Blue Crab Boulevard

Back To The Stone Age

The Washington Post reports on some new studies that call for a reduction of carbon emissions by industrialized countries to zero. Avoid the rush, stop breathing now.

The task of cutting greenhouse gas emissions enough to avert a dangerous rise in global temperatures may be far more difficult than previous research suggested, say scientists who have just published studies indicating that it would require the world to cease carbon emissions altogether within a matter of decades.

Their findings, published in separate journals over the past few weeks, suggest that both industrialized and developing nations must wean themselves off fossil fuels by as early as mid-century in order to prevent warming that could change precipitation patterns and dry up sources of water worldwide.

Using advanced computer models to factor in deep-sea warming and other aspects of the carbon cycle that naturally creates and removes carbon dioxide (CO2), the scientists, from countries including the United States, Canada and Germany, are delivering a simple message: The world must bring carbon emissions down to near zero to keep temperatures from rising further.

"The question is, what if we don't want the Earth to warm anymore?" asked Carnegie Institution senior scientist Ken Caldeira, co-author of a paper published last week in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. "The answer implies a much more radical change to our energy system than people are thinking about."

Meanwhile, in the real world, the northern hemisphere ice cover is running slightly below the 1979-2000 mean while the southern polar ice is running above that mean by a greater amount. The snow cover for the northern hemisphere is well above average. Erie, Pennsylvania received about 21 inches of snow over the weekend, almost as much as the 23 inches they had already received in March before the latest storm. Britain is currently being lashed by the strongest winter storm of the year with another one tracking in right behind.

Civilization, Environment | Gaius Monday, 10 March , 2008

By jay k., Monday, 10 March , 2008 @ 8:18 am

this is a typical post by someone with no knowledge of the topic…pointing to weather in an attempt to challenge the idea of climate change. don’t worry…there are a lot of ludites taking the same position…you are not alone in your ignorance. what you didn’t bother to cut and paste from the article; "…our actions right now will have consequences for many, many generations. not just for a hundred years, but thousands of years…" i’m sure a thousand years from now people will admire you for advocating no action. zero emmisions is technologically possible. but folks like you who make it culturally impossible. be proud.
By David Moelling, Monday, 10 March , 2008 @ 8:38 am

At least the Climate modelers have finally been honest about what they predict would be required to meet THEIR goals. For the longest time, they dodged this letting the public think changing 100 W light bulbs would be enough.
This is truely a call to go back to the stone age (I’m a trained nuclear engineer but I don’t see this nonsense as a blessing for nuclear power).
By feeblemind, Monday, 10 March , 2008 @ 8:48 am

jay k: Just out of curiosity, what are your credentials with regard to global warming that makes you so much smarter than the rest of us?
By DavidL, Monday, 10 March , 2008 @ 8:54 am

I find it funny that weather eventswhich tend to promote the theory of anthropogenic global warming are cited as proof of the theory. Yet the same crowd which cited a busy hurricane season a couple years ago as proof of AGW is now dismissing weather as evidence of climate change. Sure.
By jay k., Monday, 10 March , 2008 @ 9:16 am

feeble…
i understand the difference between climate and weather.
By Lars Walker, Monday, 10 March , 2008 @ 9:27 am

Funny, weather worked just fine for you guys when the winters were mild.
By ME, Monday, 10 March , 2008 @ 9:39 am

Jay k. is correct. This post is a perfect example of how global warming deniers prove themselves ignorant about climate.
By kidrob, Monday, 10 March , 2008 @ 9:57 am

jay k is crazy everyone allready knows that. the debates over!
By Neo, Monday, 10 March , 2008 @ 10:25 am

Sorry, but this is an example of how people prove (mathematically) that global warming iw wrong.http://www.dailytech.com/Researcher+Basic+Greenhouse+Equations+Totally+Wrong/article10973.htm
By William Teach, Monday, 10 March , 2008 @ 11:25 am

Jay k, it is easier to understand weather then climate. A bit. Weather is a part of the climate, just more “localized.” Man can also affect weather a bit easier then climate, such as what happened to the snow and glaciers on Kilamanjaro. Originally, the chicken little climahysterics said it was global warming, run away, run away!!! Then some people who were doing actual science determined that the clear cutting of trees near the mountain allowed warm air to go up the sides. Woops! (not that that is acceptable, in my mind, either.)
By LiberalPercy, Monday, 10 March , 2008 @ 11:28 am

