Al Gore’s movie
by Eric Steig
Along with various Seattle business and community leaders, city planners and politicians, a large group of scientists from the University of Washington got a chance to preview the new film, An Inconvenient Truth, last week. The film is about Al Gore's efforts to educate the public about global warming, with the goal of creating the political will necessary for the United States to take the lead in efforts to lower global carbon emissions. It is an inspiring film, and is decidedly non-partisan in its outlook (though there are a few subtle references to the Bush administration's lack of leadership on this and other environmental issues).
Since Gore is rumored to be a fan of RealClimate, we thought it appropriate to give our first impressions.
Much of the footage in Inconvenient Truth is of Al Gore giving a slideshow on the science of global warming. Sound boring? Well, yes, a little. But it is a very good slide show, in the vein of Carl Sagan (lots of beautiful imagery, and some very slick graphics and digital animation). And it is interspersed with personal reflections from Gore that add a very nice human element. Gore in the classroom in 1968, listening to the great geochemist Roger Revelle describe the first few years of data on carbon dioxide increases in the atmosphere. Gore on the family farm, talking about his father's tobacco business, and how he shut it down when his daughter (Al Gore's sister) got lung cancer. Gore on the campaign trail, and his disappointment at the Supreme Court decision. This isn't the "wooden" Gore of the 2000 campgain; he is clearly in his element here, talking about something he has cared deeply about for over 30 years.
How well does the film handle the science? Admirably, I thought. It is remarkably up to date, with reference to some of the very latest research. Discussion of recent changes in Antarctica and Greenland are expertly laid out. He also does a very good job in talking about the relationship between sea surface temperature and hurricane intensity. As one might expect, he uses the Katrina disaster to underscore the point that climate change may have serious impacts on society, but he doesn't highlight the connection any more than is appropriate (see our post on this, here).
There are a few scientific errors that are important in the film. At one point Gore claims that you can see the aerosol concentrations in Antarctic ice cores change "in just two years", due to the U.S. Clean Air Act. You can't see dust and aerosols at all in Antarctic cores — not with the naked eye — and I'm skeptical you can definitively point to the influence of the Clean Air Act. I was left wondering whether Gore got this notion, and I hope he'll correct it in future versions of his slideshow. Another complaint is the juxtaposition of an image relating to CO2 emissions and an image illustrating invasive plant species. This is misleading; the problem of invasive species is predominantly due to land use change and importation, not to "global warming". Still, these are rather minor errors. It is true that the effect of reduced leaded gasoline use in the U.S. does clearly show up in Greenland ice cores; and it is also certainly true that climate change could exacerbate the problem of invasive species.
Several of my colleagues complained that a more significant error is Gore's use of the long ice core records of CO2 and temperature (from oxygen isotope measurements) in Antarctic ice cores to illustrate the correlation between the two. The complaint is that the correlation is somewhat misleading, because a number of other climate forcings besides CO2 contribute to the change in Antarctic temperature between glacial and interglacial climate. Simply extrapolating this correlation forward in time puts the temperature in 2100 A.D. somewhere upwards of 10 C warmer than present — rather at the extreme end of the vast majority of projections (as we have discussed here). However, I don't really agree with my colleagues' criticism on this point. Gore is careful not to state what the temperature/CO2 scaling is. He is making a qualitative point, which is entirely accurate. The fact is that it would be difficult or impossible to explain past changes in temperature during the ice age cycles without CO2 changes (as we have discussed here). In that sense, the ice core CO2-temperature correlation remains an appropriate demonstration of the influence of CO2 on climate.
For the most part, I think Gore gets the science right, just as he did in Earth in the Balance. The small errors don't detract from Gore's main point, which is that we in the United States have the technological and institutional ability to have a significant impact on the future trajectory of climate change. This is not entirely a scientific issue — indeed, Gore repeatedly makes the point that it is a moral issue — but Gore draws heavily on Pacala and Socolow's recent work to show that the technology is there (see Science 305, p. 968 Stabilization Wedges: Solving the Climate Problem for the Next 50 Years with Current Technologies).
I'll admit that I have been a bit of a skeptic about our ability to take any substantive action, especially here in the U.S.
Gore's aim is to change that viewpoint, and the colleagues I saw the movie with all seem to agree that he is successful.
In short: this film is worth seeing. It opens in early June.
10 May 2006 at 4:01 PM
Invasives are favored by increased carbon dioxide — if not by global warming. (I haven’t looked for warming +invasives recently).
Did the slide show conflate CO2 increase and temperature change, re invasives? If so, easy to fix that. CO2 will increase faster than temperature, for the first hundred years or so, eh?
Searching for CO2 +”invasive plants” the first hits include this 2005 info. There’s more and current research going on on this question, too.
http://ma-eppc.org/abstracts-final090705.pdf.
Global Warming, Rising CO2 and Invasive Plants. Dr. Lewis Ziska, Plant Physiologist, USDA
Crop Systems and Global Change Lab
“… current levels of atmospheric CO2 are less than optimal for plant growth, ….
“…. we have compared the potential response to recent and projected changes in carbon
dioxide between invasive, noxious species and other plant groups, and assessed whether CO2
preferentially selects for such species within ecosystems. A synthesis of literature results
indicates that invasive, noxious weeds on the whole have a larger than expected growth increase
to both recent and projected increases in atmospheric CO2 relative to other plant species. There
is also evidence from a majority of studies, than rising CO2 can, in fact, preferentially select for
invasive, noxious species within plant communities …”
[Response: See my response after #3, below –eric ]
10 May 2006 at 4:03 PM
Thanks very much not only for presenting this posting, but for the spirit in which it’s presented. Nature’s editors were right in 2004 to predict, in effect, that RealClimate.org would be a breakthrough in the relationship between science and society. Maybe Vice President Gore represents something along those lines too.
I hope James Taranto and his editorial colleagues at the Wall Street Journal — a publication vital to advancing America’s climate discussion — are reading this new posting. Mr. Taranto falls below the standards of his fine intellect with his constant mere sarcasm about climate science, and his colleagues fall below the standards of their fine editorial page by failing, continually, to have that page present science’s actual climate views to the WSJ’s readers. Elsewhere, similar things can be said concerning George F. Will.
Let’s hope that Mr. Gore’s reportedly serious effort inspires some corresponding seriousness on the political right, and among people who claim to think seriously about the word _conserve_ underlying the word _conservative_.
10 May 2006 at 4:04 PM
I’m not sure that the sprawl of “invasive” plants should be attributed exclusively to land use. I see at least some reason to anticipate that many plant species will be regarded as “invasive” as warming forces them into upslope/poleward migratory response.
My hunch is that land use and warming will interact, and that the future distribution of plant species will be an expression of that interaction.
[Response: Regarding this and the first comment: I’m in no way saying that there is no connection, nor even that the connection is trivial, between greenhouse gases and invasive species. But I think it is important not to put all environmental issues under the “climate change” banner. Even if we were to get the climate “back to normal” (whatever that means), city gardeners in Central Park, NY, would have no less work to do keeping back the kudzu and the British ivy. For the record, I didn’t even notice this apparent conflation in the film; several of my colleagues did though. You’ll have to see the film to assess for yourself how big a deal this is. Since I didn’t even notice it — and I was looking for errors — it is evidently not an important part of the film! — eric]
10 May 2006 at 4:10 PM
Could not help but chuckle at this assertion:
“And it is interspersed with personal reflections from Gore that add a very nice human element.” Um, sure they do. He is so known for his, you know, humanlike qualities.
Also, when was Gore born? 1948? He was sitting in a class listening to an imminent geochemist in 1958, at age 10?
[Response: Oops. I thought that they said 1958 in the movie, and so I wrote “Gore in the classroom, in 1958 …” But as you point out that can’t be right. I’ll try to figure out the correct date, but for now I’ve deleted it to avoid confusion. –eric]
[OK, I’ve updated this to 1968, which is probably right since according to the NY Times Gore graduated from Harvard in 1969. -eric]
10 May 2006 at 4:57 PM
Eric-
Thanks for the review. I haven’t seen the movie. One reaction to your review — I am a bit puzzled by your comments on Gore’s use of the Katrina disaster to suggest that climate change will have significant impacts. Even if we postulate that global warming will increase hurricane intensity on average by XX% (fill in the blank), disasters will continue to be driven overwhelmingly by societal vulnerability, which was exactly what occurred with Katrina. And as you know direct attribution of Katrina or its intensity to greenhouse gas emissions remains a scientific topic of study and even the hurricane experts are not yet in consensus on this subject.
Unless Gore was using Katrina to highlight the importance of adaptation, which would be appropriate in my view, using Katrina to set the stage for arguing for emissions reductions is simply scientifically indefensible. Of course, if Al Gore is advocating adaptation it would represent a huge shift from Earth in the Balance in which he excoriated those who advocate strategies of adaptation.
Thanks.
[Response: Ah, Roger, you are so right! I don’t know how I could have overlooked this elementary point. You should have mentioned it to us before. It really is scandalous how the vast sums spent by the present Administration on fighting Global Warming have starved the government coffers to such an extent that they couldn’t afford to buy a decent levee system for New Orleans. I’m shocked, I really am. –raypierre]
[Response: On a slightly more constructive note, I recall from the slide show (not the movie, which I haven’t yet seen), that Katrina is used as an example of a) how vulnerable society is weather events, and b) how preparedness, even for something as widely and correctly predicted as a hurricane hitting New Orleans, was woefully inadequate. I’m not sure that gives anyone confidence in society’s ability to adapt to the changes climate change will bring about. -gavin]
[Response: Yes, what Gavin said. But you’ll have to judge for yourself, Roger, exactly what Gore does with this example, and whether you agree with him. My point was simply that he did not, in my judgement, overstate, the global warming/hurricance connection. Regardless of what the best societal response is, the strength of that connection is purely a scientific question. -eric]
10 May 2006 at 5:33 PM
I greatly enjoyed the trailer for this movie. And look forward to the whole show. A student of mine gave me a tape of last weeks Too Hot Not to Handle on HBO, this was another in a long of accurate, basic and uninspiring documentaries. The title of Gore’s piece is great and will surely swamp the readership of George Will in terms of interest. Trailer link
10 May 2006 at 5:55 PM
Scientific issue, moral issue — regarding climate change, I do not think that these are strong motivating factors for the US public.
