Today’s posting is links to articles I have found interesting:
NEW PAPER: ARCTIC WAS UP TO 3.8°C WARMER ~3000 YEARS AGO A paper published on 4 March in Quaternary Science Reviews reconstructs Arctic temperatures in Kamchatka, USSR over the past 4,500 years and finds the highest reconstructed temperatures were about 3.8°C warmer than modern temperatures. The authors find ”the highest reconstructed temperature reaching 16.8 °C between 3700 and 2800 years before the present,” about 3.8°C above “modern temperatures (∼13 °C).”
continued: http://www.thegwpf.org/paper-arctic-3-8c-warmer-3000-years/
For a further look at the use of the term “denier”, an older post from Roger Pielke Jr.’s blog: http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2010/05/definative-denier.html
One more:
Changing sun, changing climate by Bob Carter, Willie Soon & William Briggs March 8, 2013 Scientists have been studying solar influences on the climate for more than 5000 years.Chinese imperial astronomers kept detailed sunspot records, and noticed that more sunspots meant warmer weather. In 1801, celebrated astronomer William Herschel, the first to observe Uranus, noted that when there were fewer spots the price of wheat soared. He surmised that less “light and heat” from the sun resulted in reduced harvests.
http://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/doomed-planet/2013/03/changing-sun-changing-climate
Watching Those "Who watch the Deniers" 
Lazarus: Why cant you just admit you are taking about people who accept science as opposed to those who prefer pseudo-science?
Because I’m not.
But you have clearly shown you do not accept the science (unless you think you understand it) and any thing else masquerading as science is pseudo-science by definition.
I do accept the science, just not the same reports and figures you accept. I do understand the science–and when the methods used to do conform to scientific methods.
BTW as a ‘Skeptic’ you might find this interesting;
http://uknowispeaksense.wordpress.com/2013/03/14/media-guide-to-scepticism/
How about we call those who follow the AGW crowd the “true believers” or the “faithful followers”?
Belief and faith has nothing to do with it. Why cant you just admit you are taking about people who accept science as opposed to those who prefer pseudo-science?
Why do you ignore every instance where you are asked to give an example of the non peer review you suggested was a better method to judge scientific facts?
I posted two links in “Additional Ideas”, though both may actually qualify as peer-reviewed. One is behind a paywall.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23048-sea-level-rise-could-lead-to-a-cooler-stormier-world.html
I now realize I cannot actually give you the answer you seem to want. Honestly, most of the journal articles I have came from peer-reviewed journals and are pro-climate change. I kept them because they show me the flaws in the methodology. I will pay more attention to that which I read and try to note where it came from when it’s not pro-AGW. Much of my actual information comes from old-fashioned paper books like “The Inconvenient Skeptic”, which explains how climate works. The writer leaves it up to the reader to decide if they believe in climate science–he is just explaining how things work.
The only reason why you don’t give links to ‘non peer review’ that you have expounded the merits of is that you cant.
If you supplied anything that had any credibility it would already be well supported in the conventional literature.
As for claiming you keep records of real science for the flaws you believe to be in it, without some examples which you could have provided, I can only imagine that you are suffering from Dunning-Krugers.
I am listing links to interesting articles. The objective is to provide information on the subject of climate change. If you have a specific question on a specific article, please state it.
Reality check says:
“It is not up to the person presenting the theory/hypothesis to point out the flaws.”
But you are neither presenting a theory/hypothesis or pointing out flaws in one. That is your problem.
After espousing the merits of non peer review why wont you stand by a single example?
Peter,
my point about rempving CO2 is that saying it is a miniscule gas in the atmosphere makes it sound as if it has little effect. Exactly how much the temp would drop if you removed all CO2 is not the crucual issue. It is the fact that 0.039% of the Atmosphere has a HUGE impact on the temperature of the planet relative to the bisosphere.
