Climate change another name for Weather

[It's Snake Pliskin]

Typically this anomaly is expressed as a deviation from the average temperature baseline period of 1951-1980. Note that climate scientists prefer a 30 year baseline period to infer subsequent deviations.
Your short-period temperature chart simply shows the possibilities of temperature variations, and the short-term trend.
Clearer representation of global temperature trends is found at http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2008/

What time frame is that red? 30 years?

 

[It's Snake Pliskin]

The issue of a warmer earth has been done to death in this thread.

As are the grandiose cliches.

You just don't want to accept it.

Not the case at all. I just want someone to say MAN is resposible and why?

As for the science "funding" issue, it is proven beyond doubt that the energy sector continues to fund hundreds of lobbyists and skeptics.
On the other hand, governments would keenly fund scientists who could show climate change was a fiction of the imagination because they could then direct billions of dollars towards more socially beneficial things. To suggest governments have a vested interest in promoting the impending dangers of climate change is fanciful. There are no votes in falsifying climate change.

Maybe so. But you are forgetting about the governments who have signed up to UN agreements. And the Green vote is big in Australia.

 

[It's Snake Pliskin]

The challenge of the global warming debate is that if the theory and subsequent observations of thousands of scientists is true then our emissions of CO2 are effectively making the world uninhabitable for the current ecosytems (which naturally includes us ) within a century.

The science goes on to say that to have any chance of slowing the process and in fact preserving some part of the planet for life as we roughly know it, we must make totally radical changes to how we produce energy and in the lifestyles we lead. That observation of course brings the issue into total conflict with the current major energy producers (fossil fuel industry) and large parts of the current economic system ( the parts that simply want us to consume "as-much-as-possible-forever" )

And finally the thought that we may be facing a catastrophe of the highest order within our lifetimes is the stuff of nightmares and very few people want to willingly entertain such thoughts.

So overall it's hardly surprising that:

1) The fossil fuel industries have devoted much energy and cleverness to questioning and clouding the issue.

2) The vast majority of the players in the current economic system don't want to know about climate change.

3) And most of the ordinary punters aren't impressed with the thought that our future is looking very bleak.

Other factors that influence how we make sense of the situation are some of the current "givens" or mythologies of the 20th century. For example

1) The future can only get better as science and business progress us to more and more prosperity....

2) The Western civilised world through its mastery of economics, science, business etc deserves unlimited success by virtue of its enterprise and hard work....

3) Technology can solve any problem...

4) There are no limits to growth and Growth is Go(o)d

5) And finally. If anything does goes wrong there will be a magical solution (like in the movies...!!) that will fix everything up by the morning....

Do these strike any chords with other forum readers?

Lets consider some other public health/public interest issues with a history and how our society reacted to them.

Smoking.. Lovely little habit that really does make the smoker feel good. A relaxant as well as a stimulant and very addictive.
Unfortunately medical science discovered in 1935 in London that cigarette smoking caused lung cancer. For the next 50-60 years however the industry relentlessly moved to discredit the science, attack the researchers, produce their own contradictory research through their own institutes, buy political influence, pull the job creation card and so on while smokers died like flies.

And smoking is still a very highly profitable, legal industry. Not much of a signpost for respecting the efforts of truthful science is it?

Asbestos A great, great product. Many uses. Unfortunately mining it, using it and breathing in the dust condemns many people to a miserable, painful death 30-40 years later.
This was all understood 50-60 years ago. But the industry refused to accept the science because it was going to cost them money. And so for the last 40 years we have witnessed the inch by inch struggle to have clear scientific evidence accepted and the product banned. And now we are seeing the companies face huge ongoing payouts while tens of thousands of people die and millions more are exposed to crumbling asbestos in buildings around the world.

The list can be expanded at will. My point is that GW and humanities role in the current situation is another clear problem which science has recognised way beyond any reasonable doubt.
It is also the biggest catastrophe facing all of us and unfortunately the same forces and factors that resulted in the needless deaths of millions of people are now likely to destroy most of life on earth and almost all of us.

