Northwest Passage

[Exile]

Originally Posted by conachair

What controversy? None really in science, need to go to a few very well funded websites for that or web forums to hear non climate scientists.
Seems to be some discussion about the sensitivity of the climate due to the ever increasing concentration of greenhouse gasses but barring a tiny number (like single figures) of outlier individuals there really isn't any doubt within science that the large near instant increase in heat content which swamps the natural variation signal can only be explained by one smoking gun...

I don't know where you get your information that the minority view only amounts to a "tiny number (like single figures)." There have been previous efforts to uncover verifiable numbers, but I'm not aware of any credible head counts. While your adherence to a general belief in the majority view is understandable, being unaware of any controversy within the science itself suggests an over-reliance on biased sources of second & third-hand information produced by non-scientists. Whatever the reason for it, it's simply not true.

This may be a helpful primer (literally) from a fairly recent interview with Roy Spencer, a leading skeptic. Should you opt to read it you may find it as surprising as I did that many of his views are consistent with Jack's, and many others at odds with Newhaul's. That alone might make you curious, even though his bottom line is that the impact of man's introduction of fossil fuels into the atmosphere is likely inconsequential. But Spencer and his colleagues are skeptics not deniers, in part because they affirm that AGW exists, and also because they repeatedly emphasize the complexity of climate science and therefore acknowledge they could be wrong. If nothing else, Spencer's professional humility is a refreshing change of pace from some of our self-anointed CF "experts" who seem to believe that boldly asserting unqualified certainty about known uncertainties makes them "right."

https://www.masterresource.org/clima...limate-change/

You can decide for yourself what these particular skeptic views affirm or refute, but suggesting climate science is anything other than unsettled and without controversy is not a position that most climate scientists themselves even ascribe to. As for a "million-to-one" chance that humans are not responsible for "inducing" recent warming? Laughable. Expert opinion runs the gamut from 100% to zero, with most probably coming down somewhere in the middle or simply don't know. As Spencer points out, there is no way to measure the various human & natural sources, and the total human contribution to overall atmospheric CO2 is only ~1%.

[Exile]

Originally Posted by newhaul

This just in
https://bgr.com/2019/07/19/arctic-wi...te-change/amp/
Started by lightening
Here is an excerpt

The Copernicus Atmospheric Monitoring Service (CAMS) has determined that the Arctic wildfires have already produced north of 50 megatons of carbon dioxide. That number, CAMS says, is the equivalent of a full year’s worth of emissions from the entire country of Sweden. Yeah, it’s a lot

Wonder how they will spin this into being mans fault.

Not exactly a convincing segue, but it looks like they already have: (last para.)

"Scientists have long warned that we’re approaching (or perhaps even right on the very edge) of the “tipping point” at which we’ll be powerless to reverse climate change. Images like this aren’t particularly heartwarming, especially in that context."

[SailOar]

Originally Posted by Exile

.... Besides, [Newhaul's] so damn polite about it in the face of all you guys berating him.

<Laugh> Take your blinders off. Newhaul can be pretty snarky too...

....On the other hand, if you still believe the roots of the skepticism are really as simplistic as Dr. Hayhoe's tweet lays out,

Dr. Katharine Hayhoe is a very unusual climate scientist, in that she is an active Evangelical (her husband is an Evangelical pastor). Evangelicals, as a group, are among the most consistent deniers of AGW. Dr. Hayhoe has made it one of her life's missions to preach the "gospel" of AGW to the benighted "choir". (My words, not hers)

Many times you've complained that the rough and tumble of CF discussions are not to your liking, and that most of us here on CF are not experts in the fields we're discussing (you're correct, most of us are not). So you might find the posts by Dr. Hayhoe more persuasive, in that she is both an expert in her field of atmospheric science, and because she has developed a much nicer bedside manner than us troglodytes.

POSTS | Katharine Hayhoe | Climate Scientist

... the well-written and illuminating article you recently posted from The Atlantic. ...as the article points out, facts, logic & reason are often secondary, thus explaining why it can be so difficult to change minds.

Thanks SailOar. A good read. But just as a brain exercise, see if you can try applying some of its politically-neutral points to opinions you don't happen to share. It might be a useful exercise, and I'll never tell . . . .

As it turns out, I have -- and it wasn't fun. I was raised in a very conservative household, and coming to the conclusion that certain of my childhood beliefs were incompatible with the discoveries of modern science created significant intrapersonal and intrafamily tensions.

Originally Posted by Exile

Refute what? That "current warming is not human induced?" Spencer & Christy believe humans play a "role," but opine that this role is subsumed by natural forces. By "inducement," do you mean that the human role is causing ALL the current warming? You've provided plenty of authority to support that one, incl. some experts who believe that we'd have long been in a cooling phase but for. But the poll count of experts for that theory is hardly "a million to one." Besides, how do such odds square with your oft-repeated acknowledgement that climate science remains "unsettled?"

