We Used to Call This “Weather”
I don’t remember, to be honest, whether global warming one-liners were flying around when it snowed here in the Houston area on December 4th. We were all too busy staring flabbergasted out the windows to pay much attention.
I’m sure, though, that the wits were regaling everyone with their brilliance. “Hey! How ’bout that global warming eh? Hawhawhawhaw!”
**nudge nudge**
That line’s so worn out, it reminds me of my daughter’s Blankie — all three threads of it.
In contrast, here’s Senator Jim DeMint on Twitter yesterday:
It’s going to keep snowing in DC until Al Gore cries “uncle”
Folks, that’s just flat-out funny. Finally, a (relatively) original quip; I laughed right out loud.
Last summer, though, while much of the country sweltered under endless, devastating, record-setting heat, the Jim DeMint’s of the world were silent. Instead, we had the voices of gloom! and doom! in our ears. Polar bears were falling off their slivers of former icebergs, and the waters were rising fast as the Himalayan snowcaps melted.
Or something like that.
Does any of this affect how we handle the environment? It shouldn’t. Taking care of the planet (or rather, our little piece of it) is just common sense. Dogs won’t live in their own excrement, so why would we?
And if the Earth is cooling rather than warming, does that mean we should continue our dependence on foreign oil? Of course not. Freeing ourselves from the geopolitical nightmare that is the Middle East should be a national priority, period.
Frankly, both sides of the global warming argument look just a tad overwrought and confused to me these days. I think we should help them out by (re)introducing a new word — something that will encompass record heat to record snowfall, and everything in between.
It’s an old word. A forgotten word.
The word is…. “weather”.
42 Responses to “We Used to Call This “Weather””
Fair enough, but one side of the debate wants to impose substantial additional burdens on the economy. If we think that green energy is the future, then people will invest in it (and maybe the government should as well). Imposing large taxes in an effort to promote substitutes seems an odd way of making the transition.
As a personal matter, I'm reasonably convinced the world is warming over the last 100 years or so. I'm unconvinced that we understand the mechanism for warming or can accurately predict the impact of action. If the argument is, should we be encouraging investment in alternative technologies, I'm right there with you. If the question is whether we should impose enormous costs on the economy for an uncertain impact on a problem we don't have a particularly good understanding of, I'm sitting on the other side.
I think my favorite was a headline I saw at The Hill
“Climate-change legislation buried under record snowfall in capital”
NASA pegs Noughties as hottest decade on record
It's called the Arctic oscillation. You do know that they are having to truck snow from the higher levels of their mountains and other places to enable the Olympics to have snow due to unseasonably warm weather in Vancouver, don't you? While cold weather has shifted to the more southern latitudes the Arctic is 10 to 15 degrees above normal. Weather does not equal climate and vice versa. BTW, in places where it's summer, like Australia, they have been having record heat. It's called global for a reason.
Jim, I'm sorry you missed my point, which is that on any given day, one can make the case that the climate is changing — based on the weather — in nearly any direction one chooses.
“It's called global for a reason.”
You do know that it's called condescension for a reason, don't you?
The global part was not addressed to you so much as people like DeMint and those who seriously use regional weather events as arguments concerning global warming. Like it or not there are tons of them.
steve,
The effects of carbon dioxide have been known for over a century. It's basic physics. If it is going to be claimed that an increase in carbon dioxide doesn't lead to warming then a mechanism to counter it that stands up to research has to be proposed. So far it hasn't been.
FLASH!!
This Brand New Video Blows a Huge Gaping Hole in Obama's Cap and Tax Scheme: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVm5-6H_sH4
jim
i'm not starting another one of these, but carbon dioxide levels have been recorded at higher levels than seen today, so if CO2 were the sole modifier to climate, why has the temperature lowered from those past levels.
I will inclde a link to someone who provides a logical, scientific explanation for skepticism. If you wish to read it and then dispute its findings, I'll be willing.
http://theresilientearth.com/?q=content/why-i-a…
in the mean time, enjoy the interglacial warming.
I liked the article.
I will use discretion and refrain from further comment.
No one claims that CO2 is the sole modifier to climate. No one. Therefore that is a pure strawman argument.
