Global Warming Canards: A Response to Comments by ksullivan and jackbenimble

Recently there has been some threads here at ProgU in which a couple of commenters, ksullivan and jackbenimble, bandy about quite a few global warming denialist canards though they were undeniable facts (see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here). I have spent some time now trying to become more familiar with the global warming literature. It has been very hard for me since climatology is not my field. But I do feel like I am beginning to get a handle on what the science actually says as to opposed to the characterization of it by others.

If one looks at nothing else other than what global warming denialists say then it is easy to come away with the impression that global warming science is a bunch of bullshit. However, virtually ALL of these canards are wrong. They are misinterpretations of the data or outright lies. But there are so many of them, how can all of them be wrong? How could so many of these misrepresentations have become so readily accepted by so many people

I don't know all the reasons. Certainly, global warming science tells us we have a major problem here and if we are going to try and do anything about it we will have to fairly drastically change our ways. Nobody WANTS to hear that. They WANT to hear that we will be perfectly fine if we do nothing at all. So the desire to believe the denialism must play a significant role.

Furthermore, there seems to be another factor. I have noticed is that they all the canards come from conservative sources. Indeed both commenters who propagate them here are conservative as well. Conservatives also tend to be more likely to be evolution denialists, HIV denialists, and holocaust denialists. These are all things that deny the scientific evidence for well established theories. While there is nothing inherently wrong with being conservative, I tend to think modern conservatism has set up an environment which is more accepting of SCIENCE DENIALISM in general. If this is so then it is a dangerous precedent. Scientific knowledge is the most reliable knowledge we have. That is not to say that it is always right. But science is what it is. If the evidence points one direction then reason tells us that is most likely the way things really are. And if that is the most likely the way things are, then it is probably best to act as though it is the way things are, even if it points in a way we don't want to believe.

However, if one's goal is to mislead this type of denialism Indeed is a very effective strategy. Findings can be misrepresented in just a few words, correcting the misrepresentations often require pages. And reading those pages requires effort on the part of a person who may not WANT to believe it in the first place. Thus, a person may find it easy to believe the canard, and label the often very hard work of diligent scientists as bullshit.

The fun part of science is discovering new information ... information that no one else in the whole world KNEW before. They may have suspected it, but only you had the evidence sufficient to make the proposition correct beyond reasonable doubt. That is a satisfying feeling. Writing up the paper is chore. You write, critique, revise, critique again, re-revise until you have eliminated all criticisms that you can think of, send it in to a journal, they send you back critiques from anonymous referees and then you revise until you have eliminated the criticisms you didn't think of. By the time that process is over, you are generally sick of working on it, and you want it to just be done with it. In graduate school I once complained about the writing process. My major professor, the one who supervised my Ph.D., knew that I was whining about something even I knew was a required part of the job, but he took the time to educate me on what science is. The paraphrase of what he said is that science is a process of discovering convincing evidence for an hypothesis and how do you know you have found that evidence unless you convince somebody of it?

Thus, presenting the evidence to others is an indispensable part of science. Since that time, I have tried to develop a writing style that is devoted to presenting the information in as understandable way as I possibly can. Since I am not a climatologist, I may not be the best person to do this but I am going to try anyway. I am going to address as many of the global warming canards as I can until I feel the blog has gone on too long. I will do my best to present the data in a way that IS understandable. If you understand it, then you are more likely to believe it. As I do this I would like for you to note how many of these canards rely on you NOT understanding the nature of the complaint. In other words, their strength lies in ignorance of the underlying principles behind the data. I know this is an exceptionally long post, but I know of no other way to present the data in a manner that IS understandable.

If as I suspect ksullivan meant to say .. "There is [NOT] one solid piece of physical evidence that links CO₂ to temperature rise.", then he would be wrong ... big time.

(1) The greenhouse effect was discovered by Joseph Fourier in 1824 and quantitized with respect to CO_2, by Svante Arrhenius in 1896. It is a long accepted and well-understood part of modern physics.

We know that CO₂ absorbs infrared radiation and the re-releases it. We know exactly how well it does it. We know that the earth radiates infrared radiation in the frequencies that CO₂ absorbs, and we know how much it releases. We know the concentrations of CO₂ in the atmosphere in the past and the present. It is a simple calculation to determine how much heat will be returned to the earth because of that CO₂ concentration. We can compare that to the temperature records and see if they correspond and they do with uncanny accuracy.