In serious detailed discussions of the effect of CO2 I have almost always read people taking into consideration ALL the GHG’s. In fact the issue most recentyl talked about is the possible effects of methane calthrates, as Hansen discusses in the video. I have read many discusssions about N20 as welll as CFC’s (?) and other trace gasses and their varying effects on different part sof the atmosphere. Your contention that they are not cosnidered doesn’t ring true to me, though i do not doubt that there are studies that discount them in ways for the specific purposes of that study.
You say humans have contributed little to the .039% whereas my understanding is that it is about 1/3 of the total over the last 100 years, and likely to be more than half by the end of the century, and that die to the forcing effect on H2O that effect is greatly increased, since it is betwen 1-4% of the atmposphere the forcing form CO2 has a much bigger impact. I know there are those who deny the forcing effect on H2O, but I can only see that if there is a clear negative feedback to CO2 increases, and then i don’t know that that makes sense from the paleo history.
the fact that CO2 concentrations have been higher in the past, even dramatically so, does not mean that there is nothing to worry about. If the bisphere had not changed much during the last 300 million years. i would say this was a very good bet, But we have a history of catastrophic events, and widly fluctuating biomes with radical changes.
Certainly there will be positive consequences of an increase in global temp, but the arguments for destructive ones which are exacerbated by the huge human population and the human impast on the environment already leave the biological homeostatic factors much less room to adjust in ways that ate not radical.
Certainly CO2 in not a pollutant in the common sense meaning of the word, but form a legal political and economic point of view in high concentrations in the atmosphere it seems quite appropriate
Tony,
I appreciate the well thought-out reply. As you can see, we do have SOME points we actually agree upon, and we can discuss things scientifically while still not agreeing on all aspects of the situation here. That’s a GOOD thing in my book.
I don’t think it would be possible (for example) to remove all CO2 from the atmosphere. There are tremendous reserves of it dissolved in the oceans, animals continually exhale it, it outgasses from limestone every time it rains, etc.
Also, your information that if all CO2 were removed from the atmosphere, the temperature would plunge by 15C would be true if and only if the Earth were a perfect blackbody (which it isn’t) and if and CO2 was the ONLY greenhouse gas present in the atmosphere (it isn’t).
Water vapor is a far more abundant greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, and we also have trace amounts of methane, N2O, and other greenhouse gasses, which would all still be present even if CO2 were to suddenly disappear. One of my main problems with the whole CO2 theory is that the calculations are often applied to CO2 IN ISOLATION, while no one bothers to apply the same calculations to the other greenhouse gasses present.
I say that CO2 is miniscule simply because it makes up 0.0395% of the atmosphere, and of that 0.0395%, humans have contributed very little, as much of it is perfectly natural, and one would very well expect it to be there. If it were not there, the planet would be devoid of plant-life, which means that it would be devoid of life, period.
From the paleo studies that I have seen, over the past 100 million years or so, the NATURAL range of CO2 in the atmosphere has varied from approximately 200PPM up to 2000PPM, and we are kinda toward the low end of that range, so I personally don’t think we have anything catastrophic to worry about.
I will say that we should do our level best to not pollute our own planet – livable planets are hard to come by! I just haven’t seen much real evidence yet that CO2 itself is a “pollutant”, especially at current atmospheric levels.
Peter B,
I also appreciate your response. I have to go to bed but will try to take in your very pertinent information and get back to you tomorrow
Peter, I too would find it funny if anyone was to refute the quasi cyclical nature of the climate.
I only partially agree with you about nature abhoring positive feedback loops.. I would say that the formation of stars is a very simple positive feedback loop that is quite well established. i do on the whole agree that especially with systems containing a biological component that there are usually important homeostatic mechanisms.
I also agree with you that the fact that there has never been runaway warming in the past makes it an extraordinary claim that it could in the future. What seems quite reasonable is that there are postiive feedback loops that can occur in unusual circumstance and that they progress until some latent mitigating process stops the feedback.
