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I'm firmly in the camp that CO2 has little to nothing to do with the temperature of the planet. Fact 1: The earth has been warming since the last ice age. Fa

I'm firmly in the camp that CO2 has little to nothing to do with the temperature of the planet. Fact 1: The earth has been warming since the last ice age. Fact 2: Solar output has increased recently Fact 3: Water vapor accounts for almost all of the greenhouse effect. A planet that was already warming is going to continue to warm unless the energy input is changed. Speculative: Some people believe the data has been manipulated intentionally to show a larger increase in temperature than what is actually taking place. This was 'climate gate'. Finally, CO2 is the least of our worries. The real problem is toxic chemical pollution. Industrialized society is polluting our water and our food with toxic chemicals, slowly killing us all.

ocschwar 7y ago
> Fact 1: The earth has been warming since the last ice age. The Milankovitch cycles have crested since that warming. Without the CO2 we would be cooling. > Fact 2: Solar output has increased recently Citation needed. Furthermore, if you can explain how an increase in the solar output woudl warm the arctic more than the tropics, there's a Nobel waiting for you. > Fact 3: Water vapor accounts for almost all of the greenhouse effect. Water vapor has a habit of coming down as rain. > Speculative: Some people believe the data has been manipulated I challenge you to find a single temperature reading, longitude, lattitude, altitude and timestamp, and tell me when it was manipulated.
- EdSharkey 7y ago
  > > Fact 2: Solar output has increased recently > Citation needed. Maybe they meant 'recently' as in geologic time and not "since 2000"? I think it's interesting that solar energy and magnetic fields and cosmic energy fluctuates from year to year. I think these primary inputs to the system not staying constant would make it impossible to model climate such that the model could be an accurate predictive tool. This particular tool seems rigged to show a certain outcome, and I feel bad for folks here who are frustrated by its +1C floor on temperature rise by the end of the simulation. That (crude) part of the design was probably meant to frustrate and/or panic people into taking action. I'm happy to see such obvious rigging of the game on display here and that folks are thinking about that.
  - Matumio 7y ago
    Solar activity may be rising (but I think it's falling actually?), and yes has had an impact in the past, and yes we don't know how large exactly. Does this mean we cannot make any valid predictions until we know it to the last digit? This of course depends on how large the uncertainty of its effect is, compared to other effects. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_activity_and_climate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_activity_and_climate
    - EdSharkey 7y ago
      You cite a lot of uncertainty about Solar activity! Sure, you can use models to make predictions for a date in the future. Then, you wait to see if you reach that date and the predictions come true. Then you can make qualitative assertions about the accuracy of the model, its shortcomings, and whatnot. Do we have evidence of past climate models making accurate future predictions? (I really don’t know, now you have me curious.)
      - Matumio 7y ago
        Surely we have historical data to validate models with?! I'm no expert, but this all sounds very plausible to me. Some parts are even basic physics, like reflection and black-body radiation, which I'm pretty sure we have nailed down exactly by now. Other parts are uncertain: simplifications of topology, chaotic processes, methane content of melting grounds, etc. The model allows to answer "what-if" questions, and the uncertainty of the answer also depends on the question. Would the temperature rise if earth's atmosphere suddenly had the composition on Venus? Hell yes, we can predict that with high confidence, without ever trying it for real. Can we predict the gusts of wind caused by this, the global heat distribution, the exact timing? Probably not, at least it's not plausible to me that we could model every effect that matters for such a detailed prediction. But does it sound so unbelievable that we have a model accurate enough to predict the rough effect of additional CO2 on global temperature? Or would you argue that it is more plausible that most scientists are corrupt and follow someone's agenda, and have discarded the idea of doing honest science which they must have had when starting?
- linuxftw 7y ago
  > The Milankovitch cycles have crested since that warming. Without the CO2 we would be cooling. This is not a fact, this is a theory. This is common in 'science' that scientists believing something 'should be happening' and then attempt to pencil in details after-the-fact to explain something that doesn't fit their preconceived model. > Citation needed. From [1]: > Since 1750, the average amount of energy coming from the Sun either remained constant or increased slightly. If you heat something, it's going to get gradually hotter. If you increase the amount of energy you use to heat it, it's going to get hotter still. If the average temperature goes about X naturally, which in turn causes increased water vapor, which in turn increases the greenhouse effect, then we have a positive feedback loop that was started by natural forces. > if you can explain how an increase in the solar output woudl warm the arctic more than the tropics How does one even make such a measurement? Are we talking about just the atmosphere? Or just the ocean? Or the ice masses? Or the land masses? In any case, imagine a space heater in a room. The heater will be hot, the rest of the room relatively cooler. The cooler parts of the room are going to accept the heat faster than the