(2) We can measure CO₂ concentrations from "fossil air", air pockets found in ice cores (to be discussed in detail in a bit) and we note that there was a sharp increase in the rise of CO₂ concentrations that coincided with the onset of the Industrial revolution in which the consumption of fossil fuels rose dramatically. We have thermometer readings that date back to the 1860's from which we can get a direct estimate of global temperatures. We can get indirect estimates of global temperatures streaching back as far as 820,000 years from isotopes in ice cores, tree ring data, sediments, and corals. All of them show that temperature and CO₂ concentrations are correlated.

(3) Carbon has two stable isotopes; ¹²C (which contains 6 protons and 6 neutrons in its nucleus) and ¹³C (which contains 6 protons and 7 neutrons) in its nucleus). Carbon is incorporated into living things by chemical reactions that involve enzymes. Enzymes promote chemical reactions by moving atoms together in such a way that they will be more likely to interact. The lighter the atom the more easily it is for the enzyme to use. Thus, living things have a slightly higher concentration of ¹²C in them than you would expect from the overall abundance of ¹²C vs ¹³C. Human activity uses primarily FOSSIL FUELS -- fuels that originated from the decomposition of living things. If increase in atmospheric CO₂ concentrations is due to human activity one would expect to see a shift toward a higher ratio of ¹²C to ¹³C in the air, and that is EXACTLY what we do see.

(4) We have very accurate estimates on the amount of human-caused carbon emissions. We know the carbon cycle fairly well so we know where that carbon should theoretically go. We can compare the expected atmospheric rises to actual atomospheric rises and see get a good idea of how much of the rise in atmospheric CO₂ concentration is due to human activity. The answer we get from these studies is ALL OF IT.

(5) Both you and jackbenimble claim that CO₂ concentrations lag behind the temperature, but over data that we can obtain directly (ie comparing CO₂ concentrations to global temperatures as determined from thermometer readings the CO₂ rise most definitely PRECEEDS the temperature rise. The importance of this will be discussed in a little bit.

The take home message here is that there is no reasonable doubt that increasing the CO₂ concentrations will increase the temperature assuming everything else is held constant, and the present rise in CO₂ concentration is due to human activity.

This is a very prominent global warming denialist canard. From the way they tout it, one would assume that they discovered it, but that is not the case. It was PREDICTED by climatologists that were then concerned about global warming and now are even more so.

First let's look at this long scale graph:

This graph compares CO₂ concentrations measured from air trapped in bubbles in ice cores to inferred temperatures measured from the same ice cores.

It is worth reviewing how they come up with the inferred temperature readings. The warmer the temperature the more energy is present in the environment. This energy allows heavier isotopes to move more freely. Thus, during warmer times water vapor will have an increased concentration of water molecules containing heavier isotopes than during cooler times. The ice in the ice cores ultimately come from snow that condenses from water vapor. By comparing the concentration of oxygen-16 (¹⁶O; a stable oxygen isotope containing 8 protons and 8 neutrons) to oxygen-18 (¹⁸O; a stable oxygen isotope containing 8 protons and 10 neutrons), we can get an estimate of the temperature at the time that ice formed. This is how the temperature part of that graph was determined.

What do you notice from the graph? Presented as it is above one thing is very obvious ... CO₂ and temperature readings are closely correlated. ksullivan and jackbenimble say that CO₂ concentrations lag behind the temperature readings so CO₂ does not cause the rise in temperature but is a consequence of the temperature.

You certainly cannot tell one way or the other from the above graph so let's look at the data a bit differently:

Does it or does it not? Perhaps. jackbenimble links to a site that graphs the data on a much longer time scale and that graph (if accurate) shows that it definitely is the case. However, his link goes to a global warming denialist website and those websites are not reliable presenters of data which is why I have not linked to it. Unfortunately, I cannot find a good graph from a trustworthy source on the internet that covers the graph in a resolution that would show the effect.

So I will have to tell you what scientists who have investigated this phenomenon say. THERE IS INDEED A LAG. It is impossible to tell exactly how much but it ranges between 200 and 1000 years.

So ksullivan and jackbenimble are correct ... right? Well, not so fast. Remember what is actually being compared to here ... air bubbles to ice. Air will penetrate down into the surface of the ice. So in the future when the ice is compacted and air bubbles form, today's air will be found in a level that corresponds to ice that was laid down earlier. This temporal displacement could perhaps account for some of the lag. Can it account for all of it? Almost certainly not! So ksullivan and jackbenimble ARE correct? ... Again, not so fast.

