addressing is that regardless of what might or might not be
true and regardless of what might or might not have been known at any given
time, the PUBLIC PERCIEVES THAT THE SCIENTISTS FLIP-FLOPPED. And saying
over and over again "did not" is not convincing the public otherwise. And
in a democracy the public has a say, so to bring about the change you want
you HAVE to sell it to the public.

So find a better way than what you are doing because IT ISN'T WORKING.
Greg Goss
2017-04-25 05:02:43 UTC
Permalink
Post by J. Clarke
The point I am addressing is that regardless of what might or might not be
true and regardless of what might or might not have been known at any given
time, the PUBLIC PERCIEVES THAT THE SCIENTISTS FLIP-FLOPPED.
It doesn't matter whether it's true or not. J Clarke will say that
the opposing view is true with no evidence, and THAT matters.

mmmm-Kay.
--
We are geeks. Resistance is voltage over current.
J. Clarke
2017-04-25 11:09:34 UTC
Permalink
Post by Greg Goss
Post by J. Clarke
The point I am addressing is that regardless of what might or might not be
true and regardless of what might or might not have been known at any given
time, the PUBLIC PERCIEVES THAT THE SCIENTISTS FLIP-FLOPPED.
It doesn't matter whether it's true or not. J Clarke will say that
the opposing view is true with no evidence, and THAT matters.
mmmm-Kay.
How did you get _that_ out of what I wrote? Please go through my statement
word by word and explain to me the ones that suggest that I am "saying that
the opposing view is true".
j***@gmail.com
2017-04-24 18:40:22 UTC
Permalink
Post by Greg Goss
Post by J. Clarke
Now, your defense, I know, because I keep hearing this, is "well
climatologists didn't say that". So where were all these climatologists on
Earth Day 1970? Why weren't they addressing the wrong information that was
being disseminated? Where were they when Carl Sagan and company were
holding forth about "Nuclear Winter" in the '90s? And what makes the three
professors of atmospheric science who were working with Sagan not "climate
scientists" other than that they don't toe the "global warming" party line?
How is Sagan's "nuclear winter" at all relevant here? We didn't hold
a nuclear war, so there is no failure of prediction here. Then you
mention Sagan again with "three professors", presumably with some
connection to the "nuclear winter" of the previous line.
It's relevant because in each case, the general media and politicla activists were using a supposedly scientific position in support of a pre-existing political and social agenda. Remember, it's not about science. Not really. It's about politics and money.
David Johnston
2017-04-23 17:48:48 UTC
Permalink
Post by J. Clarke
Post by William Hyde
Post by Lynn McGuire
"13 Most Ridiculous Predictions Made on Earth Day, 1970"
https://ricochet.com/424431/13-ridiculous-predictions-made-earth-day-1970/
"13. ?The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If
present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for
the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the
year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice
age.? ? Kenneth Watt"
He was a zoologist. Physicists and engineers say stupid things about biology all the time. Does it then follow that biologists are wrong?
And even he said "if".
Post by Lynn McGuire
And they wonder why people like me don't buy the anthropogenic global
warming crap.
Yes, we do, and the above gives you no cover at all.
Actually it does.
You have to understand that the average member of the public doesn't try to
evaluate the qualifications of one scientist vs another. All they get is
"scientists claim". In the '60s and '70s it was scientists claiming that
it's getting colder. Now it's scientists claiming that it's getting
warmer. 40 years from now what are the scientists going to be claiming.
Now, your defense, I know, because I keep hearing this, is "well
climatologists didn't say that". So where were all these climatologists on
Earth Day 1970? Why weren't they addressing the wrong information that was
being disseminated? Where were they when Carl Sagan and company were
holding forth about "Nuclear Winter" in the '90s? s
25,000 nuclear explosions probably could produce some cold weather.
What's the problem?
William Hyde
2017-04-23 19:55:43 UTC
Permalink
Post by J. Clarke
Post by William Hyde
Post by Lynn McGuire
"13 Most Ridiculous Predictions Made on Earth Day, 1970"
https://ricochet.com/424431/13-ridiculous-predictions-made-earth-day-1970/
"13. ?The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If
present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for
the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the
year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice
age.? ? Kenneth Watt"
He was a zoologist. Physicists and engineers say stupid things about biology all the time. Does it then follow that biologists are wrong?
And even he said "if".
Post by Lynn McGuire
And they wonder why people like me don't buy the anthropogenic global
warming crap.
Yes, we do, and the above gives you no cover at all.
Actually it does.
You have to understand that the average member of the public
I give Lynn, who is an engineer, credit for knowing the difference between a Zoologist and a physicist.

