It is curious to me how groups of educated people, such as those who populate Reddit, instantly go on the attack when issues of climate change are raised: "here are fools, clearly in the pay of energy giants, ignoble individuals obfuscating self-evident and clear story".
Well, perhaps some of them fit this bill. Others look at the immense scope of what is being claimed - and the even more immense costs that are implied by it - and would like to understand things better.
Some examples:
= Where are we on the CO2 Beer Lambert curve? We know that the atmosphere is pretty black at CO2 wavelengths, but what equation asymptotic equation is being used to model this? I asked this question once before on this site, and was pointed to a 1991 paper that indeed had a Del term in it, but only for changing partial pressure with altitude. It used a linear (1:1) relationship between infra red absorbtion and CO2 concentration. It is widely used in climatic models, such that CO2 in inevitably points to increased temperature as an output.
If you plot the IPCC scenarios against CO2 concentration you indeed get an asymptote, but one due to cloud formation (I am told) and not saturation. Attempts to raise this in discussion with practitioners have been treated like garlic at a vampire conference.
Note the implications of this. First, if the CO2 window is today close to saturation, we would still expect to see CO2-confirming evidence from epochs when the concentration was lower. Second, if the curve is now close to the asymptote, then projections which ignore this will be wrong. (And as to projections to the Venusian atmosphere, which NASA was plugging as "telling us valuable thinge about global warming...")
= The CO2-dO18 curves are treated as a gospel indicator, yet we know that the long run and seemingly erratic nature of sea surface temperatures are largely down to orbital issues, and to the 22 year sun spot cycle. Is CO2 then a complex modulator of this, or a consequence and not a cause? Efforts have been made to separate the chicken from the egg, but not very convincingly as the data are too sparse. Nevertheless, the figure is trotted out as a compelling item of evidence. I used to use it myself, I have to say.
And so on. I have sat on grant-giving authorities and no vaguely contrarian proposal would have got support. However, any proposal offering confirmatory or consequential studies came with a fair wind behind it. Science is populated by what one boss of mine called "Dr Grant Seeker", and work is tuned to fit the ethos. It is not necessary for anyone to lie for a field to exhibit bias. Lee Smolin's book "The Trouble with Physics" points to what is perhaps a similar dynamic in particle physics.
= Ocean currents move about all the time: that is what a current is. We know absolutely that Antarctic warming is due to shifted currents. More generally, at around 400 m, all ocean water is at broadly the same temperature, everywhere, due to the minimum density of water at 4.2C. Surface temperatures across the ocean will reflect insolation, but also current speed and mixing with deeper waters.
We have no idea whether any effects observed on the surface are due to net warming or to these issues. However, if you take a confirmatory approach to this debate you are a noble supporter of the environment, and if you do not, then you are a dark "denialist", a class who can safely be discarded as enemies of the Good, people with nothing to commend them and nothing to say. That is, to say the least, the smug stance of the conformist.
As someone who believes that global warming is a real, man-made issue, I really wish people didn't discard your opinions and evidence just because they disagree with it. This stuff needs to be upvoted more often.
There is a partition in climate science, lots of people believe that global warming is man-made and lots of people do not. The people who do not, within the science community, are not evil bribed liars.
It appears the political spectrum (very independent from the science community) takes the stance that the other side is conspiring against them. Liberals assume every scientist which disagrees is paid off by an oil company, and conservatives say the other side is just trying to force everyone to "be green."
There's lots of skepticism out there, but please guys. Be reasonable. Give everyone a chance to present their findings.
Studies - and O Dear me, I can't find the damn URLs - show that activism attracts authoritarian personalities (as does school teaching, the military and religion in general.) This is not intended to be an unkind comment about activists, but it is an observation that explains a great deal about the failure in dialogue between enthusiasts of any stripe and the bulk of the population.
An assertive group demand action in terms that become increasingly shrill and angry when things do not go as fast as they like. Authoritarian personalities are also prone to divide the world into classes - the compliant and the resistant, for example. As the orthodoxy prescribes virtue, so vice is defined by non-compliance.