One problem with the article that you link to is that while he refers to feedback he doesn't acknowledge that in climatology CO2, methane and similar gases are considered forcing factors and water vapor is a feedback system. He also doesn't acknowledge that the presence of CO2 and methane in the atmosphere, once generated, is a much longer term phenomenon than water vapor. Water vapor cycles in and out of the atmosphere much more quickly than the other gases that affect climate. In addition no models used by the IPCC use linear relationships, which he seems to be trying to imply by his references to how linear versus nonlinear systems. Also, here is a link to an <h ref=”http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/01/the-wisdom-of-solomon/”>article about the Solomon study that Hoffman misrepresents in his article. Note that in the comments there is a reference to Hoffman.
And finally, you do realize that neither of the people behind this web site and book are actually research scientists, don't you? This in spite of Hoffman's claims of being one. A degree in computer science is not the same thing as someone who actually has done original research in a given field.
Jim,
If carbon were the primary cause of temperature change, then the models we have in place would provide strong predictive capability relative to the global temperature mean departure. They do not so one of things things must be true.
Either there are other variables that factor in, or other affects of existing variables that we do not understand, or the weighting of the various factors is off.
In any case, making a multi-decade, multi-trillion dollar investment seems unjustified in my view on the basis of the proof we have. It's quite sad that the debate has devolved into a is the world getting hotter or not discussion since that's only step 1 of a multistep process.
1. Is the climate getting warmer?
I think the answer is yes and the debate about it is a waste of time anyway since granting this means nothing from a policy perspective
2. Do we have an adequately accurate forward looking view of how the climate will change in the future?
Not yet. The models aren't predictive. That's a pretty big issue when you are trying to do an ROI calculation.
3. To what degree is human behavior a significant enough causal factor to change the outcome?
Same answer as above. Since the model doesn't work in general, we can't answer this question.
4. To what degree can the United States, acting unilaterally, change the outcome? If not unilaterally, to what degree does US action change the likely action of other actors?
Recent past would suggest not much. The US is neither a major source of future emissions increases nor does it appear to have the ability to change the behavior of other state actors. This isn't surprising to me but it seems to be surprising to some.
5. Are there policy solutions that have a reasonable possibility of delivering a positive ROI over time, given the answers to the above questions? At what discount rate is this ROI positive and what are the range of outcomes?
Again, since we can't answer questions 2 and 3, this one is pretty tough to answer. Doing some back of the envelope math, this seems a pretty tough hurdle to climb but I'm open to seeing an actual analysis that says so. Some carbon abatement is net negative cost and will get done over time. The rest really does require an ROI analysis that has not been forthcoming.
If you have different points of view on 1 through 5, it's worth a discussion but I've never found any answer that gets beyond 1 and then skips to the end of spend lots of money because it might be the end of the world. It reminds me of when I was a high school debater and we used to argue that spending more money on education would lead to nuclear war. Education spending leads to growing economies, growing economies have greater propensity for nuclear weapons, more countries with nuclear weapons increases the probability of nuclear war. Kind of silly (although fun at the time) but not dissimilar to the arguments for cap and trade.
Last month was the hottest January in the satellite record (last 35 years or so) globally. Extreme precipitation events (both rain and snow) have long been predicted to increase as the world warms.
“Not yet. The models aren't predictive.”
The “original” is pretty much right on despite its simplicity.
As mikkel pointed out, yes, the models have been predictive of the future. The continued claims that they haven't are similar to the claims of creationists that no transitive fossils have been discovered.
Pretty much right on meaning within +/- 10% according to the author and not differentiating between two scenarios. Interesting that despite this assertion, the author points to no statistical analysis of the model. That would seem the logical thing to do if you were going to claim the model was accurate.
Parenthetically, none of those models are the ones the IPCC claimed were predictive in its most recent report I think.
Further, even if I grant you that, it gets me to questions 4 and 5. Any answers?
Polimom, I enjoyed your article and the humor. The weather never ceases to be a source of conversation, and it's probably been that way since humans first learned to communicate. Of course long-term climate changes aren't the same as weather patterns, something I know you're aware of, but I wouldn't bet that Jim DeMint is. It's unfortunate how science has become the victim of so much politicizing, as good science doesn't require validation from either party in order to make sense. I doubt Jim DeMint knows that either.
The accuracy of the model is within the variance of the ENSO cycle, that is good enough for me.
Points 4 and 5 are political arguments, not scientific. That's a different discussion. It's true that the developed world is expected to decrease carbon emissions no matter what and most of the increase is supposed to be in the developing world. I personally am getting more and more wary of cap and trade, and find a lot of merit in carbon origin taxes/tariffs. ROI calculations are highly variable based on your opinion of energy supplies, which I think there is very strong evidence that ROI will be amazingly high for alternative energy. They are calling for $27 trillion of investment over the next 20 years to “meet demand” for oil, which is an enormous chunk of change and the baseline case.
