• PRO

    Pro argues that past climate doesn't count because we are...

    Anthropogenic Climate Change Exists

    "Since 2000, CO2 has risen by 54% with no increase in global temperatures"? Putting aside that ten years is only three percent of our three-century discussion, the decade from 2000-2010 actually experienced the highest average temperature anomaly of any decade since before 1900. [5] This is why the fifth IPCC report's "Summary for Policy Makers"[7] boldly stated that "each of the last three decades has been successively warmer at the Earth’s surface than any preceding decade since 1850," and could also be why CON provides no source for his claim that the years 2000 through 2010 have "experienced no increase in global temperatures." Hans Von Storch told the House of Representatives in 2006 that "Based on the scientific evidence, I am convinced that we are facing anthropogenic climate change brought about by the emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere."[8] CON has attempted to represent Hans Van Storch as follows: "As described in [8], Von Storch systematically ran all the IPCC computer models of the climate, and found that the actual temperatures for the last 17 years fell outside the model predictions." Von Storch is not an author of CON's eighth source. The source has fifteen authors, but none are named Von Storch. These fifteen authors summarize their own work as follows: "We demonstrate that considerable ambiguity exists in the choice of parameters, and present and compare three alternatively tuned, yet plausible configurations of the climate model. The impacts of parameter tuning on climate sensitivity was less than anticipated." At no point do they imply that "the actual temperatures for the last seventeen years fell outside model predictions." Sunspot activity should affect climate, and if we examine the blue shades of the following "climate change anomalies" chart [7], we see sunspots match the evidence provided by CON in relation to both sunspots and Pacific Decadal Oscillation, with the dip in temperatures at or near the center of the 20th century. [5] The blue shading represents models that only account for "natural forcings" such as Solar Sunspot Activity and Pacific Decadal Oscillation. The pink shading represents models that account for "both natural and anthropogenic forcings." This chart demonstrates the sharp contrast in these competing models, showing that sunspots and other natural forcings should provide a near-flat average global temperature (with curves similar to CON's first round 3 image in North America, Europe, and Africa) while anthropogenic forcings should show a sharp rise. Observations are given by the black lines, and appear to agree more with the "anthropogenic & natural" models than with the "natural" models alone. It appears that anthropogenic forcings have sharper relevance than sunspots. Con narrates his round 2 and my round 3 as follows: "I pointed to reconstructions of climate for the distant past and the for the past 2000 years to show that climate has varied more than in recent years, and without any apparent relation to atmospheric CO2 levels. Pro argues that past climate doesn't count because we are only discussing the past century and the next century." It would be a drastic mistake to argue that "past climate doesn't count," and I thank CON for bringing this potential misunderstanding to my attention. I argued that "The Nature article quoted by Con demonstrates that solar insulation changed the Earth's climate more in 2,000 years than the human race has in 250 years." That is to say, the rate at which solar insulation changed the Earth's climate was more than (250 / 2000 = 0.125 ) 12.5% of our current rate of Climate change. Consistent change matters more to larger time frames, rate of change matters more to smaller time frames. This is not because the laws of physics change, in fact this is demonstrable in physics and mathematics. Because force = mass * acceleration, a constant net force of one Newton can accelerate a 1,000 kilogram car to 299,792,458 meters per second (speed of light) in 83 hours, 12 minutes [299,792,458 ms^2 / (1,000 kg * 60 s * 60 min) = 83.2 hr], but in the first hour will only bring the speed of the car to 3.6 meters per second [(60 s * 60 m) / 1,000 kg), or just over eight miles an hour. The longer the time measurement, the more relevant the "rate of change" or the "rate of rate of change" or the "value of the exponent," while the shorter the timespan, the more relevant the "application of force" or the "constant" or the "variable" or the "coefficient." The laws of physics and mathematics all but guarantee that the dominant force of climate change in a 300 year timespan is different from the dominant force of climate change in a 100,000,000 year timespan. The last 50 years of climate anomalies demonstrate that the next 200 years of climate anomalies will be dominantly anthropogenic, [5] while CON's arguments are founded on a combination of 1) the last 600 million years of climate change and 2) the specific decade of 2000-2010. Does he somehow mean that solar, volcanic, botanic, and other natural factors will accelerate their rate of influence by 100,000 times over for the first time in over 600,000,000 years? CO2 follows temperature increase in ice sheets with a lag of a few hundred years when assessing a timespan of 20,000 years, which is why CON's fifteenth source numbers its X-axis in units of 1000 years before 1950. [CON-15. http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com...;] The CO2 level of an ice sheet is measured by the CO2 level, while the temperature of the ice sheet is measured by the deuterium level. Scientists aren't sure exactly how long it takes for deuterium differences to show up in ice caps, which is why CON's fifteenth source states "Our analyses of ice cores from the ice sheet in Antarctica shows that the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere follows the rise in Antarctic temperatures very closely and is staggered by a few hundred years at most," rather than asserting that they have reversed the Greenhouse Effect. Their overall point is that the two measurements correllate. The 2013 IPCC report states that "Climate change models have improved since the AR4. Models reproduce observed continental-scale surface temperature patterns and trends over many decades, including the more rapid warming since the mid-20th century and the cooling immediately following large volcanic eruptions (very high confidence)."[7] I think we can all agree that Michael Mann was wrong ten years ago, and that the graph of climate anomalies is not shaped like a hockey stick, especially since that's not the topic of the debate I instigated, of the points I have argued, or of the sources I have cited. "Total Sea Ice is at a High"? Which is more relevant to "total sea ice" - area, or volume? CON made an argument about area, I made arguments about 1) volume and 2) temperature. Melting the ice caps reduces the volume, but the ice flows down and refreezes, which both warms the temperature and expands the area. Temperature is more closely linked to this debate than volume OR area. It has nothing to do with Al Gore, and the PDO is a mere blip on climate anomaly grids. "Future CO2 levels are unknown"? "Once they heat to a certain point, the oceans are expected to start releasing CO2 back into the atmosphere, which may include massive reserves that have been down there for millions of years." - Me, round 1, CON has yet to respond. A technological breakthrough will not allow sunspots to catch up with Anthropogenic Climate Change before 2200. It will take them tens of thousands or even millions of years. "Most aspects of climate change will persist for many centuries even if emissions of CO2 are stopped. This represents a substantial multi-century climate change commitment created by past, present and future emissions of CO2." [5] 8. http://cstpr.colorado.edu...

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