To be honest I am seeing a great argument in denial here.
So far we have...
- People working on Global Warming are biased and not to be trusted, people that discover aspects of it are not to be trusted because they weren't working on it.
- I have not read them therefore they cannot be right.
- I have no idea who they are but it is more likely they are wrong than right.
- I am open to changing my mind but I wont look at anything outside what I already know.

I have a tendency to accept work done and then repeated over the space 200 years as accurate, I suspect that almost all rational thinking folk do and I believe it is a very poor argument you are putting up on this topic and an exceedingly reckless one to try and discredit tried and tested work when you have done little more than read the local newspaper to formulate your own.

Originally Posted by MontyB

To be honest I am seeing a great argument in denial here.
So far we have...
- People working on Global Warming are biased and not to be trusted, people that discover aspects of it are not to be trusted because they weren't working on it.

I don't publicly throw my lot in with anyone unless, what they say agrees with what I see. You may, that is your prerogative.

- I have not read them therefore they cannot be right.
- I am open to changing my mind but I wont look at anything outside what I already know.

A self defeating argument. How could I have adopted my current view (what I already "know" as you put it), if your statement is true?

- I have no idea who they are but it is more likely they are wrong than right.

Nowhere did I say or indicate any of the above. Now I see why your interpretation of fact differs so widely from mine. You do put a marvellous spin on the words of others to suit your case, however on this occasion I feel that you are only fooling yourself.

Remember, all I am saying, and have said throughout is that I haven't seen the evidence to support the fact man is a major causative factor in GW.

I have a tendency to accept work done and then repeated over the space 200 years as accurate, I suspect that almost all rational thinking folk do and I believe it is a very poor argument you are putting up on this topic and an exceedingly reckless one to try and discredit tried and tested work when you have done little more than read the local newspaper to formulate your own.

Meaning that anyone who disagrees with your beliefs is not rational? Now that is what I would call drawing a veeeerrryyy long bow.

It is thinking such as this that makes me so cautious, and even more certain of my choice in this case. If caution is recklessness, I guess that by your standards I am reckless, so be it.

I'm damned if I know,... I thought that I was the one urging caution here?

Monty

Thanks for the support on this, but it seems that your view is still somewhat sceptical relative to that of of mainstream scientists. That is you are more of a '50% sure' person rather than a '90%-99% sure' person? Is this rational given the depth of your reading?

First, we have to consider the temperature data alone. You have said yourself that the start of the recent temperature rise coincided with the start of the industrial revolution, and there is no other comparable rise or change for the last 2000 years. Although this data alone this does not discount non-anthropogenic effects it does sway the evidence largely in favour of the established paradigm.

Then we have the modelling which in detail is admittedly very complex, but the order of magnitude of the greenhouse gas effects are very well known and are not disputed by anyone who has a background in the subject. It is a relatively straightforward calculation to determine the forcing of a greenhouse gas although you have to add the effects of water vapour due to the subsequent temperature rise as well. What you end up with which I am sure you are aware is a chart like this.

The main weapon of the sceptics is that the effect of solar radiation and clouds have a much bigger effect than current models predict, not that the anthropogenic greenhouse gas element is insignificant (obviously I am ignoring science illiterates). Since we know how much CO2 we emit and how much it is increasing per year (this is not disputed) we can be quite sure the anthropogenic component is significant. Whether other anthropogenic effects such as aerosols have been cancelling it out of course is another issue, which the details of the models need to sort out.

I do have some reservations about the effect of the Industrial Revolution on the process though as if you read Arvid Högbom's work of the late 1890s he indicates that human activities were adding CO2 to the atmosphere at a rate roughly comparable to the natural geochemical processes that emitted or absorbed the gas.

It is my belief (and means assumption in this case) that while the IR dramatically increased CO2 output much of it was absorbed by "fat in the system", it merely saturated the "environment" and as such did not have any immediate affect.

I also don't think I did say that the temperature increase coincided with the IR (and if I did it was not my intention to) what I said was that there was a noticeable change in the temperature patterns coinciding with the IR, to me the most important aspects of that graph were the decreasing amplitude and increasing wavelength trends through the IR period.


Other areas that concern me are the lack of noticeable changes during the WW1 and WW2 periods where we were discharging enough crap into atmosphere to raise CO2 levels significantly.

Like I said I believe it unlikely that we are not having an effect on the warming process I am just not yet convinced that we are at the point of no return.

Notice that in the graph it shows the greenhouse gases with no relation or comparison to the rest of the atmosphere.

Nitrogen (N2) 78 .080 Oxygen (O2) 20 .946 Argon (Ar) 0 .934 Carbon Dioxide (CO2) 0 .038 Neon (Ne) 0 .00182 Helium (He) 0 .000524 Methane (CH4) 0 .00015 Krypton (Kr) 0 .000114 Hydrogen (H2) 0 .00005


Whoah 0.038%. Did I also mention that the number one greenhouse gas is in fact water vapor? And water vapor % can vary quite wildly.