I don’t know about "Jay K", but I have a PhD in Chemistry and have studied various aspects of molecular absorption of light energy by atmospheric gases, including the many greenhouse gases, for decades. Not only is AGW real, but I can give you chapter and verse on why and how it works. Simple answer: Go stand in a greenhouse on a sunny winter day. It is not a perfect analogy, but the ‘glass’ over our heads in the form of CO2 and other GHGs is getting thicker every year.
And as to climatologists having ’goals’. No - we take measurements and report our findings. You may not like those findings, but the findings don’t give a damn about your feelings. I’d much rather find out that GW is all a mistake and we won’t be giving our children a sinking world. I LIKE Manhattan.
So you have your choice. Believe ExxonMobil that there’s nothing to see here and they really wouldn’t do anything to hurt the climate in exchange for a paltry $40 Billion a year profit. Or believe thousands of scientists like myself who DON’T have $Billions on the line, but are concerned for humanity’s future.
What makes sense to you?
By William Teach, Monday, 10 March , 2008 @ 12:47 pm

Believe ExxonMobil that there’s nothing to see here and they really wouldn’t do anything to hurt the climate in exchange for a paltry $40 Billion a year profit.

Don’t show any of that anti oil bias, Percy. You pretty much destroyed your credibility with that little left wing rant.

Or believe thousands of scientists like myself who DON’T have $Billions on the line, but are concerned for humanity’s future.
What makes sense to you?

Or, we can believe the thousands of scientists who say AGW is pretty much bunk.

It is up the AGW believers to provide actual hard evidence that their opinion has a basis in scientific fact this time, as opposed to what has happened time and again over billions of years.
By Robert in BA, Monday, 10 March , 2008 @ 1:13 pm

It’s hilarious that global warming, along with EVERYTHING ELSE, is a politically partisan issue.It must be the fear of the "leaps and bounds" of technology improvement unleashed by those looking to do something different that has the anti-AGW crowd with their panties in a bunch.Either that, or they just admit that us darn Yanks are too stupid to come up with alternatives.After watching the debate, there’s much to support the latter hypothesis.
By sam, Monday, 10 March , 2008 @ 1:35 pm

First they came for the incandescent lightbulbs, and no one objected. Then they came for the air conditioning, but no one objected. Then they took away the Internet and computers in the name of energy savings. Then they came for the automobiles, but by then no one could object any more.I have been on websites where the prevailing attitude is that we must totally deindustrialize, and essentially return to a 19th century agrarian lifestyle. I guess that is where Jay K and Percy want us to head.
By jay k., Monday, 10 March , 2008 @ 1:44 pm

sam…
show me where anyone says we must de-industrialize…besides denyers? who wants to take away your ac? much less your computers. the point is that technologically we can move forward. but people like you with no vision or imagination make it culturally impossible. again…be proud. your children and their children will be glad you were afraid of progress.
By Don L, Monday, 10 March , 2008 @ 2:01 pm

Honest folks -true story. I just read a headline that said we must cease all CO2 emissions if we are to survive as a planet. If I don’t lfinish typing this it’s because I’m trying not to brea….
By Don L, Monday, 10 March , 2008 @ 2:06 pm

jay K
I presume you’ve written to Al Gore to protest his abuse of the environment to make his millions?
They don’t want our air conditioners, you say? They want us to not have children because of their carbon footprints(population bombs and such) These are religious fanatics(as in cool aid drinkers) being led by the same leftist thinking that brought destruction under Stalin, Mao,Castro, HoChi Min etc. It’s about politics in case you haven’t figured it out yet.
By DoctorF, Monday, 10 March , 2008 @ 2:52 pm

I am also a Ph.D. level chemist, and my sister is a Ph.D. level oceanographer; both of us do research at Ivy League institutions. We do not personally know, nor professionally interface with, a single scientist who thinks "AGW is bunk". Not one. Despite what William Teach claims, there simply are not "thousands" of credible scientists who think global warming is "bunk". There are only a handful of skeptics who are not taken very seriously, except by those like yourself who deny what is plain as day.
By Maggie, Monday, 10 March , 2008 @ 2:53 pm

You know what …
I DON’T CARE what it’s like "generations" or "hundreds" or "thousands" of years from NOW … I JUST DON’T!
AND I care even LESS what THOSE people (in the future) think about me …
What I DO care about is "global" taxation(s), restrictions, and interference into MY life and rights and sovereignty as a nation..
What I DO care about is the way SCIENTISTS, and educated thinkers, who have different data, facts, theories, and opinions about this whole stinking panic are ignored, threatened, and silenced.