How sure am I that we are facing a critical problem? In the end one of my reality touchstones is the insurance industry. They have a very strong interest in making sure their bets on events are based on the best evidence. They don't want BS or spin, just the facts.

That's why smokers had big life insurance premiums way before there were warning signs on cigarette packets.

That's why the reinsurance industry has been front and centre on warning about global warming and assessing the risks to property that will result from the inevitable consequences of fire, flood and cyclones.

And it's why we shouldn't be surprised if in the next year, in the light of the scientific updates on the pace of GW, there isn't some fundamental revision of which coastal areas will be insurable. That is reality.

My last point. On a personal level if any of us went to doctor and during an examination they discovered a very serious condition that threatened our health, in fact of life, how determined would we be to disregard his assessment ? Sure we would get a second opinion. We may even want a third. How about a fourth or fifth? Will we only be happy when we find someone who can confidently tell us that this problem that the first 10-1000 doctors agreed on was in fact not a problem and that they were mistaken or simply just too self interested to give the right diagnosis?

Your analogies are unable to compare the manmade GW story to something much easier to define.

 

[rederob]

What time frame is that red? 30 years?

The linked website goes back over 100 years. Is that good enough?

Your other guttersnipes are quite pathetic yet indicative of skeptics' mentallity.

 

[spooly74]

By the way, your chart of the temperature "anomaly" nicely confirms that the earth is warming (over a statistically significant period).

The 10 year chart is a measure of IPCC predictions, nothing more.
Give that a predicted 0.2C should be realised over that time frame based on current emissions, you would currently reject the IPCC's hypothesis.

The next 10 years may well be different.

Typically this anomaly is expressed as a deviation from the average temperature baseline period of 1951-1980. Note that climate scientists prefer a 30 year baseline period to infer subsequent deviations.
Your short-period temperature chart simply shows the possibilities of temperature variations, and the short-term trend.
Clearer representation of global temperature trends is found at http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2008/

Here is the same 100 year 'absolute' chart using a 30 year baseline from 1951 - 1980 measured against current climate models.
This hardly inspires confidence to predict temperatures 100 years ahead.

 

[basilio]

Your analogies are unable to compare the manmade GW story to something much easier to define.
__________________
Discussion only! All posts are free speech only and may be factually incorrect.
It's Snake Pliskin

I totally agree with the final part of your post.

I suggest that if you cannot see the analogies between the examples I have outlined and the detailed research and evidence of anthropogenic global warming - you may have your eyes closed...

 

[rederob]

The 10 year chart is a measure of IPCC predictions, nothing more.
Give that a predicted 0.2C should be realised over that time frame based on current emissions, you would currently reject the IPCC's hypothesis.

GISS Surface Temperature Analysis
Global Temperature Trends: 2008 Annual Summation Originally posted Dec. 16, 2008, with meteorological year data. Updated Jan. 13, 2009, with calendar year data.
Calendar year 2008 was the coolest year since 2000, according to the Goddard Institute for Space Studies analysis [see ref. 1] of surface air temperature measurements. In our analysis, 2008 is the ninth warmest year in the period of instrumental measurements, which extends back to 1880 (left panel of Fig. 1). The ten warmest years all occur within the 12-year period 1997-2008. The two-standard-deviation (95% confidence) uncertainty in comparing recent years is estimated as 0.05 °C [ref. 2], so we can only conclude with confidence that 2008 was somewhere within the range from 7th to 10th warmest year in the record.

If the ten hottest years (since reliable records have been kept) occurred within the last 12 years why would anyone think the IPCC model forecasts were unreliable?
Climate scientists do not contemplate a linear increase in temperature, and continuing to suggest this as a foundation point to global warming is mischievous.

 

[It's Snake Pliskin]

I totally agree with the final part of your post.

