What's the deal with global warming?

[Felt]

[QUOTE=chogan2;979652]On the "global warming has stopped", the people who say that don't really understand basic statistics and/or they don't understand that many factors can affect one year's temperature and/or they are just out to spread disinformation."

The BBC reports the global temperature has not risen in 11 years.

[chogan2]

[quote=Felt;979969]

Originally Posted by chogan2

On the "global warming has stopped", the people who say that don't really understand basic statistics and/or they don't understand that many factors can affect one year's temperature and/or they are just out to spread disinformation."

The BBC reports the global temperature has not risen in 11 years.

I'll stand by my statement.

"The BBC" said it? Must be this:

BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | What happened to global warming?

OK, a BBC correspondent said it. And then went on to talk about how charged particles from the sun are .... somethingorother .... and multidecadal cycles in the ocean ... and so on. None of which, as usual, pays attention to what the general circulation models actually do, and none of which bothers to explain why C02 is not a greenhouse gas. (If the warming is fully explained by charged solar particles, then you have to explain why C02 increases don't matter, otherwise you've explained twice the warming.)

Read what the British Meterological office says at the end of that article. Basically, yeah, yeah, we know all that. You can't expect temperatures to go up in a straight line. But that's too, what, normal? Dog-bites-man. Doesn't make good news.

Ah, why not read what the British Meterorological Office itself says, here:

Met Office: Global temperature slowdown — not an end to climate change


"In 1998 the world experienced the warmest year since records began. In the decade since, however, this high point has not been surpassed. Some have seized on this as evidence that global warming has stopped, or even that we have entered a period of ‘global cooling’. This is far from the truth and climate scientists have, in fact, recognised that a temporary slowdown in warming is possible even under increasing levels of greenhouse gas emissions."

Anyway, if I want an authoritative source from Britain, and my choices are some reporter for the BBC versus the British Meteorological Office, I think I'll stick with the meteorological office.

All that of course ignores the NASA GISS data showing 2005 as the hottest year on record. I think GISS does a far more credible job of gap-filling the arctic data. And of course, as those youtube clips I referenced pointed out very slowly and in great detail, if you'd picked 1997 as the start year or 1999 as the start year, you couldn't make that statement about "no warming". That statement only works if you start from 1998, which was a very large outlier above the trend line (as noted by the British Meterological Office).

So, it boils down to sound bites versus analysis. Yes, based on the British data, but not the NASA data, 1998 stands as the hottest year on record. That's a fact. But it shouldn't (and statistically speaking, can't) be interpreted as evidence that global warming has stopped. Which was, in fact, the thrust of the OP's original comment (that some people say global warming has stopped).

[richard schumacher]

For discussion of global warming by atmospheric physicists and climatologists see
RealClimate

[patsparks]

Originally Posted by radioprius1

Hi guys,

I'm trying to get a basic understanding of global warming. I've seen Al Gore's video but as I understand it's not accurate.

Basically, as I understand, global warming is occurring, but the debate is whether or not man is contributing to it? The people that say man is contributing to it are measuring CO2 levels, but the other side says that CO2 levels are just correlated but not causal of/with global warming.

Is this pretty accurate?

Thank you
RP1

Sounds familiar, like the same as I read on the pro-smoking forum. I was a bad troll.

[tochatihu]

If interested in the International Energy Agency's viewpoint:

http://www.iea.org/weo/docs/weo2009/...ge_excerpt.pdf

pdf page 20 suggests that the largest CO2 reduction will (could?) come from end-user efficiency (light blue on that graph). Indeed this includes fuel-efficient vehicles, light bulbs, home insulation; all that sort of stuff.

[chogan2]

Originally Posted by tochatihu

If interested in the International Energy Agency's viewpoint:

http://www.iea.org/weo/docs/weo2009/...ge_excerpt.pdf

pdf page 20 suggests that the largest CO2 reduction will (could?) come from end-user efficiency (light blue on that graph). Indeed this includes fuel-efficient vehicles, light bulbs, home insulation; all that sort of stuff.

Link didn't work for me.

But I couldn't agree more with the sentiment. At least in the short run. I think the UN added eat less meat to that list.

In the near term, it's not a question of technology, it's just a question of behavior.

So we did a little experiment on at my church, trying to encourage those changes, starting with seven small steps that anyone could take. Big push with full support of the ministry. We gave away compact fluorescents and power strips. We made kill-a-watt meters available for use (to test appliances). Gift certificates. The whole nine yards.

It appears to have been a fairly resounding failure.

My conclusion is that a certain proportion of the population will do these things as a matter of course. For the rest, if it's free, they'll consider it. If it costs anything -- even if it saves significant money in the long run -- they won't.

Having failed to elicit significant voluntary change within our congregation, I'm now getting heavily in favor of coercion. Tax it, cap it, I don't care. Unfair? I don't care. Big government? I don't care. Put some reasonable odds on the Arctic meltdown-runaway warming scenario, do the arithmetic on the damages x subjective probability, and see what you estimate as the net present value of an additional ton of C02. If the only thing that'll get people motivated is money, then make it hurt and let's get on down that highway.

James Hansen already estimates that we're beyond the level of GHGs that would keep the planet in roughly the condition it was at the start of the industrial revolution (350 ppm C02). Having estimated the Charney sensitivity at about 3 C per doubling of C02, he and colleagues looked at paleodata to estimate the long-run sensitivity at closer to 6 C per doubling of C02.

[0804.1126] Target atmospheric CO2: Where should humanity aim?

If at some point somebody comes up with a viable way of removing carbon from the atmosphere cheaply, I'm OK with that. Do it. For now, I'd be OK with figuring the cheapest industrial process that will do that, and taxing C02 emissions at that rate, and paying the tax to people who will extract and permanently dispose of the C02. Straight disposal fee, no more no less. You want to dump it, cool, here's what it costs to clean that up, so pay. Clean it up or pay us to do it. Find a cheaper way to do it, and make money. Don't emit the C02 and save the disposal fee. Let's get an international treaty around that concept, that would be a good start.

[Shawn Clark]

Originally Posted by chogan2

So we did a little experiment on at my church, trying to encourage those changes, starting with seven small steps that anyone could take. Big push with full support of the ministry. We gave away compact fluorescents and power strips. We made kill-a-watt meters available for use (to test appliances). Gift certificates. The whole nine yards.

It appears to have been a fairly resounding failure.

My conclusion is that a certain proportion of the population will do these things as a matter of course. For the rest, if it's free, they'll consider it. If it costs anything -- even if it saves significant money in the long run -- they won't.

The average person isn't real bright. Couple that with the short term thinking that most people have and you are in a world of hurt. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it's rider think.

I've done some CFL conversions for family members that were successful (they are still using them as their primary lighting). The trick is to find things that meet their needs. Didn't hurt that I paid for it out of pocket. Some had tried the older bluish, non-instant on, or overly long (GE) CFL's and did not have positive experiences.

Having failed to elicit significant voluntary change within our congregation, I'm now getting heavily in favor of coercion. Tax it, cap it, I don't care. Unfair? I don't care. Big government? I don't care.

Agreed. Arrange the market so that they are pushed toward the desired result. It happens already by not accounting for the cradle-to-grave cost of fossil fuels...although this produces the undesired result. Include those costs and the market will respond.