What I DO care about is how the GW Cultists have seeped into every aspect of our lives, and into the schools to preach and brain-wash …

There has been NO debate, no sharing of ideas … ONLY persecution of those who aren’t converting to the
"religious doctrine", and are being blamed for something that HASN’T EVEN HAPPENED!!!
By T-Ray, Monday, 10 March , 2008 @ 2:56 pm

So William Teach, you would have anyone who reads your post here believe that $40 billion dollars funding many "scientific" think tanks would not try to influence the argument, but academics would tarnish their only valued asset, their integrity, to conspire together around the world to mislead the public for the tens of thousands of dollars they receive in pay. Well played sir! Who can argue with that logic?
By T-Ray, Monday, 10 March , 2008 @ 3:00 pm

Now not so snarky.If this era of honoring profit before humanity is continued to be encouraged then we as a race of people have chosen to kill ourselves for cheap gas and a Playstation. Just my crazy take on things.
By jay k., Monday, 10 March , 2008 @ 3:20 pm

maggie…
i’m sure you would have been one of the first to denegrate gallelio and corpurnicus…not to mention your stand on darwin. clearly you are an impressive human being. you speak well for the denyers of the world.
By Maggie, Monday, 10 March , 2008 @ 3:37 pm

jay k. -
How DO you get out of bed every morning to this horrible world?
You are proving MY point.
So, why don’t you and your fellow believers just line up us "deniers" and non-converts, and stone us, behead us, crucify us … whatever … because it IS where you are going with this.
You cannot hold a debate or even a reasoned argument without lamely reducing the opposition to ignorant uneducated lower class "idiots" … You KNOW you would lose if the data and facts and science (which my/our side IS presenting … as did Gallelio, Copernicus, and Darwin) were brought out and held up against your so-called data … BTW - It was the cultish religious zealots (see the global warming cult as it has become) that persecuted and prosecuted the "scientific" side to silence them … as your side IS doing.
And again I say … I DON’T CARE what happens hundreds or thousands of years from now.
I’d like to be able to say "I’m sorry" if that upsets your "superior intellect" … But I’m saving the CO2 for a steak on my gas grill …
By Gary Gulrud, Monday, 10 March , 2008 @ 3:37 pm

This paper was also featured at Accuweather, Mr. Caldeira retorted with some offense that the deniers there (a great majority) should read his paper and itemize its faults. A number, hoping to pick up the gauntlet failed to find the paper anywhere, I believe one finding a source but balking at the charge to obtain such goodness.
The time to suffer these fools is past. We’ve got the cursed politicians to corral now.
By Maggie, Monday, 10 March , 2008 @ 3:40 pm

AH! Gaius, you are a better soul than I, my friend …
By teqjack, Monday, 10 March , 2008 @ 4:07 pm

I may believe some "global" warming has been happening, just as cooling has. But I am still waiting to hear how the auto manufacturers and oil companies established shipping and markets on other bodies in the local (Solar) system. Or how Sol can raise temperatures over 500 degrees Fahrenheit (Kelvin) but cannot <i>possibly</i> be responsible for the last one or two degrees of warming/cooling, or indeed have any effect whatever - including the shifts in atmosphere and ocean currents, which would not occcur at all if Sol was not in the picture.
OK, humanity is quite possibly affecting climate, at least on a continent-by-continent level. But even the so-called IPCC report that kick-started this (and the "hockey stick") actually was the understandably dumbed-down <i>politician’s summary</i> and did not (could not?) accurately reflect the actual report contents. And the new IPCC report not only continued this but patently it seems that the main body of the report is/was to be forcibly edited to conform to the "summary" - a case of the tail wagging the dog?
By Neo, Monday, 10 March , 2008 @ 4:20 pm

All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA’s GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously.http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=10866The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C — a value large enough to wipe out most of the warming recorded over the past 100 years. All in one year’s time. For all four sources, it’s the single fastest temperature change ever recorded, either up or down.
By Gaius, Monday, 10 March , 2008 @ 5:42 pm

No, I’ve been busy today trying to keep the lights on. Jay K, normally, your insults directed at me and other would have gotten your comments deleted and you banned. I am leaving them stand because others have responded to you.

I will not allow another one, however.

Unlike you and other true believers, Jay K., I happen to work - every day - at keeping those lights on and the power on line that you need to live the modern lifestyle you live. Including gratuitously insulting people in terms that would get you a quick trip to an emergency room if you used them to the wrong person’s face.

