Map Makers Admit Mistake in Showing Ice Cap Loss in Greenland

[P4man]

The second article is about emissions, not atmospheric concentration. Just to convert to GtC from metric tons, lets use this link:

I only dug deeper in to  this one, as its arguably the most important, and it seems you are correct. Here is a good rebuttal as well as explanation for the misrepresentation of the IPCC numbers by some scientists and media:

http://www.climate.unibe.ch/~joos/papers/manning10natg.pdf

My bad for relying a news site.

That said, my basic point still stands. If one feels compelled to question current climate science because we do not know enough,  one has to take in to account the possibility of gross underestimation of the risks and effects by science too. Even as it stands, current scenarios predict a global temperature rise of up to 6.4C by next century, and from what Ive read, that would put the planet roughly at the same temperature as during the anoxic events.

My point is not that we are triggering one, but that it would seem at least as likely as the notion we can just discard climate science and its predictions.

[bb113]

Ok, a little on the philosophy (even though I think it is getting off topic):

That said, my basic point still stands. If one feels compelled to question current climate science because we do not know enough,  one has to take in to account the possibility of gross underestimation of the risks and effects by science too.

Yes, I am doing that for myself. It is a subjective, heuristic process that involves integrating all the information you have. It is called assigning a prior probability to each of the alternative possibilities, which then tells you how much credibility to give the evidence. I have been suggesting throughout this thread that people filter out the narrative given to them by the media and scientists with political motivations. It appears to me they are trying to manipulate each of us into assigning an unreasonably high prior to the possibility of catastrophic events so that we accept weak evidence.

Higher quality background info can be found by searching out where the uncertainty lies in climate science, and try to learn enough to estimate how much is really known for sure. If you aren't willing to go through that effort, the most rational thing is probably to just assign it 50/50 odds or just go with the scientific consensus (NOT THE MEDIA CONSENSUS). But honestly I learned pretty much all I know about this since last sunday while procrastinating. My background in research may make it easier for me personally, but I can't imagine it is that difficult for people to go through the IPCC report, visit some pro-AGW sites, and then visit some "denier" sites. Especially if this is something you feel strongly about.

My point is not that we are triggering one, but that it would seem at least as likely as the notion we can just discard climate science and its predictions.

I am not discarding climate science and its predictions, that is a strawman argument. If you were deciding between those two possibilities for whatever reason it would be unwise to give equal probability to both "climate scientists know nothing", and "global warming may lead to an anoxic event". The most obvious reason this would be dumb is the climate scientists are the ones who told you about anoxic events. You will quickly go down the rabbit hole with this type of thinking. You are not using any evidence and arbitrarily assigning equal priors.

Back to the evidence:

Even as it stands, current scenarios predict a global temperature rise of up to 6.4C by next century, and from what Ive read, that would put the planet roughly at the same temperature as during the anoxic events.

What is you source for the 6.4C number? It does not match any of the models I am looking at.

[P4man]

What is you source for the 6.4C number? It does not match any of the models I am looking at.

Its the upper bound for the A1FI scenario in AR4.
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch10s10-es-1-mean-temperature.html

[bb113]

Oh ok, it got left out of the newer one.

[P4man]

Oh ok, it got left out of the newer one.

The newer assessment report isnt due until 2014. AR4 is the latest.

[bb113]

Ah, I was searching A1f1, not A1FI.

[bb113]

Ah, despite my best efforts I was manipulated by the media. The "incontrovertible evidence" was not for anthropomorphic climate change. It was just that "global warming is occurring".

The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring.

If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth’s physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now.

Because the complexity of the climate makes accurate prediction difficult, the APS urges an enhanced effort to understand the effects of human activity on the Earth’s climate, and to provide the technological options for meeting the climate challenge in the near and longer terms. The APS also urges governments, universities, national laboratories and its membership to support policies and actions that will reduce the emission of greenhouse gases.

http://www.aps.org/policy/statements/07_1.cfm

The evidence that the earth has warmed over the last century is pretty good. So I can't say I disagree with this statement. It says nothing about the cause, and only refers to future projections as "likely". The problem lies in the ignorant (used to be me) conflating "global warming" with "anthropomorphic global warming" and "has warmed" with "will continue to warm until catastrophic scenarios occur unless something is done". I am ashamed I fell for this, but it goes to show how insidious the media and "telephone effect" can be.

[P4man]

It says nothing about the cause,

Read more carefully

Human-induced warming of the climate system is widespread. Anthropogenic warming of the climate system can be detected in temperature observations taken at the surface, in the troposphere and in the oceans. Multi-signal detection and attribution analyses, which quantify the contributions of different natural and anthropogenic forcings to observed changes, show that greenhouse gas forcing alone during the past half century would likely have resulted in greater than the observed warming if there had not been an offsetting cooling effect from aerosol and other forcings.

