[ExI] The Climate Science Isn't Settled [was: Re: climategate again]

[Alfio Puglisi]

2009/12/3 Mirco Romanato <painlord2k at libero.it>

>
> I'm not sure which units you are using.  0.03% of what? If it is in
>> W/m^2, it seems way too small.
>>
>
> Citing from the paper
>
> "It is obvious that a doubling of the concentration of the trace gas CO2,
> whose thermal conductivity is approximately one half than that of nitrogen
> and oxygen, does change the thermal conductivity at the most by 0.03% and
> the isochoric thermal diffusivity at the most by 0.07 %. These numbers lie
> within the range of the measuring inaccuracy and other uncertainties such as
> rounding errors and therefore have no signi ficance at all."


Ah, now I understand. G &T derive their number from the thermal capacity of
CO2, which of course is a very small number because it has a very small mass
compared to the rest of the atmosphere. That percentage ignores the
radiation part of the equation, which is the basis of the CO2 greenhouse
effect. Just confirming that it's a really, really poor paper.


 The ice age cores tell
> us that: 1) there are some positive feedbacks  2) they are not enough to
> trigger runaway effects under natural conditions.
>

The ice cores also say there was first an heating and after a CO2 increase
> (some decades after).


Sure, that's clear from the time series. They basically say that, if you
increase temperature, CO2 will rise after a while. In our current situation
the order is reversed, because we started increasing CO2 first.



>
>  The opening sentence of the page you linked:
>>
>
>  "The forecasts of global warming are based on mathematical solutions for
>> equations of weather models. But all of these solutions are inaccurate.
>> Therefore, no valid scientific conclusions can be made concerning global
>> warming."
>>
>
>  is nonsense. Just because your knowledge is not perfect, it doesn't mean
>> that you can make valid conclusions. If that was the case, science would
>> have made no progress since 1600.
>>
>
> We can differentiate the accuracy of conclusions in two groups:
> "good enough" and "not good enough" to be used to predict the future.
>

Possibly, but it needs to be quantified. Actually I'm not sure where to
start. Treat it as an insurance-like problem? Or like when engineers design
dams for 100 or 500 years floods? Current understanding says that there is
some X % of serious consequences, so it's acceptable to devote Y% of
resources to avoid the problem? The Economist (not exactly a hotbed of
environmentalism) has a special report out, that report estimates of the
cost at 1% of global GDP per year to limit CO2 at 500ppm.

Alfio
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