I happen to understand - as you do not - what the engineering realities are - not your echo-chamber answers - the actual realities. And more importantly, the real costs.
By DoctorF, Monday, 10 March , 2008 @ 7:14 pm

Can someone point out to me where all this contrary data is? As far as I can see, the vast, vast, vast majority of papers in the primary literature support the theory of man made climate change. Also, does anyone have a list of the "thousands" of scientists who doubt global warming theory? I only know of two: Singer and Lindzen - a microscopic minority. And one more question for the skeptics: what kind of evidence would it take to change your mind?
By Gaius, Monday, 10 March , 2008 @ 7:28 pm

Here’s one:

http://bluecrabboulevard.com/2007/12/15/vast-majority/
By Maggie, Monday, 10 March , 2008 @ 7:38 pm

what kind of evidence would it take to change your mind?

A bolt of lightning to my skull …
An erasing of the historical facts that after the last Ice Age there was a "warming", but … {gasp!} … there were no light bulbs to be found.
I’m STILL waiting for the new ice age I was promised by these same people 30-odd yrs ago …
Just last week there was a conference held in New York City with global warming opponents … Sorry you missed it … I believe there were more than just two there, (SOME of whom had to fight to get their names removed from the UN climate fiction … er … report} .
You might have seen it on the news, although the MSM seemed to be covering something else at the time …
Funny how the MSM only finds time for pro-man-made GW coverage.

It seems with all the "deniers" and "skeptics" name-calling, those using those two terms seem to be the ones denying debate, and are skeptical about how their side would hold up in the light (incandescent … thank you) of close comparison against opposing science.
Simply because you haven’t looked for or read/heard much of the opposing science, doesn’t mean it doen’t exist.
By Maggie, Monday, 10 March , 2008 @ 7:39 pm

Gaius -
Soylent Green is … people!
By DoctorF, Monday, 10 March , 2008 @ 8:41 pm

Maggie,
This doesn’t look like any kind of scientific conference I have ever been to, more like an agenda driven PR stunt. In fact the agenda was stated clearly in the invitation:
"The purpose of the conference is to generate international media attention to the fact that many scientists believe forecasts of rapid warming and catastrophic events are not supported by sound science, and that expensive campaigns to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are not necessary or cost-effective.”
This is not surprising as the sponsoring body, Heartland Institute, is clearly a policy advocacy group, not a research institute or university. I’ve never been to a conference that paid the speakers honorariums, paid the way of any elected official who wanted to come, or featured so many non-scientists as speakers (I am talking about the economists and policy wonks on the speakers list – oh, and John Stossel? ).
Not convincing.
It reminds me of the strategy used by the intelligent design people.
By Gaius, Monday, 10 March , 2008 @ 9:08 pm

And Al Gore is what, DrF? By the way, I’d be interested in your bona fides to your claim of who you are. Drop me an email from your .edu email (I will not publish the address. You can hold me to that in the blogosphere.) Right now you are showing as a gmail address from a Comcast IP.

Comment email address is on the "about" page.
By Maggie, Monday, 10 March , 2008 @ 9:25 pm

DoctorF
Wow! Well, you’ve converted me …
I bow to Sheryl Crow, Al Gore, Ted Danson, the band members of Greenday, Cameron Diaz, everybody on Nickelodeon TV (including Sponge Bob) … I could go on, but my back is killing me from all the bowing.
I just can’t seem to be able to get my mind around an idea that there is nothing greater than myself …
By DoctorF, Tuesday, 11 March , 2008 @ 8:08 am

Forgive me if I put a little more credence in the following scientific organizations, all of which have issued statements explicitly endorsing the findings of the IPCC. These are not fly by night advocacy groups like the Heartland Institute, but established and respected professional science institutions that represent the collective opinion of tens of thousands of scientists. This is what we are talking about when we speak of consensus.
National Academy of Sciences
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
American Meteorological Society
Royal Meteorological Society (UK)
American Geophysical Union
American Astronomical Society
American Institute of Physics
American Physical Society
Geological Society of America
American Chemical Society
The Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society
Scripps Institution of Oceanography
European Geosciences Union
By kidrob, Tuesday, 11 March , 2008 @ 8:38 am

i thought al gore said the debate was over?
By Khornet, Tuesday, 11 March , 2008 @ 10:25 am

‘course you don’t know a single colleague who doubts AGW. Like the Upper East Side socialite who didn’t know a single person who voted for Nixon in ‘72.Most GW science is being done on the assumption that AGW is real. That is, they’re studying how much sea levels will rise, or how bad it’s going to be for the polar bears, or how many species will become extinct. Or they assume CO2 levels explain GW, and predict future climate. When you get to the few studies which confront the question of whether AGW is real at all, you start to run into skeptics. Then we find that Mann’s celebrated "hockey stick" was fraudulent science. That the tropospheric phenomenon predicted by CO2 modeling isn’t there. That Al Gore’s CO2 spikes follow warming instead of preceding it. That NASA’s numbers were wrong. That the original models for CO2 and climate assumed an atmosphere of infinite thickness, instead of the actual 100 km, and when you use the real number GW goes away.As far as money influencing one’s position, keep in mind the millions it’s making for Al Gore and the various Enviro advocacy groups. There’s a heck of a lot more money in pushing GW than in questioning it.
By DoctorF, Tuesday, 11 March , 2008 @ 4:36 pm

Gaius,
Regarding the Douglass paper, I would like to submit the following article in rebuttal. It was published in Science in 2008 and authored by a group of NASA scientists. I have copied only the summary here, you can follow the citation data to the entire article.

