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...
Pro vs. con view
Topic space view