What we need are issues of competition and economics. “Climate change is a business opportunity! Get rich and save the world! etc…” Mainstream American consumers need issues that tie in to “the American dream.”
[Response:Gore makes this point very strongly in the film. Since RealClimate is a science website, I wanted to comment on the science. I will note here, as an example, though, that he makes a rather nice case that it is the lack of environmental controls on the U.S. auto industry that has led to its declining competitiveness in the world. In other words, yes, get rich and save the world at the same time — eric]
10 May 2006 at 7:54 PM
RE 3 and 6 and response:
The FACE labs doing this research find interesting results. The argument in Hank’s abstract means the type of plant that can access and utilize extra CO2 are generally those that are adapted to disturbed areas or adapted to rapidly changing conditions.
Now, whether we as a society can adapt to using these kinds of plants if this turns out to be the case - as some seem to think we should do - is an open question. I, personally, see no evidence of this since our societies became agrarian. Nonetheless, the work being done now indicates that many plants are adapted to a lower CO2 environment and higher atm CO2 will be problematic for many members of the Plantae, rather than the blanket ‘boon’ argument that is currently being recycled.
Best,
D
10 May 2006 at 8:13 PM
“Um, sure they do. He is so known for his, you know, humanlike qualities.”
To the best of my knowledge, this is more a matter of his treatment at the hands of the press rather than an actual character flaw. It’s also why I’m worried that this movie actually won’t have the impact we’re all hoping it to have–Gore has been villified (with little or no evidence) as a “robot,” “liar,” etc. by the press in the past. His approval ratings are lower than those of George Bush right now. For more, check out the voluminous archives at the Daily Howler (www.dailyhowler.com).
I just hope people don’t take the South Park angle and write this movie off as just being a big ego-trip for the “Gore the Exaggerator” stereotype that the press has constructed.
10 May 2006 at 8:32 PM
Ray- Interesting response.
Gavin- Thanks, more encouraging.
[Response: Roger, see my additional note after comment #5, above. -eric]
10 May 2006 at 8:32 PM
Re: #7
I agree that “scientific issue” is not a strong motivator for the American public. But I think “moral issue” is. “Economic issue” is also a strong motivator, and “national security issue” (a phrase adopted by Wesley Clark) may be the strongest of all.
10 May 2006 at 8:40 PM
Mr. Fortner’s comment is just the problem. The mistake was Eric’s (not a huge one), but Al gets the snark. This is exactly how this movie is being attacked.
10 May 2006 at 9:48 PM
Re: #12
I didn’t see any attack on the movie in Mr. Fortner’s comment. And since it hasn’t been released yet, the only attacks on the movie are from the prejudiced.
I’ve seen the trailer, and it’s very impressive; I intend to see the movie on opening day (how may regulars here plan the same?). I have a feeling that first, Gore will come off as far less “wooden” than his reputation, and second, reaction will be dominated by the movie itself, not Gore’s reputation.
It also seems to me that in terms of press coverage, the tide may be turning. Witness Time magazine’s cover story, the good coverage of the reconciliation of ground-based and tropospheric temperatures, and many more. The press seems finally to get the point: global warming is real and the cause is us. The consequences are likely to be dire.
[Response: One of the things Gore emphasized in the question and answer session after the movie is that Time magazine’s “Be Very Worried” cover was not constructive. Gore’s point is that the U.S. has risen to challenges before, and exceeded all expectations. His major point is, “come on guys, lets show the world what we in the U.S. can do.” So the popular press is only just now catching up with the science. It seems a ways back in catching up with Gore.–eric]
10 May 2006 at 10:22 PM
Let the yahoos attack; maybe it will just add to the publicity for the film. It sounds like the science (& morality) will carry the day for Big Al. I love the fact that his father shut down the family tobacco business. It’s time to evolve…
10 May 2006 at 10:26 PM
Thanks for this fine review.
Many of you probably know that the recent Green Issue of Vanity Fair contains an essay by Gore, titled “The Moment of Truth”. Here’s a link:
http://www.climateark.org/articles/reader.asp?linkid=55267
The issue also contained an article titled “While Washington Slept” which gave some insights into the political side of things:
http://www.vanityfair.com/commentary/content/articles/060508roco02
10 May 2006 at 10:56 PM
What Gavin said on #5. I’m hoping my book will fare as well with the staff here as VP Gore’s film did.
10 May 2006 at 11:07 PM
Eric,
“At one point Gore claims that you can see the aerosol concentrations in Antarctic ice cores change “in just two years”, due to the U.S. Clean Air Act. You can’t see dust and aerosols at all in Antarctic cores — not with the naked eye.”
Chemical signals embedded in ice cores are believed to contain a record of past climate-altering events (volcanic eruptions, El Nino episodes), as well as anthropogenic influences. Both the atmospheric and ice core records at the South Pole contain a seasonal signal associated with winter sea salt peaks and summer sulfate peaks. Summertime peaks in the ice core sulfate to sodium mass concentration ratio correspond to peaks in the aerosol Angstrom exponent (Fig. 2). This suggests that ice cores at the South Pole record aerosol chemical composition information on a seasonal basis.
http://www.cmdl.noaa.gov/aero/science/index.html
Why do you think Gore meant that you can see it “with the naked eye”?
[Response: I don’t think Gore actually said “with the naked eye”, but that is how I took it. In any case, yes, one can subsample ice cores at very fine resolution — as short as a couple of weeks at South Pole. In fact, this is what my lab at the University of Washington does every day! But the question is whether there is any measureable impact in Antarctica from changes in aerosol emissions from the U.S. The answer is, no, there is not. Indeed, we’ve barely begun to see the impact of increased sulfate and nitrogen oxides (very important globally, and very clear in Greenland) in Antarctica. This is because Antarctica remains very much isolated from the rest of the globe, when it comes to soluble things (i.e. stuff that can get washed out of the air by precipitation), because precipitation rates are so high in the subpolar latitudes. So.. to be very clear: Gore’s mistake was very minor; his overall point (that ice cores are a great source of information) was entirely correct. But the specific statement he made was wrong on two counts: 1) you can’t “see” these changes (and “see” is the word he used); 2) you can’t even detect them in Antarctica, though you may be able to elsewhere. –eric]
Fortner,
Exactly what do you call “humanlike qualities”? The last time I checked Gore was not a Martian. Whatever he does therefore is humanlike — even if he is not like you. Your behavior is not the standard, anyway.
11 May 2006 at 1:00 AM
In 1990, I was a TA for an Earth science class when Al Gore visited to give his “stump speech” on climate to the class. He had just been running for Prez in 1988 and I was very impressed with how much he knew and how polished the talk was. But one error really stood out: it was the same correlation-causality problem described above. He said “look at how CO2 and temperature have tracked each other over the past few hundred thousand years … this proves that increasing CO2 will lead to increased temperatures.” Even though I was a lowly grad student, I knew that logic was wrong, and I’m sorry to hear that he has not corrected that in the intervening 16 years. I view this as a pretty serious logical error, so I hope he (eventually) gets around to correcting this.
[Response: But this is a case where there is a great deal of causality, and not just correlation. The Vostok T and CO2 data alone cannot be used to conclude that CO2 affects temperature, but together with other things we know about climate it is a real showstopper. You simply cannot get anything like this without a very significant effect of Co2 on climate. –raypierre]
[Response: Yes, I agree with Ray on this. The simple CO2-T correlation = causation argument is overly simplistic, but it is not wrong. What is clearly going on in the glaciological record of climate change on long timescales is a positive feedback system — temperature goes up, leading to more CO2, leading to increased T. Please see our post on this (one of the very first posts on RealClimate), here –eric]
11 May 2006 at 1:08 AM
#5 Dr Pielke:
“using Katrina to set the stage for arguing for emissions reductions is simply scientifically indefensible.”
Strong words, which do not match reality. Current and recent weather facts suggest a strong NH warming signal, undeniable by any scientific standard, precluding GW as a contributing factor for Katrina’s intensity isn’t anymore credible than saying GW caused Katrina.
11 May 2006 at 3:28 AM
About the use of Pacala & Socolow.
I think their pragmatic view of what is feasible is very useful. What I am concerned with is that Pacala & Socolow mention stabilisation of GHG emissions between 2000 and 2050, while a decrease of emissions is needed to limit global warming. Assuming for example the 2°C european objective, a reduction of 30% to 55% of worldwide emissions between 1990 et 2050 seems necessary.
For details, see for example: den Elzen Michel, 2006, How to achieve the 2°C target: the costs and risks of overshooting, presented at the Low stabilisation scenarios conference in Potsdam, 16-17 March 2006, March 2006, www.feem-web.it/potsdam/index.html
11 May 2006 at 4:49 AM
Dear RC
Looking at all of the articles posted here and from other sites the scientific community has a consensus that CO2 (and other emissions) are causing the average temperature to rise across the entire globe. Now whether Al Gore is correctly understanding the scientific data and analysis to put forward a case for reducing emissions is the issue here. I agree with RC on this one,it is accurate enough to my mind. after all the USA/UK went to war in Iraq on a lot of false premises.