Science 14 August 1998:Vol. 281. no. 5379, pp. 930 - 932DOI: 10.1126/science.281.5379.930

Perspectives

GLOBAL WARMING:Global Climate Data and Models: A Reconciliation
James E. Hansen, Makiko Sato, Reto Ruedy, Andrew Lacis, Jay Glascoe
The debate over the existence of global warming and climate change has been muddled because of satellite data showing a cooling trend in Earth’s troposphere. This apparent cooling is in disagreement with measurements at surface stations and with climate models. In their Perspective, Hansen et al. discuss a correction to the satellite data published by Wentz and Schabel in Nature that may have profound implications for discussions of climate change. Wentz and Schabel discovered that the original satellite data, published in 1995, was not adjusted for the natural decay of spacecraft altitude caused by atmospheric drag. When this adjustment is made, the satellite data agree with both surface data and model calculations. The authors of the Perspective conclude that the question now is not whether global warming exists–it clearly does–but what should be done about it.
The authors are at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, NASA, New York, NY 10025, USA
By Gaius, Tuesday, 11 March , 2008 @ 5:26 pm

DrF,

You are aware that Hansen has been paid a very large sum of money by the Heinz Foundation? And that he refuses to release his data or algorithms? Are you aware that Climate Audit’s Steve McIntyre uncovered a substantial error in the GISS data - which was downplayed by Hansen and ignored by the media?

Have you heard of the Cascade Effect?

A couple of places you may not have heard of. Climate Audit : http://www.climateaudit.org/ and ICECAP: http://icecap.us/

I am not a post doctoral fellow, but I am an engineer. I can read a graph. Please do look at this one:

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.anom.south.jpg

And reconcile that with the claims that the Antarctic is losing ice.

You are a scientist. Ask some questions.
By DoctorF, Tuesday, 11 March , 2008 @ 8:10 pm

Thanks for the links - I will certainly read them.
Just right off the bat, have you followed the cryosphere link back to its front page?
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/
It’s run by a couple of climate change scientists at UI. Most of their work is focused on documenting climate change in the arctic. Here’s a quote from their web page:
Observed Climate Change
Recent observed surface air temperature changes over the Arctic region are the largest in the world. Winter (DJF) rates of warming exceed 4 degrees C. over portions of the Arctic land areas (shown left). We provide Arctic temperature trends and changes of other primary surface variables (e.g., sea level pressure, precipitation, sea ice cover) archived in this climate summary, portions of which are published each year in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. Sea ice extent averaged over the Northern Hemisphere has decreased correspondingly over the past 50 years (shown right). The largest change has been observed in the summer months with decreases exceeding 30%. Decreases observed in winter are more modest.
Seems like you cherry picked a little there.
Unfortunately, there is little analysis regarding the increased ice on the other pole on the site, but I found this article in Science regarding the Antartic ice sheet, I have copied the citation and the concluding paragraph below. Apparently, a lag of up to 50 years in the rise of the average temperature in Antarctica was predicted by several climate change models going all the way back to 1979, and is featured in the IPCC model.
Here’s the article (bold is mine):
Science 24 June 2005: Vol. 308. no. 5730, pp. 1898 - 1901
Snowfall-Driven Growth in East Antarctic Ice Sheet Mitigates Recent Sea-Level Rise
Curt H. Davis,1* Yonghong Li,1 Joseph R. McConnell,2 Markus M. Frey,3 Edward Hanna
Our results show that the East Antarctic ice-sheet interior increased in overall thickness within the ROC from 1992 to 2003 and that this increase is probably the result of increased snowfall. Both of these observations are consistent with the latest IPCC prediction for Antarctica’s likely response to a warming global climate (6). However, the IPCC prediction does not consider possible dynamic changes in coastal areas of the ice sheet. Moreover, these results have only sparse coverage of the coastal areas where recent dynamic changes may be occurring (4). Thus, the overall contribution of the Antarctic ice sheet to global sea-level change will depend on the balance between mass changes on the interior and those in coastal areas.
Best,
F