Catholicism and Climate Change

[Ender]

As you can see, the linear trend for ENSO-adjusted HadCRUT figures from 1995 to 2007 is higher than what he quoted for his non-ENSO-adjusted figures – 0.16 degrees C/decade.

Given that ENSO is a cyclical event I assumed that, if it increased temperature for half of its cycle it would have to reduce it in the other half, but in order for the non-ENSO data to be higher from 1995-2009 the ENSO cooling in the first five years of that period would have to have been larger than the amount of warming in the next ten. Is that your position? It may be that Jones’ comment was valid but he certainly doesn’t deserve the benefit of the doubt, not with what the hacked emails revealed about the practices he presided over at CRU.

Those who turned his answer into “There has been no global warming since 1995” were the ones who were being disingenuous.

That wasn’t my comment and I don’t feel any need to defend it or the people who made it.

I really don’t understand, in one case your accusing Jones of trying to “sell his position” for answering the question truthfully instead of trying to make it look better by using ENSO, etc., and in the other case where he is trying to take out the effects of ENSO you assume his intentions are bad as well.

Not so … I don’t know what “other case” you refer to. I will certainly admit that in general I find his actions suspect.

Can you understand NOAA’s statement that a decade of 0.00 is not significant?

Sure. I also understood their contention that 15 years of zero warming would in fact be significant - which goes to the point about the supposed irrelevance of short periods of time, which is what the video you cited was all about.

Ender

 

[Ender]

So is the earth still warming? You tell me:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/images/Total-Heat-Content.gif

Well, according to NOAA, for the last decade the answer is no. Based on your chart it would appear that the answer is yes so which is it? It sure looks like the ocean has been heating up over the same period that the land has not and I would like to know how that is possible.

CO2 blocks IR heading up from the ground into space. CO2 re-emits that IR in random directions, half of which send the IR back to the ground from which it came.

That’s why it warms the earth.

There is no dispute over how this is supposed to work but what we have apparently seen for the last decade is that the Earth has not warmed but the sea has. Do you have a mechanism that explains this?

Ender

 

[lynnvinc]

This is a partial list of Chosen Funding relationships of CRU

Quote:
This list is not fully exhaustive, but we would like to acknowledge the support of the following funders (in alphabetical order):
British Council,
British Petroleum,
Broom’s Barn Sugar Beet Research Centre,
Central Electricity Generating Board,
Centre for Environment,
Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (CEFAS),
Commercial Union,
Commission of European Communities (CEC, often referred to now as EU),
Council for the Central Laboratory of the Research Councils (CCLRC), Department of Energy,
Department of the Environment (DETR, now DEFRA),
Department of Health,
Department of Trade and Industry (DTI),
Eastern Electricity,
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), Environment Agency,
Forestry Commission,
Greenpeace International,
International Institute of Environmental Development (IIED),
Irish Electricity Supply Board,
KFA Germany,
Leverhulme Trust,
Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF),
National Power,
National Rivers Authority,
Natural Environmental Research Council (NERC),
Norwich Union,
Nuclear Installations Inspectorate,
Overseas Development Administration (ODA),
Reinsurance Underwriters and Syndicates,
Royal Society,
Scientific Consultants,
Science and Engineering Research Council (SERC),
Scottish and Northern Ireland Forum for Environmental Research,
Shell,
Stockholm Environment Agency,
Sultanate of Oman,
Tate and Lyle,
UK Met. Office,
UK Nirex Ltd.,
United Nations Environment Plan (UNEP),
United States Department of Energy,
United States Environmental Protection Agency,
Wolfson Foundation
World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF).

Shocking and horrifying. Why aren’t there 1000s of orgs and people on that list. Don’t people understand the seriousness of AGW. We talking destruction of most of life on planet earth, if not ALL of life on planet earth (as a few top climate scientists are warning), and people are just tweedling their thumbs out there. Wake up, people.

 

[kimmielittle]

Shocking and horrifying. Why aren’t there 1000s of orgs and people on that list. Don’t people understand the seriousness of AGW. We talking destruction of most of life on planet earth, if not ALL of life on planet earth (as a few top climate scientists are warning), and people are just tweedling their thumbs out there. Wake up, people.

Hmmm Didn’t you forfeit this debate when you got folks from RealClimate to debate for you?

 

[lynnvinc]

Well, according to NOAA, for the last decade the answer is no. Based on your chart it would appear that the answer is yes so which is it? It sure looks like the ocean has been heating up over the same period that the land has not and I would like to know how that is possible.
There is no dispute over how this is supposed to work but what we have apparently seen for the last decade is that the Earth has not warmed but the sea has. Do you have a mechanism that explains this?

