In response to a letter in the Telegraph on 19th April from the President of the Royal Society, Lord Rees of Ludlow, asserting that the evidence for human-caused global warming "is now compelling", 41 scientists have written to the same newspaper contradicting Lord Rees. Published in the the Telegraph today, the letter claims:
1. Global climate changes all the time due to natural causes and the human impact still remains impossible to distinguish from this natural 'noise', and
2. Observational evidence does not support today's computer climate models, so there is little reason to trust model predictions of the future.
This is the third 'climate change consensus' letter in as many weeks, click here for links to previous letters.
Edward Celiz from Bodham Halt, Norfolk, has written to the newspaper complaining that:
"If I read another word about climate change, I shall go mad. Of course the climate is changing. That is what climate does, and has done so for billions of years. Do these scare-mongering pseudo-scientists really believe that puny man can control the unimaginable forces of nature by sticking a windmill on his roof, throwing away his fridge and planting a few trees?
Global warming? Perhaps, but what's the betting that in a few years they will be telling us that they have got it wrong? That, in fact, the earth is getting colder?
My advice? Leave it to God."
And I'm an atheist.
The key point can be seen in this graph:
http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/fig2-22.htm
The very steep rises as glaciation ends represent ~10oC over 5-10Kyrs which is an average of .02oC/decade versus the .2oC/decade we are experiencing.
(I broke this in two on the theory that long post full of links get flagged for moderation)
Hi Ian,
I wrote and posted a lengthy response to Cathy a couple of hours ago, even before my reply to rog. I received a "comment received, pending approval" notice.
Basically, the very rapid temperature changes seen in the Greenland Ice cores (and not in the antarctic, though there are issues of differing temporal resolution) represent regional changes driven by ocean current changes from freshwater run-off. This has been a long standing hypothesis, I am not very intimate with the data aside from the ice cores, and just this last year NASA had some success reproducing this climate history in atmosphere ocean coupled model runs.
Coby, I assume that your earlier offer to me and the response you have now made to rog means that you are quite willing to discuss with me whether the problem exists despite differences we may have.
You claimed in your first post on this thread that 'The rate of warming is on the order of 10 times faster today than seen in the ice cores.' Cathy has contested this, citing two papers in peer-reviewed journals (one of them entitled 'The search for patterns in ice-core temperature curves').
On the face of it, the issue of whether or not today's warming is 10 times faster than seen in ice cores is a question of fact. If you are not prepared to discuss this issue with Cathy because she doesn't think a problem exists, would you please explain the basis of your claim to the rest of us?
Hi rog,
You don't make any sense. I am not interested in discussing what to do about a problem that you don't think exists. Why should I waste my time? First things first.
I am quite willing to discuss with you wether or not the problem does exist despite any differing opinions.
Cheers.
Hi Cathy,
Re point #1, "there is ongoing debate" does not follow from the fact that alot of money is still being spent on research. There are always areas in need of better understanding of course. Scientists are still researching the fundamentals of gravity after all, put this does not stop us from erecting guardrails in front of high falls. Understanding future consequences is very difficult and very important and I'm sure is money well spent. (BTW, Americans spent 4 billion dollars on candy last Easter). If you really want to do a head count on the whole global warming issue please see this page:
http://illconsidered.blogspot.com/2006/02/there-is-no-consensus.html
Re point #2, There is actually no good evidence that the MWP was indeed a globally warm period comparable to today. Regionally, there may have been places that did exhibit notable warmth but all of the various global proxy reconstructions agree that it is warmer now and the temperature is rising faster than at any time in the last one or even two thousand years. Anecdotal evidence like that above can never tell you a global story.
NOAA presents a whole selection of proxy studies together with the data they are based on and these can be found here: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/paleo.html
Specifically, they have this to say about the MWP:
"The idea of a global or hemispheric "Medieval Warm Period" that was warmer than today however, has turned out to be incorrect."
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/medieval.html
The paper from Nature about Antarctica does not seem to have any relevance whatsoever to what you are claiming here, though I have only read the abstract. It is about findings that refute previous indications of regional variability in the Antarctic, so what? The paper from the American Petroleum Institute is an analysis of the Greenland ice core. The temperature variations indicated by this record do show some rapid jumps in short times, notably several degrees in a few decades at the end of the younger Dryas, however the other proxy records from that time period indicate that this was a regional phenomenon, not a global one. What's more this paper's claims, from 2001, about the lack of model replication are out dated as just this years model runs at NASA GISS were able to reproduce the major features of that time. It has long been thought, and these model findings further indicate, that those regional variations were the result of ice sheet dynamics as the Laurentide sheet retreated, specifically large pulses of melt water that disrupted the THC current. I also note that this abstract talks about natural flucuations but offers no plausible physical mechanism. I don't understand how the authors cam make comparisons between regional paleo climate and global climate today.
