Dear Jennifer,
Here at ABC News Online, in an article titled 'Study shows more severe droughts ahead for Australia', is another example why there are so many cynics/sceptics about Anthropogenic Global Warming [1].
On the one hand the alarmists bang on about the fact that we are the cause of the increase in temperature over the last 100years, and if anyone raises questions about the role of the sun they get jumped on.
But now the academics are saying that the sun will affect our future prospects of drought or no, because they have a connection between sunspots and SOI and our weather.
Here is a delicious concept of one bunch of alarmists, with their "we are doomed because of drought caused by the sun", actually mucking up the argument of "we are doomed because it is Co2, and BTW the sun is not involved at all".
It would seem that the alarmists have some explaining to do.
Cheers,
Malcolm Hill
Littlehampton (where it is very cold and wet).
Australia
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[1] ABC Online: Study shows more severe droughts ahead for Australia.
New research into the sun suggests eastern Australia could face more severe droughts over the next 500 years.
Last Update: Wednesday, July 12, 2006. 1:36pm (AEST), http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200607/s1684681.htm
A study at the University of New England in New South Wales has shown a link between solar cycles and rainfall patterns, which can be used in conjunction with the southern oscillation index to more accurately predict droughts.
Associate Professor Robert Baker says ...
No Paul - just because you were b/s-ing on the parameterisation issue.
In any case in terms of blog harmony I withdraw my comment and apologise for being gratuitous.
Let me re-phrase by saying that IMHO you are not providing complete disclosure on the issue.
Some empirical parameterisations are required on some aspects, schema and representations for other aspects, whereas the majority is simply physics. However a parameterisation is a long way from "tuning" to get a specific answer. Indeed a vast amount of GCM developers time is spent testing and validating models and sub-components. This is the acid test. The point on representing the temperature curve of the last century is that without adding all the forcings together in the one model do you get the historical record. i.e. there are both solar and greenhouse forcings (and volcanoes too)
Paul - "The last link, which from your comment looks as though it might be a "limits to growth" style talk"
I suggest you do it is really worth it - there are limits to growth. This is from the transcript:
"Bacteria grow by doubling. One bacterium divides to become two, the two divide to become 4, become 8, 16 and so on. Suppose we had bacteria that doubled in number this way every minute. Suppose we put one of these bacterium into an empty bottle at eleven in the morning, and then observe that the bottle is full at twelve noon. There's our case of just ordinary steady growth, it has a doubling time of one minuet, and it's in the finite environment of one bottle. I want to ask you three questions.
Number one; at which time was the bottle half full? Well, would you believe 11:59,one minuet before 12, because they double in number every minute.
Second Question; if you were an average bacterium in that bottle at what time would you first realise that you were running of space? Well let's just look at the last minute in the bottle. At 12 noon its full, one minute before its half full, 2 minutes before its ΒΌ full than 1/8th than a 1/16th . Let me ask you, at 5 minutes before 12 when the bottle is only 3% full and is 97% open space just yearning for development, how many of you would realise there's a problem?
Now in the ongoing controversy over growth in Bolder, someone wrote to the newspaper some years ago and said look, there's no problem with population growth in Boulder, because the writer said, we have fifteen times as much open space as we've already used. So let me ask you what time was it in Boulder when the open space was fifteen times the amount of space we had already used? And the answer is, it was four minutes before 12 in Boulder valley. Well suppose that at 2 minutes before 12, some of the bacterium realised they were running out of space, so they launch a great search for new bottles. They searched offshore and on the outer continental shelf and the overthrust belt and the Artic, and they find three new bottles. Now that's an incredible discovery, that's three times the total amount of resource they ever new about before, they now have four bottles, before their discovery they had one. Now surely this will give them a sustainable society, wont' it?
You know what the third question is? How long can the growth continue as a result of this magnificent discovery? Well look at the score, at 12 noon, one bottles filled, there are three to go, 12:01 two bottles are filled, there's two to go and at 12:02 all four are filled and that's the end of the line. Now you don't need any more arithmetic than this to evaluate the absolutely contradictory statements that we've all heard and read from experts who tell us in one breath we can go on increasing our rates of consumption of fossil fuels and then in the next breath don't worry, we will always be able to make the discoveries of new resources that we need to meet the requirement of that growth. "
"As for GCMs, they have to produce answers that correspond with reality, and if they don't, they must be adjusted in some way to make the output fit the observed data"
Yes they do and part of the discovery process is finding out WHY the parameters have to be adjusted. This is whole point of using them. These experiments lead to other lines of inquiry as to why this parameter is so high etc which then leads to new insights into Nature which is the whole point of science in the first place.