To be clear, I for one don't "refute" any of the experts you cite who espouse the core mainstream position. My only real criticism of your approach (other than a lack of civility) is that you present these otherwise valid positions as if climate science was in fact "settled." You actually go beyond that in presenting them as scientific "truths," thereby justifying your often personal derision when challenged. By your own admission (and those of climate scientists themselves), this is incongruous and misleading. It's partly why we see posts where people seem dumbfounded that there are any valid expert contrarian opinions at all ("10K like-minded scientists vs. a few internet posters"). But in your case -- especially since you've stated you follow & participate in several contrarian blogs -- it's obvious you know better. Either that or you have impenetrable blinders on (see SailOar's posted article above).

You're still mired in stage 2 denialism.

Originally Posted by Exile

....This may be a helpful primer (literally) from a fairly recent interview with Roy Spencer, a leading skeptic. Should you opt to read it you may find it as surprising as I did that many of his views are consistent with Jack's, and many others at odds with Newhaul's. That alone might make you curious, even though his bottom line is that the impact of man's introduction of fossil fuels into the atmosphere is likely inconsequential.

One of the big problems with the total AGW-denier worldview is that it is internally inconsistent. Each denier enclave has their own pet theory (Newhaul's is the solar minimum), but there is no cohesiveness between their disparate ideas that can explain all the data.

But Spencer and his colleagues are skeptics not deniers, in part because they affirm that AGW exists, and also because they repeatedly emphasize the complexity of climate science and therefore acknowledge they could be wrong. .....

They are no longer Stage 1 deniers, but have graduated to Stage 2. Always nice to see progress. I gather that even Trump may have budged slightly.

[SailOar]

Originally Posted by newhaul

ok secondly the polar bear Crap is all smoke and mirrors the bear population is exploding they are spreading out for territory not searching for food.

https://www.thegwpf.com/susan-crockf...-theyre-dying/

I think Susan Crockford makes some valid points. However, she says that the polar bear population is stable or slightly increasing, not exploding.

One powerful polar bear fact is slowly rising above the message of looming catastrophe repeated endlessly by the media: More than 15,000 polar bears have not disappeared since 2005. Although the extent of the summer sea ice after 2006 dropped abruptly to levels not expected until 2050, the predicted 67-per-cent decline in polar bear numbers simply didn’t happen. Rather, global polar bear numbers have been stable or slightly improved.

The number of wildfires in Alaska is actually on the decline
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004...ire_graphs.gif

Your data is old. The latest year shown is 2004.

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by SailOar

I think Susan Crockford makes some valid points. However, she says that the polar bear population is stable or slightly increasing, not exploding.

One powerful polar bear fact is slowly rising above the message of looming catastrophe repeated endlessly by the media: More than 15,000 polar bears have not disappeared since 2005. Although the extent of the summer sea ice after 2006 dropped abruptly to levels not expected until 2050, the predicted 67-per-cent decline in polar bear numbers simply didn’t happen. Rather, global polar bear numbers have been stable or slightly improved.

Your data is old. The latest year shown is 2004.

here is more current polar bear data.

https://polarbearscience.com/2019/02...nue-to-thrive/


As to the fire data it demonstrated that as a whole the burn acreage year over year in this modern period of " climate change" on the average the numbers have been declining .
( as with anything there will be outlier data points.
The link I posted shows that there have always been fires there ( naturally caused.)
what are they going to say next year when there are few fires and little burned acreage.
That it is a positive point to the " climate change" .
They really need to get their collective data together .

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by Exile

As Spencer points out, there is no way to measure the various human & natural sources, and the total human contribution to overall atmospheric CO2 is only ~1%.

Spencer DOES NOT state that "the total human contribution to overall atmospheric CO2 is only ~1%". Read it again.

The human addition to atmospheric CO2 is "only" 40%, so far.

Also, Dr Spencer does not explain how or why the CO2 concentration has risen so quickly over the last 2 centuries and how the global temperature has also risen so quickly over the same period. There's no precedent
in the available historic evidence for such a fast rise.

It's all well and good to theorize that there are "natural" reasons for the CO2 and/or temperature increases, but to make it stick, you should have explanations and evidence that are as good as or better than the evidence that points to man-made CO2 as the primary factor for the observed rapid temperature increase. In the face of a problem, you need to act on the best evidence you have.

[AllenRbrts]

From the report you cite.... ·
“Data published since 2017 show that global polar bear numbers have continued to increase slightly since 2005, despite the fact that summer sea ice in 2018 was again at a low level not expected until mid-century: the predicted 67% decline in polar bear numbers did not occur.”

What happened to your argument that ice extent is increasing???

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

Spencer DOES NOT state that "the total human contribution to overall atmospheric CO2 is only ~1%". Read it again.

The human addition to atmospheric CO2 is "only" 40%, so far.