It is extremely unlikely (<5%) that the global pattern of warming during the past half century can be explained without external forcing, and very unlikely that it is due to known natural external causes alone. The warming occurred in both the ocean and the atmosphere and took place at a time when natural external forcing factors would likely have produced cooling.

Greenhouse gas forcing has very likely caused most of the observed global warming over the last 50 years. This conclusion takes into account observational and forcing uncertainty, and the possibility that the response to solar forcing could be underestimated by climate models. It is also robust to the use of different climate models, different methods for estimating the responses to external forcing and variations in the analysis technique.

Further evidence has accumulated of an anthropogenic influence on the temperature of the free atmosphere as measured by radiosondes and satellite-based instruments. The observed pattern of tropospheric warming and stratospheric cooling is very likely due to the influence of anthropogenic forcing, particularly greenhouse gases and stratospheric ozone depletion. The combination of a warming troposphere and a cooling stratosphere has likely led to an increase in the height of the tropopause. It is likely that anthropogenic forcing has contributed to the general warming observed in the upper several hundred meters of the ocean during the latter half of the 20th century. Anthropogenic forcing, resulting in thermal expansion from ocean warming and glacier mass loss, has very likely contributed to sea level rise during the latter half of the 20th century. It is difficult to quantify the contribution of anthropogenic forcing to ocean heat content increase and glacier melting with presently available detection and attribution studies.


...

Overall consistency of evidence. Many observed changes in surface and free atmospheric temperature, ocean temperature and sea ice extent, and some large-scale changes in the atmospheric circulation over the 20th century are distinct from internal variability and consistent with the expected response to anthropogenic forcing. The simultaneous increase in energy content of all the major components of the climate system as well as the magnitude and pattern of warming within and across the different components supports the conclusion that the cause of the warming is extremely unlikely (<5%) to be the result of internal processes. Qualitative consistency is also apparent in some other observations, including snow cover, glacier retreat and heavy precipitation.

http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch9s9-es.html

[P4man]

Or if you prefer, from the synthesis report for policy makers:

Atmospheric concentrations of CO2 (379ppm) and CH4 (1774ppb) in 2005 exceed by far the natural range over the last 650,000 years. Global increases in CO2 concentrations are due primarily to fossil fuel use, with land-use change providing another significant but smaller contribution. It is very likely that the observed increase in CH4 concentration is predominantly due to agriculture and fossil fuel use. CH4 growth rates have declined since the early 1990s, consistent with total emissions (sum of anthropogenic and natural sources) being nearly constant during this period. The increase in N2O concentration is primarily due to agriculture. {2.2}

There is very high confidence that the net effect of human activities since 1750 has been one of warming.[6] {2.2}

Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic GHG concentrations.[7] It is likely that there has been significant anthropogenic warming over the past 50 years averaged over each continent (except Antarctica) (Figure SPM.4).

During the past 50 years, the sum of solar and volcanic forcings would likely have produced cooling. Observed patterns of warming and their changes are simulated only by models that include anthropogenic forcings


Well, read it for yourself:
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/syr/en/spms2.html

[Hawker]

P4man - you are not going to get anywhere.  Libertarians don't deny climate change based on evidence.  They deny it because if its real, only governments can act on it and their whole ideology falls down. 

You can quote facts and figures forever.  They won't agree with you because first they'd have to accept a role for the state that is unbearable for them.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=56832.0

[BinoX]

Here's a fun thing to do when it comes to "global warming statistics".. and I swear I must have been the only person to do it so far...

Compare human population growth to the increases in CO2 concentration per year...

Overall CO2 concentration increase PER PERSON is actually going down a lot

[P4man]

I was responding to a specific statement by bitcoinbitcoin113, not to "libertarian agw deniers" in general.

As for that latter group, most sane libertarians arent saying we should get rid of governments and regulations entirely and there is a role for it to tackle problems the free market can not; agw would be one those, admittedly, a big one since even big government proponents will find it hard to come up with appropriate and effective solutions. FWIW, Ive seen some reasontv clips with die hard libertarians who had no problem admitting the effectiveness of certain government regulation particularly when it comes to pollution. The example quoted IIRC was lead free fuels.

If the catholic church can come around to accept a round earth and evolution despite what the bible says, I am confident rational libertarians can accept scientific evidence for agw.  And if they can come up with free market solutions to help solve the problem, everyone wins because despite not being a die hard libertarian myself, I also have precious little faith in governments solving it.

[bb113]

P4man - you are not going to get anywhere.  Libertarians don't deny climate change based on evidence.  They deny it because if its real, only governments can act on it and their whole ideology falls down. 

You can quote facts and figures forever.  They won't agree with you because first they'd have to accept a role for the state that is unbearable for them.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=56832.0

P4man - you are not going to get anywhere.  Socialists don't accept climate change based on evidence.  They accept it because if its real, only governments can act on it and their whole ideology is vindicated. 

