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Posted by Tyler Cowen on March 15, 2007 at 10:55 PM in Web/Tech | Permalink
Comments
From the Cooked Timer post you linked to:
Central to the film was the testimony of the MIT oceanographer Carl Wunsch.
Actually Wunsch was only one of over a dozen talking heads in the documentary and highlighted only one of several fatal flaws in the theory of anthropogenic global warming.
For those who have not seen the documentary, here it is. And here are some of the points covered:
During the Medieval Warm Period, temperatures were warmer than they are now, and obviously weren't produced by human industrial activity.
During the Holocene Warm Period, temperatures were warmer than they are now, and obviously weren't produced by human industrial activity. Polar bears obviously survived the Holocene Warm Period.
Industrial activity during the 20th C doesn't match the temperature record over the same period because global mean temperatures were actually falling from the 40s to the 70s, a period when human industrial activity was soaring.
Water vapor dwarfs CO2 as a greenhouse gas. CO2 is a minor greenhouse gas and humans are a minor contributor to CO2. Non-human animals produce far more CO2 than humans. Plants produce more than animals. And the amount produced by the oceans dwarfs the amount produced by both plants and animals, including humans.
The theory of man-made global warming predicts that the troposphere should warm faster than the near surface and the facts show the opposite pattern.
Effects do not precede causes, and temperature regularly leads CO2 by about 800 years in the ice cores.
A model based on sun measurements does a better job at forecasting than traditional models, and Dr. Piers Corbyn has the wages of wagering to prove it.
Sun spot activity tracks changes in temperature better than changes in CO2.
http://www.tmgnow.com/IMAGES/lassen7.gif
Cosmic rays track changes in temperature better than changes in CO2.
http://www.schulphysik.de/ShavivVeizerFit.jpg
The argument from consensus is bogus. The consensus of climate scientists in the early 70s, after the post-war period of cooling, was that Earth was heading toward a new Ice Age.
Computer models are bogus. The thicket of parameters can be tweaked to produce any desired result. Water vapor in the form of clouds remain a big wild card.
Posted by: Mike at Mar 16, 2007 7:17:57 AM
Re: "Holocene Warm Period"
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=624&tstamp=200702#commenttop
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/holocene.html
Posted by: false_cause at Mar 16, 2007 2:35:56 PM
Apologies. Links:
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=624&tstamp=200702#commenttop
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/holocene.html
Posted by: false_cause at Mar 16, 2007 2:37:18 PM
Mike:
It is debatable whether the Medieval Warm Period was global in extent.
Temperatures falling from '40s to '70s is thought to be due to sulfate aerosols. These cannot counteract CO2 buildup indefintely, since CO2 accumulates but sulfate particles don't.
Water vapor dwarfs CO2 as a greenhouse gas': yes, and all the models reflect this. They could not come anywhere close to reproducing even the current climate if they didn't. This doesn't mean increases in CO2 will not cause worrisome increases in temperature. Water vapor acts as a positive feedback that amplifies the warming caused by other agents, such as other greenhouse gases.
The theory of man-made global warming predicts that the troposphere should warm faster than the near surface and the facts show the opposite pattern: this is a restatement of some purported satellite evidence that has since been shown to be due to calibration problems.
Sun spot activity tracks changes in temperature better than changes in CO2.
No, it doesn't. Understand how correlations like this can be found: the scientists massage, filter, bin, etc. the data until a correlation pops out. The correlation invariably then falls apart as new data is looked at, since the correlation (at the 95% confidence level, say) came about by random chance after dozens of different data treatments were tried. Torture the data long enough and it will confess, even if innocent.
Cosmic rays track changes in temperature better than changes in CO2.
Cosmic rays, as measured by surface secondary neutrons, fail to correlate with the recent warming:
http://www.realclimate.org/images/cr.jpg
The consensus of climate scientists in the early 70s, after the post-war period of cooling, was that Earth was heading toward a new Ice Age.
This is completely false. There was no such consensus at the time, because there was no strong evidence to support it.
Computer models are bogus. The thicket of parameters can be tweaked to produce any desired result. Water vapor in the form of clouds remain a big wild card.
And yet, somehow, sceptics don't come up with computer models that can realistically model the known evidence and fail to produce warming as CO2 increases. Water droplets in clouds do remain incompletely understood (water vapor in clouds is very easy to understand -- humidity is 100% there!), but better than before; aerosols of other kinds are becoming a larger source of uncertainty.
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Posted by: 謝文豪 at Apr 2, 2008 1:28:38 AM
