[rockdoc123]

Yes. Manure, from one who claims to be educated. I don't know "precisely" why my back hurts today (as in the "precise" physiological processes involved), but I can be pretty damn sure it is related to, and a consequence of, the fact that I moved 20 sheets of plywood yesterday.

here we go again....ignore the actual science and go with your "gut feeling". Yeah that will make the world advance.

I kept aquariums for many years and, when I was a kid, I discovered that when a fish died, if I didn't remove it pretty quickly, the filter system would get overwhelmed from the byproducts of decay and the increasing imbalance would cause more fish to die, which would increase that imbalance, causing the whole system to crash into another state. Poof! In a few days my nice aquarium full of happy fish became a stinky swamp full of happy, mostly anaerobic, slime.

which has absolutely F&^% all to do with paleoclimatology. But convince yourself your personal day to day observations apply directly to climate variation that are only observable over periods of thousands if not tens of thousands of year intervals. Hey, who needs science when you have handyman intuition.
In the case of AGW, not only are we adding "decay products" (CO2, methane, etc.) at an accelerating rate, we are adding more "fish" (humans producing waste) to the tank, all-the-while, reducing our filter size via deforestation, reef bleaching, development, on and on. I don't need a PhD to understand where that's going

[dissident]

The tobacco industry propaganda template applied to climate change. Smoking has no ill effects, trust us. And any study that we did not pay for is not credible since the studies we paid for point to all sorts of uncertainty. The famous propaganda phrase "the science is not settled" is being spammed to this forum and any forum where climate change is discussed.

The global warming deniers are leveraging the pathetic state of education in the USA and Canada to pimp their ridiculous, endlessly debunked claims. Most people simply do not know that 99.99% (N2 + O2 + argon) of the atmosphere is transparent to IR. And the only reason we have life on this planet is because of trace greenhouse gases such as CO2 and essentially trace water vapour. They also do not know that water vapour cannot act as a dry gas and is thermodynamically controlled. Without a dry greenhouse gas such as CO2, all the water vapour would precipitate out together with a massive increase of surface albedo. There is a runaway freezing regime where even the salty oceans freeze solid. So at the end of the day it is the trace dry greenhouse gases that control the temperature of the atmosphere and the oceans (and land surface).

Deniers always invoke variability as if that is some primary physical process. It is not and these liars know it. Given the critical control aspect of CO2 on the global temperature, current variability means precisely f*ck all since if the CO2 was removed the Earth would become an Ice Hell. Yeah there would be some vapourization on the sunny side. But basically 100% of the solar radiation would be reflected back into space.

The flip side of the Ice Hell is the Furnace Hell. Increasing the CO2 by several times (which we are doing by liberating cryospheric and other carbon reservoirs) is not some "variability", it dominates and controls any variability and drives the system to a regime were mammals cannot survive.

[rockdoc123]

The tobacco industry propaganda template applied to climate change. Smoking has no ill effects, trust us. And any study that we did not pay for is not credible since the studies we paid for point to all sorts of uncertainty. The famous propaganda phrase "the science is not settled" is being spammed to this forum and any forum where climate change is discussed

as is always the case you turn every discussion into one that focuses on the fact (that hardly anyone in the world disagrees with) that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. That is not what the discussion is about. From the paleo studies it is about how much change could be related to greenhouse gases and how much is related to natural variation including direct and indirect impacts of solar. There is literally hundreds of peer-reviewed articles in the paleo literature regarding studies in this vein but you try to imply it is all somehow a "denier" claim with no basis in science. And before you go on this tirade that there is no such thing as natural variation I suggest you do a search in any number of climate journals in that regard. If you want I can list scores of papers published in the last few years that deal directly with that subject matter.

Deniers always invoke variability as if that is some primary physical process. It is not and these liars know it. Given the critical control aspect of CO2 on the global temperature, current variability means precisely f*ck all since if the CO2 was removed the Earth would become an Ice Hell. Yeah there would be some vapourization on the sunny side. But basically 100% of the solar radiation would be reflected back into space

and if the sun suddenly stopped emitting any radiation at all the earth would become an ice ball regardless of how much CO2 was there. So what?

There is a reason that studies into what equilibrium and transient climate sensitivity ranges actually continue to be published. IF the answer was known it would not be a subject of ongoing debate. There is also a reason that CO2 is not the only forcing in climate models, your rant implies it is.