11 May 2006 at 5:53 AM
Re:20
Pacala & Socolow do not show how to stabilise emissions, but how to reduce them in order to stabilise CO2 in the atmosphere at 500 ppm. See here:
http://www.stabilisation2005.com/Robert_Socolow.pdf
They set out all the different technologies and measures which would achieve this, and I imagine that a scenario for stabilising CO2 at lower levels would still very much build on those ideas.
Almuth Ernsting
11 May 2006 at 7:32 AM
I’m very pleased to learn of your positive review of Gore’s movie. I look forward to seeing it. Locally, I’ve done a little trying to help folks understand the scientific underpinings to the conclusions about paleoclimates drawn from the data found in ice cores and marine sediments. I understand the relationship between the oxygen isoptope (18-O) content of carbonate shells and the temperature at which the shell originally crystallized but I would like info on the apparently more important relationship between 18-O of (what?) in marine sediments and the total ice volume (extent of glaciation)at the time of formation. Can anyone refer me to a source for this? Thanks
C. W. Dingman
[Response: The 18-O of carbonate shells reflects both the 18-O of the ocean water in which the shells grew, and the temperature at which they grew. Isotopically light water (H2-16O) is preferentially evaporated from the ocean, so precipitation is isotopically light compared with ocean water. As ice sheets build up on land, the ocean gets progressively enriched in 18-O. What is observed in the ocean sediment records is that the 18-O of the shells of benthic (deep ocean-dwelling) organisms varies up and down by about 1 per mil through glacial cycles. That’s almost entirely due to changes in ice volume (or, if you like, in ocean volume). The 18-O in planktonic (surface dwelling) organisms varies much more because both the ice volume effect and temperature are involved. If you assume that the deep ocean temperatures don’t change at all (this is not true, but is a pretty good approximation), then you have two equations and two unknowns, and so you get ice volume AND temperature. A good basic reference on this is Ray Bradley’s book, Quaternary Paleoclimatology. –eric]
11 May 2006 at 8:29 AM
Hello,
Thank you for this.
While a little off-topic, I have two questions inspired by comments above:
i) Are there any sites similar to RealClimate about possible substitutes for Petroleum based energy? I would love to see a science-based discussion of possible non carbon-emitting sources of energy. For example, thee has been a lot of talk about ethanol, and biodiesel, but little effort to explain these fuels in their entirety (changes in land use, use of petroleum-based fertilizers, Energy Returned On Energy Invested [EROIE] et cetera).
ii) Any sites for discussion on investing with an eye toward green energy? (OK that isn’t really a sentence). Since seeing that Mr. Gore was involved in Generation Investment Management, but I’m thinking about the average investor’s IRA.
11 May 2006 at 8:35 AM
Wayne (#19)-
It is more complicated than whether or not GHGs have affected hurrricanes. In my statement that you cite I assumed a GHG influence. The question is not whether or not GHGs affect hurricanes, but rather, what role can emissions reductions have as part of future disaster mitigation strategies. Have a look at these:
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/climate_change/index.html#000798
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/climate_change/index.html#000793
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/climate_change/index.html#000746
I accept Eric’s point about the science (#5), however, Gore’s movie and my point are about the relationship of science and action — specifically, policy advocacy and the justifications used to sell certain policies to policy makers and the public. From what I have seen thus far Gore on hurricanes is overselling his policy claims by misusing hurricanes and Katrina. For some people, including one of the commenters here who responded to me, the politics of climate change and anger at the Bush Administration apparently justify overlooking such flawed policy arguments. This is disappointing because in the case of hurricanes the policy research conclusions are peer reviewed, robust, and unchallenged. Thanks.
11 May 2006 at 9:44 AM
Thanks for the review of the movie I look forward to seeing it.
I hope this is the first step to an endorsement of it by Real climate and other climate scientists. The public may not be motivated by a scientific argument but it sure is willing to be unmotivated by a sense that scientists disagree on the basic tenets of global warming. So I hope you will support Mr. Gore in his goal of motivating the public to action because I still believe you have an essential role here. Obviously there is disagreement among scientist about specifics. Raypierre’s response to Dr Pielke jr. (#5) is a good example. I just hope you can keep it civil.
I took Roger jrs. point to be: that adaptation will have to be part of the strategy for survival, which is clearly true, isnt it? Adaptation has always been humans strong point.
I have also read Dr Pielke Srs thoughts on these issues (see:
http://climatesci.atmos.colostate.edu/2006/05/ ), and I feel that he has something of value to add to the discussion also. His notion of assessing vulnerabilities and local contributors to planetary warming seems to me to be a good idea, except it would take a lot of political will and time, and we are very short on both at the moment, so it may be a diversion from the main show, which is adaptation is it not? (I have asked Dr Pielke Sr several times about what he feels the risks are of taking a slow approach and frankly he seemed unwilling to directly answer me).
Doesn’t adaptation mean we have to consume less energy in every way possible? Streamline and maximize our efforts and resources into developing some of the technologies that have been somewhat starved in their infancy such as, solar, biomass, methanol, offshore wind, tidal, and yes even cold fusion which shows a lot more scientific promise then the mainstream press ever lets on post the Ponds and Flieshman debacle. (I believe excess heat is produced 70 to 80 percent of the time.)
As far as Pacala and Socolow are concerned.
http://www.theclimategroup.org/index.php?pid=549
Do they mean by carbon sequestering pumping it down into caves and just sort of hope it stays there? From a non-scientists point of view this looks boneheaded at best. However if they mean converting it into limestone which I understand is technically possible this would be an excellent solution. Maybe it is unrealistic of me but if we could avoid the temptation to continue our landfill-based economy and move into a no waste economy everyone would benefit. That is why I feel that their goal of adding double the current global capacity is dangerous. Yucca Mountain as a nuclear landfill sight is apparently not a great choice in itself, but also clearly has a limited capacity so will fill up and I guess the assumption is that by then we will know what to do with our waste by then. I feel this is irresponsible. Most of there suggestions are good ones however.
We may have to face that we cannot live as large in the short term as we are used to. That will be a tough sell to the burgers and television feed right-to-live-easy-and-sacrifice nothing-empire, but I believe it could create a more stable prosperity in the long run. We need to support the politicians like Mr. Gore who are willing to stick their necks out and call to the side of us that still recognizes that humans have always survivied by working together.
[Response: Some good points here, but you should not forget another aspect of adaption: smart organisation. The thought springs to mind every time I visit London and see the rush-hour traffic there. Sitting in a car - one person in each - for hours commuting back and forth to work does not seem to me to be a very smart way of organising a society. It’s very inefficient. Imagine if you could put four people into each car, and cut down on the amount of metal on the roads by 50-75%. I would imagine that such a reduction could really unclog the system - but I have not done any research on this. This is just one example to point out how re-structuring some behvavioural pattern may/could have some impact (the society would even save energy overall!). Think about how much Internet and mobile phones have transformed our lives. I hope that our generation, with the benefit of our modern technology and advanced kno how, should aim at being the smartest generation ever, and be able to meet new challlenges better prepared than previous ones. But, at this point, this is just a vision. -rasmus]
11 May 2006 at 10:52 AM
Re: #24 (jhm)
Well, www.worldchanging.com covers issues such as alternative fuels and green technology, though I’m not sure if they go to the depth you’re looking for.
The site’s worth checking out… lots of people who would know the things you’re asking for go there, so posting your question in the comments there could be fruitful.
11 May 2006 at 11:16 AM
Isn’t the real point that Sea level rise will make coastal regions far more vulnerable? Katrina turns out to be a valid example of possible effect even if GW doesn’t result in stronger or more frequent storms. It also connects with people far more than some abstract consequence that our kids might have to deal with - all too often dismissed by a skeptical public.
11 May 2006 at 11:30 AM
Eric, as a nonscientist, I think when a scientists says he can “see” something in the data he can be allowed instrumentation and inference; that’s how I would have heard Gore’s words — that there’s a signal someone has found and published.
More generally — this would seem the time to get the footnotes and citations together for that movie, and for the presumably live and changing slide-speech outline.
Assuming someone from Mr. Gore’s program is reading — please, the citations, the footnotes.
The signal Eric says can’t be seen in his ice cores is an example, but you’ll be wanting to give documentation for every statement made.
That’s the teaching moment in this — teach science, citations, and how to look things up instead of trust what’s said in the movie.
Even if it was wrong — show us the source from which the claim went into the slide show and movie; then amend the slide show and add the new citation to the documentation.
Please.
11 May 2006 at 12:10 PM
To give a little more substance to my attitude toward Gore that obviously underlies my original comments above:
First, a little background. I am not a scientist. Before you scoff at my take on this based on that, remember this: most people are not scientists. In order to make the policy and practical changes that most of you here seek in order to fight the man-made climate change you perceive, you need to convince other than just scientists that there is such a thing, and that it is something to worry about. This is so because it is going to take the political and practical participation of at least a majority of the US population in order to effectuate the kinds of large scale changes that are sought.
I assume that Gore here means to attempt just that with his movie - that is, to reach out beyond the scientific community and to educate and convince the population at large on the importance of this topic, and to spur them to action. Fine. I have no problem with that. [ad hom edited]
Whatever his fans may think of him, there are a lot of people out there that just don’t like him. They think he comes across as self-important and haughty in his manner, beyond the standard criticism that he is a bit “wooden”. It seems to many that he thinks he is entitled to be listened to - that he is the smartest guy in any given room. He also is perceived as patronizing and insincere. [ad hom edited]
Now, you may agree or disagree with that take on Mr. Gore, but the fact remains that he evokes these reactions in a large percentage of the US population. This is not a secret. Gore himself jokes about it. Knowing this, Gore should also know that the message he wants to convey with his movie is going to be overshadowed in the minds of many by this preconceived notion they have about him.