Jim
You obviously didn't read for comprehension.
“No one claims that CO2 is the sole modifier to climate. No one. Therefore that is a pure strawman argument.”
Neither did he.
” The primary greenhouse gases are H2O (water vapor), CO2, and CH4 (methane). I have often stated that water vapor is the most important GHG,”
” CO2, methane and similar gases are considered forcing factors and water vapor is a feedback system.”
Actually, he states
” An example of positive climatic feedback is water vapor. An increase in temperature causes more evaporation from the ocean that releases more water vapor into the atmosphere causing further temperature rise.
…
To further complicate things, some factors can participate in both positive and negative feedback loops. Water vapor, cited above as a positive feedback, can provide a negative feedback in this way: rising temperature increases atmospheric water vapor levels, which in turn causes more precipitation; if the precipitation falls as snow this can raise Earth's albedo, reflecting more sunlight and lowering the planet's overall temperature.”
Maybe you should read for comprehension before you launch your attacks. Climatologists all know that water vapor is has both positive and negative feedbacks.
And btw,
“And finally, you do realize that neither of the people behind this web site and book are actually research scientists, don't you?”
Dr. Michael E. Mann received his undergraduate degrees in Physics and Applied Math from the University of California at Berkeley, an M.S. degree in Physics from Yale University, and a Ph.D. in Geology & Geophysics from Yale University.
Doug L Hoffman
a BS in Applied Mathematics, PhD in Comp Sci, and
“While there he did research in Molecular Dynamics Simulations and, as a member of the BioSCAN team, he helped develop and implement high-speed comparison methods for RNA, DNA, and protein sequences, work funded by the Human Genome Project.”
What's your ad hominid point, that he doesn't know how to think, analyze, or demonstrate the scientific method?
Please, bud, address his points as written, not as you would like to think.
mikkel
no one is saying the earth isn't warming, it is a question of degree and cause that is under discussion. Warmer winters may well mean more rain and snow, no problem. warmer weather due to a primary cause due to C02 is not proven.
Mikkel,
Actually 4 and 5 are economic arguments, not political ones. Even the IPCC says they model is “at best” accurate at the 90 percent confidence level. That's the model that projected and continues to project continued warming.
ROI is an economic concept. We are not debating the ROI of alternative energy although that's an interesting debate. We're debating the ROI of raising the price of carbon dioxide emissions through cap and trade or a tax. That's the ROI you must demonstrate to be positive in order to institute the policy. The AGW community shows no interest in doing this in a way that is rigorous. The discussion in the IPCC report is a joke since it chooses to make assumptions about future technology that are themselves highly speculative.
Parenthetically, if the ROI on investments in solar were so much higher than investing in oil, do you really believe that people would continue to invest in oil over solar? Solar has huge issues both as a generation technology and in terms of distribution.
Hemm, Hoffman has an excellent understanding of the foundational concepts involved but it's all about this statement.
“Global warming proponents have yet to identify the mechanisms present in Earth's current environment that will cause a rapid nonlinear climate warming…There is no compelling proof that Earth's climate system acts as a temperature change amplifier.”
This assertion is completely unsourced and not at all representative of the current understanding. If he wants to attack specific theories, then fine, but he doesn't talk about the myriad of explanations of potential feedback loops at all, like saturation of ocean with CO2, decreased ability for it to hold CO2 as temperature increases, the decline of arctic ice, methane hydrates in arctic permafrost, increased water vapor, major deforestation due to climate change (both from precipitation changes and beetles etc) that will add more carbon, so on and so forth. On the flip side there don't appear to be too many negative feedback loops for a while.
Our entire infrastructure is built around oil and fossil fuels. This is why I say it is political. If you look at ROI in terms of the status quo then oil, etc. will seemingly come out ahead for somewhere between 10 and 20 years depending on your views of peak oil (the IEA projection is at 2030, so let's say 20 years) at which point there is going to be massive oscillation of prices, destroying investment capacity.
If you argue for an alternative energy economy then that requires large scale political changes. The argument is that there will be increased employment, a bevy of new technological innovation, less of a trade deficit, better insulation to geopolitical/economic shocks, a more decentralized power structure, so on and so forth. On balance I think there is very strong evidence that this sociopolitical change will lead to stronger economic foundations, more than making up for the lower short term (and probably slightly negative) ROI.