I suggest that if you cannot see the analogies between the examples I have outlined and the detailed research and evidence of anthropogenic global warming - you may have your eyes closed...

Basilio, good to have you comment.

Just on this:

My last point. On a personal level if any of us went to doctor and during an examination they discovered a very serious condition that threatened our health, in fact of life, how determined would we be to disregard his assessment ? Sure we would get a second opinion. We may even want a third. How about a fourth or fifth? Will we only be happy when we find someone who can confidently tell us that this problem that the first 10-1000 doctors agreed on was in fact not a problem and that they were mistaken or simply just too self interested to give the right diagnosis?

I think it is ridiculous to say what you have. What you are attempting to do is say that anyone who has a different view to others would only take the advice that is emotionally acceptable. That it ludicrous and silly. But this cannot be anologous to GW.

The problem with the man made GW story is many scientists are stating there is GW from man and those who say it is not from man. So, for the scientists who say it isn't, are they the same as in your analogy above? Not really. The issue is funding and agendas and specialities. But in the debate there is no real debate of the causes and quite commonly just - Co2, even on this thread, there is no discussion of the sun and its role in heating the globe. "The Earth is heating so it must be us". Why not "Consideirng the sun heats the Earth, let's explore that before we fix our minds on a story that is doubtful and convenient"?

 

[It's Snake Pliskin]

The linked website goes back over 100 years. Is that good enough?

Your other guttersnipes are quite pathetic yet indicative of skeptics' mentallity.

No, the time frame is too short and totally inadequate to take a view on.

I am happy to talk about the topic and without making personal attacks such as you have. If you want to use cliches expect people to say they suck. The word skeptic is redundant.

 

[Smurf1976]

As for the science "funding" issue, it is proven beyond doubt that the energy sector continues to fund hundreds of lobbyists and skeptics.
On the other hand, governments would keenly fund scientists who could show climate change was a fiction of the imagination because they could then direct billions of dollars towards more socially beneficial things. To suggest governments have a vested interest in promoting the impending dangers of climate change is fanciful. There are no votes in falsifying climate change.

Internationally it's no secret that the nuclear industry is a big supporter of emissions cuts and sees itself as a major beneficiary. It's to the point that some refer to the Kyoto Protocol as the "Nuclear Protocol", a reference both to the consequences of it (build more nuclear plants) and the source of significant funding promoting it.

Within Australia, do a bit of digging and you'll find it difficult to find anyone pushing for cuts to emissions who isn't in some way associated with or receiving funds from the gas industry, Tasmanian state government or the renewable energy industry. All of those have a vested interest in an end to cheap coal-fired power at the national and indeed global level and have been pushing the issue for a rather long time.

Disclosure: Smurf is making money from public concern over the climate change issue. I have a vested interest in it as do many.

 

[basilio]

Just on this:
Quote:

My last point. On a personal level if any of us went to doctor and during an examination they discovered a very serious condition that threatened our health, in fact of life, how determined would we be to disregard his assessment ? Sure we would get a second opinion. We may even want a third. How about a fourth or fifth? Will we only be happy when we find someone who can confidently tell us that this problem that the first 10-1000 doctors agreed on was in fact not a problem and that they were mistaken or simply just too self interested to give the right diagnosis?

I think it is ridiculous to say what you have. What you are attempting to do is say that anyone who has a different view to others would only take the advice that is emotionally acceptable. That it ludicrous and silly. But this cannot be anologous to GW.

The problem with the man made GW story is many scientists are stating there is GW from man and those who say it is not from man. So, for the scientists who say it isn't, are they the same as in your analogy above? Not really. The issue is funding and agendas and specialities. But in the debate there is no real debate of the causes and quite commonly just - Co2, even on this thread, there is no discussion of the sun and its role in heating the globe. "The Earth is heating so it must be us". Why not "Consideirng the sun heats the Earth, let's explore that before we fix our minds on a story that is doubtful and convenient"?