Given all this, I, and I assure you many people like me, are left to wonder this: What is more important to Mr. Gore here? Is he most concerned that this message get out, or that he be the one to get it out? It seems to me that if he really wanted to do something that would reach and convince a lot of people to come over to his point of view on this matter, then he would have done it in a way that did not put himself front and center. Again, I know that he knows that a lot of people are turned off by him. Surely the other people involved in this project know that as well. Why hamstring your own effort?
Here is the real crux of the matter on this point: We all know that, as for the political and philosophical side of this discussion over man-made climate change, it is liberals/progressives/Democrats that largely “get it” and are on board with the view on this issue that Gore espouses, and it is conservatives/Republicans that are largely on the other side. Why that is true is complicated, and a discussion for another time. What matters here is that Gore does not need to convince his political fellow travelers - he needs to convince the other side. He should know, that his presence, his voice, his personality, etc. grates on that other side.
All that to say that, the merits of this issue aside, it seems to me that if Gore wants to advance this issue, as opposed to advancing himself, then he would get off the screen and let some one else do the talking.
[Response: First, this isn’t a partisan issue - even if it is sometimes portrayed that way - there are many senior people on both sides that ‘get it’. Secondly, everyone in the public realm comes with ‘baggage’ and I assume that they try and do their best regardless. It seems doubtful this movie would have been made and released were it not for it’s main speaker and so it seems difficult to criticise someone for using the interest there is in them personally, to push for ideas they think are important. I suggest you see the movie and then come back and see whether Gore’s presence adds or detracts from the theme. - gavin]
11 May 2006 at 12:16 PM
Re #24: One site is the Alternative Energy Action Network, http://www.altenergyaction.org/mambo/ (One of the founders of that, Arthur Smith has occasionally posted in the comments section of Real Climate.)
The Union of Concerned Scientists ( http://ucsusa.org/ ) also has a lot of info on alternative energy.
I’m not sure what these sites have in regards to the particular questions you raised…but they are certainly worth a look.
11 May 2006 at 12:36 PM
#re 24
Alternative energies to Fossil Fuels that can mitigate AGW are available, however we can only mitigate fossil fuel use and not replace entirely with any means currently available to us. If we combine, solar, geothermal, windmicrowind, wave, tidal, nuclear fission, biomass - ethenol based fuels then we could probably mitigate fossil fuel use by around 50% maybe.
11 May 2006 at 1:18 PM
A political/economic take on this — one answer would be for governments to buy the fossil fuel reserves (especially coal) from the private owners, or buy back the rights to mine them from public land. That gives the owners some ‘value’ for their ‘property rights’ — which might get us out of the monkey-trap of being unable to let go of the ‘investment in fossil fuels’ to be able to switch to developing sources of energy that don’t increase CO2.
11 May 2006 at 1:52 PM
jhm wrote in comment #24:
I strongly recommend the new book Winning The Oil Endgame by clean-energy pioneer Amory Lovins (of the Rocky Mountain Institute) et al. From the Winning The Oil Endgame abstract:
11 May 2006 at 2:37 PM
Roger (#25) - Even taking your result as a given (eg, that increases in hurricane damage over the next 50 years will be due much more to development patterns than to increases in climate-change induced frequency or intensity changes), I think I reach different conclusions than you do.
First: For policy relevance, you are comparing the wrong numbers. You should be comparing (dollars hurricane damage avoided ‘dhda’) per (dollar invested in adaptation ‘diia’) to (dhda) per (dollar invested in climate change reductions ‘diiccr’) to decide the more efficient approach. But let’s assume that dhda/diia is still larger than dhda/diiccr (and also that dhda/diiccr is less than one):
The second, more important point: I don’t think many (any?) emissions reduction advocates say we should be reducing emissions solely for the cause of hurricane reduction. There are a laundry list of standard reasons (saving ecosystems, agricultural impacts due to precipitation changes, permafrost thawing, heat waves, sea level rise, reduced snowpack impacts on water supplies, etc. etc. etc.) to reduce emissions. It is possible that for any individual item on this laundry list, adaptation is a preferable solution to mitigation. However, if you take the _sum_ of the laundry list, I would argue that the scales begin to tip towards mitigation as being a cost effective approach. And to properly understand the magnitude of this sum, you need to have some idea about the relationship of each individual item on the list to climate change…
(In fact, I think adaptation will still be necessary, both because there is some “committed” changes in the pipeline, but also because any good economist will tell you that this is a marginal cost problem: cost per ton GHG reduced will increase as low-hanging fruit is taken, and one presumes some adaptation measures are low cost and should be implemented regardless)
So I think that “honest policy assessment” _should_ take into account the links between climate mitigation and future disasters, and it is disingenuous to suggest otherwise.
11 May 2006 at 3:09 PM
With respect to Comment #30:
The suggestion seems to be that Al Gore is more interested in putting himself front and center than he is in the issue itself. But Gore has been pushing the issue of climate change for quite a while, and during most of this time, it was not politically beneficial for him to do so. Certainly, there are a lot of people who dislike him for a variety of reasons, but remember that in the election of 2000, he did receive a plurality of the votes. It is probably not true that the great majority of those who voted for him then did so because of his position on global warming. So, if he just manages to convince those who voted for him then and are now feeling even more sorry he wasn’t elected, that they should take global warming more seriously, he will have accomplished something.
As to conservatives who feel they can’t believe anything that man may say because of their dislike of him, I think they seriously have to ask whether the dislike is based on the relatively minor personality features they describe or if it is what he stands for. I’ve always found George W. Bush personally annoying for a variety of reasons, but if he had followed through on his 2000 campaign promise to do something about controlling greenhouse gas emissions, I would have swallowed my dislike and supported him on that issue. But he reneged on that promise. Unfortunately, conservatives in the US can find very few political figures they might respect who can lead them to sensible energy and climate policies. John McCain is the only one that comes immediately to mind. The situation seems quite different in Great Britain, where Margaret Thatcher took the issue quite seriously. That by itself shows that this need not be a partisan issue.
I think we must all learn to question some of our dearly held beliefs if we are going to make progress in this area. For example, many “environmentalists” are not ready to consider nuclear reactors as one part of the solution, but I think they will have to get to that. It is not the job of liberals to convince conservatives to pay attention. It is all our jobs to understand the science as best we can and to put pressure on our leaders to adopt solutions that will work.
11 May 2006 at 3:22 PM
Re #35
What would be extremely interesting to add to the dataset of just dollars per hurricane damage (since there are sensitivities to both raw geography and how insane we decide to be with development practices) would be a chart of how the 100-year flood (or hurricane damage equivalent) regions would change in an era of higher and warmer seas. Inside this country would be a start, but worldwide would eventually be needed.
So, if you were to take the changes of coastlines due to AGW, and then also look at the changes of predicted disaster zones due to AGW, you would likely get a very worrying picture indeed. Especially if you look at densely populated, previously safe areas that suddenly become regular disaster zones.
11 May 2006 at 4:22 PM
To Eric’s response to number 13: One of the things Gore emphasized in the question and answer session after the movie is that Time magazine’s “Be Very Worried” cover was not constructive. Gore’s point is that the U.S. has risen to challenges before, and exceeded all expectations. His major point is, “come on guys, lets show the world what we in the U.S. can do.” So the popular press is only just now catching up with the science. It seems a ways back in catching up with Gore.
Given the tenor of the tenor of the trailer for An Inconvenient Truth, Gore’s take on the Time cover seems a little hypocritical. Both are sensational, in the worst sense of the term. But then, as Gore himself explains in an interview over at Grist, it’s a trailer, it’s supposed to grab your attention quickly. Ditto magazine covers.
11 May 2006 at 4:40 PM
Re #36 (Leonard Evens):
“The situation seems quite different in Great Britain, where Margaret Thatcher took the issue quite seriously. That by itself shows that this need not be a partisan issue.”
I think this link serves to illustrate the current political debate about climate change in the UK.
11 May 2006 at 7:25 PM
Regarding #30 and #36 Appropriateness of Gore the messenger
I would tend to agree that a paradigm shift is in order–so a RANDOM thought shared out loud–perhaps if the likes of Milton Friedman, Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, and Silvio Berlusconi, et al, were converted, and then presented the Global Climate Change message to the world’s population, rather than the esteemed Al Gore, the message would fall in the right place(s). Business folks all surely have progeny.
For the reasons mentioned earlier, while I am sure to see the film, I wonder if the effort amounts to preaching to the choir, and polarizes receptivity for non-Gore fan base.
[Response: In person, Gore made it pretty clear that he thought it was invetiable that the U.S. “catches up” with the rest of the world. I think he is actually less concerned with trying to “convert” conservatives. He may be preaching to the choir, but the choir is not doing very much. He is trying to get serious people do not only recognize the problem, but to take up the challenge to do something about it. This is the part of the movie that resonated with me, at least. Gore is certainly trying to avoid polarizatoin. Whether he succeeds depends on how the movie fares in “mainstream” reviews I suppose. –eric]
11 May 2006 at 9:08 PM
re 13. response,
I think not catching up with the science is due to a failure by all governments in meeting their responsibilities. For evidence of that, please see the absence of federal, state and local officials at the planned TOWN MEETING ON GLOBAL WARMING this Saturday (May 13th) in Minneapolis, link below.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ClimateArchive/message/3193
11 May 2006 at 11:52 PM
Re #5, we don’t really need Katrina to argue for GHG reductions — we have maybe 50 other reasons to reduce (incl measures that not only reduce GHGs, but reduce other pollutants, as well).