You could look it up.

Note that Dr Watts did not say "An ice age is coming". He said "if present trends continue". That is speculation, not a prediction. We have no idea in what context he said it.

doesn't try to
Post by J. Clarke
evaluate the qualifications of one scientist vs another. All they get is
"scientists claim".
Mostly in shampoo and toothpaste commercials, I find.

In the '60s and '70s it was scientists claiming that
Post by J. Clarke
it's getting colder.
This is an oft-refuted lie.

Now it's scientists claiming that it's getting
Post by J. Clarke
warmer. 40 years from now what are the scientists going to be claiming.
Forty years ago scientists were claiming that the world would warm from AGW. Had been doing so for some time.

In the unlikely event I am alive, I won't be claiming anything. I'll be too busy laughing at you. In fact, I'm laughing now.
Post by J. Clarke
Now, your defense, I know, because I keep hearing this, is "well
climatologists didn't say that". So where were all these
climatologists

There weren't very many, for a start. There never were many climatologists, and in 1970 the vast majority were not working on climate change. More people were working on categorizing sea-breeze circulations than on climate change.

on
Post by J. Clarke
Earth Day 1970?
In their labs. Working. Or, if speaking up, being ignored by the media. Which is more dramatic, gradually increasing temperatures or a New! Ice! Age! by! the! year! 2000! (and we don't mean factorial!)?

Syukyro Manabe had already published radiative-convective studies on global warming, making predictions that have since been validated and was now, with Kirk Bryan, busy coding a general circulation model with which to carry on the work. Can you see Newsweek busting down his door?

James Hansen was working on the scattering of light by particles in planetary atmospheres, with papers like:

"Absorption-line formation in a scattering planetary atmosphere: A test of Van de Hulst's similarity relations."

it's a wonder Hollywood didn't come knocking.

Why weren't they addressing the wrong information that was
Post by J. Clarke
being disseminated?
"Fred, we got this professor on line one, he says some other professor said something wrong". Click.

Where were they when Carl Sagan and company were
Post by J. Clarke
holding forth about "Nuclear Winter" in the '90s?
To start with you seem to be misinformed about NW.

That started in the eighties, and many of us were criticizing it. I argued against it myself, some of those discussions taking place here (before your time, I suspect).

The original paper was a reasonable piece of work. When investigating the possibility of something new, first make all approximations in its favour with a simple model. If it doesn't happen then, the idea can be safely dismissed and much time saved.

But if the event occurs in the simple model, it is time for followup work, studying and improving those approximations. Very little of this was done by the TTAPS authors, who gave the impression that their paper was the last word. Followup studies by others showed a muted effect (I used to call it "Nuclear Autumn") which would still be an extra burden on those trying to rebuild after such a war.

There was a seminar on this at NASA when I was there, the audience sharply divided. The people who worked purely in radiation and scattering (like the TTAPS authors) were convinced of NW, while the dynamicists were more than skeptical. As a person who worked on ice sheets, I went with the latter.

NW was not the scandal you seem to think it was. Personally, I think it was a time when emotion interfered with science to a disturbing degree. Megadeaths will do that. But it all got sorted.


And what makes the three
Post by J. Clarke
professors of atmospheric science who were working with Sagan not "climate
scientists" other than that they don't toe the "global warming" party line?
What makes you think any of them had doubts about the warming effect of GHGs? It is not a contradiction to believe that GHGs warm and aerosols cool. It's commonsense, in fact.
Post by J. Clarke
And why all of a sudden are we supposed to believe them NOW? From the
viewpoint of a member of the public what I see is yet more "The End Is
Nigh" posturing from yet another bunch of loons in lab coats. So what
makes these loons in lab coats different?
Predictions made fifty years ago coming true?