Snake Pliskin I suggest the isssue is as I have put it and it also incorporates other parts of my post.

No-one really wants to believe that the planet is cooking and worse we are responsible. The first part is bad enough : to consider that it is our collective actions that have caused the the result is pretty horrendous and not a place many want to go. That's what i was talking about in terms of the mass psychology of wanting to disbelieve.

I used the analogy of the diagnosis because I believed it was apt. If one is diagnosed with a cancer the probability that its true will be verified by the overwhelming majority of physicians. It would be fair to get a second opinion and perhaps a third . How many more would you want?

But in this world it would be possible to find a doctor or another person to say "No - this is not a cancer ". or " We can cure this with my new technique/potion/crystal therapy whatever. " And its fair to say that when many people are faced with such a a prognosis they desperately want to find and hear this lifeline.

And in fact the cancer may not be terminal. There have been inexplicable cures, remissions, perhaps even miracles. Not often but possible. And we now know enough about the effect of the mind on the body and X factors to not rule out such events. (Trouble is I havn't see any examples of the power of the mind over the effect of 1 gigatonne of CO2 )

Back to manmade global warming. The current facts are that there are very, very few scientists in the global warming field who would dispute the evidence that man made CO2 is culprit in GW. This would be the 1000th doctor example.

There will some more people who aren't climate scientists who will try to suggest other factors are as likely to be the problem. Sunspots and so on (Very few people will suggest that we aren't actually getting a lot warmer)

Mixed up with these people and throwing a lot of money to them are the representatives of the fossil fuel industry who stand to lose $trillions if we have to change our energy sources. I used the smoking and asbestos examples to show how effectively these organisations can create doubt and dispute despite clearer and clearer evidence of the harm their products are doing to us. I documented this in more detail in earlier posts.

Snake there is a chance that the majority of scientists have got it wrong. At this stage its probably about 1-2%. But in the real world we make our big decisions on the overwhelming evidence not the small possibility it might be wrong. That's why I pointed out that Reinsurance companies are front and centre on attacking GW.

But on a fundamental basis when we recognise even a small possibility that a catastrophic event will occur common sense dictates a cautious approach. For example we wouldn't let a plane fly if there was a 1% chance it would crash. (In the real world that would mean that 1 in a hundred flights would end in disaster). We wouldn't engineer a bridge with a similar chance of failure and so on.

Even if the current scientific view of man made GW had only a 10% probability of being correct (and unfortunately it is closer to 90+%) how could we let our entire future be cooked because we were not quite certain? Doesn't make sense does it?

On another note, the urgent move to renewable energy and radical reduction in our use of resources will be forced on us by simple reality. Oil, gas, coal will deplete. They don't grow on trees ( Well yes but it takes an awfully long time...) The reality of peak oil is in fact far closer and far clearer than GW. The impact on our industrial society will also be the stuff of nightmares. The "good" news is that moving as fast as possible to a renewable energy base for our society at least addresses both issues .

These points have been made a number of times in this forum...

My experience is that the world of big money and big business is also about big bullxxx and big hype. The last 7 years of bull market has been about persuading everyone that shares and houses and profits can rise infinitely. That its our God given right to get our million dollars from the gravy train. That there there are no downsides and no consequences. We are now just starting to pay the financial price for this self interested scam.

It is worth realising that it is the same economic interests that denied the possibility that this gravy train might fall over a cliff have also been steadfast in denying GW and Peak Oil. In fact I just can't think of an environmental, health or political issue where entrenched financial interests have not done everything and anything to save their money - and hang the effects on everyone else.

And yet these people through their paid shills are the ones we want to listen to on GW? Pleeeese...!

 

[spooly74]

If the ten hottest years (since reliable records have been kept) occurred within the last 12 years why would anyone think the IPCC model forecasts were unreliable?
Climate scientists do not contemplate a linear increase in temperature, and continuing to suggest this as a foundation point to global warming is mischievous.