It almost seems as if you are using scientists’ lack of ability to attribute Katrina (in part at least) to GW, as an excuse NOT to reduce any GHGs whatsoever, even if it means reducing them could save us money & strengthen the economy (even without consideration of reducing environmental harm). I know you are not…but it almost seems you are.
Anywho, Katrina is water under the bridge (or over the levee), so we should be focused on averting future catastrophes (both by reducing GHGs & smart adaptation), bec the science is getting stronger that GW is causing & will cause hurricanes to intensify–the physics & theory have always suggested such a possibility, and now evidence is indicating that is correct. Maybe great cost-effective GHG reductions won’t reduce hurricane intensity a whole lot, esp in the short run (I guess that’s your point), but any little bit of reduction in intensity might help. It’s often that that last umph of intensity or inch of water that causes the most damage.
So if you can prove at .05 significance that GW did not intensity Katrina, then we only have much worse to expect in the future, when GW really kicks in. So we really need to reduce GHGs mucho mucho, starting yesterday.
12 May 2006 at 3:40 AM
Re 25:
Roger, you seem to have made a value-judgment that counts hurricane damage in dollars, not human lives and livelihoods, and rates an expensive hotel on the Gulf Coast far above poor villages or towns in Cuba or Grenada.
I have lost enough sleep thinking of the suffering we are causing through our greenhouse gas emissions to worry about property values (as opposed to lives and livelihoods lost) along the coast lines of the rich world.
How should the society of Grenada adapt to perhaps another hurricane like Ivan in the next few years? Or, in future perhaps one every year, or maybe more every year? None of the Caribbean islands might be safe for people later this century. The US could, at an enormous cost, abandon the Gulf Coast, but where do the millions of people living on islands in the hurricane path go?
What is the societal or economic adaptation you suggest for the people along the Bay of Bengal? Just up and move if ever more destructive cyclones slam the coastline? Storm shelters may have reduced deaths, but cannot save fields and homes. Whilst people from northern India may have to flee the mega drought that beckons when the glaciers vanish.
Hurricanes kill people, destroy fields, homes and livelihoods. By heating the oceans we are fuelling the hurricanes of the future. Never mind the property values - is that not a good enough reason to reduce our emissions? I surely think so!
12 May 2006 at 4:37 AM
Rasmus said in post 26:
“Some good points here, but you should not forget another aspect of adaption: smart organisation. The thought springs to mind every time I visit London and see the rush-hour traffic there. Sitting in a car - one person in each - for hours commuting back and forth to work does not seem to me to be a very smart way of organising a society.”
Whilst there is certainly a case to be made for car sharing and various schemes, the fundamental problem we have in London is that fact that the roads are pretty much all roman-medieval. The city simply wasn’t built for the car. There were plans in the ’30s to totally revamp the city for this mode of transport but it never happened. We aren’t like other European cities that knock things down and build grand projects; we simply add a bit here and there, onto existing structures.
To truly reduce congestion would take something so radical as to be unpalatable to the politicians. The congestion charge is a payment made by people driving into central London and it stands at £5 per journey. Our evening paper yesterday reported in outraged tones that the mayor is thinking of increasing it to £10. I support this but I doubt many other people will. Still, if you think congestion is bad now, you should have seen it before charging was introduced.
12 May 2006 at 6:45 AM
Jim Redden, your RANDOM thought may be the Holy Grail. Not only would the message fall in the right place(s). It would fall upon the essential vested interests; all of whom have an ox in the changing climate ring that is likely to get gored..and that was not a pun.
Elected politicians punch a 2, 4 and 6 year time clock. Having lobbied US Congress members for three decades, I can attest to their ADD. How to keep legislators and Executive Branch operators focused on a concern that plays out over decades, with upfront pain of uncertain magnitude and uncertain gain, in their lifetimes and certainly careers, is the near-hopeless task environmental activists have set out to accomplish.
Then, there are the day traders and CEOs who have everything to lose if climate scientists have it right and -worse- underestimated timing and magnitude of the change. Archer Daniels Midland is betting the farm on expanding ethanol production - investing hundreds of billions in new capacity - without knowing if an ice-free Arctic will doom production of the grain feedstock.
The insurance industry is getting it and fast. Other industry types will — eventually. It is the greater challenge to identify the eventual corporate deer-in-the-headlights and begin a dialogue about their survival and adaptation. But, envirornmental groups are antagonistic to capitalists and the religious community may not have the tools nor focus to step up to the corporate world with a message that does not reek of justice and social responsibility (maybe I am wrong there).
Jim, keep working that RANDOM thought on this page if you can. It is as valuable as cracking the THC mystery.
John McCormick
12 May 2006 at 8:39 AM
The sister problem to global warming is peak oil. While the debate still rages, had anybody listed to Deffeyes, she would be long on oil and driving a Prius. Anybody taking Yergin’s side would have a sorry portfolio of airlines and GM and be driving a Hummer. We may pretend the debate is still relevant but we all know who we would have been better off heeding. To bad our government didn’t listen.
If bark beetles are as smart as humans they must be congratulating themselves on their success. There has never been more of them populating the Kenai. I can imagine a Roger Pielke Beetle advising his fellow beetles that we don’t need to stop killing the spruce, all we have to do is adapt. Obviously a circular argument belonging in the circular file. When the last spruce is dead so are the bark beetles.
David Iles (#26) is spot on and vastly more polite than I am. Adaptation means to stop engaging in the behaviors which are killing us and our biosphere. If we can’t do that then I submit that we are not adapting by definition. Adapting requires that we reduce emissions, stop cutting down the Amazonia, cease blowing up the mountains in the Appalachia, stop over fishing the oceans, stop destroying our soils with GM crops and factory farming and control our population. Using Katrina to set the stage for arguing for emissions reductions seems to me as scientifically rational as using melting glaciers and the rapid extinction of species. Anyway, my family members sold their home in Pensacola and moved North. Let the great hurricane debate rage on, but my money is on Emanuel. To bad our government isn’t listening.
Adaptation can save us but being proud of adaptation skills which we are not exhibiting is going to kill us. Humans are not that adaptable. We are a very large mammal on top of an ever increasingly fragile food chain.
To succinctly state the problem, there are 6.5 billion of us and the Earth’s carrying capacity may be 4 billion, but that number must be falling along with the tenuous state of our environment.
Roger, some more investment advise: Bush’s supply side economic ideology and his war against nobody to control the world’s oil supply seems to have already bankrupted us and looks poised to destroy our economy. I’ve been long gold for years now. I could be completely wrong but there is money to be made believing in peak oil, global warming and that Bush is an idiot. Understand, I am not saying our president is an idiot. I’m only suggesting that you can make money investing on that premise. I’m not saying you and Yergin and Bush are wrong, far from it. I’m just saying you all make excellent contrarian indicators. Peace.
12 May 2006 at 9:46 AM
Re: 22 (Re 20)
The concepts proposed by Pacala and Socolow could indeed be very useful.
My point is about the emissions profile. P&S propose a stabilisation of GHG emissions between 2000 and 2050 (I checked in your reference) and then a fall to zero net emissions in 2100. They claim it should stabilise GHG concentrations at 500 ppm.
I fail to see how this is consistent with claims by others (see my ref in 20) than strong reductions are needed by 2050 to achieve that kind of concentration level. They assume non zero emissions by 2100, I agree, but would that explain the difference in needed 2050 emissions levels ?
12 May 2006 at 10:20 AM
re 47.
Alain,
… THE world will warm by 3C, even under the most optimistic emissions projections for 2050, according to the UN group that studies global warming. …
… experts think it probable that pre-industrial carbon dioxide levels will double by 2050, even given successful efforts to contain greenhouse gas emissions. …
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,19030955-2703,00.html
What would a global rise in temperatures of 3C mean for the inhabitants of the world? - by 2050? by 2100? What about if the rate of increase in CO2 and global temperatures is even more rapid?
12 May 2006 at 10:32 AM
Re: Mitigation vs adaptation
Are we insane? Both mitigation and adaptation are crucial.
Those who argue that mitigation won’t reduce the severity of tropical cyclones, etc. are using a factually correct argument to support a fundamentally flawed concept. Sure, reducing GHG emissions won’t eliminate the problems that already exist, but they will head off even worse problems. Yes, it’s going to get worse, but it will be far more so without mitigation than with.
We’re probably already seeing increases in the severity of hurricanes, so that one like Katrina might be a one-in-five-years threat rather than a one-per-century threat. But without mitigation, it could become a one-per-annum threat, or even worse.
And there *are* critical points in the climate system: collapse of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, wholescale melting of permafrost, etc. Adaptation does nothing to reduce the likelihood of crossing these critical points, triggerring disaster.
In my opinion, arguments against mitigation are just the latest form of short-sighted contrarianism.
12 May 2006 at 11:02 AM
Almuth Ernsting (#43), FYI:
Pielke, Jr., R.A., J. Rubiera, C. Landsea, M. Fernandez, and R.A. Klein, 2003: Hurricane Vulnerability in Latin America and the Caribbean, Natural Hazards Review, 4: 101-114.
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/admin/publication_files/resource-1769-2003.21.pdf
I don’t want to divert attention from the RC focus on the broader themes of Gore’s movie, so won’t comment further on this thread. If you’d like to follow up on the questions of adapatation or hurricanes, there are plenty of opportunities on our site.
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/
Thanks to the RC folks for entertaining my infrequent rabble rousing here!