Once again you demonstrate a very unscientific approach to subject matter that, contrary to what you want everyone to think, is being actively debated in the published literature. But then again anyone who disagrees with you is apparently a denier....just like Judith Curry who I am sure you consider a denier regardless of the extensive publications and awards.

[Newfie]

Roc,

How do you explain that the majority of researchers have come to a different conclusion?

[Tanada]

as is always the case you turn every discussion into one that focuses on the fact (that hardly anyone in the world disagrees with) that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. That is not what the discussion is about. From the paleo studies it is about how much change could be related to greenhouse gases and how much is related to natural variation including direct and indirect impacts of solar.

Yes, it has been a big question, how much change is due to greenhouse gas. The answer is a lot, by a fatal amount. There are two primary inputs to consider: How much greenhouse gas? How much warming? Then, you calculate the sensitivity of the system (which varies I suspect according to feedback mechanisms as well). There are clouds and there is ice.

Just to consider, the Earth's ability to sustain life like ours is related to the chemical properties of primarily CO2, O2 and H2O.

It's quite a beautiful theory, actually.

Taking this concept a little further, the elements H, O and C have respectively valences of 1, 2 and 4, sort of like a computerized binary, octal system of numbering! So, we're not a computer simulation or are we?

[onlooker]

The flip side of the Ice Hell is the Furnace Hell. Increasing the CO2 by several times (which we are doing by liberating cryospheric and other carbon reservoirs) is not some "variability", it dominates and controls any variability and drives the system to a regime were mammals cannot survive.

Exactly. And given that we can detect certain geologic events in the past, know roughly the amount of CO2 at certain intervals in the past and have established the scientific basis for certain climate change processes any variability simply amounts to inconsequential in relation to the degree and speed of forcing we have introduced into the system. . But, we are used to Rockdoc, just ignoring certain facts when it comes to his denial affinity.

[rockdoc123]

Roc,

How do you explain that the majority of researchers have come to a different conclusion?

what conclusion would that be? If you are referring to the supposed census (the BS 99% story) that has been debunked numerous times as being statistically invalid (poor sampling, leading questions and incorrect data analysis). And where do you get the information that tells you this view...the press (which is generally where the public gets their information). Not a good way to formulate scientific opinion (i.e. getting it from someone who studied journalism in school and likely never took any science courses). If there was some sort of consensus it would not really matter...science doesn't work by consensus, never has. As I've pointed out numerous times there are numerous examples of famous science theories that were at the time "bandwagon" and eventually proven wrong and there are a considerable number of examples of scientists who published theories that were completely out of line with mainstream thinking that eventually proved to be a better explanation of the natural world (case in point would be J. Tuzo Wilson's plate tectonics theory, Wegners theory on continental drift etc).

when Albert Einstein was confronted with a 100 authors who were stated as being completely at odds with his theory of relatively his reply was " why 100? If I was wrong one would be enough."

there is a good article that speaks to why people in general ignore factual information that proves their "belief system" wrong, worth reading:

https://jamesclear.com/why-facts-dont-change-minds

Exactly. And given that we can detect certain geologic events in the past, know roughly the amount of CO2 at certain intervals in the past and have established the scientific basis for certain climate change processes any variability simply amounts to inconsequential in relation to the degree and speed of forcing we have introduced into the system. . But, we are used to Rockdoc, just ignoring certain facts when it comes to his denial affinity.

complete and utter BS. Do you actually think it is that simple? Have you actually ever looked at a climate model, even a "simple" one? I suspect not. Do you have any idea how paleo CO2 is measured or for that matter paleo temperature? Do you have a clue as to what the precision is with regards to measurement or what the narrowest time interval is that can be measured? OF course you don't or you won't be spouting this nonsense. If you think that it is just CO2 that matters or even just greenhouse gas you are seriously misled. But continue on with your fantasy.

[jedrider]

Actually, a good summary of the significance of this excess CO2 in our current context:

The Amazon Is Not Earth's Lungs
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/08/amazon-fire-earth-has-plenty-oxygen/596923/

Basically, we're just suffering from Miner's Lung Disease of the atmosphere.