The predictions made by the IPCC are based on emissions scenarios. The fact that the Earth has warmed in the past and that recent years are among the hottest is irrelevant to the models.
We would need to be looking at some accelerated warming in the next 5-8 years or the IPCC's models should be rejected by the scientific community.

My last chart shows how they performed when back tested over a 100 years with an accepted baseline. Not only do they fail to get close to the mean, the difference from observed is out by some 2 degrees.
Credibly though, they seem to get the trend right, but how they do this when getting the temperature so wrong is a mystery.

And, I'm certainly not trying to be mischievous. The issue of AGW is not fully understood, and having a skeptical approach to 'questionable' models should only lead to a more informed debate.

 

[spooly74]

No-one really wants to believe that the planet is cooking and worse we are responsible. The first part is bad enough : to consider that it is our collective actions that have caused the the result is pretty horrendous and not a place many want to go. That's what i was talking about in terms of the mass psychology of wanting to disbelieve.

And I presume you can provide some cites for the global mass delusion?

Snake there is a chance that the majority of scientists have got it wrong. At this stage its probably about 1-2%.

Reference?

But on a fundamental basis when we recognise even a small possibility that a catastrophic event will occur common sense dictates a cautious approach.

It remains to be seen whether policy recommendations are cautious.

Even if the current scientific view of man made GW had only a 10% probability of being correct (and unfortunately it is closer to 90+%)

Current modeling vs observations suggests otherwise.

On another note, the urgent move to renewable energy and radical reduction in our use of resources will be forced on us by simple reality. Oil, gas, coal will deplete.

That simple reality is not so simple.

The mathematics of United States carbon dioxide emissions are not actually that complicated. The figure below from the U.S. Energy Information Agency shows that the 5,991 million metric tonnes (MMt) of carbon dioxide emitted by the U.S. came from 3 sources: coal, natural gas, and petroleum (see three inputs in the upper left of the graph).

Each of these fossil fuels, plus renewables and nuclear power make up the total energy consumption in the United States. Energy consumption is measured using a unit call a “quad” which means a quadrillion BTUs (British Thermal Units). In 2007 the United States used 101.4 quads of energy (data). This amount of energy can be broken down by source as follows.

The 15.2 quads of energy from nuclear and renewable sources resulted in negligible carbon dioxide emissions. The amount of carbon dioxide emitted due to each quad of fossil fuel energy depends upon the source, as their carbon intensities differ. For the analysis that follows I use the following values, distilled from the EIA information provided here in .xls.

Coal = 94 MMt Carbon Dioxide per Quad
Natural Gas = 53 MMt Carbon Dioxide per Quad
Petroleum = 65 MMt Carbon Dioxide per Quad

Thus, to calculate total U.S. carbon dioxide emissions simply requires multiplying quads of energy by carbon dioxide per quad and summing across the three fuels. This simple math results in the following:

(94 * 22.8 [Coal]) + (53 * 23.6 [Natural Gas]) + (65 * 39.8 [Petroleum]) = 5,981 MMt carbon dioxide

This total compares quite well with the total of 5,991 MMt carbon dioxide reported for 2007 by EIA (see figure above). We can use this information to ask some straightforward questions about how an emissions reduction target of 14% below 2005 levels (5,095 MMt carbon dioxide) might be reached by 2020.

We can do a bit of hypothetical “stress testing” of these numbers, by asking, in theory, what sort of actions might lead to reaching the emissions reductions target. Before we do this, we do need to make a guess as to 2020 US energy consumption. The EIA projects that energy consumption will grow at a rate of 0.5% per year (calculated from information here). Because GDP growth is expected to be higher than this rate, it already builds in an assumption of gains in energy efficiency. But let’s use the EIA estimate, which suggests that US energy consumption in 2020 will be 108.6 quads, of which 21 quads will come from renewables plus nuclear energy, representing a growth of about 40% on top of 2007 values. This leaves 87.2 quads to be produced by fossil fuels.