12 May 2006 at 11:13 AM
Re: Pacala and Socolow
The Pacala and Socolow wedges approach does aim for stabilization at 500 ppm. The idea is that the technology exists today to keep emissions, not GHG concentrations, at today’s level for the next 50 years. That would be a big improvement from the IPCC “business-as-usual” estimates but would not be stabilizing GHG concentrations. They assume by making this initial effort, the world will then be driven to develop the breakthrough technologies necessary to substantially reduce emissions beyond 2050 and achieve stablization of concentrations at 500 ppm.
Whether or not one agrees with those assumptions, it is an interesting and pragmatic take on what they call the “carbon problem”.
12 May 2006 at 11:20 AM
Pat, the posting software here chokes and dies over URLs with commas like the one you posted.
That link is to an Australian paper that cites the IPCC draft — which anyone who’s had a look at has agreed not to quote or distribute until the final version is released.
We have a topic for not discussing that draft, here; let’s use it.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/05/ipcc-draft-no-comment/
12 May 2006 at 12:12 PM
Regarding #30, #36, #40 and others
Whether Al Gore is the right messenger for Global warming or not, there seems to be no one else on his level of political popularity with the courage to raise his or her heads above the surface on the issue.
As far as the public is concerned according to the polls (as I have posted a number of times. see http://www.pollingreport.com/enviro.htm ), the public recognizes the importance of a healthy environment and the need for a much larger governmental response to global climate change. I have no doubt that Mr. Gore is fully aware of this.
I know four people who have met Mr. Gore and all of these, intelligent and discriminating people, were completely impressed by him and remarked on what a sincere person he was. He did, after all win the popular vote in 2001 even after a disastrously stupid (sorry Al) campaign in which he contorted himself into a bizarre political puppet, when what the public clearly was looking for was someone who was sincere. I think if he is willing to leave his handlers in the closet and show the people the person my friends met he has good chance of advancing this preeminently important issue.
Re: #46
Thank you Tony for your directness. I think evolution is pretty clear on the issue, species that do not show the correct adaptations to a changing environment die, regardless of the eloquence of their last words.
Re: 45 and Jim Reddons random thought.
Any leader in any sector that is willing to advocate intelligent adaptation to changing conditions would be a welcome change. However our current business leaders appear to have their heads firmly wedged into next quarters profits and apparently the view of the future is not to clear from that particular position.
Due to sickness and chance I happened to be watching PBS on Sunday an interview with the head of Southwest airlines and the founder of Valero Inc a major oil refinery. These are two business leaders that are know for their for far-sightedness and compassion towards their employees. They seemed to vigorously endorse the notion of more of the same along with a heaping helping of denial. Naturally peak oil, green house gases and changing climate never came up. Both were hard hit by Katrina but seemed to have no plans to adapt to changing times or even a willingness to recognize that we are in them.
I suppose I am one of those progressives that don’t have a particularly warm feeling about the corporate culture. My wariness is generated from reading history and an observation of current times. The corporate world has actively tried to promote their profit margins at the expense of the environment and the population’s health and welfare -often including their own workers - since the start of the industrial revolution. From the eight hour day and five day work week to seatbelts and safe handling of toxins, corporate structure has been violently opposed to even the most basic of precautions and they have tended to hold onto their positions until the last possible moment. I suppose appealing to their greed is a winning strategy, but I fear it will just keep us lurching from one crisis to another. I do agree any kind of forward motion is better then none.
12 May 2006 at 12:30 PM
I think the questions of post 48 are important ones for the contributors to Real Climate to answer. As the proponderance of evidence against the ideas of the naysayers becomes more publically available and well known, I suspect the naysayers will switch their tactics from denying anthropogenic global warming, to claiming that global warming isn’t a big deal, or that there is too much uncertainty in predicting the dangerous effects of global warming to justify action.
I think the contributors to Real Climate will do much to advance their mission if they take the initiative to begin addressing this line of argument before it gains too much momentum in the mainstream debate.
12 May 2006 at 12:42 PM
I’m a scientist. Would someone please add “GHG” (Global Hydrocarbon Glut?) and “AGW” (Accelerated Global Warming? Atlantic Geostrophic Wind?) to the glossary page (http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/category/extras/glossary/)? Thanks.
[Response: GHG= Greenhouse Gas, and AGW = Anthropogenic Global Warming… But your point is well taken! - gavin]
12 May 2006 at 2:04 PM
re 52. 48. 47.
Hank,
I found that Australian link at RC’s thread on ipcc-draft-no-comment.
My previous comment (48) was in reply to points made by Alain (47) of this thread dealing with emissions and GHG concentrations, therefore, your comment (52) that … We have a topic for not discussing that draft, here; let’s use it. seems inappropriate to me.
Another comment you made in 52, about agreeing to not quote or distribute info from the draft until the final version is released, does not apply to all of us.
See:
Open U.S. review of IPCC draft report is a good thing, despite criticism — Part 1, posted at climatesciencewatch on May 09, 2006:
http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/
12 May 2006 at 2:13 PM
There is a very good interview with Al Gore here:
“At Some Point, Reality Has Its Day”
By Eleanor Clift
Newsweek
28 April 2006
Note that it is a Newsweek/MSNBC interview, but the above link is to a copy posted at www.truthout.org.
12 May 2006 at 2:26 PM
Mike Salem wrote in comment #54:
I am reminded of something that electrical engineer and parapsychologist Dean Radin wrote in his book The Conscious Universe. He was writing about attitudes towards laboratory research on parapsychology but I think his comment has some resonance with “skeptical” attitudes towards antrhopogenic global warming and climate change:
Here’s hoping that AGW is beginning to reach Stage 4 now.
12 May 2006 at 2:35 PM
I notice junkscience.com has done a global warming “fact sheet” in response to news of Al Gores movie: (http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/)
I can spot a little cherrypicking, strawman erecting and obvious omission of relevant facts in it, but it would be great to read a one-off article on realclimate that thoroughly reviewed one such skeptical website piece to demonstrate the wide difference between armchair science and the actual science.
Just a suggestion, not an order
12 May 2006 at 3:29 PM
It’s bafflegab, stuff like “… emission … at lower energy [longer wavelength] radiation than the energy previously absorbed … since the absorbed energy has been transformed it cannot be said to be “reradiated”
They’re aiming to confuse the part of the voting population that doesn’t understand physics.
Oh, wait ….
12 May 2006 at 6:38 PM
I hope Gore’s movie will help the lay person distinguish between credible scientific conclusions and think-tank ideology on the issue of climate change.
Journalists are already beginning to grasp the difference. In today’s Wall Street Journal, Sharon Begley writes “Scientists Explain How They Attribute Climate-Change Data” (May 12, 2006; Page A15). Begley explains how climate scientists attribute increasing global average temperatures to increasing levels of greenhouse gases, rather than natural variations in climate. http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB114738549525950630-PAQRRj3liLdSTVVRteIvY6ETXP8_20060610.html?mod=tff_main_tff_top
Remarkably, (considering the history of the editorial page), this Wall Street Journal article explains the science of climate change without the phony “balance” provided by professional global warming skeptics, faking science with discredited think-tank talking points and advocacy-driven cherry picking. No Fred Singer claiming “satellites show no warming”, no Richard Lindzen complaining about alarmist scientists competing for research funds by spinning scary scenarios, nothing but credible, accomplished scientists clearly and dispassionately explaining the results of hard won research. I hope Gore’s movie will help the public understand the credibility of this approach.
Comments (#30) that Gore is “patronizing and insincere” reflect the success of an agenda-driven smear campaign against the man, rather than character of the man himself. I think Gore’s sincerity and his integrity are self-evident. Given his long commitment to global warming issues, and his apparent concern for getting the science right, he should be commended for his honesty and his passion, not condemned as “wooden” and self-serving.
12 May 2006 at 9:16 PM
“Assuming someone from Mr. Gore’s program is reading — please, the citations, the footnotes.”
He already has them out; *Earth in the Balance* has a somewhat dated collection of them. But for the best cites and footnotes you can (I’m a broken record) do no better than to look in the IPCC report, which has more, probably, than even experts in the field can read in their lives.
13 May 2006 at 7:46 AM
I wouldn’t read too much into the Wall Street Journal article: they have a well-deserved reputation for keeping a firewall between their (generally accurate) reporting and their (generally nonsensical) editorial page.
And a belated pile-on to the post at #30: I agree that unpopular people shouldn’t go around publicizing their beliefs, but the rule should apply to people I don’t like, not people A. Fortner doesn’t like. (And, by the way, it isn’t Al Gore’s movie.)
13 May 2006 at 8:06 AM
what do you think of this link? It is from “junkscience”…which is supposed to refer to the science that it is debunking. however…is this JUNK?
check out http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/
the guys makes strong arguments to sway the lay person and potentially politicians. thoughts????
13 May 2006 at 9:07 AM
Randolph, I’m aware of the book and the IPCC reports. But for purposes of supporting, and responding to questions and misrepresentations point by point when people are reacting to the movie of the slide show Mr. Gore is presenting — the references _for_each_point_in_each_slide_ could be presented.
We tell people who come in with grab-bag denial and disinformation talking points to please tell us where they got those ideas, specifically. “Scientists say” or “many would argue” isn’t sufficient reference to defend ideas, true or not.
Take the point raised above as just one example — if there’s a reference for invasive plants and warming _on_which_Mr._Gore’s_slide_is_based_ (not just “if there’s one somewhere anyone can find by hunting” for the topic) — it’d be helpful to know the cite, the exact one.
A slide show is a very boiled-down presentation. Just saying look in the old book or the IPCC for support is not effective argument.
Yes, I’m sure I can find support — but I’m not sure what I find is what his slide is based on, so I can’t argue in support of his point as effectively.