Ender

Considering that a watched pot never boils…I’d say that’s a remarkable indication of AGW, which also includes the oceans (known for their thermal inertia, which housewives can understand), as well as the atmosphere & land. Esp when one considers that there have been natural factors that should have cooled the earth significantly (with the oceans lagging behind in a decade or so due to their inertia) – such as the sun being in minimum (of irradiance) for the past 11 years. The question should be why didn’t the earth cool significantly?

It’s going to be hell to pay when the sun decides to do its thing and increase its irradiance, piggy-backed on the human-caused warming. Of course, some of that energy will be going into melting the cryosphere rather than warming the atmosphere/land/ocean. So again, just because a simple model that does not consider the oceans or the cryosphere doesn’t seem to jive as well as the more sophisticated models do, it doesn’t mean there’s no GW.

Watch out for the methane that is increasingly being released as those frozen hydrates and permafrost melt, which causes further warming, which causes further melting, which causes further warming, and so on. Pretty soon (in geological terms) we’ll be able to say, naturally caused warming far outweighs AGW and is the main factor…and the denialists will jump for joy that they at last are proven right.

But what are we doing to our children? Why do we hate them so much? Why are we pulling this trigger on their lives?

 

[lynnvinc]

Hmmm Didn’t you forfeit this debate when you got folks from RealClimate to debate for you?

The RealClimate scientists are tops. They and their guest posters are the gold standard, and I rely on them and peer-reviewed science.

If you seriously want to learn something about AGW, go and ask them. They know, and they are frank about what they don’t know.* They are quite gracious and forthcoming in clarifying legitimate doubts and issues. There’s no point in trying to debate the fine points of the science with anyone here, when there are really top experts who can much better handle any questions or doubts you may have. I can speak to the basics of AGW (which should be enough for most people), but if people are still in doubt they really ought to approach the experts on the more sophisticated climate change issues. They’re great. they’ll clarify things.

I think anyone who has decided to summarily exclude anything bona fide climate scientists have to say about AGW and to rely soley on the fringe skeptical few (who also say AGW is happening) and what nonclimate scientists and the Rush Limbaughs have to say on it has forfeited the debate.

---

*For instance, then Hurricane Emily came to our place in S. Texas in summer 2005, the Brownsville weatherman showed video of huge hail coming down, and said that he had never heard of such a thing during a hurricane. I went over to RC and asked them about it, and they also couldn’t explain it. (I’m thinking that eventually some scientists will find out is was related to some effects of AGW…but who knows.)

 

[lynnvinc]

I hope we can agree that warming melts ice. Here’s the latest on arctic ice; see “Arctic Melt Extreme in 2010, Again: The extent of Arctic sea ice is reaching the third-lowest point ever recorded…” at
thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/arctic-sea-ice-melt-0908 :

http://www.thedailygreen.com/cm/thedailygreen/images/Rs/arctic-sea-charts-sept-100908.jpg

 

[Monte_RCMS]

I had to do a screen capture - Sigh I’m still trying to get my programs, I paid for, to work on this new computer.

Hope this helps
http://forums.catholic-questions.or...s.org/picture.php?albumid=1061&pictureid=7272

http://forums.catholic-questions.org/picture.php?albumid=1061&pictureid=7272

Instead of comparing one day of each year, take a look at the WHOLE year.

NO reduction in arctic ice extent.

What the comparison of one day per year does is just cause emotional responses.

I understand that showing the whole year is not emotionally satisfying. But the data are what the data are.

Not exciting to show that the arctic ice extent is normal.

[AND ANOTHER THING: when someone says it is the third lowest ever recorded, that is utterly false and misleading … because the data is satellite data which has only been collected for a short time.

AND ANOTHER THING: we already know that in the 1920’s or 1930’s there were press reports of low ice extent [it’s posted somewhere here on CAF] … but it recovered. So what we are dealing with is normal and natural cyclical changes in ice extent.

All normal and natural.

PLEASE stop with the emotional appeals.

 

[stevegravy]

I wasn’t going to comment but cannot help myself.

For all the Kool-Aid Drinkers, and you know who you are, and to those who do not imbibe all I got to say is …. Who Cares!!! So many other good ways to end the world without the Iranians getting the bomb and starting nuclear conflagration.

The super volcano under Yellow Stone is over due for a blow out and so is Mount Vesuvius. There is that island in Canaries it’s breaking in half and ripe to fall into the Atlantic setting off a super tsunami. Don’t forget there is an Asteroid or Comet out there with your name on it. And if that isn’t enough to scare the daylights out of you, soon coming from a sun near you a big huge Magnetic Storm. It will produce a super giant eruption of solar flares, winds and particle ejecta that will knock out the entire electric grid of the planet. It could happen just as the magnetic field which is due for a flip is flipping out…It is indeed the end of the world, as we know it.

So, don’t worry be happy.