William Hyde
J. Clarke
2017-04-24 02:52:09 UTC
Permalink
Post by William Hyde
Post by J. Clarke
Post by William Hyde
Post by Lynn McGuire
"13 Most Ridiculous Predictions Made on Earth Day, 1970"
https://ricochet.com/424431/13-ridiculous-predictions-made-earth-day-1970/
"13. ?The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If
present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for
the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the
year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice
age.? ? Kenneth Watt"
He was a zoologist. Physicists and engineers say stupid things about biology all the time. Does it then follow that biologists are wrong?
And even he said "if".
Post by Lynn McGuire
And they wonder why people like me don't buy the anthropogenic global
warming crap.
Yes, we do, and the above gives you no cover at all.
Actually it does.
You have to understand that the average member of the public
I give Lynn, who is an engineer, credit for knowing the difference between a Zoologist and a physicist.
You could look it up.
Note that Dr Watts did not say "An ice age is coming". He said "if present trends continue". That is speculation, not a prediction. We have no idea in what context he said it.
doesn't try to
Post by J. Clarke
evaluate the qualifications of one scientist vs another. All they get is
"scientists claim".
Mostly in shampoo and toothpaste commercials, I find.
In the '60s and '70s it was scientists claiming that
Post by J. Clarke
it's getting colder.
This is an oft-refuted lie.
Now it's scientists claiming that it's getting
Post by J. Clarke
warmer. 40 years from now what are the scientists going to be claiming.
Forty years ago scientists were claiming that the world would warm from AGW. Had been doing so for some time.
In the unlikely event I am alive, I won't be claiming anything. I'll be too busy laughing at you. In fact, I'm laughing now.
Post by J. Clarke
Now, your defense, I know, because I keep hearing this, is "well
climatologists didn't say that". So where were all these
climatologists
There weren't very many, for a start. There never were many climatologists, and in 1970 the vast majority were not working on climate change. More people were working on categorizing sea-breeze circulations than on climate change.
on
Post by J. Clarke
Earth Day 1970?
In their labs. Working. Or, if speaking up, being ignored by the media. Which is more dramatic, gradually increasing temperatures or a New! Ice! Age! by! the! year! 2000! (and we don't mean factorial!)?
Syukyro Manabe had already published radiative-convective studies on global warming, making predictions that have since been validated and was now, with Kirk Bryan, busy coding a general circulation model with which to carry on the work. Can you see Newsweek busting down his door?
"Absorption-line formation in a scattering planetary atmosphere: A test of Van de Hulst's similarity relations."
it's a wonder Hollywood didn't come knocking.
Why weren't they addressing the wrong information that was
Post by J. Clarke
being disseminated?
"Fred, we got this professor on line one, he says some other professor said something wrong". Click.
Where were they when Carl Sagan and company were
Post by J. Clarke
holding forth about "Nuclear Winter" in the '90s?
To start with you seem to be misinformed about NW.
That started in the eighties, and many of us were criticizing it. I argued against it myself, some of those discussions taking place here (before your time, I suspect).
The original paper was a reasonable piece of work. When investigating the possibility of something new, first make all approximations in its favour with a simple model. If it doesn't happen then, the idea can be safely dismissed and much time saved.
But if the event occurs in the simple model, it is time for followup work, studying and improving those approximations. Very little of this was done by the TTAPS authors, who gave the impression that their paper was the last word. Followup studies by others showed a muted effect (I used to call it "Nuclear Autumn") which would still be an extra burden on those trying to rebuild after such a war.
There was a seminar on this at NASA when I was there, the audience sharply divided. The people who worked purely in radiation and scattering (like the TTAPS authors) were convinced of NW, while the dynamicists were more than skeptical. As a person who worked on ice sheets, I went with the latter.
NW was not the scandal you seem to think it was. Personally, I think it was a time when emotion interfered with science to a disturbing degree. Megadeaths will do that. But it all got sorted.
And what makes the three
Post by J. Clarke
professors of atmospheric science who were working with Sagan not "climate
scientists" other than that they don't toe the "global warming" party line?
What makes you think any of them had doubts about the warming effect of GHGs? It is not a contradiction to believe that GHGs warm and aerosols cool. It's commonsense, in fact.
Post by J. Clarke
And why all of a sudden are we supposed to believe them NOW? From the
viewpoint of a member of the public what I see is yet more "The End Is
Nigh" posturing from yet another bunch of loons in lab coats. So what
makes these loons in lab coats different?
Predictions made fifty years ago coming true?
William Hyde
<sigh>

Keep it up. Just keep it up. If IPCC is right this patronizing attitude
by you and others like you will doom us all.