warmer parts of the room. Why should the planet be any different? > Water vapor has a habit of coming down as rain. Show me the historic atmospheric H2O levels. You can't dismiss water vapor without data showing that it was less in the past. You can see NASA wants to talk about water vapor at [2]. Unfortunately, they still make the climate-leap-of-faith that CO2 causes the original warming, rather than the obvious fact that the increase of water vapor itself causes the warming. You can remove CO2 entirely from the equation, increased water vapor will create positive feedback. > I challenge you to find a single temperature reading, longitude, lattitude, altitude and timestamp, and tell me when it was manipulated. See [3]. If agencies are going revising past temperatures in new data sets, one can argue that's manipulation. Some will argue that this 'adjustment' is prudent and necessary. Others argue that it's not. There's an abundance of evidence on both sides of this particular issue. Now, you probably won't like the source of that information, and I'm sure it's all been 'debunked,' but the other side can say the exact same thing. 1: https://climate.nasa.gov/causes/ https://climate.nasa.gov/causes/ 2: https://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/vapor_warming.html https://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/vapor_warming.htm... 3: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/06/04/noaancdcs-new-pause-buster-paper-a-laughable-attempt-to-create-warming-by-adjusting-past-data/ https://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/06/04/noaancdcs-new-pause-b...
- marcosdumay 7y ago
  > > Fact 3: Water vapor accounts for almost all of the greenhouse effect. > Water vapor has a habit of coming down as rain. The GP is using a non-sequitur, taking a correct fact to support a falsehood. That water vapor comes down as rain does not make it any less important as a greenhouse gas. What the GP does not say is that the amount of water vapor on the atmosphere is roughly proportional to the temperature, so it's only participation is in increasing the effects of the other gasses we emit directly.
  - linuxftw 7y ago
    > so it's only participation is in increasing the effects of the other gasses we emit directly This is the falsehood perpetuated by the CO2-based warming position. The earth was already warming. The earth has continue to warm since the end of the last ice age. This created increased water vapor, the most impactful greenhouse gas. If there is a positive feedback cycle due to greenhouse gases, it's assuredly due to water vapor.
    - breakyerself 7y ago
      The earth has both warmed and cooled since the end of the ice age 10,000 years. You don't give a mechanism for this warming you seem to just chalk it up to the natural cycles that drive ice age related warming and cooling. It's just we know what causes those and we've ruled it out. Milankovitch cycles. The periodic variability in earth's orbit should have us cooling ever so slightly. Instead we are warming rapidly. Your claim that this is the same warming as what brought us out of the ice age is false and has been known to be false for a long time
      - linuxftw 7y ago
        > The earth has both warmed and cooled since the end of the ice age 10,000 years. No, it has only warmed, otherwise we'd be in another ice age. > The periodic variability in earth's orbit should have us cooling ever so slightly That is only a single input. The other input is solar activity, which has increased. Also, if there is indeed a positive feedback loop, after the earth reaches X degrees, then water vapor will continue to increase the earth's temperature absent a reduction in solar input large enough to stop the loop. > same warming as what brought us out of the ice age is false and has been known to be false for a long time It's not known to be false, that's just nonsense. Look how hot it used to be: (from [1]) > Geologists and paleontologists think that during much of the Paleocene and early Eocene, the poles were free of ice caps, and palm trees and crocodiles lived above the Arctic Circle. The transition between the two epochs around 56 million years ago was marked by a rapid spike in global temperature. Crocodiles above the Arctic Circle! But keep telling me how CO2 is going to cause the planet to combust. 1: https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-qa/whats-hottest-earths-ever-been https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-qa/whats-hotte...
- efa 7y ago
  > Water vapor has a habit of coming down as rain. Not sure what you mean by this. Are you saying water vapor is not a significant greenhouse gas? https://climate.nasa.gov/causes https://climate.nasa.gov/causes lists it as the most abundant greenhouse gas.
  - breakyerself 7y ago
    It has a residence time in the atmosphere of 72 hours. Water vapor only works as a feedback. It isn't a prime mover of climate change.
    - linuxftw 7y ago
      The sun is the prime mover of climate change, literally everything else is feedback. If increased temperature creates increased water vapor, and increased water vapor causes increased solar radiation retention due to greenhouse effect (resulting in further temperature increases), that's a positive feedback cycle. Water vapor is undisputed as the the #1 greenhouse gas.
      - breakyerself 7y ago
        The sun has been ruled out already.
imtringued 7y ago
I don't really understand how these things are compatible with a 4°C+ change within 100 years. Previous temperature changes happened over tens of thousands of years. Where is that sudden temperature increase going to come from? Why does it coincide with massive population growth and the invention of modern technology. By the way the 4°C numbers are still conservative because they completely ignore unpredictable mechanisms such as feedback loops and only model the direct impact of human activity.