[onlooker]

Roc,

How do you explain that the majority of researchers have come to a different conclusion?

what conclusion would that be? If you are referring to the supposed census (the BS 99% story) that has been debunked numerous times as being statistically invalid (poor sampling, leading questions and incorrect data analysis). And where do you get the information that tells you this view...the press (which is generally where the public gets their information). Not a good way to formulate scientific opinion (i.e. getting it from someone who studied journalism in school and likely never took any science courses). If there was some sort of consensus it would not really matter...science doesn't work by consensus, never has. As I've pointed out numerous times there are numerous examples of famous science theories that were at the time "bandwagon" and eventually proven wrong and there are a considerable number of examples of scientists who published theories that were completely out of line with mainstream thinking that eventually proved to be a better explanation of the natural world (case in point would be J. Tuzo Wilson's plate tectonics theory, Wegners theory on continental drift etc).

when Albert Einstein was confronted with a 100 authors who were stated as being completely at odds with his theory of relatively his reply was " why 100? If I was wrong one would be enough."

there is a good article that speaks to why people in general ignore factual information that proves their "belief system" wrong, worth reading:

https://jamesclear.com/why-facts-dont-change-minds

Exactly. And given that we can detect certain geologic events in the past, know roughly the amount of CO2 at certain intervals in the past and have established the scientific basis for certain climate change processes any variability simply amounts to inconsequential in relation to the degree and speed of forcing we have introduced into the system. . But, we are used to Rockdoc, just ignoring certain facts when it comes to his denial affinity.

complete and utter BS. Do you actually think it is that simple? Have you actually ever looked at a climate model, even a "simple" one? I suspect not. Do you have any idea how paleo CO2 is measured or for that matter paleo temperature? Do you have a clue as to what the precision is with regards to measurement or what the narrowest time interval is that can be measured? OF course you don't or you won't be spouting this nonsense. If you think that it is just CO2 that matters or even just greenhouse gas you are seriously misled. But continue on with your fantasy.

What rubbush.

Greenhouse gases include water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone. The major greenhouse gases are water vapor, which causes about 36-70% of the greenhouse effect on Earth (not including clouds); carbon dioxide, which causes 9-26%; methane, which causes 4-9%, and ozone, which causes 3-7%.

This is established science you know like gravity. Then the Paleo record is about events and processes that have occurred in the past. Combine the two and you get a very very sound basis for sounding the alarm about levels of CO2 not seen for milliins of years. You are sounding like a conspiracy theorist yourself. But keep pretending that is not settled science. As for variability, well the biggest one that could offset this runaway train unfortunately is not doing it. The radiance of the Sun is at a low level, we should not be having the Arctic ice disappearing and glaciers melting etc.

[rockdoc123]

This is established science you know like gravity. Then the Paleo record is about events and processes that have occurred in the past. Combine the two and you get a very very sound basis for sounding the alarm about levels of CO2 not seen for milliins of years

complete uneducated blather.

CO2 is a greenhouse gas....that is a fact nobody argues with. What is continually argued is how much effect it has.

The level of ECS based on scores of papers published in the past number of years ranges from around 1.5C to around 4C when the unsupported outliers are excluded. That is a fact that is based on publications. Projecting forward to 2100 that would mean a difference between nothing to write home about and some regional likely serious regional impacts. Publications point to a range simply because they do not know. But apparently you do.

Temperature rise and fall in geologic history has at times between completely unlinked from CO2...that is a fact. Correlation doesn't mean causation but lack of correlation does indeed mean a delink in causation entirely.

We have no means of determining changes in T or CO2 or other greenhouse gases over periods under thousands of years in the geologic past with any confidence simply because our methods of dating do not allow for that kind of accuracy. Comparisons with what has happened over a couple of decades in current times with changes that occurred over thousands of years in the past are meaningless.

[Newfie]

Roc,

So do. Oh dent the Arctic is warming? If not then by what process?

[rockdoc123]

So do. Oh dent the Arctic is warming? If not then by what process?

Not understanding the question....some typos in there me thinks.

[Newfie]

Sorry for that, my apologies.

So you do not think the Arctic is warming? If you do think it is warming then by what process?

