Global Warmists back off on prediction

[yesman065]

thanks HM. Unfortunately, thats the same thing they've been saying all along. I would expect that. Hence the first line of the discover article:

"Most leading climate experts don’t agree with Henrik Svensmark, the 49-year-old director of the Center for Sun-Climate Research at the Danish National Space Center in Copenhagen."

[piercehawkeye45]

Here is a scholarly article about how solar rays are not the sole cause of global warming:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/en...&dopt=Citation

3/9/07

In the four years since my original review (Keller[25]; hereafter referred to as CFK03), research has clarified and strengthened our understanding of how humans are warming the planet. So many of the details highlighted in the IPCC's Third Assessment Report[21] and in CFK03 have been resolved that I expect many to be a bit overwhelmed, and I hope that, by treating just the most significant aspects of the research, this update may provide a road map through the expected maze of new information. In particular, while most of CFK03 remains current, there are important items that have changed: Most notable is the resolution of the conundrum that mid-tropospheric warming did not seem to match surface warming. Both satellite and radiosonde (balloon-borne sensors) data reduction showed little warming in the middle troposphere (4-8 km altitude). In the CFK03 I discussed potential solutions to this problem, but at that time there was no clear resolution. This problem has now been solved, and the middle troposphere is seen to be warming apace with the surface.

There have also been advances in determinations of temperatures over the past 1,000 years showing a cooler Little Ice Age (LIA) but essentially the same warming during medieval times (not as large as recent warming). The recent uproar over the so-called "hockey stick" temperature determination is much overblown since at least seven other groups have made relatively independent determinations of northern hemisphere temperatures over the same time period and derived essentially the same results. They differ on how cold the LIA was but essentially agree with the Mann's hockey stick result that the Medieval Warm Period was not as warm as the last 25 years. The question of the sun's influence on climate continues to generate controversy. It appears there is a growing consensus that, while the sun was a major factor in earlier temperature variations, it is incapable of having caused observed warming in the past quarter century or so.

However, this conclusion is being challenged by differing interpretations of satellite observations of Total Solar Insolation (TSI). Different satellites give different estimates of TSI during the 1996-7 solar activity minimum. A recent study using the larger TSI satellite interpretation indicates a stronger role for the sun, and until there is agreement on TSI at solar minimum, we caution completely disregarding the sun as a significant factor in recent warming. Computer models continue to improve and, while they still do not do a satisfactory job of predicting regional changes, their simulations of global aspects of climate change and of individual forcings are increasingly reliable. In addition to these four areas, the past five years have seen advances in our understanding of many other aspects of climate change--from albedo changes due to land use to the dynamics of glacier movement. However, these more are of second order importance and will only be treated very briefly.

The big news since CFK03 is the first of these, the collapse of the climate critics' last real bastion, namely that satellites and radiosondes show no significant warming in the past quarter century. Figuratively speaking, this was the center pole that held up the critics' entire "tent." Their argument was that, if there had been little warming in the past 25 years or so, then what warming was observed would have been within the range of natural variations with solar forcing as the major player. Further, the models would have been shown to be unreliable since they were predicting warming that was not happening.

But now both satellite and in-situ radiosonde observations have been shown to corroborate both the surface observations of warming and the model predictions. Thus, while uncertainties still remain, we are now seeing a coherent picture in which past climate variations, solar and other forcings, model predictions and other indicators such as glacier recession all point to a human-induced warming that needs to be considered carefully. A final topic touched on briefly here is the new understanding of the phenomenon called "global dimming." Several sets of observations of the sun's total radiation at the surface have shown that there has been a reduction in sunlight reaching it. This has been related to the scattering of sunlight by aerosols and has led to a better quantification of the possibility that cleaning up our atmospheric pollution will lead to greater global warming. Adding all these advances together, there is a growing consensus that the 21st century will indeed see some 2 degrees C (3.5 degrees F) or more in additional warming. This is corroborated in the new IPCC Assessment, an early release of which is touched on very briefly here.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Scholarly? Maybe, but still one mans opinion on a myriad of data from many sources.

[Happy Monkey]

Henrik Svensmark is one man, and "Most leading climate experts don’t agree" with him.

[xoxoxoBruce]

That's why I'm skeptical of all the one man opinions.

Hmmm, that would mean the alternitive.... committees.
Shit, what a conundrum.

[Happy Monkey]

Or, look at all the "one man's opinions", and see there's a pattern.

[Flint]

That's why I'm skeptical of all the one man opinions.

But, the alternative would be...

Hmmm, that would mean the alternitive.... committees.
Shit, what a conundrum.

...yeah, you beat me to it. Don't humans tend to become stupider when in groups?

Or, look at all the "one man's opinions", and see there's a pattern.

I don't know if you mean all the one-man opinions about global warming, but, also, if you look at all the one-man opinions throughout history, where the one man was scoffed at, but eventually vindicated... hold on... no, there isn't a pattern there, except in hindsight. There is no shortage of one-man jackasses. But you can't disregard something on that basis alone. The one-man opinions that change everything are too valuable to ignore.

[Happy Monkey]

I never said to disregard him. But when the massive scientific consensus says one thing, you can't latch onto a couple of naysayers to justify inaction. His results have been published, and can be reviewed. The Scientific American article is one such review, which says (via tw)

Suggestions that cosmic rays could affect clouds, and thereby climate, have been based on correlations using limited records; they have generally not stood up when tested with additional data, and their physcial mechanisms remain speculative.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Disregard? No, but I wouldn't take it as the absolute truth either.

[Flint]

They should do peer review more like a "roast" - if you published sloppy work, you would have to sit there and be humiliated in front of everybody.

[glatt]

Originally Posted by Flint

They should do peer review more like a "roast" - if you published sloppy work, you would have to sit there and be humiliated in front of everybody.

That's what happened to the cold fusion dudes in Spring of 1989 in Baltimore.

The spring meeting of the American Physical Society is normally a cool scientific congregation, but last week's gathering of 1,500 physicists in Baltimore was more like an unusually hot celebrity roast.

[Aliantha]

All articles written by scholars must be peer reviewed (generally by at least three equally qualified people) before they're ever printed. That means of course, that if the reviewers disagree or believe the article to be limited in factual content in any way, it would be very rare to see it printed in any notable scientific journal.

I doubt anyone believes there's one single cause of global warming. Most scholars will present data for you to consider and then you may draw your own conclusions from that and other sources.

It seems to me you're only looking at the abstract in ph's post in any case which means there's no citations to corroborate the claims made by the author. I suppose this could be a problem for all the other physicists that patronize this site.

[yesman065]

So if we took into account the sun flares, factor in a few cloud formations and mix a dash of cosmic rays ...what do we end up with?


A definite maybe

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by Aliantha

I suppose this could be a problem for all the other physicists that patronize this site.

Yes, we frown on such umbrage.

[piercehawkeye45]

Originally Posted by Aliantha

I doubt anyone believes there's one single cause of global warming.

Agreed, I usually hear that solar energy was the main factor in global warming until recently or that the releasing of chemicals and gases has greatly increased the effects of the solar energy.

The second guess makes a lot of sense. The chemicals and CO2 is usually not the main factor (until recently maybe???), but a catalyst that has made the main factor much stonger.