ocschwar 7y ago

> Fact 1: The earth has been warming since the last ice age. The Milankovitch cycles have crested since that warming. Without the CO2 we would be cooling. > Fact 2: Solar output has increased recently Citation needed. Furthermore, if you can explain how an increase in the solar output woudl warm the arctic more than the tropics, there's a Nobel waiting for you. > Fact 3: Water vapor accounts for almost all of the greenhouse effect. Water vapor has a habit of coming down as rain. > Speculative: Some people believe the data has been manipulated I challenge you to find a single temperature reading, longitude, lattitude, altitude and timestamp, and tell me when it was manipulated.

EdSharkey 7y ago
> > Fact 2: Solar output has increased recently > Citation needed. Maybe they meant 'recently' as in geologic time and not "since 2000"? I think it's interesting that solar energy and magnetic fields and cosmic energy fluctuates from year to year. I think these primary inputs to the system not staying constant would make it impossible to model climate such that the model could be an accurate predictive tool. This particular tool seems rigged to show a certain outcome, and I feel bad for folks here who are frustrated by its +1C floor on temperature rise by the end of the simulation. That (crude) part of the design was probably meant to frustrate and/or panic people into taking action. I'm happy to see such obvious rigging of the game on display here and that folks are thinking about that.
- Matumio 7y ago
  Solar activity may be rising (but I think it's falling actually?), and yes has had an impact in the past, and yes we don't know how large exactly. Does this mean we cannot make any valid predictions until we know it to the last digit? This of course depends on how large the uncertainty of its effect is, compared to other effects. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_activity_and_climate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_activity_and_climate
  - EdSharkey 7y ago
    You cite a lot of uncertainty about Solar activity! Sure, you can use models to make predictions for a date in the future. Then, you wait to see if you reach that date and the predictions come true. Then you can make qualitative assertions about the accuracy of the model, its shortcomings, and whatnot. Do we have evidence of past climate models making accurate future predictions? (I really don’t know, now you have me curious.)
    - Matumio 7y ago
      Surely we have historical data to validate models with?! I'm no expert, but this all sounds very plausible to me. Some parts are even basic physics, like reflection and black-body radiation, which I'm pretty sure we have nailed down exactly by now. Other parts are uncertain: simplifications of topology, chaotic processes, methane content of melting grounds, etc. The model allows to answer "what-if" questions, and the uncertainty of the answer also depends on the question. Would the temperature rise if earth's atmosphere suddenly had the composition on Venus? Hell yes, we can predict that with high confidence, without ever trying it for real. Can we predict the gusts of wind caused by this, the global heat distribution, the exact timing? Probably not, at least it's not plausible to me that we could model every effect that matters for such a detailed prediction. But does it sound so unbelievable that we have a model accurate enough to predict the rough effect of additional CO2 on global temperature? Or would you argue that it is more plausible that most scientists are corrupt and follow someone's agenda, and have discarded the idea of doing honest science which they must have had when starting?
linuxftw 7y ago
> The Milankovitch cycles have crested since that warming. Without the CO2 we would be cooling. This is not a fact, this is a theory. This is common in 'science' that scientists believing something 'should be happening' and then attempt to pencil in details after-the-fact to explain something that doesn't fit their preconceived model. > Citation needed. From [1]: > Since 1750, the average amount of energy coming from the Sun either remained constant or increased slightly. If you heat something, it's going to get gradually hotter. If you increase the amount of energy you use to heat it, it's going to get hotter still. If the average temperature goes about X naturally, which in turn causes increased water vapor, which in turn increases the greenhouse effect, then we have a positive feedback loop that was started by natural forces. > if you can explain how an increase in the solar output woudl warm the arctic more than the tropics How does one even make such a measurement? Are we talking about just the atmosphere? Or just the ocean? Or the ice masses? Or the land masses? In any case, imagine a space heater in a room. The heater will be hot, the rest of the room relatively cooler. The cooler parts of the room are going to accept the heat faster than the warmer parts of the room. Why should the planet be any different? > Water vapor has a habit of coming down as rain. Show me the historic atmospheric H2O levels. You can't dismiss water vapor without data showing that it was less in the past. You can see NASA wants to talk about water vapor at [2]. Unfortunately, they still make the climate-leap-of-faith that CO2 causes the original warming, rather than the obvious fact that the increase of water vapor itself causes the warming. You can remove CO2 entirely from the equation, increased water vapor will create positive feedback. > I challenge you to find a single temperature reading, longitude, lattitude, altitude and timestamp, and tell me when it was manipulated. See [3]. If agencies are going revising past temperatures in new data sets, one can argue that's manipulation. Some will argue that this 'adjustment' is prudent and necessary. Others argue that it's not. There's an abundance of evidence on both sides of this particular issue. Now, you probably won't like the source of that information, and I'm sure it's all been 'debunked,' but the other side can say the exact same thing. 