[GHung]

How reliable is geologic dating?

https://www.sciencemeetsreligion.org/ev ... bility.php

(long article - excerpt)
.....................
Along this line, Roger Wiens, a scientist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, asks those who are skeptical of radiometric dating to consider the following (quoted in several cases from [Wiens2002]):

There are well over forty different radiometric dating methods, and scores of other methods such as tree rings and ice cores.

All of the different dating methods agree--they agree a great majority of the time over millions of years of time. Some [skeptics] make it sound like there is a lot of disagreement, but this is not the case. The disagreement in values needed to support the position of young-earth proponents would require differences in age measured by orders of magnitude (e.g., factors of 10,000, 100,000, a million, or more). The differences actually found in the scientific literature are usually close to the margin of error, usually a few percent, not orders of magnitude!

Vast amounts of data overwhelmingly favor an old Earth. Several hundred laboratories around the world are active in radiometric dating. Their results consistently agree with an old Earth. Over a thousand papers on radiometric dating were published in scientifically recognized journals in the last year, and hundreds of thousands of dates have been published in the last 50 years. Essentially all of these strongly favor an old Earth.

Radioactive decay rates have been measured for over sixty years now for many of the decay clocks without any observed changes. And it has been close to a hundred years since the uranium-238 decay rate was first determined.

A recent survey of the rubidium-strontium method found only about 30 cases, out of tens of thousands of published results, where a date determined using the proper procedures was subsequently found to be in error.

Both long-range and short-range dating methods have been successfully verified by dating lavas of historically known ages over a range of several thousand years.

The mathematics for determining the ages from the observations is relatively simple.

.... and, yes, I know they generally can't narrow a specific sample down to a few years, and I was expecting the correlation/causation thingy, but it's quite clear that:

rising levels of atmospheric CO2 coincide with rising temperatures (that mechanism is well understood),

that we are pumping gigatons of CO2 into the atmosphere every year,

that the current rising temperature trend coincides with the onset of the industrial age and dramatically increased burning of fossil fuels along with vast human destruction of carbon-sequestering mechanisms,

that the vast majority of climate and atmospheric scientists agree that humans are warming the planet,

that the Arctic and Greenland are melting at an accelerating rate,

that this process has been scientifically predicted for over 100 years,

that most current organisms on Earth are adapted to a fairly narrow range of temperatures,

that extinctions and other environmental degradations are proceding apace, many accelerating,

that human population and consumption are increasing,

..... and that virtually all measurements of these things coincide.

Your mother may have raised a fool, but mine did not. Considering the above (and many other factors) I'm certainly not going to fall for some weak-assed argument about how "correlation doesn't prove correlation". I mean, really? If some guy bops you in the head with a ball bat, are you going to blame the pain on a headache? A brain tumor?

.... and while we're at it, let's throw in a few million tons of methane, just for good measure.

[Newfie]

I came upon an appropriate quote.

THE INFINITE IS NOT JUST A WHILE LOT MORE IF THE FINITE.

Prior to human influence Earth resides in a state of near balance, things changed but mostly in a much more gradual time frame. There was the odd meteorite or massive eruption but they were sufficiently infrequent events to be named and become marked spots on the timeline of Earth.

Humans have upset this balance through mining and releasing vast amounts of stored carbon, ONE effect is Climate Change. others include:
The human population bloom.
Which includes massive agriculture.
Which has terra formed large parts of the planet.
And the oceans through over fishing and dragging.
Aquifers are disappearing along with arable land.
And the creation of vast amounts of plastic.
Which we dump into the environment.
Creating toxic land and ocean dead zones and dead rivers.

Fossils fuels, Earth’s store of fossil carbon resources are huge but not infinite. Time is infinite. At some point we will run out. But we will likely run out of water and/or land first, if we don’t kill ourselves otherwise.

Our economic system is based on growth. All 25 Presidential candidates agree, including Trump. But growth can not be infinite. There are limits. So the question becomes where do we set the limits.

The thread is titled “Runaway Global Warming” which is good but a more accurate description would be “Runaway Growth”.

So while we may argue about the details of warming and it’s processes the growth continues unabated. The growth is fueled by fossil carbon.

To limit the growth is to limit fossil carbon release.

To limit fossil carbon is to limit growth.

Combating climate change is to focus upon one single effect of the disease. We may disagree about this singular aspect while agreeing to the treatment plan.

That someone doesn’t agree on Climate Change does not mean that they disagree on limiting the release of fossilized carbon because of the other poisonous effects.