Look at the diagrams again. Those are pretty sharp peaks on the graph and they are strangely regular. In other words at this time scale we are looking at NATURAL WARMING CYCLES. That is, we are looking at warming cycles that have no man-made component in them. NO CLIMATOLOGIST HAS EVER SAID THAT CO₂ CONCENTRATIONS ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE INITIATION OF NATURAL CLIMATE CYCLES.

If not CO₂, then what is responsible for natural warming cycles? Climatologists even have a good idea what the answer to that is ... MILANKOVIC CYCLES. The earth's orbit is NOT a circle. It is an ellipse. That means at some times the earth is closer to the sun than at other times. Also over long periods of times that elliptical orbit will change to looking more or less like an ellipse. The easier it is to tell that it is an ellipse indicates that the orbit is more ECCENTRIC. Furthermore, in Milankovitch cycles the more eccentric the orbit the closer the average distance is to the sun and the warmer the earth will be.

Here is a graph correlating Milankovitch cycles to glacial periods (note: the curve labelled "ECCENTRICITY" corresponds to the Milankovitch cycle)

Notice how well these natural warming cycles correspond to the Milankovitch Cycle..

So what initiated these NATURAL warming trends? CO₂? NO! It was the average distance to the sun. Does that mean that CO₂ was irrelevant to the warming period? Absolutely NOT! All it means is that the warming trend was not INITIATED by CO₂. The warming period lasted about 5000 years. We do not know the exact lag. Reliable scientific evidence suggests between 200 and 1000 years. jackbenimble's source says 800 years which falls into the range. Let's pretend that is correct (it may be for all I know). What that means is that CO₂ did not significantly contribute to the warming period for the first 800 years.

But ... it is still CO₂. It still absorbs and re-emits infrared radiation. It is still is going to contribute to the warming episode for the next 4200 years. That is over 80% of the warming episode that it is contributing significantly to it. The Milankovitch Cycle cannot be responsible for that long of a warming trend on its own. CO₂ is amplifying the effect of the Milankovitch Cycle.

Climatologists were well aware that this would be the case.

... changes in the CO2 and CH4 content have played a significant part in the glacial-interglacial climate changes by amplifying, together with the growth and decay of the Northern Hemisphere ice sheets, the relatively weak orbital forcing

This is a quote taken from a paper published in 1990 (almost 20 years ago) by Claude Lorius, a noted climatologist and global warming supporter. The "relatively weak orbital forcing" refers to effect of Milankovitch cycle on temperatures.

So this global warming denialist canard has long since been anticipated by mainstream climatologists and explained. It's explanation is consistent with anthropogenic global warming going on today.

Now, go back up and take a look at that first graph I showed. Note that on the CO₂ part of that graph, it ends with a STEEP upshoot in CO₂ concentration. This spike corresponds to the last 200 years ... the period that is of importance to the anthropogenic global warming.

Also note that we do not see a corresponding upshoot in the temperature curve of the graph. This means that CO₂ is LEADING, not lagging. Why is that? Why does CO₂ concentrations lag the temperature readings in the other warming periods but it is leading in this one? The reason is that this warming period is NOT a naturally occurring warming period. It is caused by man. CO₂ IS THE CAUSE OF THIS WARMING PERIOD, while it was not for those naturally occurring ones.

The final question is ... why did the CO₂ levels rise in the naturally occurring ones? For the answer to that, let's look at what jackbenimble said:

The reason for this is that the ocean is a vast storage sink for CO2 and there is thousands of times more C02 in the ocean than in the atmosphere. But the ability of the ocean to store CO2 is a function of tempurature. As the ocean warms up, the CO2 is released from the ocean. (Consider what happens to a can of cold soda pop left on the dashboard of a car on a hot day. As the can heats up, the C02 disolved in the soda is released and the can explodes and sticky goo goes everywhere).

This is pretty much true. As the Milankovitch Cycle began to heat up the earth, the oceans released some of their carbon stores. jackbenimble gets this correct. Unfortunately, he draws a dangerous and misleading conclusion:

CO2 increases are an AFTER-effect of global warming NOT the cause.

It is true that CO₂ is not the cause of the INITIATION of the naturally-occurring warming cycles, it certainly AMPLIFIES the naturally-occurring warming cycles. This amplification results from a POSITIVE FEEDBACK mechanism ... increasing the heat leads to increasing the release of oceanic carbon stores which in turn further increases the heat. The danger in jackbenimble's conclusion is dismissing the amplifying role of CO₂ in naturally-occurring warming cycles. Because the same thing will happen in THIS human-caused warming cycle. There will still be the same positive feedback. As we release more and more carbon into the atmosphere from human activity, it will cause increased heat which will in turn cause oceanic stores of CO₂ to be released. So far the release of oceanic stores of CO₂ has not played a significant role in global warming. But if the present warming trend keeps going it will. When that happens, eliminating human carbon emissions will be ineffective in stopping global warming. In other words, we will have reached a "tipping point" at which we no longer control our destiny. Global warming will occur no matter what we do.

