CLIMATE CHANGE DEBATE DEATH MATCH
posted by muirgeo @ Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Previous Posts
- O'er the land of the free and the home of the brav...
- From Cafe Hayek “Social Justice” and “Income Distr...
- White Paper
- Yeah....it's time to end the Fed
- Scientist more likely to be liberal and democratic
- Anyone who thinks Wall Street legitimately earns i...
- FINANCIAL DERIVATIVES
- Two Types
- Tax Data
9 Comments:
LCJ,
For starters... do you believe CO2 is a greenhouse gas? Do you know what that means?
May a plague of trolls take root in your discussion threads....eternal payback.
No, I have not a clue what that means. Say, why have you not responded to my reply to your dumb ass at The Cafe?
You really don't know what a greenhouse gas is?
From the Cafe Hayek blog;
yetanotherdave in reply to muirgeo
OK, this may be a waste of time but I’ll address your post – my apologies for the length. Would you do the Café the courtesy of addressing the counter arguments presented to you? Or will you just continuing to insult and dodge?
“Not at all. The warming is way off from normal and the major change is CO2 levels that are higher then (sic) they have been in more then 400,000 years. Nothing else explains this warming.
It all fits... it's all pretty straight forward.”
So you’re saying, “It’s really warm now, and CO2 is elevated so that must be the cause of the warming.” Again, correlation does not prove causation, so your logic is wrong – this is not proof of anything one way or the other. On top of the bad logic, your statement isn’t even true.
As you have pointed out multiple times, woody plants have been discovered under melting glaciers. Obviously, many years ago, the planet was much warmer than now or those plants wouldn’t be there. That proves conclusively that present global temperature are within historical norms.
Next you fall into the fallacy of personal incredulity Daniel mentioned before (i.e. “I can’t see any other explanation, so it must be CO2”). Not only that, but we’re discussing the anthropogenic component of warming not total warming. One of the links you provided earlier shows that anthropogenic CO2 is ~4% of production. IOW, natural processes produce 24 times more CO2 than human activity. When you understand that CO2 has much less impact than water vapor on warming and see how small the impact of human activity is on CO2 it is difficult to believe we have an imminent catastrophe looming before us. Of course, I’ve made these comments before and you’ve yet to address them.
Even further, the hypothesis that the CO2 concentration increases we’ve seen will drive substantial warming has not held up well to reality. Computer models built with those assumptions have consistently been dramatically wrong. The inescapable conclusion from that is the computer models are worthless. Obviously, we do not understand the global climate process as well as you seem to think. I’ve brought this up before on other threads and you’ve never addressed this point either.
and his post continues;
What of the missing hot spot in the tropics at mid troposphere levels Sam keeps asking you about. You’ve never addressed that either.
But other than that it all fits. (that was sarcasm in case you didn’t realize it)
“Do you understand that when Dr Hansen stood before congress and warned of major man made warming many of these findings of 4,000 year old vegetation HAD NOT EXISTED or been discovered.
Isn't it a little likely more then a coincidence these discoveries are recent and happened only after the claim was made.”
This is the kind of argument you find convincing? No wonder you’re so confused.
“Now if no such finding were available, if the surface data showed cooling or even no warming then I'd be embarrassed to be pushing claims of man made climate change.”
Funny thing is the surface temperature shows just that for the last decade even though the models based on the hypothesis you espouse show we should have seen steady warming. What that means is we do not understand the global climate system as well as you thing we do – it’s definitely not as simple as you think it is.
“But you guys push claims that are just as proposperous (sic). You claim the warming is natural when there is no evidence to support it and a huge CO2 elephant sitting in the room to explain the man made hypothesis.”
Here you try to lump me in with some imaginary group you can demean. I’m not pushing any claims; that would be you. Since the temperatures we see now are within historical variation and we do not understand the global climate process well it is obviously possible that the warming we have now could be natural.
And, as I wrote above, the “CO2 elephant” is more like a miniature jade elephant you bought in Chinatown for $5 (that analogy means it’s small, not huge in case you didn’t understand).
...
OK to start with point one:
So you’re saying, “It’s really warm now, and CO2 is elevated so that must be the cause of the warming.” Again, correlation does not prove causation, so your logic is wrong.
First, yes correlation doesn't prove causation. But does it disprove it?
First, of all we wouldn't be having this discussion if there were no correlation at all. But the correlation DOES support my claim even if it doesn't prove it.
If all the major parameters that effect climate are within their natural ranges of the last several hundred years and one is way way outside of its range for over at the very least 400,000 years wouldn't that be the one you would think most likely to explain the change in climate? Those major factors are (Solar output, ice coverage, orbital parameters, ocean currents, land coverage, greenhouse gases) .
So if it's not greenhouse gas changes ( mostly CO2) what are YOU contending, based on YOUR understanding is the variable that has changed significantly to alter the recently stable climate to one warmer then it has been in likely 6,000 years?
http://www.necci.sr.unh.edu/necci-report/NERAch3.pdf
Sorry it took me so long to reply – I had a big deadline that gobbled up all my time.
Obviously correlation does not disprove your position, and to the extent there is correlation, it is consistent with your position. I’ve already said the correlation is a reason to study the issue. So far, the evidence I’ve seen for substantial AGW is sorely lacking. Too many things point the other way for the hypothesis to be convincing.
You go too far with your claim about how well we understand the global climate system. I’m certain there are many more major parameters than you cite. For example, cloud cover is one of the biggest but it’s not on your list.
Your position is fallacious. “I can’t think of anything else, therefore it must be CO2, therefore it is CO2” is ridiculous, and not at all scientific. Why does recent warming need to be explained by a single variable, particularly when we do not understand the system well?
Many variables are involved with our ever-changing climate. History shows that the global climate is a very stable system, so tipping point problems seem extremely unlikely. That means we have plenty of time to study the issue. What we know about CO2 is that it is a relatively minor greenhouse gas (and human activity produces a small percentage of global CO2). Water vapor and clouds have a much more dramatic role and are both very dynamic and not well understood.
Post a Comment
<< Home