As I said, you can always show just ONE side of the data and it can look like a disaster.

For example, let's say in country A there were 2,000 automobile accidents per year and in country B there were 200. Would you rush off to conclude that country A has a horrible driving safety record?
What if I then told you that country A has 200,000,000 drivers and country B has just 3,000?

You can use and misuse maps, charts and graphs of all kinds to your ends and to your hearts content. The funny thing is when people post a graph and act like it's supposed to be some kind of conclusion.

Originally Posted by the_13th_redneck

Notice that in the graph it shows the greenhouse gases with no relation or comparison to the rest of the atmosphere.

Nitrogen (N2) 78 .080 Oxygen (O2) 20 .946 Argon (Ar) 0 .934 Carbon Dioxide (CO2) 0 .038 Neon (Ne) 0 .00182 Helium (He) 0 .000524 Methane (CH4) 0 .00015 Krypton (Kr) 0 .000114 Hydrogen (H2) 0 .00005


Whoah 0.038%. Did I also mention that the number one greenhouse gas is in fact water vapor? And water vapor % can vary quite wildly.

The problem with the water vapour argument is that water vapour is more predominant in the lower atmosphere where as the planets temperature is regulated in the thinner upper atmosphere and a 1% change in the balance there would have dire consequences.

Originally Posted by MontyB

temperature is regulated in the thinner upper atmosphere and a 1% change in the balance there would have dire consequences.

Says who?

Lewis Kaplan and Gilbert Plass when they studied radiation transmission through atmospheric layers.

Originally Posted by the_13th_redneck

Notice that in the graph it shows the greenhouse gases with no relation or comparison to the rest of the atmosphere.

Nitrogen (N2) 78 .080 Oxygen (O2) 20 .946 Argon (Ar) 0 .934 Carbon Dioxide (CO2) 0 .038 Neon (Ne) 0 .00182 Helium (He) 0 .000524 Methane (CH4) 0 .00015 Krypton (Kr) 0 .000114 Hydrogen (H2) 0 .00005

Why should anything other than the forcing components be shown? What possible relevence has Nitrogen?

It is all taken into account, this is the total forcing (W/m2) for each greenhouse forcing component (averaged over the earth) after the concentrations have been taken into account. Methane has about 20 times the warming potential of CO2 per molecule, but there is much less of it hence it only accounts for something like 20% of the warming overall.

Originally Posted by the_13th_redneck

Whoah 0.038%. Did I also mention that the number one greenhouse gas is in fact water vapor? And water vapor % can vary quite wildly.

Water vapour should be kept at a level consistent with the prevailing temperature since there is an unlimited supply from the oceans. It is therefore not a forcing component in the lower atmosphere (although it is at stratospheric levels due to the residence time) even though it is the major greenhouse gas. I don't see why this should vary wildly except gradually increase as the temperature does on a global/annual basis).

Originally Posted by the_13th_redneck

You can use and misuse maps, charts and graphs of all kinds to your ends and to your hearts content. The funny thing is when people post a graph and act like it's supposed to be some kind of conclusion.

No-one except the gutter press /web is trying to mislead you. If you don't mind me saying so you are paranoid about peer reviewed pubications, if there was a mistake this obvious, the IPCC would be hung drawn and quartered. Unfortunately Fox news, the Daily Mail and the like have no such incentive, their business is to mislead and confuse since there is always a conspiracy story for the gullible, especially when it suits peoples pockets to believe it.

Originally Posted by MontyB

I do have some reservations about the effect of the Industrial Revolution on the process though as if you read Arvid Högbom's work of the late 1890s he indicates that human activities were adding CO2 to the atmosphere at a rate roughly comparable to the natural geochemical processes that emitted or absorbed the gas.

I don't see why you are so reliant on original sources, good as these were at the time, that are likely outdated based on modern measurements

Originally Posted by MontyB

It is my belief (and means assumption in this case) that while the IR dramatically increased CO2 output much of it was absorbed by "fat in the system", it merely saturated the "environment" and as such did not have any immediate affect.

It is true that the rate of absorption is an important effect, but were is the modern evidence that it was being absorbed?

Originally Posted by MontyB

I also don't think I did say that the temperature increase coincided with the IR (and if I did it was not my intention to) what I said was that there was a noticeable change in the temperature patterns coinciding with the IR, to me the most important aspects of that graph were the decreasing amplitude and increasing wavelength trends through the IR period.

It sounds very impressive, but to my simple mind there are more obvious trends. Are we not trying to blind oneself with science here?

Originally Posted by MontyB

Other areas that concern me are the lack of noticeable changes during the WW1 and WW2 periods where we were discharging enough crap into atmosphere to raise CO2 levels significantly.

There is a lot of evidence that there was a global dimming caused by aerosols (see previous bar chart) blocking the sunlight over much of the 20th century, it is only now we have cleaned up our act in the West that the full effect of the IR warming is being felt