Have I been any clearer here? I’m asking for cites for the actual points in the actual slides because it’s actually educational and good practice when arguing a scientific issue to provide them, and be willing to adjust the discussion as research goes on.
13 May 2006 at 10:05 AM
This is off thread but, i could not find a email address for Realclimate so i am writting here with asuggestion for an article.i would really like to know more on the implications of these findings
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2004/s2261.htm
It is somewhat dated (2004) but this has got to be very significant to our climate. I tried a search of your site to find past articles and found nothing.
Thanks for all of your efforts to inform us on what is probally the most important topic to humanity and all the other critters stuck with us as the current dominant species.
13 May 2006 at 10:13 AM
Re: #64
I agree. IPCC has lots of references (so does RC) for us — but we’re interested enough to go digging.
I’m hoping that Gore’s book (same title as the movie) will contain the desired references.
13 May 2006 at 10:50 AM
david, see http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/07/the-acid-ocean-the-other-problem-with-cosub2sub-emission/
which is also about CO2 making the oceans more acidic.
13 May 2006 at 11:31 AM
Re #61 (and #63): We can indeed be thankful for the “firewall” that exists between the WSJ editorial page and news reporting. Nonetheless, I think it is important to encourage such good reporting so I sent an e-mail to the author of that article, Sharon Begley, thanking her for it and noting that it is a refreshing change from the sort of junk-science editorials and op-eds that we see on the editorial page of the WSJ.
[Response: I also think Begley’s article was excellent — very accurate and to the point. It was on the front page of the Marketplace section, and so should have have attracted a lot of readership. Though the reporting sections of the WSJ are not as biased as the editorial pages, they are by no means uniformly good either — recall the front page “Global Warming is a Myth” article they carried a few years back. One can hope that Begley’s article will set a new standard, but time will tell. I toyed with the idea of doing a “job well done” article on Begley (like the piece on Kristof a little while back), but decided there wasn’t enough to comment on. Nevertheless, I am very happy to declare here that it is indeed a job well done. As for that famous firewall between the editorial page and the reporting pages, in this instance one could wish it were just a little more leaky — at least in one direction (guess which one). –raypierre]
13 May 2006 at 12:15 PM
David, the ‘Contact’ email is under the ‘About’ link (top of each page)
13 May 2006 at 1:53 PM
Fortner,
See the movie. Stop confusing the presenter with the message. Nit pick at the movie, if you will. But address the message.
Why do we always have to tangle with those who look at fluff, who want a warm fuzzy feeling? Even responding to this makes me queasy. And queasy I was when I watched the editors here respond to it. Stooping.
The long and short of it: I suspect you do not think much of the science and less of Gore because he ran against your guy Bushâ?¦.and prefer to snip away at the messenger.
I, like you, am a novice in climatology. How hard it is to have an open mind. And it is hard, for all of us. Take politics elsewhere, please, where the media is the message.
13 May 2006 at 3:23 PM
Re #64: The Junk Science take on Greenhouse Warming.
There is a lot of good information here, and it starts off well. The explanation of the greenhouse effect leaves out the Stefan-Boltzmann law, which is rather fundamental to it. If found the following statement interesting, and I think it is valid:
Theoretically, if the planet’s surface cooled by radiation alone, then the greenhouse-induced surface temperature would be much warmer, about 350 degrees K (77 °degrees C), but atmospheric motion (convective towers carrying latent and sensible heat upwards and large scale circulation carrying it both upwards and polewards) significantly increase the “escape” of energy to space, leaving Earth’s surface more than 60 degrees C cooler than a static atmosphere would do.
[Response: Actually, even this statement is garbage. It takes the atmosphere as observed, which is already influenced by the redistribution of surface heating by convection, keeps it fixed, and then computes what the surface temperature would be if convection and surface turbulent heat fluxes were turned off. This is not a possible equilibrium state of the atmosphere. If you were to completely turn off the turbulent heat flux out of the surface and suppress convection, the atmosphere would be much colder than it is, and the vertical temperature gradient would be considerably weaker. It’s simply not correct to say that the convection increases the escape of energy to space. Another inconsistency is that if you shut off convection and surface turbulent fluxes, the atmosphere would be dry, which would make the planet still colder. All in all, the above is a pointless and misleading statement — unless the point is to mislead. –raypierre]
The trouble begins a little later:
Water accounts for about 90% of the Earth’s greenhouse effect — perhaps 70% is due to water vapor and about 20% due to clouds (mostly water droplets), some estimates put water as high as 95% of Earth’s total greenhouse effect. The remaining portion comes from carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, methane, ozone and miscellaneous other “minor greenhouse gases.” As an example of the relative importance of water it should be noted that changes in the relative humidity on the order of 1.3-4% are equivalent to the effect of doubling CO2.
The usual figure is 65% water vapor compared to other greenhouse gases. Adding in clouds at this point is not valid, because they also reflect incoming radiation and should be handled separately. The implication (not explicitly stated) is that only 10% of the greenhouse effect is from gases other than water vapor, which is false, it is 35%. This is dishonest accounting. Adding that some [invalid] “estimates” claim 95% water vapor is even more dishonest.
As for the statement about water vapor, it is ambiguous. If it means 4% relative to present levels (as it implies) it is false. If it means an absolute value of 4%, compared to the 1% level it is today, then it is true, but exactly what is going to make water vapor rise? Water vapor levels correspond to atmospheric temperature, so water vapor is a feedback to other climate forcings.
It gets worse. This is a very sleazy statement:
If we consider the warming effect of the pre-Industrial Revolution atmospheric carbon dioxide (about 280 parts per million by volume or ppmv) as 1, then the first half of that heating was delivered by about 20ppmv (0.002% of atmosphere) while the second half required an additional 260ppmv (0.026%). To double the pre-Industrial Revolution warming from CO2 alone would require about 90,000ppmv.
He is talking about the total effect of carbon dioxide, starting from zero. Doubling pre-Industrial Revolution warming means doubling from 33 degrees, which might well take 90,000 ppmv. This is deliberately intended to be confused with doubling carbon dioxide from pre-Industrial levels, which gives about 1.2 degress C in direct forcing, and about 3 degrees after feedbacks.
Maybe some other readers here can add to these observations.
13 May 2006 at 5:09 PM
Is this true?
This comes from junkscience.
Readers should be aware that the temperature effect of atmospheric carbon dioxide is logarithmic (that means there is a diminishing response as you keep adding more, like the additional window shade example, above). If we consider the warming effect of the pre-Industrial Revolution atmospheric carbon dioxide (about 280 parts per million by volume or ppmv) as 1, then the first half of that heating was delivered by about 20ppmv (0.002% of atmosphere) while the second half required an additional 260ppmv (0.026%). To double the pre-Industrial Revolution warming from CO2 alone would require about 90,000ppmv (9%) but we’d never see it - CO2 becomes toxic at around 6,000ppmv (0.6%, although humans have absolutely no prospect of achieving such concentrations).
[Response: The only part of this statement that’s true is the first sentence, the statement of toxicity, and the statement that humans have no prospect of increasing CO2 to 90000ppmv. The radiative forcing is indeed logarithmic, this is incorporated in the standard radiation physics used in every model, and it has been taken into account in every mainstream estimate of global warming going back to Arrhenius. The rest is a deception wrapped in pseudoscientific gobbledegook. Blair explained it well in his comment above. I actually do work on very high CO2 atmospheres, for dealing with the Early Earth and Snowball Earth problems, and based on the radiation codes I use, here are some numbers: Keeping the temperature and water vapor fixed at typical modern values, increasing CO2 from 280 ppm to 90000ppm would give you about 50 W/m**2 of additional radiative forcing. That’s actually a lot larger than the 30 W/m**2 CO2 radiative forcing you get going from none to 280 ppm with water vapor fixed. Evidently, the junk science writer didn’t take into account the fact that the radiative forcing becomes somewhat steeper than logarithmic at large CO2 values, when formerly weak bands start to become important. That 30 W/m**2, added to about 80 W/m**2 from water vapor, warms the Earth from about 255K (no greenhouse effect) to about 285K. Now, the 50 W/m**2 additional CO2 radiative forcing going to 90000ppmv would warm the Earth by an additional 25K, if we applied the same water vapor feedback coefficient from the present climate. In reality, the warming would be considerably greater, since water vapor feedback becomes more effective at high temperatures. –raypierre]
[Response: I’ve been thinking some more about what kind of deception the JunkScience.com writer was trying to pull off here. My reading is that he is setting up the false premise that people are concerned about doubling CO2 because they think that doubling CO2 would double the total radiative forcing — then he debunks that hypothetical belief, leaving the reader with the feeling that doubling CO2 is no big deal so far as radiative forcing goes. That’s a false impression to leave the reader with, because in fact doubling the radiative forcing of CO2 would be a huge deal. If the radiative forcing of CO2 were actually linear in concentration, then when contemplating doubling CO2 we’d be talking not just about the risk of exterminating polar bears, but about extinguishing everything less hardy than a thermophilic bacterium. Because the climate change from a doubling of total CO2 radiative forcing is so incredibly massive, it doesn’t provide an appropriate frame of reference for thinking about the radiative forcing that would actually be caused by a doubling of CO2. It’s a darn good thing that radiative forcing is only logarithmic in CO2 — otherwise, climate would have undergone such massive fluctuations in the past that it’s unlikely that any multicellular life would be around today to think about things like radiative transfer. ]
13 May 2006 at 5:29 PM
For the record, Mr. Gore does not claim to have been sitting in Dr. Revelle’s class in 1958. He simply says that Revelle began his C02 studies about that time. Mr. Gore merely states that Revelle was one of his most admired professors. When exactly he studied with him remains unclear, at least to the rest of us.