On the other hand to argue for the limitation of fossilized carbon while calling for WWII levels of industrial infrastructure development is muddled thinking. It is essentially making the argument that we can continue infinite growth by replacing carbon with other “renewable” resources. It completely ignores that climate is a singular symptom. Even if this power substitution could be accomplished the pollution and depletion of land and water resources would continue.

[Ibon]

We wont do anything but many things will be done to us.

[Newfie]

Short summary:

When arguing climate change you are arguing a single point about the negative effects of releasing fossilized carbon. It is a resource to be used sparingly, to be share with many future generation, as is the land and water. It’s release degrades and pollutes the land and water. It’s release supports the myth of infinite economic growth.

Infinite economic growth is a modern myth that has infected our culture and which blinds us to the inevitable outcome.

I don’t know how to fix that, but the start is to recognize the core problem.

[Newfie]

We wont do anything but many things will be done to us.

That is undoubtedly true, but I don’t intend to be passive in that interaction.

[Ibon]

We wont do anything but many things will be done to us.

That is undoubtedly true, but I don’t intend to be passive in that interaction.

The entire planet is not going to be passive either..... this very fact is what has lead me to hypothesize that the times ahead are a great opportunity for cultural and social change toward how we treat our mother earth...... you know, down right revolutionary.

Corporal punishment does lead to respect, capitulation, obedience and humility.

Sometimes children act out in order to test limits and a good spanking is actually a relief as the limits are then known. Can such a thing apply to spoiled cultures as well?

[rockdoc123]

How reliable is geologic dating?

Your article has nothing whatsoever to do with what I was describing. The article refers to the repeatability of various dating methods. Having spent time doing Rb/Sr and U/Th dating back in grad school many decades ago I would agree, you can reproduce dates based on several sample runs. What you can’t do, however, is measure time periods less than thousands of years due to the error bars associated which are a product of longer decay rates and sample alteration. If you think this article supports the idea that you can measure temperature change over a range of a couple of decades you have a comprehension problem

rising levels of atmospheric CO2 coincide with rising temperatures (that mechanism is well understood),

wrong….Ordovician as an example where high CO2 corresponded with worldwide glaciation, Silurian when CO2 dropped and temperatures rose, Permain-Triassice where temperatures rose and remained high while CO2 did not rise. As well the detail from Antarctic ice cores shows an offset of several hundred years between rise or fall in temperature and similar effects in CO2. More recently there was a relatively wide swing in temperatures from the MWP through the LIA and CO2 remained relatively constant. You only need the disconnect to happen once to suggest a correlation is not relevant.

that the vast majority of climate and atmospheric scientists agree that humans are warming the planet, 

the fact that CO2 is a greenhouse gas means some warming will be the result of anthropogenic CO2 …the question is how much, hence all the ongoing research in ECS/TCS. How many times do I have to reiterate this very basic point? There are scads of papers on the subject, doesn't anyone read the literature anymore?

that the Arctic and Greenland are melting at an accelerating rate,

that this process has been scientifically predicted for over 100 years,

Hardly. How many times in the past has there been predictions of an ice-free Arctic? And not just boneheads like Al Gore but actual climate “gurus” like Mark Sereeze who predicted the Arctic would be ice-free back in 2008. Hansen predicted the Arctic would be ice-free by 2018 at the latest. Jay Zwally a NASA climatologist focused on ice sheets predicted an ice-free Arctic in 2012. Never happened.

that most current organisms on Earth are adapted to a fairly narrow range of temperatures,

adaptation is something you can’t measure unless it happens. We actually have no idea how certain species will respond to changing climates…they can migrate, change patterns or over long periods adapt genetically. There are species of fish that have been present in the oceans for 600 MMy, Crocodilians have been around since the Cretaceous (100 MMya), ginkgo trees have been around for about the same time. When you say “narrow range” you are referring to average daily temperature but in fact, most species have done well over a wide range of temperatures when you look at daily minimum to daily maximum and yearly minimum to the yearly maximum. As an example, the deer that keep eating my rose bushes are tromping around in the snow when it is -30 C and busy nibbling away at my roses when it is +30 C. That is a much wider range than the predicted 2 C rise in average temperature they might have to deal with under current predictions.