(BTW, the only numbers from your comment that showed up in the paper's abstract was the 10000 year length of the Holocene)
Re #3, I fail to see a significant difference between "warming stopped" and "a 20 year-long warming trend turned into temperature stasis", but no matter both versions are equally wrong. A trend is not established by a single data point. 1998 is a single data point. If you look at the NAS GISS analysis here:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2_lrg.gif
you can see the red line, which is a five year smoothing. There is no cessation in the warming trend. Also note that if you were to take Carter's shallow approach even using the smoothed line you would have to conclude that global warming:
- stopped in 1979
- started in 1980
- stopper in 1981
- started in 1984
- stopped in 1989
- started in 1993
- stopped in 1997
- started in 1998
If you want to cherry pick years then we have had 17 different periods of warming and cooling in the last thirty years. Please, is it really necessary to do this?
As for "cooling will probably set in next", James Annan has made it a little hobby of his to try to get any of these sceptics to put money where their mouths are, and surprise surprise, none of them are willing.
http://julesandjames.blogspot.com/2005/06/betting-summary.html
Well Coby looks like you have thrown in the towel, your refusal to speak with those who dont agree with you is not an answer it is a denial to deal with the problem in its entirety.
Like it or not the world holds many opinions and they are all valid and you will have to learn to accept that before you can "get us past the pure denialism"
Jennifer, thanks very much for the apology and acknowledgement, it's big of you.
rog, "...and?"
... and I refuse to discuss solutions to a problem with someone who will not acknowledge that there is a problem. It is inevitably just a way to confuse the issues, waste time running in circles and you will eventually fall back on a denial of any need or urgency any way. My very consistent experience is that people who don't want to believe a problem is serious will not be serious in discussion or effort at solving it.
My personal focus is trying to get us past the pure denialism that is preventing us from seriously addressing this problem. Frankly, I think that the human race is resourceful and innovative and once the effort begins we will find ways. What we can not invent ourselves out of is the need for food and water. The economy is a human construction it can be reconstructed. The biosphere is huge and delicate and intricately complex, by far the more difficult thing to reengineer.
Coby,
You have a great capacity for making declamatory statements which are entirely wrong.
1. "It is very clear that the climate change we are currently experiencing is anthropogenic".
If it were clear, then there would not be an ongoing debate, with many pedigree scientists on each side. And why would you suppose that the western world would continue to spend about $4 billion a year on researching something which is, apparently, "very clear"?
2. "Well it turns out that the rapidity of the change that is underway is anything BUT normal."
Completely wrong again. The MAGNITUDE of the modern warming period probably less than that of the Mediaeval Warm Period, and is certainly up to several degrees less than that of recent interglacials. And the RATE of the warming lies at the 20 per centile of the rates of both warmings and coolings that have occurred over 140-yr-averaged intervals through the last 10,000 years. i.e. 20% of such periods of time show greater rates of warming.
See:
Watanabe, O., Jouzel, J., Johnsen, S., Parrenin, F., Shoji, H. & Yoshida, N. 2003 Homogeneous climate variability across East Antarctica over the past three glacial cycles. Nature 422, 509-512.
and
Davis, J.C. & Bohling, G.C. 2001 The search for patterns in ice-core temperature curves. In: Gerhard, L.C. et al. (eds.), Geological Perspectives of Global Climate Change, American Association of Petroleum Geologists, Studies in Geology 47, 213-229.
3. "Do you understand what is wrong with Bob Carter's "warming stopped in 1998" tripe?".
Unless I misread his article, Carter didn't say that - the subeditor who chose the headline did.
Carter merely pointed out the incontrovertible fact that 1998 was the year in which a roughly 20 year-long warming trend turned into temperature stasis, which stasis has now lasted 7 years.
That 1998 also happened to be an El Nino year has nothing to do with it. How much longer does the stasis, or the cooling which will probably set in next, have to last before you reassess your self-evidently passionate beliefs?
Cathy
Coby,
I'm not here to defend Bob Carter (but I will likely quote him again in the future), and I'm not an expert on climate change, but I think you have made a worthwhile point at #3, and I apologize for being a bit harsh in one of the following comments.
...and?
Be assured the worlds need for cheap and reliable energy will not diminish and that need will not be constrained by philosophy or ideology.
So the question is, if you see the problem what is your solution? (forget windfarms or riding a pushbike with a solar panel hat)
The world we live in today has been made by problem solvers not problem makers.