I certainly disagree with your characterization of CO2 being miniscule. Since the “miniscule” amount in the air helps keep the planet warm enough not to freeze over. My understanding is that if you removed ALL the CO2 from the atmosphere the temps would plunge something like 15°C, though I am just guessing at that number. So the key issue is the relative increase or decrease, not the absolute percentage in the atmosphere.
And again I agree with your last paragraph, that it is an extraordinary claim tot say there would be a runaway greenhouse effect, even if we burned all the fossil fuels in a short period of time.
I find it funny that ANYONE can even attempt to refute the quasi-cyclical nature of the Earth’s climate system, which is well known to be a non-linear coupled chaotic system. We know that ice ages occur repeatedly, we know about how long they last, and we know that warm inter-glacial periods occur repeatedly, and we know how long they last. We also know that within the “warm” interglacial periods, there are quasi-cyclically alternating “warm” and “cool” periods.
Further, we know from physics that nature abhors systems which contain positive feedback loops. Systems containing positive feedback loops tend to self-destruct. The whole hypothesis that adding (miniscule amounts) of CO2 to the system could potentially cause “runaway warming” is itself a proposition that the climate system contains a positive feedback loop (additional CO2 can and will only cause warming).
I don’t deny science, ok? CO2 does absorb radiation in specific wavelengths, and re-emit this energy at lower wavelengths in random directions. We KNOW this. My problem is that the Earth is not a blackbody, and the feedbacks in the system are not at all well characterized.
However, I can almost 100% guarantee you that the feedbacks in the system are NEGATIVE, because, after over 4 billion years of WILDLY CHANGING ATMOSPHERIC CONDITIONS, they climate system of the Earth has NEVER gone into a positive feedback loop and self-destructed.
There is plenty of evidence out there that in the past CO2 levels were on the order of 5 to 10 times higher than they are now, and that still did not cause “runaway warming” in the past, just as it will not in the present, nor will it in the future.
I would not be arrogant enough to say i “subscribne” to any ideas.
but some ideas I “entertain” are that there are mitigating homeostatic factors that limit or slow down excess CO2 buildup. I could imagine that there are certain bacteriological or other biological processes that might lead to a higher uptake of CO2 than is currently understood. I consider it possible that the cloud uncertainty has a higher negative value on Co2 doubling than is considered by most climate scientists.
Also as I have said, i think that human response to crisis could elad to much faster than anticipated changes in both reduction of oputput of CO2, by government action, and by social pressure and social adoptiuon of energy conservation and alternative energy use. I think technological solutions for both sequestration adn making various renewable sources of energy more easily harnesses are also likely.
But I also consider it possible that the effects will outstrip mitigation efforts, and that there could be feedbacks that lead to much worse consequences than scientists currently understand. I also think it possible that social reactions due to ACC or other destabilizing political/economic factors, could elad to such a disruption in functioning of governemnt and society that worst case scenarios are not avoided at all. I do not “believe” that things will turn out well, or turn out badly, and as such i am rather risk averse. Since we know the physics of CO2 and water vapor and Methane and other GHG’s quite well, and we don’t KNOW that other mitigating factors intervene, I think it prudent to decrease CO2 output as quickly as possible without serious economic dispurtion but with serious incentives, and to have the US part of international efforts to implement thos changes.
the only objective reality that in any way indicates some optimism in my view is the current decade where temps have not INCREASED dramatically. But Until I see ANY evidence of temps DECREASING then I have little faith in the idea that this is just some cycle. The arctic ice melt is VERY storng evidence that even current temps are too high, and I think it likely that in the next 5 years or so there will be another increase in realtive temps globally with more evidence of costs assosciated with extre CO2
Reality,
my use of the term denier comes form four years of experience dealing with people, and assessing whether they are willing to accept information on it’s own merits or if they determine beforehand that they only accept information that fits their ideological agenda. I have seen Both Pilke’s and Curry accept research that supports the idea of ACC, and even though I often disagree with their conclusions and analysis, they do not blanektly deny or try to find rationalizations for all evidence that points to ACC. Whereas WUWT, Goddard, jo Nova, Delingpole are all sites where i have never seen ANY posts that consider the possibility of ACC being anything other than a very minor problem. So i use the term “denoer” for those sites. but not for those of Pielke or Curry. People like Lindzen, and Christie who are trained cliamte scientists, i also heve respect for because they too do not reject science just because they don;t like it’s conclusions. In their case they have been shown to be wrong repeatedly and i do not trust their conclusoons over other scientists, but when they come out with something I do not dismiss it out of hand.