I get weary of people making ROI arguments like there is some objective measure of reality that it captures. It doesn't…it's just a projection within the current way of doing things. It's not just energy either, it's also about healthcare, food production, everything. I have an idea for healthcare IT that I can make very strong arguments that it would save $100 billion+ a year once it was incorporated, and have been in talks with many of the facets of the healthcare system. Everyone I've presented it to sees the promise and agrees with my presentation entirely, then says that the higher ups will never go for it because it doesn't have a good 2-5 year ROI and requires largescale collaboration, which they say won't happen because everyone likes protecting their turf to preserve market share. Does that mean the idea is bad? No, it just means that there are short sighted actors at the top and I need to make it a political issue to change the dynamics so ROI does matter. I'm in the process of partnering with a large corporation not currently seen as a health player because they see the promise too..but if people have too much moral cowardice to stand up to the status quo then we're gonna fail.
It's similar with energy — although not as clear cut because there are major major scientific and resource challenges that need to be addressed.
HemmD, read your own statement. Here, I'll help. (Emphasis mine.)
Also, Mann has done research in the field that has been published in the peer reviewed journals and honestly answered his critics. This is the distinction I'm trying to make.
If it helps, feel free to use NPV (no short-term issues). Show me a positive NPV case and I'll support it. I get that you have to make assumptions but it's better to make assumptions that have a demonstrable impact than assertions that we should do it because “it's important”.
Another one where HemmD isn't being completely honest.
First, there are lots of people denying that the earth is warming. Lots of them. But I'll give you that you are saying that neither you or the article you're linking to are saying it. But here's the thing. The link between CO2 increasing and warming is considered as proven for now because every alternative explanation has failed to meet the standards of review. There have been claims about solar activity. The overwhelming majority of astronomers who work in that field responded with a no. There were claims about cosmic rays. Same reaction. Until a viable alternative explanation is presented the scientific community does accept CO2 increases as a major contributor to warming and the only one we are actually capable of doing something about.
Jim,
That simply can't be your argument. That's an I'll assume that CO2 is the cause until someone proves that something else is. You can't base any policy argument on that approach. If that's how our climate scientists do science, I'm deeply concerned
Ummm….no, it is that thousands of scientists have examined the evidence, as in rigorous scientific studies and come the the conclusion that CO2 (and other things that man has done) is a major contributor. Since that is the case it then becomes the responsibility of those denying it to posit a rational reason that can be tested for that conclusion to be tossed aside. That is the way science works.
Actually, that's fine if you simply want to sustain the conclusion that CO2 has something to do with warming. It's not good enough to propose a specific policy solution that has a cost of trillions of dollars over decades.
If you are proposing that type of investment, you've got to substantiate a positive NPV.
To build on that argument, wouldn't it make sense to move a hefty percentage of the military budget into removing our oil dependency, since it would almost certainly improve our military position?
I get tired of this carbon debate when the economic and military advantages to removing oil dependency are so gableeving obvious.
It's a shame that we can't just marvel at the snow and note the records that are being set.
This left-wing political movement (which is what it is) really has stained not only climate and weather, science, journalism, and more special areas, but everyday life, too.
“no one is saying the earth isn't warming, it is a question of degree and cause that is under discussion”
It's not only that. This political movement is demanding familiar goals and objectives as “solutions” to this “crisis” that in no way follow from what is observed or what may be deduced or concluded therefrom, as well as being harmful and often pathological or perverse, in and of themselves. (They're also old and quite familiar goals, just propounded now for a more recent, vibrant political movement.)
“You do know that it's called condescension for a reason, don't you?”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/ar…
“It's not good enough to propose a specific policy solution that has a cost of trillions of dollars over decades.”
That's aside from another convenient truth — that many of the proponents are beginning with the policy solutions and looking and working backward for excuses to pursue them.