Here are a few examples of the effects of different hypothetical strategies:

1) What would happen if all coal consumption were to be replaced with natural gas?

Answer: In 2020 total emissions would be 5,110 MMt carbon dioxide, very close to the 2020 target.

2) By how much would renewables plus nuclear have to displace coal to reach the target?

Answer: The target could be reached if coal consumption were reduced by about 42%, and the displaced 9.2 quads of energy were replaced by renewables plus nuclear, implying more than doubling of renewable plus nuclear energy supply, to comprise 30% of all energy consumption.

If renewables alone (i.e., non-nuclear) are to carry the weight of displacing coal, then they would have to increase their role in consumption by a factor of 4.7 over 2007 values. If growth in renewable energy supply is restricted to solar and wind only, then these sources would have to increase their role in consumption by a factor of 80 (that is, e-i-g-h-t-y). The reason for this big difference is that biomass and geothermal provided about 6.4 quads of energy in 2007, whereas wind and solar only 0.4 quads. The Obama Administration’s goal of doubling wind, solar, and biofuels production within 3 years may indeed be a worthwhile policy, but it is not consistent with a goal of displacing sufficient coal to reach the 14% 2020 target using wind and solar (and while biofuels have their own complexities as a policy issue, they are not really a substitute for coal in any case).

3) By how much would energy consumption have to be reduced to meet the target assuming no changes in the energy consumption mix?

Answer: Energy consumption would have to be about 85.5 quads in 2020, about equal to 1992 values when the US economy was 35% smaller than in 2007.

http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/us-mitigation-math-5039

 

[Aussiejeff]

Do these last 7 days of simple statistics matter? Apart from the World Economic Crisis, we are fast approaching our very own SE Australian Water Crisis.

Hume Dam Th We Tu Mo Su Sa Fr
Percent Full (%) 6.4 6.5 7.0 7.0 7.2 7.4 7.7

That's right, folks. Only 6.4% left as of today!

With an average downdraw of approx. 1.5% per 7 day period, that leaves around 4 weeks to hit below 2% if no massive rain comes. The last 25 mm "downpour" did almost nothing - added a paltry .1% or so.

The authorities will have to let go of the Dartmouth reserve if Huey doesn't take a leak big time (only 20.3% of capacity there as of today). Here we go again.

It was only a lucky short, wetter than normal break in 2006-07 that got us to this point at all. Without that lucky break, both dams would be all but dry by now.

Question is, will Huey be so generous as to offer another "lucky break" to save ours and the Authority's a$$es this year? Or will the Big Fella get all sadistic and crack the whip?

 

[basilio]

Spooly not quite sure how you are reading my posts.

I suggest that the vast majority of people would not like to believe the world is going to become inhabitable within a relatively short period of time and that mankinds collective actions were responsible. I really wouldn't have thought it necessary to attempt to cite a study to make such an observation.

The 1-2% possibility that we don't have serious global warming ? Okay a generalisation based on the overwhelming majority view of scientists who have been monitoring increases in global temperatures around the world not to mention the evidence of this rapid temperature rise. I suppose I was trying to suggest there was a tiny chance that miraculously global temperatures would steadily fall over the next 10-20 years and that all our fears would turn out to groundless. That would be fantastic... in every sense of the word.

Quote:
But on a fundamental basis when we recognise even a small possibility that a catastrophic event will occur common sense dictates a cautious approach

By cautious I meant that the risk of a catastrophic outcome should dictate a policy approach to address the issue - in our case radical reduction in CO2 emissions to attempt to reduce the risk of runaway GW.

As far the accuracy of IPPC modelling I take my information from the analysis undertaken by Climate scientists at Real Climate.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/05/what-the-ipcc-models-really-say/

I'm not quite sure what you are suggesting with your table on the current energy mix in USA.