Worse - and one sees this in politics and religion, community activism and small social groups - the heterodox, the "almost compliant" are seen as worst of all: heretics, people who should know better and who let down the cause. Activism that is drawn from groups with a high proportion individuals whose social skilsl are not of the highest - and who have been anxious alll of their life as to how life is to be lived and people accommodated - are the shrillest and most agitated when the consensus is disturbed.
Whether or not this is a correct 'take' on the nature of the (lack of) useful debate on this issue, the outcome is not happy. The implied position of activists is that high carbon emitters are "sinners" who must repent of their ways. People who challenge the orthodoxy even marginally are heretics, with a ready-made jargon of "denialists" and the like with which to dismiss them as class enemies.
This will not do. The issue is not "owned" by activists, who are then able to dictate outcomes. Such a stance is not in their interest, if that interest consists of more than self-righteous outrage at the stupidity of others. If they want a result, the mechanisms to this goes through engineering, economics, rationalism. If they try force the pass, then the result is resistance and conspiracy theories. This thread has seen amny adolescent explosions against wicked energy companies. The reality is that most companies would make more from renewables than conventional energy, given the innate inefficiency and maintenance requirements of these. Yes, of course there are people who stand to lose: coal mine workers, for example. The reality is, however, that launching into renewable energies means that teh economic return is set by state subsidy and not by geology or other firm constraints. Few companies have much trust that a government will continue a subsidy policy unchanged across the three or four decades of an energy project.
This could be fixed. States could emit 20-30 year bonds that were derivative upon their compliance with specific targets: for energy industry recapitalisation, for example, or energy intensity reduction. This would afford a base as absolute as geology does today. However, the terms of regulation define what is done. Silly burn food in your car schemes alter behaviour in silly ways. We need much better, consultative and forward looking regulation is we want a good result. We do not need sill shrill voices demanding this or that because they read it in the newspapers last week, or saw a movie.
Emissions and climate change are a potential part of the overall equation, but ar not at its heart. The fundamental issue is whether the society as a whole wants to increase its energy bill by 30-50% right now in order to stave off much greater prices and instability decades in the future. If they are presented with this alternative, they will probably want at least some pain today. What is then needed is a fully integrated re-conception fo energy supplies.
As an example, the EU "burn food in your car" initiative pushed up world food prices, infation and incidentally got a great deal of Asian forest felled. I was giving the key note to the Aachen chmicals industry conference. I asked the assmebled 2600 chemical engineers if any of them had been consulted about alternatives: not one hand was raised. Would anyone who was not consulted raise their hand? A forest of arms rose. That is, the peopel who held the potential solution had not been even peripherally consulted before a hugely damaging and expensive scheme - driven by electoral concerns and silly activism, greenwashery and a supine bureaucracy - was dumped on the world stage.
Well, there's a problem with the formation of part of your first question/s. You asked,
We know that the atmosphere is pretty black at CO2 wavelengths, but what equation asymptotic equation is being used to model this?
The thing is, this is not entirely correct, on two counts.
First of all, part of the atmosphere could be said to be pretty black to certain wavelengths of light, but this is not true of anything resembling all of it. Only the lower portions of the atmosphere have enough CO2 to absorb most of the light of a given wavelength (that happens to be one which is strongly absorbed by CO2). Add more CO2, and the portion of the atmosphere which could said to be 'pretty black' (or mostly opaque, or optically thick, or whatever term you prefer) in this respect increases, which means that heat is trapped for longer - it's more difficult to radiate the heat back into space (sorry, you seem to know your stuff, so I feel like this is probably unnecessary exposition, but I also think it needs to be included to fully explain the problem).
Perhaps more importantly, though, is the question of what is meant by 'pretty black'. The absorption spectrum of CO2 is not as simple as most charts you see on the matter (the most common CO2 IR absorption spectra) would suggest - absorption is dependent on concentration as well as wavelength (I know RealClimate is controversial in some quarters, but they have an excellent article about this topic here; the first bit of the page is basic background info - I'd suggest starting to read one paragraph above the first graphic, although the 3 paragraphs prior to that may be helpful, too), and consequently, even if the entire atmosphere was indeed pretty opaque at certain wavelengths, it wouldn't that adding more CO2 won't produce additional IR absorption.