Also, Dr Spencer does not explain how or why the CO2 concentration has risen so quickly over the last 2 centuries and how the global temperature has also risen so quickly over the same period. There's no precedent
in the available historic evidence for such a fast rise.

It's all well and good to theorize that there are "natural" reasons for the CO2 and/or temperature increases, but to make it stick, you should have explanations and evidence that are as good as or better than the evidence that points to man-made CO2 as the primary factor for temperature increase. In the face of a problem, you need to act on the best evidence you have.

funny part about co2 is they don't tell you what carbon isotope is increasing anymore just that co2 is increasing. What is the most common gas in the atmosphere ? What does co2 decay into ? What happens when N14 is bombarded with cosmic rays ?
Co2 looses an electron and gains a neutron decaying into No2 , when No2 is bombarded with cosmic rays it gains an electron and looses a neutron becoming co2 again. What happens during a deep solar minimum such as we are currently in ? Cosmic rays increase exponentially.
There is your spike in atmospheric co2 explained in pure high school chemistry .
Does that explain the increase in co2 in purely natural terms?

Now the scientist that developed the procedure to measure the wavelength deflection of solar ir by the different gasses in the atmosphere is also one of the biggest skeptics of the modern MMGW theory.

[AllenRbrts]

Originally Posted by newhaul

What happens when N14 is bombarded with cosmic rays ?

Co2 looses an electron and gains a neutron decaying into No2 , when No2 is bombarded with cosmic rays it gains an electron and looses a neutron becoming co2 again. What happens during a deep solar minimum such as we are currently in ? Cosmic rays increase exponentially.

There is your spike in atmospheric co2 explained in pure high school chemistry .

.

What you are describing is nuclear physics and not chemistry. Yes the effect you describe does happen but the ratio of C12 atoms to C14 atoms is like a trillion to one. For your explanation the ratio would need to be almost 1 to 1. So no, that doesn’t explain the rapid rise of CO2.
The math is much easier when you calculate the gigatons of fossil fuels consumed. Remember high school chemistry will explain that each carbon atom will combine with two oxygen atoms to make CO2, so by weight you get more CO2 than the fossil fuel you started with.

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by AllenRbrts

What you are describing is nuclear physics and not chemistry. Yes the effect you describe does happen but the ratio of C12 atoms to C14 atoms is like a trillion to one. For your explanation the ratio would need to be almost 1 to 1. So no, that doesn’t explain the rapid rise of CO2.
The math is much easier when you calculate the gigatons of fossil fuels consumed. Remember high school chemistry will explain that each carbon atom will combine with two oxygen atoms to make CO2, so by weight you get more CO2 than the fossil fuel you started with.

please provide the data to back up your assertion
And like a trillion to one is Not proper evidence.
And yes it is nuclear physics but is is explained in termsp s that were taught in high school chemistry.

So what is the actual current c12-13-14 ratio in the atmosphere right now ?
Funny you seem to want to put all of the co2 on mans use of rotten plants. ( fossil fuels.)
but that is what iirc .04% of the total or is it .4%

Show the current ratios

I'm not saying man hasn't added to the co2
I'm saying that co2 is not a prime driver of the climate either way.
IOW modern man has little effect.

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by newhaul

funny part about co2 is they don't tell you what carbon isotope is increasing anymore just that co2 is increasing. What is the most common gas in the atmosphere ? What does co2 decay into ? What happens when N14 is bombarded with cosmic rays ?
Co2 looses an electron and gains a neutron decaying into No2 , when No2 is bombarded with cosmic rays it gains an electron and looses a neutron becoming co2 again. What happens during a deep solar minimum such as we are currently in ? Cosmic rays increase exponentially.
There is your spike in atmospheric co2 explained in pure high school chemistry .
Does that explain the increase in co2 in purely natural terms?

Now explain why this has only happened with such effect in the last 200 years.. not 400 years ago, not 1000 years ago, not 2000 years ago.


It's a ridiculous "theory" for explaining the current increase in CO2.

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

Now explain why this has only happened with such effect in the last 200 years.. not 400 years ago, not 1000 years ago, not 2000 years ago.


It's a ridiculous "theory" for explaining the current increase in CO2.

you really should pay attention I have explained it to you several times over the last few years on several climate change threads .

To and including the nuclear physics that I just described .
None of which mean anything to a parishioner of the church of goremon.

[newhaul]

All this but meanwhile the nwp is still frozen

[SailOar]

Originally Posted by newhaul

you really should pay attention I have explained it to you several times over the last few years on several climate change threads.

There are always new people joining into the conversation who haven't read your every word. Since you've apparently already explained your point of view in the past you shouldn't find it hard to either copy and paste from your old post, or at least provide a link to that specific post.

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by newhaul

you really should pay attention I have explained it to you several times over the last few years on several climate change threads .

To and including the nuclear physics that I just described .
None of which mean anything to a parishioner of the church of goremon.

It's a ridiculous theory, no matter how many times you state it.


And thanks for the helping of that legendary newhaul "civility".