My point was that we face a certain depletion in fossil fuel resources.
They are finite - full stop. Furthermore there is strong evidence that the world as whole will be hitting the supply capacity of this finite resource in the very near future. In that sense we need to go renewable out of necessity as well as reducing greenhouse gases.

_____________________________________________________________________________

By the way the reference from Real Climate is worth a good look. Apart from the explantion from the climate scientists there are 470 odd comments and in some cases responses which tease out many of the issues you raise.
Cheers

 

[spooly74]

Spooly not quite sure how you are reading my posts.


The 1-2% possibility that we don't have serious global warming ? Okay a generalisation based on the overwhelming majority view of scientists who have been monitoring increases in global temperatures around the world not to mention the evidence of this rapid temperature rise.

What rapid temperature rise? From when?

By the way the reference from Real Climate is worth a good look. Apart from the explantion from the climate scientists there are 470 odd comments and in some cases responses which tease out many of the issues you raise.
Cheers

I have read it, but the models are now being tested vs reality.
None of the comments there, or anywhere, explain the difference observed.
See previous charts.

 

[basilio]

What rapid temperature rise? From when?

Global Temperature

There is no single thermometer measuring the global temperature. Instead, individual thermometer measurements taken every day at several thousand stations over the land areas of the world are combined with thousands more measurements of sea surface temperature taken from ships moving over the oceans to produce an estimate of global average temperature every month (see the sections on how climate is measured ).

From these records, the ten warmest years in the instrumental record of global temperature (since around 1880) all occur within the 12 year period 1997-2008. Although 2008 data below show it was the coolest since 2000 due to the moderate to strong La Niña that developed in the latter half of 2007. However, the total global temperature increase from the 1850s throught to 2005 is 0.76 °C (1.36 °F) and the rate of warming averaged over the last 50 years is nearly twice that for the last 100 years. So don't be lulled by one year where it is relatively cooler, what we need to look at is decadal or long term trends.


Global Temperature 2008 NASA

An increasing rate of warming has taken place over the last 25 years. Above the surface, global observations since the late 1950s show that the troposphere (up to about 10 km) has warmed at a slightly greater rate than the surface, while the stratosphere (about 10–30 km) has cooled markedly since 1979. This is in accord with physical expectations and most model results.

Confirmation of a global temperature rise comes from the observed temperature increases in the oceans, observations of sea level rise, glacial melt, sea ice retreat in the Arctic and diminished snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere. Global average temperature is forecast to rise 4 °C (7.2 °F) toward the end of the 21st century, and this is a mere 90 years away! Even if began today, and stopped most of our greenhouse gas emissions overnight, we would still see a temperature rise of around 2 °C (3.6 °F) by 2090-2100. David Spratt and Philip Sutton explain in their paper Code Red what will happen with three degrees of warming, and how dangerous this is.

This rapid rise in temperature is unmatched in the last million years, and even then, the data indicate that the global warming at the end of an ice age was a gradual process taking about 5,000 years. Our human ( anthropogenic ) actions have ramped up the rate of change not evidenced in any record, and we are leaving ourselves very little time to adapt.


Global mean temperature IPCC

Figure Above: Annual average global temperature (black dots) along with simple fits to the data. The left hand axis shows global temperature anomalies relative to the 1961 to 1990 average and the right hand axis shows the estimated actual temperature ( °C). Linear trend fits to the last 25 (yellow), 50 (orange), 100 (purple) and 150 years (red) are shown, and correspond to 1981 to 2005, 1956 to 2005, 1906 to 2005, and 1856 to 2005, respectively. Note that for shorter recent periods, the slope is greater, indicating accelerated warming.


