[ExI] cure for global warming is working

Rafal Smigrodzki rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com
Fri Dec 24 15:57:56 UTC 2010


On Fri, Dec 24, 2010 at 9:46 AM, Alfio Puglisi <alfio.puglisi at gmail.com> wrote:

> How about some numbers:
> http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-sensitivity-intermediate.htm
> Skepticalscience.com has this nice feature that you can switch between
> levels of analysis clicking on the "basic", "intermediate" and "advanced'
> tabs. For example:
> http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-sensitivity-advanced.htm
> wIll give much more detailed information.
> It is true that small values of climate sensitivity cannot still be
> completely ruled out. But if you accept the remote possibility of a small
> value, you must also accept the possibility of a disastrously high value
> like 6C, which right now cannot be ruled out either - the two extremes have
> the same (small) probability of turning out correct. Focusing only on one of
> the two tails of the distribution reveals bias.

### The disastrously high sensitivities are already excluded by the
lack of significant correlation between CO2 and temperature in the
last 100 years. There was a 40% increase in CO2 levels and no
essentially no significant global warming over the period. The only
values not excluded by direct recent observations are the negative and
mildly positive ones (which I personally think to be the case). BTW,
the "skeptical" site you link to is incorrect in claiming that climate
sensitivity to CO2 is explained by radiative forcing alone - there are
additional effects of CO2 on plant life that put the calculations
off-whack (of course, none of the "numerous studies" which deny
"unrealistic ultralow sensitivities" takes this into account).

-------------------
> I'm curious about the "proper questions" you asked those scientists, and
> what kind of answers you got :-)

### Answers - pretty much what I wrote - we don't really know much
about climate sensitivity to CO2 but it's unlikely to be very high. We
know little. We need more grant money.

Rafal



More information about the extropy-chat mailing list