What ideas outside the mainstream of climate change do you subscribe to?
reality. You know that it is well known that the roman warming period had higher temps than until the very recent past. No link I found there goes to the actual paper and I have seen previous claims about earlier temps being higher than “modern” that were comparing temps BEFORE 1980. I would want to get an analysis from the actual experts on arctic paleo befoe coming to a conclusion
the article on the use of denier is interesting. As I have stated numerous times I ONLY use the term to describe people or sties that REFUSE to accept any information unless is undermines ACC and refuse to be skeptical of any information if is does undernine ACC. I assume that you agree that there are people and sites that are not in any way unterested in the truth and are just trying to convince people of an idea regardless of the facts. I do not care if they are beleivers in ACC or comppeltely agaisnt it, if they are unwilling to change their minds when the facts don;t support the ideology then they are aideologues and deserve top be labeled as such. As i worte before i do know people who accept ACC uncritically and cannot beleive any scientitifc research unless it suppports their view that ACC will be catastrophic,. that there can be no way to mitigate it, and that anything that shows otherwise has to be wrong. But again, i base my assessment on peoples’ actual behavior and words, and am happy to change a label if it no longer applies.
The last article by Carter and Soon makes claims that have been completely refuted in the past as I understadn it. IF this paper is accurate and other experts confirm their conclusions it would be a tremendous achievement. I however am skeptical based on their previous history. That there is a corellation between temps and solar output has been shown to be absolutely untrue.I hve read over and over again that the current warming sicne 1980 has happened with a DECREASE in solar radiation. and that the early 2000’s were a very low solar minimum. It seems unlikely to me that so many other scientists havebeen fooled if that is in fact not true. Solar output is a very well known quantity and the temperature record is increasingly well known form 1850. This seems to imply that there is a huge conspiracy, which I find hard to believe, since this sort of data is pretty straightforward and many many thousands fo scientists would be able to see the truth very easily.
Reality. what IS the response to this research from other experts in solar output?
If you are indeed “Skeptical” then it is imperative that you find out what the responses to this are. That is waht peer review is for.
I will attempt to provide additional documentation on both of the science articles. It may seem unlikely that so many scientists were fooled, but it would not be the first time that has happened. I agree that additional information would be useful.
While I understand your definition of “denier”, I would note that you really have no way of knowing if a person rejects any possible arguments for climate change or that you simply have not presented convincing data. Using the term presupposes your argument is the right one, which is not self-evident. Many of the people who are accused of being deniers simply have not seen a convincing argument to the climate change debate.
I am recommending them as reading on the subject of climate change and civil discourse (that being the “denier” one). I found them interesting. It’s up to you to read them and decide if you find the science credible. If you do not find it credible, feel free to SPECIFICALLY state why, referencing the problem areas. Or you can just disregard them and read something else. There is no requirement that you actually read what I post.
Why do you suggest I have to state what I think are problems with them? Shouldn’t you, since you have suggested them, tell us your reasons why they should be looked at even though they are not direct links to accepted science?
When one presents an hypothesis, it is up to those who disagree with the hypothesis to disprove it. The evidence is presented and it’s up to those reading it to decide what the problems are. It is not up to the person presenting the theory/hypothesis to point out the flaws. That’s how science works.
Are they articles you recommend as containing credible science?