 

[FOFEBA]

Just google the acidification of the oceans, if you doubt that we are in crisis. You don’t unacidify or decalcify the oceans easily or quickly at the rate that we are lowering the Ph.

Anyone who is not taking this seriously is being irresponsible, and is in denial.

 

[markbrumbaugh]

I hope we can agree that warming melts ice. Here’s the latest on arctic ice; see “Arctic Melt Extreme in 2010, Again: The extent of Arctic sea ice is reaching the third-lowest point ever recorded…” at
thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/arctic-sea-ice-melt-0908 :

http://www.thedailygreen.com/cm/thedailygreen/images/Rs/arctic-sea-charts-sept-100908.jpg

So you think the third lowest in 32 years is statistically significant over the last 5-6 billion years? (“Ever Recorded”???) Give me a break.

By the way, we had the most rain last week, for the WHOLE month!!! Its going to flood, I just know it.

 

[Ender]

Considering that a watched pot never boils…I’d say that’s a remarkable indication of AGW, which also includes the oceans (known for their thermal inertia, which housewives can understand), as well as the atmosphere & land. Esp when one considers that there have been natural factors that should have cooled the earth significantly (with the oceans lagging behind in a decade or so due to their inertia) – such as the sun being in minimum (of irradiance) for the past 11 years. The question should be why didn’t the earth cool significantly?

I was actually hoping for something a little more scientific than “a watched pot never boils.” In order for the oceans to warm the extra heat has to come from somewhere and if that somewhere is from enhanced greenhouse warming then, given that the radiation strikes the land with equal intensity, why didn’t the land warm? What natural factors cool the earth without cooling the atmosphere, and what do you mean that the oceans lag because of their inertia? If you remove a pot from the stove it immediately starts to cool, it cannot continue to get hotter without a heat source. In order for the oceans to warm for the last decade there must have been a heat source for them over that same period of time. So, what was heating the oceans but wasn’t heating the earth and how could that possibly be enhanced greenhouse warming?

Ender

 

[Monte_RCMS]

I wasn’t going to comment but cannot help myself.

For all the Kool-Aid Drinkers, and you know who you are, and to those who do not imbibe all I got to say is …. Who Cares!!! So many other good ways to end the world without the Iranians getting the bomb and starting nuclear conflagration.

The super volcano under Yellow Stone is over due for a blow out and so is Mount Vesuvius. There is that island in Canaries it’s breaking in half and ripe to fall into the Atlantic setting off a super tsunami. Don’t forget there is an Asteroid or Comet out there with your name on it. And if that isn’t enough to scare the daylights out of you, soon coming from a sun near you a big huge Magnetic Storm. It will produce a super giant eruption of solar flares, winds and particle ejecta that will knock out the entire electric grid of the planet. It could happen just as the magnetic field which is due for a flip is flipping out…It is indeed the end of the world, as we know it.

So, don’t worry be happy.

YOU FORGOT THAT THE EARTH’S MAGNETIC FIELD IS BEGINNING TO FLIP!

The north and south magnetic poles will reverse polarity. The process is overdue. When it is underway, the earth’s magnetosphere which protects us from electrical storms from the sun will go away momentarily, which could be decades or centuries and kill every living thing. And the process of the magnetosphere weakening has already started … over Brazil.

We are definitely doomed. We are all going to die.

The sky is definitely falling.

Without question.

Eat, drink and be merry, therefore.

Or, say your prayers.

No delay.

 

[markbrumbaugh]

YOU FORGOT THAT THE EARTH’S MAGNETIC FIELD IS BEGINNING TO FLIP!

The north and south magnetic poles will reverse polarity. The process is overdue. When it is underway, the earth’s magnetosphere which protects us from electrical storms from the sun will go away momentarily, which could be decades or centuries and kill every living thing. And the process of the magnetosphere weakening has already started … over Brazil.

We are definitely doomed. We are all going to die.

The sky is definitely falling.

Without question.

Eat, drink and be merry, therefore.

Or, say your prayers.

No delay.

Good news. I’m going short the South Pole and long on the North. Anyone want to buy any polarity offsets?
I’m going to sell them on E-Bay and save the planet.

 

[Monte_RCMS]

Good news. I’m going short the South Pole and long on the North. Anyone want to buy any polarity offsets?
I’m going to sell them on E-Bay and save the planet.

[P.S. where IS algore? … trying to figure out how to get a date??? ]

 

[JasonSB]

Look, when the scientists at East Anglia revealed that for ten years they had been faking the AGW data and models and everything else, THAT WAS WHEN THE TITANIC HIT THE ICEBERG.

People can argue all day about a misplaced comma or the correct sixth significant figure in an exponent, but they ADMITTED full culpability in the Climategate 1000 emails that they had been and have been faking it all along.