Mikkel,
The best work I've seen on this subject remains an old and great work, by Flohn (a true authority on climate). This work (large-scale in the same way as a book I have by Budyko on global ecology, that includes treatment of future climate change involving warming), from an institute with which you may be familiar (or at least you'll appreciate), describes a reasonable “worst case” stable scenario well. If you're familiar with climate, you'll snatch promptly what the essential points mean — about the ice-free Arctic and the shifts in the subtropical highs and the inter-tropical convergence zone and their effects.
http://www.iiasa.ac.at/Admin/PUB/Documents/RR-80-030.pdf
Even in this scenario, the real worst case global-warming prediction, which is obviously not guaranteed or possibly even likely, it should be possible to adapt to the changes he describes. (That is, to the bad changes; we would enjoy a number of good changes as well.) In no way does even this scenerio merit pursuit of the various goals that are being sought, at great cost to the economy and society, and to progress. No way. (In fact, it should be stated again that most of the goals of the activists are independent of this particular “crisis,” which happens to have more staying power and emotional appeal to many than most of the predecessors.)
Mikkel
Your long list of “potential” feedbacks are my point. Temps went down after the highs of the nineties while C02 levels steadily increased. This drop demonstrates negative feedbacks are alive and well. You mentioned water vapor in your list, what is its negative feedback and what is its positive feedbacks? Feedbacks are notorious for being difficult to calculate as positive and negative interactions. Saying with confidence that C02 is the primary contributor to the climate system requires more than is currently attributed.
The link I provided attempts to bring up inconsistencies with the current hypothesis. I'm not saying I or this link provides answers, but it certainly is a start to question s being poo-pooed by the warmists. One of the questions not detailed in this link is one of granularity. We have seen a sharp rise in temps in the past ten years or so, but the historic record is millions of years without the benefit of satellite or instrument measurements. Without similar day by day, year by year record, how can you with certainty state these kinds of variations are not ubiquitous?
The hockey stick scandal demonstrates concerted effort to minimize historical variations such as the MWP and LIA, so this variation is pertinent to the discussion. If the MWP was closely similar to now, perhaps the true cause of variation is still not well understood.
“Your long list of “potential” feedbacks are my point. Temps went down after the highs of the nineties while C02 levels steadily increased. This drop demonstrates negative feedbacks are alive and well.”
People need to distinguish between dynamics and gain factor. Dynamics are ENSO, multi-decadal oscillation, net heat trapping from the sun, water/carbon cycling, and the like. The amount of heat (energy) in the system really should be thought primary as the gain factor, influencing the dynamics (and the dynamics can increase or decrease them) but often times is more akin to the volume than the music that's played.
Also you know very well that the 1998 blip was due to the strongest El Nino in a very long time that the 5 year mean has consistently risen since then.
Also no one is saying that CO2 is THE primary contributor to the climate system, they are saying it's the primary contributor to the observed increases right now. The past glaciation changes have occurred with regularity and correlated with known earth orbit/axis wobble. Right now we're in the part of the cycle where it's supposed to be decreasing due to that. The bulk of the warming from the mid 1850s-1950s can be explained by solar activity increases, but that isn't the case for the last 50 years. In fact last year was the second warmest year on record despite modern day record minimum solar activity. On the other hand, CO2 sensitivity was first estimated and warming predicted around the turn of the century, before the temperatures even started increasing that much and that explanation — based on rudimentary first principles, which then were modified by trying to incorporate negative feedbacks — fits the data well on long time scales.
And speaking of time scales, the feedback loop durations have been estimated based on trying to mix basic first principles with observation, to which they have characterized fast/medium/slow feedbacks, where even the slowest couldn't account for decades of change.
“The link I provided attempts to bring up inconsistencies with the current hypothesis.”
Actually it really doesn't. It just describes the nature of the problem and then asserts that there is no evidence for positive feedbacks without addressing any of the specific hypotheses that are in the models, commentary on the current explanations for past temperature changes and what is different today, so on and so forth.
Flohn only had the data available to him to work with. A lot more research has been done with better tools in the thirty years since.
Can you propose a mechanism that would cause the recent changes to be ubiquitous? Without a viable explanation it's just not good enough to say they might be so. The so-called hockey stick scandal is no such thing. Detailed analysis on the part of people hired by the AP showed that, as well as other people looking into it.
BTW, the MWP was a regional phenomenon, not a global one. Attempt to draw parallels between then and now therefore fail miserably.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Warm_Period
jim
By the way, check again. Japan experienced an uptick at the same time. That's not local
Thanks for the Wikipedia link. Care to find out who has been managing the entries across Wiki?
try googling whqat been going on on wiki's warming pages.
I said regional, not local. It covered a significant portion of the northern hemisphere. That still doesn't make it global. Wikipedia is not the only source that shows the MWP was a regional, not global phenomenon.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2…
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/10/03…
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/me…