The global warming fears of 1933

[Stephen Wilde]

The grey area represents the range of natural variability.

And we are now on an upward trend for Arctic ice unless there is a substantial melt in 2009.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/10/31/a ... #more-3933

[curious]

The grey area represents the range of natural variability.

This is saying that ANY observation, or ANY measured value is within the range of natural variability. What does that tell us about the FACT that arctic sea ice is at a historic, record LOW extent? ('Extent' might be considered as BOTH area AND thickness, eh?)

It's worth revisiting some data. This is from the CO2Sceptics HOME page; the CO2 plot is superimposed on the global temperature plot for the period 1955 - present.

temp_Carbon_Dioxide.jpg (87.53 KiB) Viewed 345 times

Mr. Wilde frequently asserts that he sees a trend, by looking at very short-term data (ice extent, temperatures for the past couple of years or only very slightly more). Then he scurries under the cover of 'Time will tell, the 2009 extent . . . and so on.'

Time WILL tell, but (even if we note the fallibility of INDUCTION - ask the inductionist Thanksgiving turkey about that) what Mr. Wilde is doing, and what is the primary error of his method, IS looking JUST at the record data and projecting. That is ONE way to make a prediction, but it may not be the best or smartest way because it ONLY considers the surface of the observed data up to now.

There may be other factors lurking - and there are, here: ABCs for one. And in fact a certain range of year-to-year variability that may be insignificant in the longer-term context.

So back to the data above. It's pretty hard to ignore that great upward sweep in both curves across the whole time period. The curve character to which Wilde refers for the most recent time-frame shows a short-term decline, true. But when one looks back at the rest of the curve one sees many other short-term departures from the overall trend, some of which - upward AND downward - are quite a bit larger than what Mr. Wilde stakes the ranch on, in this case.

I'd tend to bet more on the long-term version and look harder at the underlying causes, and not just the measured CO2 and temperature.

So questions: why again do you absolutely dismiss a greenhouse mechanism as driving temperature increases?

And what other factors will you grant ARE in play, and especially in new ways just during the last several years?

Hint, ABCs are observed and measured to have multiplied their influence in unprecedented ways just in the past 8-12 years. Just about the same as the 'cooling' gesture you think you see.

But we don't.

[Stephen Wilde]

Thank you Peter, that is a useful counter to what curious says.

It's important to take a wide range of factors into account. The quiet sun plus negative oceanic oscillations plus a global pause or fall in temperature trends is quite sufficient to suggest that caution is wise about AGW. We have not had that combination since before the 20th Century rise in global temperature that so many are panicking about.

Let the planet show us the truth. We now have the technology to learn from it.

[curious]

Thank you Peter, that is a useful counter to what curious says.

It's important to take a wide range of factors into account. The quiet sun plus negative oceanic oscillations plus a global pause or fall in temperature trends

Peter's contribution is off-topic, irrelevant. Stephen's is incomplete. Yes, take the factors of quiet sun plus negative oceanic oscillations plus a global pause or fall lin temperature trends (for how long? 2 years? 7?) . . . PLUS????

PLUS: DEDUCTIVE (and not merely INDUCTIVE) evidence that positively links factors of INDUSTRIAL GHGs, CO2 INCREASES, ABC global spreading, and so on.

All factors Mr. Wilde conveniently sweeps under the rug! His post here, and many many before it simply don't list these factors. It's all fine as Mr. Wilde says it to 'agree to disgree' but that isn't how science works. Go ahead and 'disagree' Mr. Wilde; the facts are out there and the well-defined relationships among them, that is the understandings of the processes at work, are explained well enough even if you like to hide under that bushel of 'unsettled' science.

This is like the 'debate' over AIDS, with certain African leaders making it political suicide for anyone to repeat that the HIV virus caused AIDS. Sure, lots of 'unsettled science' there but woe betide him who rejects out of hand the connection!

Same with climate. You're right, the technology - in step with which our sciences have deepend our understandings from before the Enlightenment at least - is developing as we speak. We shall forever 'settle' new aspects but see into even greater realms of what is yet 'unsettled'. That really doesn't say that much about science, nor about what we know.

We do know that the cause-and-effect links among GHGs, human activity, economic growth, and a host of lesser drivers, underlie the increases in CO2 and other greenhouse products, and that the climate changes we measure are one clear consequence.

Your failure to provide constructive, credible reasons for why you reject this body of knowledge and accepted interpretation of natural processes means you either don't understand the processes or choose to ignore their existence.

[Stephen Wilde]

There is no adequate evidence as to the extent of the effect of human CO2 as against natural influences nor even any evidence that human CO2 has any effect at all once natural negative feedbacks are taken into account so all we get is a tirade that MY evidence is lacking.

By all means conserve resources, minimise pollution, attempt to stop population increase but don't adopt the right solutions for the wrong reasons otherwise in a few short years those right solutions will turn out to be the wrong ones and people like curious will be responsible for death and suffering beyond their comprehension.

Just as Karl Marx begat Stalin, Hitler, Mao and Pol Pot so an inaccurate diagnosis in relation to global climate could produce similar monsters with a bigger population at risk.

Just as Karl Marx was right about some things so are environmentalists right about some things. The trouble is that it is their blind spots about reality, economics, politics and the human spirit that cause them to be wrong in the final analysis.

Doing the right thing for the wrong reason is the greatest evil in the long term and to blame human CO2 for climate change and to base all of future human development on that assunption is potentially the greatest evil the planet and humanity has so far faced.