[Digestion] TEDx crowdsourcing/call for abstracts (Steve Verhey)

[David]

Dear list:

This is about AGW, so for any who have no interest, please delete. I 
will also say that I have no intention to continue the discussion on 
the forum.




Randy,

On 7/21/2011 10:23 AM, Randy Mott wrote:
>
> Linzer is the real thing. The historical data do not support the 
> modeling, which   - when you examine it -  is goofy to say the 
> least. Most of the warming effect is from assumptions about water 
> vapor that have been contradicted by actual studies. Al Gore's 
> famous ice core graphic is DELIBERATELY misleading, in that he uses 
> 100,000 intervals that mask the fact that the temperature changes 
> observed came before the GHG increases by 900 years on average.
>
> I am not relying on anyone's opinion, but on data. The historical 
> record COMPLETELY contradicts the models and opinions of the "grant 
> seekers."
>


As Steve said, this area of study has "plenty of uncertainty", 
although, I would add, the uncertainty is less and less /fundamental/, 
if I may use that word, every day. By that I mean to point to the 
reasons why the overwhelming majority (better than 95%, according to 
figures I have seen) of relevant scientists agree that anthropogenic 
climate change is real: it's because the data are accumulating. The 
disagreement, although the popular press does not seem to realize, is 
about the /degree/ of the effect (pardon the pun), not whether the 
effect exists. We still are learning rather important new things about 
the natural systems that impact the trend line, bending it flatter or 
steeper, but not, as far as I know, as yet erasing or reversing the trend.

Contributing to the uncertainty we have a moving target, where 
accumulating evidence provides both new questions and new answers, 
while at the same time tending to invalidate positions taken at an 
earlier stage of the process, particularly where those opinions went 
beyond the data in hand when expressed.

All of this-- as well as simple courtesy and humility-- means that it 
is nearly impossible to say something sufficiently true about climate 
change that is not rather nuanced and cautious. As I said previously, 
science does not provide us with very many opportunities to be dogmatic.

To wit, Newton made enormous strides-- including inventing calculus, a 
feat which continues to amaze me when I contemplate it-- in describing 
planetary mechanics. And as compared with preceding efforts, the 
accuracy and completeness of what he provided was overwhelming. And in 
spite of any appearance of perfection-- based perhaps on the beauty of 
the math-- those who proclaimed that the matter could be put to rest 
were bound to be disappointed, because...

Then along came Einstein, demonstrating that Newton was actually 
wrong. I don't think it's too strong a statement to say that we would 
not, could not have GPS today except for the subtle corrections 
provided by Einstein, because GPS depends so heavily on the timing of 
signals, and that timing is affected by the gravity well of the earth 
sufficiently that a merely Newtonian, trigonometric approach to the 
issue would not give us good localization.

As such, when I encounter statements which appear to me to lack 
nuance-- where the statements are not humble, even if the statement 
maker may perhaps be-- I find that they are, for me at least, 
counter-productive, i.e. that they tend to make me more skeptical of 
the position advanced in such clothing, even though I recognize that 
the two are different. That is, someone may well shout about a 
scientific matter and still speak with considerable accuracy-- these 
being, as I said, two different things-- but given the nuance of the 
data, it is difficult for me to understand how those who understand it 
might fail to communicate in a nuanced way.



As regards the historical record, a number of respected scientists 
appear to disagree with you. For example, Montañez et al, in 
"CO2-Forced Climate and
Vegetation Instability During Late Paleozoic Deglaciation" (here 
<http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/rrusso/gly6932/Montanez_etal_Science07.pdf>), 
state that

    The late Paleozoic deglaciation is the vegetated Earth's only
    recorded icehouse-to-greenhouse transition, yet the climate
    dynamics remain enigmatic. By using the stable isotopic
    compositions of soil-formed minerals, fossil-plant matter, and
    shallow-water brachiopods, we estimated atmospheric partial
    pressure of carbon dioxide (pCO2) and tropical marine surface
    temperatures during this climate transition. Comparison to
    southern Gondwanan glacial records documents covariance between
    inferred shifts in pCO2, temperature, and ice volume consistent
    with greenhouse gas forcing of climate. Major restructuring of
    paleotropical flora in western Euramerica occurred in step with
    climate and pCO2 shifts, illustrating the biotic impact associated
    with past CO2-forced turnover to a permanent ice-free world.


I do not think it is correct that a 900 year difference in ancient 
temperature changes vs. CO2 concentration has been established. Such 
an inference ignores a number of things, including the fact that the 
further back in time we go, the more it is true that this data is 
inferential, not direct, as indicated in the abstract quoted above. 
That is, we are measuring markers which /infer/ temperature, and much 
of what we know about CO2 concentration, past a certain point, is 
likewise inferential, since we have no direct record of the former, 
nor any truly ancient direct record of the latter. Ice core data comes 
close to directly recording CO2 concentrations, but as we go back in 
the record-- deeper in the ice-- it becomes increasingly difficult to 
state with confidence when a given bubble was trapped. As well, beyond 
something between 100,000 and 400,000 years ago (depending on the core 
being examined), there is no record, no ice remaining from that time.

For anything more ancient than that the data for both is inferential. 
Further, the inferential measure of one most usually comes from 
several entirely different data sets than those used for the 
inferential measure of the other, which would mean that one is 
(likewise) inferring two time scales and then matching data across 
time on that basis. Scientists have some confidence, based on ice core 
data and other measures, that it has been ~400,000 years (or more) 
since the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere was higher than it is 
today. Across that /minimum/ timescale the 900 year difference you 
invoke is below a quarter of one percent in the /aggregate/ data. 
Because errors multiply, the source data (i.e. before timescale 
matching) would have to be far, far more accurate than that. Thus, 
given the uncertainties listed, the data would have to be really 
remarkably accurate to support as conclusive a statement as it appears 
you've made, and while I'm by no means a scientist, I would think it 
would be difficult to find such certainty in such data.




d.
-- 
David William House
"The Complete Biogas Handbook" |www.completebiogas.com|
/Vahid Biogas/, an alternative energy consultancy |www.vahidbiogas.com

|
"Make no search for water.       But find thirst,
And water from the very ground will burst."
(Rumi, a Persian mystic poet, quoted in /Delight of Hearts/, p. 77)

http://bahai.us/
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