1: https://climate.nasa.gov/causes/ https://climate.nasa.gov/causes/ 2: https://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/vapor_warming.html https://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/vapor_warming.htm... 3: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/06/04/noaancdcs-new-pause-buster-paper-a-laughable-attempt-to-create-warming-by-adjusting-past-data/ https://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/06/04/noaancdcs-new-pause-b...
marcosdumay 7y ago
> > Fact 3: Water vapor accounts for almost all of the greenhouse effect. > Water vapor has a habit of coming down as rain. The GP is using a non-sequitur, taking a correct fact to support a falsehood. That water vapor comes down as rain does not make it any less important as a greenhouse gas. What the GP does not say is that the amount of water vapor on the atmosphere is roughly proportional to the temperature, so it's only participation is in increasing the effects of the other gasses we emit directly.
- linuxftw 7y ago
  > so it's only participation is in increasing the effects of the other gasses we emit directly This is the falsehood perpetuated by the CO2-based warming position. The earth was already warming. The earth has continue to warm since the end of the last ice age. This created increased water vapor, the most impactful greenhouse gas. If there is a positive feedback cycle due to greenhouse gases, it's assuredly due to water vapor.
  - breakyerself 7y ago
    The earth has both warmed and cooled since the end of the ice age 10,000 years. You don't give a mechanism for this warming you seem to just chalk it up to the natural cycles that drive ice age related warming and cooling. It's just we know what causes those and we've ruled it out. Milankovitch cycles. The periodic variability in earth's orbit should have us cooling ever so slightly. Instead we are warming rapidly. Your claim that this is the same warming as what brought us out of the ice age is false and has been known to be false for a long time
    - linuxftw 7y ago
      > The earth has both warmed and cooled since the end of the ice age 10,000 years. No, it has only warmed, otherwise we'd be in another ice age. > The periodic variability in earth's orbit should have us cooling ever so slightly That is only a single input. The other input is solar activity, which has increased. Also, if there is indeed a positive feedback loop, after the earth reaches X degrees, then water vapor will continue to increase the earth's temperature absent a reduction in solar input large enough to stop the loop. > same warming as what brought us out of the ice age is false and has been known to be false for a long time It's not known to be false, that's just nonsense. Look how hot it used to be: (from [1]) > Geologists and paleontologists think that during much of the Paleocene and early Eocene, the poles were free of ice caps, and palm trees and crocodiles lived above the Arctic Circle. The transition between the two epochs around 56 million years ago was marked by a rapid spike in global temperature. Crocodiles above the Arctic Circle! But keep telling me how CO2 is going to cause the planet to combust. 1: https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-qa/whats-hottest-earths-ever-been https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-qa/whats-hotte...
efa 7y ago
> Water vapor has a habit of coming down as rain. Not sure what you mean by this. Are you saying water vapor is not a significant greenhouse gas? https://climate.nasa.gov/causes https://climate.nasa.gov/causes lists it as the most abundant greenhouse gas.
- breakyerself 7y ago
  It has a residence time in the atmosphere of 72 hours. Water vapor only works as a feedback. It isn't a prime mover of climate change.
  - linuxftw 7y ago
    The sun is the prime mover of climate change, literally everything else is feedback. If increased temperature creates increased water vapor, and increased water vapor causes increased solar radiation retention due to greenhouse effect (resulting in further temperature increases), that's a positive feedback cycle. Water vapor is undisputed as the the #1 greenhouse gas.
    - breakyerself 7y ago
      The sun has been ruled out already.

imtringued 7y ago

I don't really understand how these things are compatible with a 4°C+ change within 100 years. Previous temperature changes happened over tens of thousands of years. Where is that sudden temperature increase going to come from? Why does it coincide with massive population growth and the invention of modern technology. By the way the 4°C numbers are still conservative because they completely ignore unpredictable mechanisms such as feedback loops and only model the direct impact of human activity.