13 May 2006 at 9:00 PM
re 69. 61.
I also sent an email to the WSJ for the article by Sharon Begley. I said … Comment 41. at RC (below) shows part of why I think the public needs help to understand how scientists attribute climate-change data. Your article will help. I have done work that shows other signatures of global warming, including some related to polar (and mod-high latitude) amplification, and some on increasing overnight low temperatures and winter-spring temperature averages in the Upper Midwest. … ref to TOWN MEETING:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ClimateArchive/message/3193
… Thanks for doing your article.
There was some positive discussion on the al gore movie at the TOWN MEETING. Presentations included Explorer Will Steger on Anarctica-Arctic (great discussion of Will’s experience crossing two mile thick Greenland ice sheet), State Representative Keith Ellison (on global warming concerns and alternative energy), Lynn Hinkle, UAW 879 (â??Ford Green Proposalâ?? to stay in St. Paul… reasons for failure), Chad Kister (author of Arctic Melting: How Climate Change Is Destroying One of the Worldâ??s Largest Wilderness Areas), Phyllis Walker, President AFSCME Local 3800 & Former New Orleans resident (failure of federal government to help out New Orleans), Professor Mark Davis, Macalester College Biology Department (told the group not to exaggerate global warming consequences (his perspective) and Christine Franks (planned the meeting and arranged for reading of letters from a few of the mayors in the Twin Cities area. I gave my power point presentation on Climate Change in the Red River Valley (full page op-ed in the Grand Forks Herald, May 4, 2006). My power point presentation for the TOWN MEETING is now at my photos link, …
… (click Mighty Mouse).
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/patneuman2000/my_photos
13 May 2006 at 9:49 PM
Milloy is just setting up a classic straw man fallacy Ray if I read your comments correctly. I’m just a biologist and the context of these numbers and elements is critical. I have to work my butt off just to keep track of all the shellgaming going on with the sceptic mercenaries. To the regular scientifically illiterate citizenery Milloy can be convincing. He’s a political tool. That’s a crime in my view. Get yur snake oil here, step right up!
[Response: It’s easy for somebody like Milloy to make the effect of CO2 look small to the naive reader. A 4 watt/m**2 change in the radiation budget is only something like 1% of the Earth’s energy budget, right? So maybe we get a 1% change in temperature, sort of, right? But what the naive reader, used to degrees C or degrees F (measured relative to freezing) doesn’t realize is that in all the physics, what counts is degrees KELVIN — i.e. measured relative to absolute zero. Life occupies a small operating range of temperature, measured relative to absolute zero, and multicellular life a still smaller range. Hence, a 1% change of temperature is in fact a big deal to us. 1% of a 285K temperature is 2.85K. –raypierre]
14 May 2006 at 12:24 AM
I don’t think it was Milloy. The argument was too sophisticated. It must have been written by someone with a fair grasp of the underlying science. The normal names come to mind.
14 May 2006 at 1:02 AM
The bioshpere and co2 levels would have evolved together, cooperatively, to get the temperature just right for maximum work. Even geologicaly, over time, evolution would have naturally buried enough excess carbon to get it right, in a sense all those mass extinctions served a long term goal.
Reading real climate, wikopedia and google scholar gives me the willies. Evolution seems intelligent, effecting global change to maximize biological output.
I wonder, how many extinctions evolution normally poduces at this stage of recent glacial cycles. I wonder if the evolution of mammals over time tended to increase their effect on noticable co2 levels.
14 May 2006 at 8:58 AM
Hello,
Fox’ “Journal Editorial Report” had this report Saturday. The link doesn’t have the complete transcript [yet? I don’t know what their policy is] so, you don’t get to read the comments by the panel, but maybe one can get the video (I have a dial-up connection, and can’t be bothered to spend that much effort to see something that agrivating for a second time). One comment that sticks inmy mind, and my craw, was something like ‘Even if GW is a fact, the best responce is business as usual, stay rich and adapt.’ Wow.
14 May 2006 at 10:18 AM
The following is from Milloy’s explanation of the greenhouse effect. I realize it fails to deal with the importance of the temperature at which a greenhouse gas radiates into space. But I am still having trouble understanding how it works at a basic molecular level, so I am not sure which parts of this are correct. In particular, it is true that a greenhouse gas must “re-radiate” (to use the forbidden term) at a longer wavelength? If so, I would think very little energy with the right wavelength would ever reach the top of the troposphere.
Greenhouse gases, therefore, do not “trap heat,” but could be fairly described as delaying the energy transfer from Earth to space. “Trapping heat” implies that the energy is stuck in the system forever — this is a false notion. Greenhouse gases do not emit energy in the same bandwidth that they absorb energy, and thus emissions from carbon dioxide are not absorbed by carbon dioxide. While energy may be delayed on its inevitable journey back to space, it will eventually be emitted regardless of the number of intervening stages.
Do greenhouse gases ‘reradiate’ the infrared radiation they absorb?
This is an unfortunate expression that is all too common. Absorbed radiation is transformed to either kinetic or potential energy and, as such, no longer exists in its original form — hence, it cannot be “reradiated.” When molecules absorb infrared radiation they are said to become excited (”hot”). Such molecules can release energy usually in one of three ways: by chemical reaction (uncommon, since greenhouse gases are pretty stable and non-reactive); quenching (transferring energy to cooler molecules, increasing their temperature) and; emission (usually at lower energy [longer wavelength] radiation than the energy previously absorbed). Once more, since the absorbed energy has been transformed it cannot be said to be “reradiated”.
[Response: Some of this is incorrect, and other bits are technically correct but basically just nitpicking about terminology. There are many levels at which the greenhouse effect can be understood, and a rather basic notion of energy balance suffices for most purposes. The point of statements like the one above is to persuade people that the whole thing is so complicated that they can’t possibly understand it, and by implication that people like Gore are clueless when they talk about the system. In fact, the basics are very, very simple and should be readily comprehensible to anybody who has ever spent a night under a down comforter or in a sleeping bag. There is only one way a planet loses heat, and that’s by infrared radiation to space. Greenhouse gases insulate the planet against this energy loss,thus allowing the planet to say warmer with the same energy input. In this sense, they work in just the same way as a blanket or sleeping bag — not generating heat, but “keeping heat in” so that you can maintain the same temperature difference between your body and the great outdoors while expending less energy. Would you say that “trapping heat” is a fundamentally flawed explanation of how a blanket works? Does anybody think a blanket traps heat forever, so that you’d be burned to crisp by morning? Lots of the rest of the discussion of absorption and reradiation is also just a matter of semantics, and some is just plain wrong. It’s true that you can’t tag and trace an individual photon after it’s been absorbed, but no physicist thinks of it this way, and I doubt that the lay audience thinks at that microscopic level when thinking about a statement like “absorption and reradiation.” Though energy is transformed, it is never lost, and if you simply think in terms of energy fluxes, you won’t go too far wrong. Greenhouse gases high up absorb a great deal of the infrared flux coming from below. The net energy balance (which includes absorption,emission and convective heat transport) keeps the upper levels colder than the lower levels. Since colder levels radiate infrared more feebly than warmer levels, the cold levels have essentially intercepted the infrared from below, and replaced it with new infrared radiated at a colder temperature. It’s not so terribly bad a description of this to simply say that these levels absorb infrared and reradiate it at a lower temperature — it’s just a matter of what you mean by “it,” and I doubt that anybody but radiation physicists thinks too much about that. By the way, about the business of emission and absorption being at different wavelengths: Lot’s of the JunkScience.com description is wrong. The upward infrared into the upper troposphere is compounded of emission from the surface and emission from clouds and greenhouse gases. This emission is indeed partly or largely absorbed by the same greenhouse gases that contribute to the emission from below. The re-radiation (or “replacement radiation,” if you will) from the colder upper layer does indeed have a different spectrum from the incident radiation, but the shift in wavelength with temperature is a relatively small contribution to this. The main contribution comes from the fact that the upward infrared is already “depleted” in those wavelengths which greenhouse gases absorb well. However, by Kirchoff’s law, the emission is strongest in those bands where the greenhouse gas is the best absorber. That means that the CO2 in the cold upper troposphere is radiating mainly around the 15 micron band, whereas the absorption is more or less occurring in the complement of this band, or at least on its fringes. This is what allows the tropopause temperature to be substantially below the skin temperature. From the standpoint of the way the greenhouse effect works, the spectral niceties are more or less irrelevant — the net effect is still that the GHG reduces the rate at which infrared is lost to space, for any given surface temperature. Oh, and of course, all this physics, including the spectral niceties, is fully incorporated in climate models. It’s just a matter of how much of it the informed public needs to understand in order to make informed decision about carbon emissions and energy policy. For that, the blanket analogy works perfectly well. What’s much more consequential from the policy perspective are things like the nature of cloud uncertainties, the geographic distribution of climate change, the way precipitation might change in critical areas, and the chemical oceanographic stuff that determines the lifetime of CO2 in the atmosphere. –raypierre]
14 May 2006 at 10:35 AM
thanks to all above for the comments on the “junk” science article. The name is fitting huh? These often appear in fox news(go figure!!!) and for those not involved in heavy duty climate modelling, it is hard to really understand what is going on. Their arguments muddy up the waters of understanding these highly complex radiative non-linear processes. i have learned a lot. thanks all!
14 May 2006 at 10:46 AM
one more comment….has anyone noticed the continuing anomalously low arctic sea ice extent? It has been running very low since last fall’s record minimum….except for a brief period in November. In fact I believe it has been near or at record low levels (since 1979) almost every month. check out….
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.365.jpg
This is scary because it seems that each year it is getting lower and lower faster(feedbacks kicking in now?). I hope this pace of ice l