There are two problems here. (1) How do you know what the CO₂ concentration was 500 million years ago? There are no extant ice cores from that time. There are no tree ring data that goes back that far. All multicellular life was in the ocean. Nothing had made it onto dry land. So how do you know what the CO₂ levels were? The other problem is ... How do you know what the temperature was at that time? You have the same problem.

The only mention of this claim that I can find come from global warming denialist websites that also post claims that are proven wrong. So I am inclined to be skeptical of the claim.

Further, I am very well aware of the SNOWBALL EARTH hypothesis. About 545 million years ago (mya) there was the Cambrian Explosion. During that time there was a rapid diversification of life that seems to have formed almost all phyla that are in existence today. What could be responsible for that? One scenario is that the Earth could have come out from a very cold period.

Most people think that the sun as it burns its nuclear material will be cooling off. But that is not true. As a matter of fact, as the sun fuses more and more hydrogen it makes helium. As the concentration of helium builds up some of it will fuse into heavier elements and that will release more energy making the sun hotter. So the sun is very gradually getting hotter. That means that in the distant past it was cooler. If we go far enough back in time it seems as though the earth should have been frozen ... hence the SNOWBALL EARTH scenario.

It may be true but it may not. Last time I looked at that literature (a couple of years ago) it was considered intriguing but controversial. There was very little direct evidence that the earth had ever gone through such a period. One reason given that it might not have was that volcanos out-gas CO₂ and it could have kept the earth warm enough to prevent the snowball earth scenario. Now given that as the state of the science a couple of years ago, I find this claim stated as indisputable fact to be suspect.

But for the sake of argument, let's suppose it is true. Then the fact that there were ice ages, or even a snowball earth, would be explained by the sun's diminished output. It would be irrelevant to the argument concerning the effect of CO₂ on today's climate.

This claim is bullshit. It is typical of denialist claims in that even though long refuted the claim stays alive. The ontogeny of the claim can be traced to a paper published by Douglas, Pearson and Singer in 2004. They claimed that satellite data showed global cooling instead of global warming. In fact, I still see global warming denialists use this claim.

It turned out that Douglas et al. used faulty data. They did not correctly calibrate the satellite data. Once the correction was made the data showed the expected global warming. But that didn't stop Douglas et al. They just altered their claim. Instead of the satellite data showing global cooling and refuting global warming models, it FAILED to show the expected rate of rise in the tropical troposphere that models predict and therefore the models were wrong.

Well, first of all the predicted rise in the tropical troposphere was a response due to increased surface heating and not a CO₂ specific effect. In other words, it was predicted to occur during any warm period, not just anthropogenic global warming. And it had been verified during El Nino years in which the tropics get hotter than normal. This is a natural process and is not necessarily a global warming related event. It would be strange (and unexplainable) for this effect to be present in heating caused by El NInos but absent in heating caused by global warming.

It turned out, Douglas et al. were wrong again. This is the pattern models predicted:

This is the pattern the satellite data recorded (when the data is properly calibrated):

There is enough similarity here for me to think of it as a damn good fit. Mainstream climatologists think so too.

Here is the absorption spectrum for CO₂ and other greenhouse gasses:

It does have a strong absorption in the infrared region. But is it really absorbing all the radiation that can be?

The answer is NO!!

This cartoon shows a "balance sheet" for incoming and outgoing radiation. While greenhouse gasses absorb reemit some of the infrared (longwave) radiation there is still a net of 240 Watts/square meter of radiation escaping to space.

Furthermore, the planet Venus has a much higher concentration of CO₂ than does earth and its surface temperature is nearly 600^o ... hot enough to melt lead. Venus may be closer to the sun than is earth but not so close to make THAT MUCH difference. The difference is due to the increased CO₂ levels in the atmosphere trapping MORE of the infrared radiation. If there is more infrared radiation to trap with increased concentrations of CO₂ then the relatively small earthly atmospheric CO₂ concentration is obviously not trapping all there is.

I think I will stop here for the time being. This post is already very long. If you have read through it, I commend you. I may take up some of the other canards at a later date depending upon the response to this blog.

Thanks for reading,

Darwin's Beagle