You can quote facts and figures forever.  They won't agree with you because first they'd have to accept that the state is unnecessary, that is unbearable for them.

Do you see how pointless this post is? It is meant to end discussion and debate, not foster it.  Please go away if you have nothing to add. P4man is actually really helping me along as I learn about global warming. He may not know all about the science (which is what I ultimately care about) but he seems to have been paying much more attention to the public debate than I have and so is able to act as a sanity check and provide valuable input.

Think about what you are doing. You are actively discouraging the continuation of what I consider to so far have been a productive thread. I can't speak for P4man but since he continues to participate he must find some value in it as well.

[bb113]

I'd add that the various AGW and denier sites are filled with posts like yours that are annoying to wade through and make it more difficult to get informed. When people on "both sides" are saying the exact same things like mirror images of each other, that should tell you how worthless such arguments are.

[bb113]

It says nothing about the cause,

Read more carefully

http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch9s9-es.html

Or if you prefer, from the synthesis report for policy makers:

http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/syr/en/spms2.html

I was talking specifically about the "incontrovertible evidence" phrase used by the APS (not IPCC) so I don't think I failed to read carefully.

I am aware that the authors of the IPCC reports have reasoned that it is very unlikely that known "natural" causes can account for the observed warming, it is more plausible that human activity is responsible than that some other "natural" cause has been missed, and the most likely mechanism by which man is warming the climate is greenhouse gas emissions.

I wish to become familiar with the evidence that supports this reasoning, so that I can reason for myself rather than rely on the priors (the way they are reasoning is necessarily subjective) used by the IPCC scientists. Also, there is much more uncertainty about future projections. These are arguably the most important aspect from a non-academic standpoint, but understanding projections requires first understanding the reasoning behind the explanations for the data.

[FirstAscent]

bitcoinbitcoin113,

You might want to investigate the source of skepticism regarding AGW, and the methods used to create such skepticism. Skepticism is good if it isn't tainted by deceptive practices and motivated and funded by Big Oil.

To begin, investigate Frederick Seitz, and learn about his role in both obfuscating the truth about cigarettes, and later, Global Warming. First he was hired by RJ Renynolds, and later, Exxon Mobil. He's a classic example of being bought by money. He was behind the dubious and worthless Oregon Petition. If you wish to learn about the credentials of the Oregon Petition signers, google their names. I can assure you that you will not find any associated credentials related to research regarding climate change with the signers' names.

You may not know it, but you are a victim of these deceitful tactics. These methods produce propaganda, which ultimately does find its way to your ears, through various channels, often by roundabout means, such by the time you hear it, it's a general buzz in the media which causes you and others to question solid science. It's sad.

After you've investigated Frederick Seitz, read this topic I created to learn more about the absurdly unqualified credentials and methods of those who are largely responsible for the general skepticism of climate change science:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=40283.msg491021

Think hard about the following question: if climate change science is so unsound, then why is it not debated and defeated with solid scientific research and facts, instead of the likes of dubious think tanks funded by Big Oil, petitions signed by dentists, scientists who also coincidentally dispute the harm of tobacco smoke, and charlatans putting out rags (Environment & Climate News) purporting to be environmental experts when in fact their real claim to fame is law and being a defender of property rights?

[bb113]

If you read the thread you will see that I agree with you. I disagree with your (likely) reliance on the media to tell you what the "climate scientists" (not a homogenous group) are saying.

[FirstAscent]

If you read the thread you will see that I agree with you. I disagree with your (likely) reliance on the media to tell you what the "climate scientists" (not a homogenous group) are saying.

There is a publication - it is called 'Nature': http://www.nature.com/

There is another publication - it is called 'Science': http://www.sciencemag.org/

There is a third publication - it is called Scientific American: http://www.scientificamerican.com/

The first two are in fact not media. They are the mechanism of science, which is peer reviewed research. The third is not mainstream media, but rather scientific reporting by scientists for the layman. Those are my sources.

[bb113]

Actually nature and science usually publish the most worthless papers if your goal is actually understanding how a study was done etc. They are good in that they usually require the authors to provide multiple lines of evidence for each claim. I honestly don't have that much experience with climatology so I'm not sure how true this is for that field. (Maybe Natchwind could help us here) Right now I am focusing on the IPCC reports since I think they will probably provide a good overview before getting into the details.

[P4man]

If you read the thread you will see that I agree with you. I disagree with your (likely) reliance on the media to tell you what the "climate scientists" (not a homogenous group) are saying.

This is a problem that governments also faced. They solved it by creating the largest and most rigid ever attempt to synthesize all the available science on a particular topic, in this case, climate change. Its called the IPCC. There isnt a better way to find out what "the climate scientists" are saying. If you really think you can do better on your own, feel free, but its laughable.