The rapid rise in global temperature is unmatched in the last million years. Normally, and when the Earth has warmed after an ice age, it is a gradual process taking about 5,000 years.

http://www.global-greenhouse-warming.com/global-temperature.html

What a shame. I couldn't cut and paste the actual graphs! Have to learn how.Anyway the first one is The NASA graph which tracks Global Land and Sea temperatures from 1880 to 2008.

The second graph looks at Global Mean temperatures from 1850 to 2008. As note above the rapid rise in global temperature is unmatched in the last million years. Click the url for the graphs

 

[spooly74]

What a shame. I couldn't cut and paste the actual graphs! Have to learn how.Anyway the first one is The NASA graph which tracks Global Land and Sea temperatures from 1880 to 2008.

Here is the same chart, again.

 

[rederob]

The predictions made by the IPCC are based on emissions scenarios. The fact that the Earth has warmed in the past and that recent years are among the hottest is irrelevant to the models.
We would need to be looking at some accelerated warming in the next 5-8 years or the IPCC's models should be rejected by the scientific community.

My last chart shows how they performed when back tested over a 100 years with an accepted baseline. Not only do they fail to get close to the mean, the difference from observed is out by some 2 degrees.
Credibly though, they seem to get the trend right, but how they do this when getting the temperature so wrong is a mystery.

And, I'm certainly not trying to be mischievous. The issue of AGW is not fully understood, and having a skeptical approach to 'questionable' models should only lead to a more informed debate.

Increased CO2 emissions are key to climate predictions, but many other aspects/influences impact modeled outcomes.
The fact that the earth is hotter now than previously validates the long term trend that is shown in the many climate models.
While we might expect a warming in the next 5-8 years, some scientists speculate that we are entering a "Maunder Minimum" situation, a period of reduced irradiance that could last for decades. If this were to occur we would need at least another 7 years of CO2 increases to offset the decreased irradiance. More simply put, temperatures may not rise for another 10 years, and the IPCC conclusion are no less valid.
I am not going to open the gate to modeling errors and inaccuracies. If anyone is interested in their construction and history, this is a good read: http://www-pcmdi.llnl.gov/model_appraisal.pdf
The science of AGW is reasonably well understood. More difficult to measure is the difference that man has made over and above natural influences. Climate models are attempting to capture this “difference” and forecast the longer term impacts. The IPCC makes no claim that a modeled outcome for any future year will be accurate.
As for “informed debate”, there are literally thousands of scientific papers that contribute to the efficacy of climate modeling. This forum is hardly the place to debate them.
Finally, our differences here began in relation to the Copenhagen Congress outcomes. Many of these were founded on the latest real world observations. These observations suggested the IPCC Climate models were underestimating the pace of climate change. Your posts only reinforce my points.

 

[Smurf1976]

A few observations...

The chart of US energy supply and consumption shows petroleum as the largest source and gas as the second largest.

Oil production capacity seems to have reached at least an interim, if not final, peak globally whilst US / Canada gas production shows all the tell tale signs of peaking too. So forget any scenario that involves using more oil / gas to offset lower coal use. More likely we'll see a significant shift from gas to coal or some other energy source in the US.

Gas and oil aren't here for the long term, the debate is about whether peak production is now or in a few years - nobody with any credibility expects that we'll have anything other than falling use of those resources in 2050. That the Garnaut report and most other modelling fails to take this rather critical point into account is a very serious flaw in their assumptions, to the point of making their entire CO2 emissions forecasts essentially useless in the real world.

Now, to Aussiejeff who mentioned water. Yep, that's what happens when you try and run any catchment or integrated (hydraulically or electrically) group of catchments at greater than 100% of firm supply capability.

Someday you wake up and the dams are empty, an outcome that was 99.99% certain with or without climate change and could be demonstrated years in advance by established modelling techniques (which, by the way, are very similar to how a trading system is back tested).

Solution? There are only two. Either drop consumption to not more than firm supply capability or increase firm supply capability (additional diversions or in some situations storage). They are the only two options that can work, the reasons being physical not political or financial.