Thanks for your long response, Ender. I have actually read all the references you supplied, except for the last one. I obviously found them less convincing than you did.
The last link, which from your comment looks as though it might be a "limits to growth" style talk, I will look at when time permits. It has to be said that this type of thinking has been expressed since Malthus, if not earlier, and so far events have always proved it to be wrong.
As for GCMs, they have to produce answers that correspond with reality, and if they don't, they must be adjusted in some way to make the output fit the observed data. If this is not the case, then the modellers are just playing computer games. Surely you agree that this is what happens? The problem arises if factors not accounted for in the model affect climate.
As for politeness, there is a lot of ad hom on both sides of the debate, but the warmers seem to think they have the moral high ground. You yourself have called me immature, blood thirsty, indifferent to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people and reckless. And you're one of the polite ones! I normally ignore typos, mis-spelling and bad grammar, we all make mistakes, but Luke called me a liar simply because I had a different opinion to him. If you read his posts, semi-literate is descriptive rather than insulting. I could have called him something else, but I'm too polite for that.
Well I dunno how to express myshelf I spose.
Issue with your sundots and angulkar moments if that they have been tracked down and ruled out. But the serious scicne of CO2 fizzics is the only explanation we have. Funny how offensive it is as an explanation. So utterly offensive.
Paul Williams - Ok I will do it. You need to read the links I post because I am not out to change your mind - you are the only one that can do this. I will reference the accepted work on the points you bring up and you can decide. MAKE SURE you watch the video!!!!!!!!!!
"-Earlier environmental predictions of doom failed spectacularly, leaving those of us who believed them at the time with a skeptical attitude towards future doomsday predictions."
The earlier data showed the possiblity of global temperatures decreasing however later data has shown this was a small downturn. There was not scientific consensus at this point.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/01/the-global-cooling-myth/
You will notice that I reference real climate a lot.
"-The 1970's ice age didn't happen, reducing the credibility of those scientists who proposed it."
See point 1 above
"-The Hockey Stick seemed to overturn the consensus account of climate during the last 1000 years, otherwise the current climate would be considered unremarkable compared to previous climate. That seemed suspiciously convenient for the warmers. Now the HS has been comprehensibly debunked. The warmers have "moved on", but the rest of us are saying, hang on a minute, this could be on the nose."
Only M&M and his band of cronies think MBH99 is broken. The WSS report is not peer reviewed and does not comment on the climate data. Read the comments in this thread where you can see your mate John A get answered.
http://www.realclimate.org/wp-comments-popup.php?p=324&c=1
"-Predictions of catastrophe appear regularly in the media, yet climate change is essentially invisible to most people. If we weren't being told about it, we wouldn't know it was happening. Hmm, maybe it's not as bad as they say."
Yes they do however not often supported by a consensus of reputable scientists. Maybe it wont be as bad as they say however do you know this for a fact or are you just guessing and hoping?
"-Global temperature doesn't correlate well with CO2 levels. It looks as if the GCMs have to be tortured to make them spit out the correct answers. What, global aerosol pollution miraculously reduced in 1976?"
No it lags it because of the heat sinks in the oceans and because we now know that aerosols reduced the forcing from CO2. As explained before GCMs are not tortured to spit out correct answers they are used for what if experiments.
http://illconsidered.blogspot.com/2006/02/co2-lags-not-leads.html
"-Other possibilities correlate quite well with climate, eg. sunspot activity, angular momentum of the solar system. And there is a prediction that the climate will tend to cool over the next 30 years or so, towards a little ice age. If it keeps warming, that gives more credence to AGW, if it cools, maybe AGW is not happening."
Yes they do however correlation does not imply causation. The reason Greenhouse warming is assumed to be the one responsible is because it has sufficient magnitude (forcing) to produce the observed temperature rise. The others don't.
"I find these points impossible to ignore, yet mentioning them draws abuse from the warmers, such as John Quiggin, or our own semi-literate Luke."