After enough haranguing people just tune you out.
William Hyde
2017-04-24 18:28:39 UTC
Permalink
Post by J. Clarke
Post by William Hyde
Post by J. Clarke
Post by William Hyde
Post by Lynn McGuire
"13 Most Ridiculous Predictions Made on Earth Day, 1970"
https://ricochet.com/424431/13-ridiculous-predictions-made-earth-day-1970/
"13. ?The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If
present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for
the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the
year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice
age.? ? Kenneth Watt"
He was a zoologist. Physicists and engineers say stupid things about biology all the time. Does it then follow that biologists are wrong?
And even he said "if".
Post by Lynn McGuire
And they wonder why people like me don't buy the anthropogenic global
warming crap.
Yes, we do, and the above gives you no cover at all.
Actually it does.
You have to understand that the average member of the public
I give Lynn, who is an engineer, credit for knowing the difference between a Zoologist and a physicist.
You could look it up.
Note that Dr Watts did not say "An ice age is coming". He said "if present trends continue". That is speculation, not a prediction. We have no idea in what context he said it.
doesn't try to
Post by J. Clarke
evaluate the qualifications of one scientist vs another. All they get is
"scientists claim".
Mostly in shampoo and toothpaste commercials, I find.
In the '60s and '70s it was scientists claiming that
Post by J. Clarke
it's getting colder.
This is an oft-refuted lie.
Now it's scientists claiming that it's getting
Post by J. Clarke
warmer. 40 years from now what are the scientists going to be claiming.
Forty years ago scientists were claiming that the world would warm from AGW. Had been doing so for some time.
In the unlikely event I am alive, I won't be claiming anything. I'll be too busy laughing at you. In fact, I'm laughing now.
Post by J. Clarke
Now, your defense, I know, because I keep hearing this, is "well
climatologists didn't say that". So where were all these
climatologists
There weren't very many, for a start. There never were many climatologists, and in 1970 the vast majority were not working on climate change. More people were working on categorizing sea-breeze circulations than on climate change.
on
Post by J. Clarke
Earth Day 1970?
In their labs. Working. Or, if speaking up, being ignored by the media. Which is more dramatic, gradually increasing temperatures or a New! Ice! Age! by! the! year! 2000! (and we don't mean factorial!)?
Syukyro Manabe had already published radiative-convective studies on global warming, making predictions that have since been validated and was now, with Kirk Bryan, busy coding a general circulation model with which to carry on the work. Can you see Newsweek busting down his door?
"Absorption-line formation in a scattering planetary atmosphere: A test of Van de Hulst's similarity relations."
it's a wonder Hollywood didn't come knocking.
Why weren't they addressing the wrong information that was
Post by J. Clarke
being disseminated?
"Fred, we got this professor on line one, he says some other professor said something wrong". Click.
Where were they when Carl Sagan and company were
Post by J. Clarke
holding forth about "Nuclear Winter" in the '90s?
To start with you seem to be misinformed about NW.
That started in the eighties, and many of us were criticizing it. I argued against it myself, some of those discussions taking place here (before your time, I suspect).
The original paper was a reasonable piece of work. When investigating the possibility of something new, first make all approximations in its favour with a simple model. If it doesn't happen then, the idea can be safely dismissed and much time saved.
But if the event occurs in the simple model, it is time for followup work, studying and improving those approximations. Very little of this was done by the TTAPS authors, who gave the impression that their paper was the last word. Followup studies by others showed a muted effect (I used to call it "Nuclear Autumn") which would still be an extra burden on those trying to rebuild after such a war.
There was a seminar on this at NASA when I was there, the audience sharply divided. The people who worked purely in radiation and scattering (like the TTAPS authors) were convinced of NW, while the dynamicists were more than skeptical. As a person who worked on ice sheets, I went with the latter.
NW was not the scandal you seem to think it was. Personally, I think it was a time when emotion interfered with science to a disturbing degree. Megadeaths will do that. But it all got sorted.
And what makes the three
Post by J. Clarke
professors of atmospheric science who were working with Sagan not "climate
scientists" other than that they don't toe the "global warming" party line?
What makes you think any of them had doubts about the warming effect of GHGs? It is not a contradiction to believe that GHGs warm and aerosols cool. It's commonsense, in fact.
Post by J. Clarke
And why all of a sudden are we supposed to believe them NOW? From the
viewpoint of a member of the public what I see is yet more "The End Is
Nigh" posturing from yet another bunch of loons in lab coats. So what
makes these loons in lab coats different?
Predictions made fifty years ago coming true?
William Hyde
<sigh>
Victory is mine!