This is absolutely fascinating.

Please explain how what the emails say led you to conclude that the scientists at East Anglia had been “faking AGW data and models and everything else”, and that they had “admitted full culpability”. I would really love to know how you got from the contents of the emails to the conclusions you’ve reached above.

 

[JasonSB]

It worked!!

Thank you, Kimmee.

The graph shows that there is a normal range for arctic ice extent and current ice extent is within normal range.

Heh – why didn’t you go the whole hog and just plot data from 2007 to show how sea ice is “recovering”?

Here’s another view with a bit more context:



You’re showing data corresponding to the last nine crosses on the right of that chart.

You’re right: Move along, nothing to see here.

Sorry, Jason, but manipulative consolidations of data and averages and all that … nope.

Taking an average is “manipulating data”? That’s funny, I’ve always thought of taking the average as a good way to filter out random noise.

I’ve also always thought of deliberately choosing a very small subsample of the available data as “cherry picking”, but perhaps that’s just me. Not only choosing a small sample but also graphing it in a way that is guaranteed to disguise any underlying trend seems like the sort of thing that, if the ClimatGate emails revealed the scientists to be doing it, would have been jumped all over by anti-AGW’ers as fraudulent.

Arctic ice is doing just fine, thank you.

Maybe on your planet.

On another forum, somebody switched the argument to ice density, until it was pointed out that there was NO HISTORICAL DATA on ice density.

There’s certainly data on ice volume over the time frame that you’re cherry-picking, correct? Care to construct a graph showing that?

 

[JasonSB]

You seem to not understand a difference between a causal relationship and a chosen relationship.

No, you don’t seem to understand how research funding works.

British Petroleum,
Greenpeace International,
Shell,
World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF).

So, are they stooges for Big Oil playing down climate change so their corporate overlords can continue raking in billions selling oil, or are they “environmentalists” helping to bring about one world government? Must be hard for them to know which way to fake the data, eh?

Or – and this is just a crazy idea, but bear with me – they are scientists who are given grants to help fund scientific investigation.

Has it occurred to you that in a world where the environment is being destroyed, it is natural for environmental groups to want to fund science?

If the science didn’t support them, they might – oh, I don’t know, fund think tanks and PR firms to confuse the issue instead. And instead of offering grants to established and prestigious research groups, they might, say, offer $10,000 to anyone who can prove what they want proven? Hmm… Why does that sound familiar?

 

[JasonSB]

Hmmmm Correct?
Surface: S + \lambda A = G
Atmosphere: \lambda G = 2 \lambda A
Planet: S = \lambda A + (1-\lambda) G
???

Yes, as I already explained. (You’re back to using Gavin’s formulas but it doesn’t matter.)

Surface: S + lambda x A = G

The radiation being emitted by the ground must be equal to the radiation being absorbed by the surface that’s coming from the sun plus the radiation being absorbed by the surface that’s coming from the greenhouse gas layer.

Atmosphere: lambda x G = 2 x lambda x A

lambda x G is the portion of the radiation emitted by the ground that’s absorbed by the atmosphere, half of which goes up (lambda x A) and half of which goes back down to the surface (lambda x A). This is really a definition of what “lambda x A” means (i.e. it’s half of whatever is absorbed by the atmosphere).

Planet: S = lambda x A + (1 - lambda) x G

The radiation being released from the greenhouse gas layer into space (lambda x A) plus the radiation from the ground that passed straight through the greenhouse gas layer and escaped into space ((1 - lambda) x G) must be the same as the radiation that’s abosrbed from the sun (S).

Just remember, this is a very simple model that doesn’t include many of the physical processes that must be accounted for in a real climate model (e.g. convection) and it’s useless comparing it to the current earth situation because the earth isn’t in equilibrium – it’s warming. Its purpose is to explain the underlying principle.

 

[NEWCATHOLICJEFF]

Dear friends,

This is my first post on this website, thanks for your answers.

I’m a committed Catholic from Sydney, Australia, and last night I was having a good conversation with a friend who is an athiest-humanist.

He actually didn’t pit the question to me directly, but if he did, I wouldn’t actually have known what to say:

What is the Catholic Church’s position on climate change? Why aren’t more Christian leaders committed to climate change, when the science so clearly points out that it is real and the planet’s fate depends on the climate?

Is the answer that we are still not convinced of the science?
Or that we are already quite active?
Or that there are more pressing moral issues to be dealt with, such as abortion and other life issues?

Or is the answer that the climate is such a big thing, that it is really beyond human control, and something that is really in God’s hands?
Is the answer that the climate will change depending on the degree of sin in the world - perhaps it is changing now because of the unprecedented wholesale change in the abandonment of God in western society?

Thanks for your help, God bless,

Jason.

Trust…