Well don't ignore them however if you go to climate audit, CO2science or tech central station for your information then you will only be getting one side. Look at Real Climate and others and see which is more scientifically accurate. See which sites provide links to peer reviewed papers. See which authors have peer reviewed work in their credits. Peer review is not perfect however it is the only way a layperson like myself can judge these things.
"That hardly strengthens the AGW argument. Even you think it's ok to call me reckless (I am a "contrarian", I suppose). I think it's reckless to rush into action to stop global warming without considering how the effort could be better spent, but I don't see the need to bring that up as part of what should be a polite discussion."
Sure however calling Luke semi-literate is hardly polite. If you want politeness then be polite yourself. Consider what the money is being spent on now. Reducing greenhouse gases does not have to be hugely expensive. Australians spend more on gambling that it would take to get us well down the road.
Finally please persevere and watch this whole maths lecture - if you do nothing else just watch this.
http://www.globalpublicmedia.com/lectures/461
It is only involves simple arithmetic and really is worth a look. After watching it and understanding the simple maths behind it, decide yourself if growth can go on forever.
Remember, and this is in the lecture, 2% growth sustained means that a quantity will double in 35 years, 7% growth - 10years. I got how to calculate that from the lecture. I would advise everyone to watch it.
Ender, it's the anthropogenic part of AGW that I'm questioning. Here's why (and I know that you wont change your opinion).
-Earlier environmental predictions of doom failed spectacularly, leaving those of us who believed them at the time with a skeptical attitude towards future doomsday predictions.
-The 1970's ice age didn't happen, reducing the credibility of those scientists who proposed it.
-The Hockey Stick seemed to overturn the consensus account of climate during the last 1000 years, otherwise the current climate would be considered unremarkable compared to previous climate. That seemed suspiciously convenient for the warmers. Now the HS has been comprehensibly debunked. The warmers have "moved on", but the rest of us are saying, hang on a minute, this could be on the nose.
-Predictions of catastrophe appear regularly in the media, yet climate change is essentially invisible to most people. If we weren't being told about it, we wouldn't know it was happening. Hmm, maybe it's not as bad as they say.
-Global temperature doesn't correlate well with CO2 levels. It looks as if the GCMs have to be tortured to make them spit out the correct answers. What, global aerosol pollution miraculously reduced in 1976?
-Other possibilities correlate quite well with climate, eg. sunspot activity, angular momentum of the solar system. And there is a prediction that the climate will tend to cool over the next 30 years or so, towards a little ice age. If it keeps warming, that gives more credence to AGW, if it cools, maybe AGW is not happening.
I find these points impossible to ignore, yet mentioning them draws abuse from the warmers, such as John Quiggin, or our own semi-literate Luke. That hardly strengthens the AGW argument. Even you think it's ok to call me reckless (I am a "contrarian", I suppose). I think it's reckless to rush into action to stop global warming without considering how the effort could be better spent, but I don't see the need to bring that up as part of what should be a polite discussion.
Paul Williams - however you conveniently ignore the fact that AGW is not. Some of the temperature projections are just straight line extrapolations of the data. Are they wrong too?
Thanks for that, Ender. So the temperature projections ARE from GCMs. Thanks for the discussion.
Paul,
Regarding the blackbirds.
When I was a child , the blackbirds always left the country in the autumn. They don't do that now.. Of course this is not a catastrophe but an indicator.
Interesting with Greenland and blackbirds. Actually Audubon Society has observed blackbirds on Greenland in January 2000.This is REALLY strange. Wonder if this has anything to do with climate change? Personally, I think this is very likely.
Paul Williams - we are not changing our economy because of projections of GCMs. That is a gross distortion that stems from a basic lack of appreciation of what AGW really is.
AGW does not come from, is not proven by or even needs GCMs. AGW is a theory formulated before computers got large enough to run effective GCMs and comes from basic physics.
In a nutshell it states that humans through releasing greenhouse gases and environment changes are upsetting the global carbon balance. This is leading to a rise in greenhouse gas levels(observed). These gases are known by basic physics to regulate the amount of heat leaving the Earth(observed in experiments). These extra greenhouse gases, through changing the Earth energy balance, are causing global average temperatures to rise(observed).
Nowhere in this are GCMs. Changing the economy to be sustainable and not release as much CO2, methane, and NO2 is from this basic physics. The consequences of not doing this are illustrated in a broad uncertain forms by experiments carried out in GCMs.
BTW the term 'you' was rhetorical and intended to include contrarians in general.