William Hyde
Carl Fink
2017-04-23 14:04:43 UTC
Permalink
Post by Lynn McGuire
"13 Most Ridiculous Predictions Made on Earth Day, 1970"
https://ricochet.com/424431/13-ridiculous-predictions-made-earth-day-1970/
"13. “The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If
present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for
the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the
year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice
age.” — Kenneth Watt"
And they wonder why people like me don't buy the anthropogenic global
warming crap.
Because you cherrypick nonsense from fringe idiots, then pretend it was ever
the consensus of actual experts? OK.
--
Carl Fink ***@nitpicking.com

Read my blog at blog.nitpicking.com. Reviews! Observations!
Stupid mistakes you can correct!
J. Clarke
2017-04-23 14:55:35 UTC
Permalink
Post by Carl Fink
Post by Lynn McGuire
"13 Most Ridiculous Predictions Made on Earth Day, 1970"
https://ricochet.com/424431/13-ridiculous-predictions-made-earth-day-1970/
"13. “The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If
present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for
the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the
year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice
age.” � Kenneth Watt"
And they wonder why people like me don't buy the anthropogenic global
warming crap.
Because you cherrypick nonsense from fringe idiots, then pretend it was ever
the consensus of actual experts? OK.
So where were the "actual experts" on that first Earth Day?

This was a big deal. It was sanctioned by the UN and the US Congress, over
20 million Americans participated in activities of one kind or another, so
where were your "actual experts" on that day?
Magewolf
2017-04-23 16:33:57 UTC
Permalink
Post by J. Clarke
Post by Carl Fink
Post by Lynn McGuire
"13 Most Ridiculous Predictions Made on Earth Day, 1970"
https://ricochet.com/424431/13-ridiculous-predictions-made-earth-day-1970/
"13. “The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If
present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for
the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the
year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice
age.” � Kenneth Watt"
And they wonder why people like me don't buy the anthropogenic global
warming crap.
Because you cherrypick nonsense from fringe idiots, then pretend it was ever
the consensus of actual experts? OK.
So where were the "actual experts" on that first Earth Day?
This was a big deal. It was sanctioned by the UN and the US Congress, over
20 million Americans participated in activities of one kind or another, so
where were your "actual experts" on that day?
They were working, probably. Most Scientists are not news reporters or
even all that interested in keeping the public up to date on what they
are doing except as far as it helps their research or if they see some
danger to the public.

So someone claiming we were headed into a "new ice age" with no data to
back it up was mostly ignored. On the other hand climate change deniers
are going against the data and putting people in danger so a lot more
scientists speak up against it.
Lynn McGuire
2017-04-23 20:53:53 UTC
Permalink
On 4/23/2017 11:33 AM, Magewolf wrote:
...
Post by Magewolf
So someone claiming we were headed into a "new ice age" with no data to
back it up was mostly ignored. On the other hand climate change deniers
are going against the data and putting people in danger so a lot more
scientists speak up against it.
Please do not use the expression "climate deniers". To do so is a
deliberate attempt to equate climate skeptics with holocaust deniers.

I used to know a man who had a number tattooed on his forearm. What he
lived through in the concentration camps was horrible. Losing his
sister and his mother in another camp was horrible. Living with those
memories until he was in his 80s was horrible. People should never be
treated this way.

Equating skepticism about incomplete and unproven computer models to the
denial of the murder of six million people is beneath this conversation.
If you must continue to do so, please discuss this with people other
than myself. I proudly

Lynn
Dimensional Traveler
2017-04-24 00:55:23 UTC
Permalink
Post by Lynn McGuire
...
Post by Magewolf
So someone claiming we were headed into a "new ice age" with no data
to back it up was mostly ignored. On the other hand climate change
deniers are going against the data and putting people in danger so a
lot more scientists speak up against it.
Please do not use the expression "climate deniers". To do so is a
deliberate attempt to equate climate skeptics with holocaust deniers.
I used to know a man who had a number tattooed on his forearm. What he
lived through in the concentration camps was horrible. Losing his
sister and his mother in another camp was horrible. Living with those
memories until he was in his 80s was horrible. People should never be
treated this way.
Equating skepticism about incomplete and unproven computer models to the
denial of the murder of six million people is beneath this conversation.
If you must continue to do so, please discuss this with people other
than myself. I proudly
have admitted that you deny any possibility of human caused climate
change because it will impact your income negatively.