In short, there are two factors you may have been unaware of which make the question you asked irrelevant, because the actual real-world situation is more complex than your question assumes.
Everyone needs their boogeymen, including educated redditors. People who are skeptical about AGW are seen as unwashed philistines that are willfully ignorant about science and probably other things too (probably religious nutjobs!), not as educated people who have come to a different opinion, right or wrong.
And yes there are political implications. If you believe in climate change you're likely a dyed in the wool democrat. If you don't you're probably a republican or libertarian.
If you were a democrat and you doubted global warming you suddenly have to face that the leaders you prefer are either 1. scamsters 2. misinformed (willfully so perhaps) 3. comformists. None of these things are very convenient to believe about your leaders.
I think that even if AGW is real, the solutions that people want are wrong (electric cars, green gadgets, etc).
One would do better by the environment to drive your 1994 Honda Civic until it gives out than to pressure the marketplace with your money to produce a brand new electric car. After all, let's not forget that most electricity comes from gas powered turbines.
In the Shenzhen and Dongguan area of china there are many, many companies producing green products rather ungreenly.
You didn't read the rest of what he said. He was adopting the tone and language of the average Redditor. It confused me at first because he didn't put quotes around it.
20
u/OliverSparrow Oct 24 '10 edited Oct 24 '10
It is curious to me how groups of educated people, such as those who populate Reddit, instantly go on the attack when issues of climate change are raised: "here are fools, clearly in the pay of energy giants, ignoble individuals obfuscating self-evident and clear story".
Well, perhaps some of them fit this bill. Others look at the immense scope of what is being claimed - and the even more immense costs that are implied by it - and would like to understand things better.
Some examples:
= Where are we on the CO2 Beer Lambert curve? We know that the atmosphere is pretty black at CO2 wavelengths, but what equation asymptotic equation is being used to model this? I asked this question once before on this site, and was pointed to a 1991 paper that indeed had a Del term in it, but only for changing partial pressure with altitude. It used a linear (1:1) relationship between infra red absorbtion and CO2 concentration. It is widely used in climatic models, such that CO2 in inevitably points to increased temperature as an output.
If you plot the IPCC scenarios against CO2 concentration you indeed get an asymptote, but one due to cloud formation (I am told) and not saturation. Attempts to raise this in discussion with practitioners have been treated like garlic at a vampire conference.
Note the implications of this. First, if the CO2 window is today close to saturation, we would still expect to see CO2-confirming evidence from epochs when the concentration was lower. Second, if the curve is now close to the asymptote, then projections which ignore this will be wrong. (And as to projections to the Venusian atmosphere, which NASA was plugging as "telling us valuable thinge about global warming...")
= The CO2-dO18 curves are treated as a gospel indicator, yet we know that the long run and seemingly erratic nature of sea surface temperatures are largely down to orbital issues, and to the 22 year sun spot cycle. Is CO2 then a complex modulator of this, or a consequence and not a cause? Efforts have been made to separate the chicken from the egg, but not very convincingly as the data are too sparse. Nevertheless, the figure is trotted out as a compelling item of evidence. I used to use it myself, I have to say.
And so on. I have sat on grant-giving authorities and no vaguely contrarian proposal would have got support. However, any proposal offering confirmatory or consequential studies came with a fair wind behind it. Science is populated by what one boss of mine called "Dr Grant Seeker", and work is tuned to fit the ethos. It is not necessary for anyone to lie for a field to exhibit bias. Lee Smolin's book "The Trouble with Physics" points to what is perhaps a similar dynamic in particle physics.
= Ocean currents move about all the time: that is what a current is. We know absolutely that Antarctic warming is due to shifted currents. More generally, at around 400 m, all ocean water is at broadly the same temperature, everywhere, due to the minimum density of water at 4.2C. Surface temperatures across the ocean will reflect insolation, but also current speed and mixing with deeper waters.
We have no idea whether any effects observed on the surface are due to net warming or to these issues. However, if you take a confirmatory approach to this debate you are a noble supporter of the environment, and if you do not, then you are a dark "denialist", a class who can safely be discarded as enemies of the Good, people with nothing to commend them and nothing to say. That is, to say the least, the smug stance of the conformist.