On 3/6/2014 10:40 AM, John Clark wrote:
On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 4:22 PM, <ghib...@gmail.com <mailto:ghib...@gmail.com>>
wrote:
> you said somewhere you weren't bothered about the 0.8C rise to date
That's right, the Human race has never been more numerous, longer lived, better educated
or richer than it is today so global warming seems to have caused little harm and may
even have been helpful. That shouldn't be a big surprise, after all we don't know what
the perfect temperature to maximize human happiness is, but I doubt it's exactly .8C
less than it is right now.
> I didn't catch whether you are concerned about the projections by 2100?
No I am not at all concerned by the 2100 projections, I say this for 5 reasons:
1) I have little confidence in long term climate models. Anybody reading them would
think CO2 is the most important greenhouse gas, but it isn't, water vapor is.
CO2 is more important because it accumulates in the atmosphere. Water vapor has more
effect as an amplifying feedback because it stays roughly in equilibrium with ocean
surface temperature.
And they can't answer one important question, if the world's temperature increases will
that create more clouds or fewer clouds? It's a very simple question with profound
consequences because clouds regulate the amount of solar energy that runs the entire
climate show. Increased temperature means more water evaporates from the sea, but it
also means the atmosphere can hold more water before it is forced to form clouds. So who
wins this tug of war? Nobody knows, its too complicated. Water vapor is a far more
powerful greenhouse gas than CO2 and unlike CO2 it undergoes phase changes at earthly
temperatures, it can be a solid a liquid or a gas which makes it astronomically more
complicated than CO2 which is always just a gas, at least on this planet.
It's complicated, but not beyond study and empirical studies indicate clouds tend to
increase warming: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/330/6010/1523
/A Determination of the Cloud Feedback from Climate Variations over the Past
Decade//
//
// A. E. Dessler//
//
//Estimates of Earth's climate sensitivity are uncertain, largely because of uncertainty
in the long-term cloud feedback. I estimated the magnitude of the cloud feedback in
response to short-term climate variations by analyzing the top-of-atmosphere radiation
budget from March 2000 to February 2010. Over this period, the short-term cloud feedback
had a magnitude of 0.54 ą 0.74 (2?) watts per square meter per kelvin, meaning that it is
likely positive. A small negative feedback is possible, but one large enough to cancel the
climate's positive feedbacks is not supported by these observations. Both long- and
short-wave components of short-term cloud feedback are also likely positive. Calculations
of short-term cloud feedback in climate models yield a similar feedback. I find no
correlation in the models between the short- and long-term cloud feedbacks./
There's no plausible theory by which clouds could nullify the warming caused by increased
CO2 and uncertainty goes both ways.
And then there is the important issue of global dimming, the world may be getting warmer
but it is also getting dimmer. For reasons that are not clearly understood but may be
related to clouds, during the day at any given temperature it takes longer now for water
to evaporate than it did 50 years ago; climate models can't explain why it exists today
much less know if the effect will be larger or smaller in 2100.
Sure they can. It's due to increased aerosols and increased clouds. The IPCC AR4 models
predict the increased cloudiness. The uncertainty about cloud effects arises because low
clouds and high clouds have different effects and the height of clouds is harder to predict.
2) Even if the climate models are correct it is not at all clear if on the global scale
the increase in temperature would be a good thing or a bad thing; however I do know that
far more people freeze to death than die of heatstroke.
It's plenty clear that 4degC would not be a good thing. A lot more people die from
starvation than freezing.
3) Even if it's a bad thing, as of 2014 no environmentalist has proposed a cure for
global warming that wasn't far worse than the disease, although some
non-environmentalists may have.
There are plenty of good proposals from environmentalist.
http://www.amyhremleyfoundation.org/php/education/impacts/NaturalCycles/PossibleRemedies.php
http://www.greenbang.com/global-warming-cure-for-global-warming_7007.html
4) Even if it is a bad thing there are plenty of worse problems that will hit before
2100 to worry about.
2100 is just when it get so bad people will wonder why the hell we didn't do anything
about earlier.
Most science stories are under reported in the mainstream press, but global warming is
almost as over reported as ancient astronauts or stories about Nostradamus.
5) In 2100 if we find that global warming is causing us serious trouble we can deal with
it then when out toolbox for fixing things will be vastly larger than it is now.
Yeah, we'll just fire up our tokomaks, cold fusion, and LFTRs and pump all that CO2 down
the fracking wells, neutralize the ocean acidity and spray sulfur into the stratosphere.
What could be easier.
Brent
Brent
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