We will continue to call you a denier because you have said you are one.
--
Some days you just don't have enough middle fingers!
J. Clarke
2017-04-24 03:00:20 UTC
Permalink
Post by Dimensional Traveler
Post by Lynn McGuire
...
Post by Magewolf
So someone claiming we were headed into a "new ice age" with no data
to back it up was mostly ignored. On the other hand climate change
deniers are going against the data and putting people in danger so a
lot more scientists speak up against it.
Please do not use the expression "climate deniers". To do so is a
deliberate attempt to equate climate skeptics with holocaust deniers.
I used to know a man who had a number tattooed on his forearm. What he
lived through in the concentration camps was horrible. Losing his
sister and his mother in another camp was horrible. Living with those
memories until he was in his 80s was horrible. People should never be
treated this way.
Equating skepticism about incomplete and unproven computer models to the
denial of the murder of six million people is beneath this conversation.
If you must continue to do so, please discuss this with people other
than myself. I proudly
have admitted that you deny any possibility of human caused climate
change because it will impact your income negatively.
We will continue to call you a denier because you have said you are one.
Very mature of you.
Bill Gill
2017-04-24 01:48:37 UTC
Permalink
Post by Lynn McGuire
Please do not use the expression "climate deniers". To do so is a
deliberate attempt to equate climate skeptics with holocaust deniers.
Now that is long a stretch. There are many people who deny a great
many things. Calling them deniers is not at all the same as
calling people holocaust deniers. The holocaust was a terrible
thing, but it is not the only thing that some people deny.

Bill
j***@gmail.com
2017-04-24 18:45:03 UTC
Permalink
Post by Bill Gill
Post by Lynn McGuire
Please do not use the expression "climate deniers". To do so is a
deliberate attempt to equate climate skeptics with holocaust deniers.
Now that is long a stretch. There are many people who deny a great
many things. Calling them deniers is not at all the same as
calling people holocaust deniers. The holocaust was a terrible
thing, but it is not the only thing that some people deny.
Bill
Keep in mind, though, that 'climate denier', as a phrase, it itself agitprop. It's a way of declaring a position invalid before the discussion even begins, standard operating procedure in politics. It's no different than calling believers in AGW 'climate hoaxers'. It declares the debate over before it begins, and that's its _purpose_.
Mike Van Pelt
2017-04-25 00:04:45 UTC
Permalink
Post by j***@gmail.com
Keep in mind, though, that 'climate denier', as a phrase, it
itself agitprop. It's a way of declaring a position invalid
before the discussion even begins, standard operating procedure
in politics. It's no different than calling believers in AGW
'climate hoaxers'. It declares the debate over before it
begins, and that's its _purpose_.
Those who claim to belive in AGW who also oppose nuclear power,
I've taken to calling Arithmetic Deniers. Why should the
"back to the trees" folks have all the fun?
--
"The urge to save humanity is almost | Mike Van Pelt
always a false front for the urge to rule." | mvp at calweb.com
-- H.L. Mencken | KE6BVH
J. Clarke
2017-04-24 02:58:30 UTC
Permalink
Post by Magewolf
Post by J. Clarke
Post by Carl Fink
Post by Lynn McGuire
"13 Most Ridiculous Predictions Made on Earth Day, 1970"
https://ricochet.com/424431/13-ridiculous-predictions-made-earth-day-1970/
"13. “The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If
present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for
the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the
year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice
age.” � Kenneth Watt"
And they wonder why people like me don't buy the anthropogenic global
warming crap.
Because you cherrypick nonsense from fringe idiots, then pretend it was ever
the consensus of actual experts? OK.
So where were the "actual experts" on that first Earth Day?
This was a big deal. It was sanctioned by the UN and the US Congress, over
20 million Americans participated in activities of one kind or another, so
where were your "actual experts" on that day?
They were working, probably. Most Scientists are not news reporters or
even all that interested in keeping the public up to date on what they
are doing except as far as it helps their research or if they see some
danger to the public.
So someone claiming we were headed into a "new ice age" with no data to
back it up was mostly ignored. On the other hand climate change deniers
are going against the data and putting people in danger so a lot more
scientists speak up against it.
And there was no danger from "global warming" then? Why is there one now?
Garrett Wollman
2017-04-24 14:35:51 UTC
Permalink
Post by J. Clarke
Post by Magewolf
So someone claiming we were headed into a "new ice age" with no data to
back it up was mostly ignored. On the other hand climate change deniers
are going against the data and putting people in danger so a lot more
scientists speak up against it.
And there was no danger from "global warming" then? Why is there one now?
There was just as much danger then as there is now. There wasn't
sufficient data then, or sufficiently accurate climate modeling, to
make a prediction that would stand sufficient scrutiny to be the basis
for public policy.

There is now, and has been for a while. I trust the people who know
what the fuck they're talking about.

-GAWollman
--
Garrett A. Wollman | "Act to avoid constraining the future; if you can,
***@bimajority.org| act to remove constraint from the future. This is
Opinions not shared by| a thing you can do, are able to do, to do together."
my employers. | - Graydon Saunders, _A Succession of Bad Days_ (2015)
J. Clarke
2017-04-24 23:41:51 UTC
Permalink
In article <odl2g7$1mnr$***@grapevine.csail.mit.edu>, ***@bimajority.org
says...
Post by Garrett Wollman
Post by J. Clarke
Post by Magewolf
So someone claiming we were headed into a "new ice age" with no data to
back it up was mostly ignored. On the other hand climate change deniers
are going against the data and putting people in danger so a lot more
scientists speak up against it.
And there was no danger from "global warming" then? Why is there one now?
There was just as much danger then as there is now. There wasn't
sufficient data then, or sufficiently accurate climate modeling, to
make a prediction that would stand sufficient scrutiny to be the basis
for public policy.
There is now, and has been for a while. I trust the people who know
what the fuck they're talking about.
And I don't believe that anybody knows what he's talking about with regard
to climate. I'm willing to be convinced but I want to see a model that can
with some measure of accuracy predict a full glaciation cycle, not just
extrapolate from the last 300 years to the next hundred.
Post by Garrett Wollman
-GAWollman
Garrett Wollman
2017-04-25 01:20:25 UTC
Permalink
says...
Post by Garrett Wollman
There is now, and has been for a while. I trust the people who know
what the fuck they're talking about.
And I don't believe that anybody knows what he's talking about with regard
to climate.
See, I have a much simpler view: I don't believe that YOU know what
you're talking about with regard to climate. Show me your
credentials and perhaps I'll consider your claims.

-GAWollman
--
Garrett A. Wollman | "Act to avoid constraining the future; if you can,
***@bimajority.org| act to remove constraint from the future. This is
Opinions not shared by| a thing you can do, are able to do, to do together."
my employers. | - Graydon Saunders, _A Succession of Bad Days_ (2015)
J. Clarke
2017-04-25 02:16:59 UTC
Permalink
In article <odm88p$219b$***@grapevine.csail.mit.edu>, ***@bimajority.org
says...
Post by Garrett Wollman
says...
Post by Garrett Wollman
There is now, and has been for a while. I trust the people who know
what the fuck they're talking about.
And I don't believe that anybody knows what he's talking about with regard
to climate.
See, I have a much simpler view: I don't believe that YOU know what
you're talking about with regard to climate. Show me your
credentials and perhaps I'll consider your claims.
Perhaps you can tell me what my "claims" are since you seem to be such an
expert on what I believe.
Greg Goss
2017-04-25 06:49:23 UTC
Permalink
says...
Post by Garrett Wollman
says...
Post by Garrett Wollman
There is now, and has been for a while. I trust the people who know
what the fuck they're talking about.
And I don't believe that anybody knows what he's talking about with regard
to climate.
See, I have a much simpler view: I don't believe that YOU know what
you're talking about with regard to climate. Show me your
credentials and perhaps I'll consider your claims.
Perhaps you can tell me what my "claims" are since you seem to be such an
expert on what I believe.
i had you confused with Lynn. I withdraw that sarcastic accusation.
--
We are geeks. Resistance is voltage over current.
Lynn McGuire
2017-04-25 20:58:20 UTC
Permalink
Post by Lynn McGuire
"13 Most Ridiculous Predictions Made on Earth Day, 1970"
https://ricochet.com/424431/13-ridiculous-predictions-made-earth-day-1970/
"13. “The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If
present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for
the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the
year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice
age.” — Kenneth Watt"
And they wonder why people like me don't buy the anthropogenic global
warming crap.
Lynn
"George Carlin on Global Warming"


Lynn
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