On 10th January 2009 at Dorset Humanists (Bournemouth, Dorset UK) David Warden gave his views on the Climate Change debate. My comments in green. David Wardens answers in yellow.
- Man made emissions of CO2 - 30 Billion Tonnes v x Quadrillion Tonnes gases in the atmosphere.
- Total atmosphere NOT Carbon is 99.9% at current CO2 levels of 380ppm. The reason David turned "380ppm" into "99.9% carbon free" was really to highlight the fact that we are so easily swayed by the way data is presented.
- If CO2 levels double the figure will be 99.4%. cf homeopathy. Crabsallover: 'No explanation why CO2 / Methane /NO2 are such potent green house gasses was discussed.' David: "The potency of CO2 is believed to be enhanced by a secondary effect: global warming leads to evaporation which adds the greenhouse effect of water vapour. Sooner or later water vapour gets washed out as rain, so this theory is highly debateable. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas but there’s very little of it in the atmosphere. There’s also a tiny amount of NO2 in the atmosphere."
- "the most surprising fact about global warming is that it is not, at the present time, happening." Nigel Lawson
- compared arguements of Catastrophist (the Cats) with Moderates (the Mods)
- IPCC - remit is to assess understanding of human-induced climate change - but not climate change in general. Crabsallover 'IPCC brief is much wider than David Warden suggested and includes a full overview of Climate Change. Twenty one years ago UNEP and WMO established the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to provide independent scientific advice on the complex and important issue of climate change. The Panel was asked to prepare a report on all aspects relevant to climate change and its impacts and to formulate realistic response strategies. I told David Warden that greater attention should have given in this talk to the findings of the 4 reports in 1990, 1995, 2001 and 2007 - with each IPPC report the probability of man made climate change through increasing CO2, has increased." David"I think we would have got totally bogged down if I had attempted to appraise 4 massive IPCC reports. I was making the more general point that the IPCC has been criticised by the sceptical scientists, particularly its summaries for policymakers which iron out a lot of the scientific uncertainties, rather like Blair’s ‘dodgy dossier’ on Iraqi WMD." I say "I would expect the 22 page Summaries for Policymakers to simplify some of the science presented in the 52 page Synthesis report, Which scientific uncertainties were 'ironed out'? Did this mean that Policymakers were somehow misled?
- Joseph Fourier discovered greenhouse gases in 1824
- Average greenhouse emmsission per person: 11T - UK, 2T India, 20T USA
- 2% of global CO2 emmissions are from the UK
- 99.9% of atmosphere is C free, 0.8 degree C rise in global temperatures since 1850
- NIPCC - Fred Singer (Nature, not Humans, rules the Climate). Crabsallover 'some scientists have dismissed Singer's most recent report on global warming as "fabricated nonsense".'
- Kyoto cost $150Bn pa - would money be better spent on reducing poverty worldwide?
- in Cretaceous the sea level was 650' higher than today (twice height of St Pauls Cathedral!)
- Sawtooth graph: annual changes in temperature levels due to plant growth/decay - mostly fluctuating - whilst CO2 levels rise
- Hockey stick graph (IPCC)
- IPCC - a doubling of CO2 will give a temperature rise of 1.1-6.4 degrees - IPCC (6 Scenarios, Table 3.1, http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/syr/ar4_syr.pdf )
- David said in this posts 5th comment "A large part of the sceptical case is discontent with the whole IPCC process - described by Nigel Lawson as science by committee - leading to a politically manufactured consensus from which few are brave enough to dissent.
- David Warden said 'you can prove anything with graphs'
- Gaia Hypothesis - James Lovelocke
- CO2 levels - 350ppm levels (= 350*100%/1,000,000) = 0.35%
- Russian Scientist - a big freeze by 2050?
- Hole in greenhouse blancket discovered in Pacific Ocean in 2001
- Sea Level rises in 21st Century: IPCC estimate 2', Al Gore 20', James Hansen 80'
- Sea Level rises if ALL of these land mass melted: Greenland 23', Antarctica 200' (West Antarctica 16')
- Geological timescale eg; Eon - Phanerozic ; Era - Mesozoic; Period - Quarternary; Epoch - Eocene
- Rachel Carson book Silent Spring book led to a ban on DDT which lead to many dying from malaria
- flooding of Maldives (no mention of Bangladesh). David answers "I omitted this for reasons of time: A 2 foot sea level rise is likely to be a problem but not a catastrophe. For low-lying countries like Bangladesh, it’s likely to be a problem (about 50% of the land would be flooded if the sea level were to rise by 3 feet) but as Bangladesh gets richer, it’ll find ways to manage or mitigate the problem such as building sea defences. The Bangladesh economy has been growing at about 5-6% over recent years and poverty has fallen by 20% since the early 1990s. But even without global warming, Bangladesh will always be a geographically vulnerable place for human beings to live. Just as Florida is a geographically vulnerable place for human beings to live."
- post Kyoto costs will be $8 Trillion (Fred Pierce)
- climate change is a secular religion, Spanish Inquisition against climate change deniers!
- 'their is a fairly weak correlation between CO2 levels and temperature'
- 'global warming is not a serious threat to man'
- "At most, we may see a total rise of about 2 or 2½°C during the 21st century over and above the temperature in 1850 (and this includes the 0.8C rise between 1850-2000) ie a 1.2 or 1.7°C rise during 21st over 1850-2000 period".
- "this 2 or 2½°C temperature rise will be mostly beneficial."
- 'global cooling may happen by 2050'
- 'governments are agreeing to target of a 2 degree rise because that is what will happen naturally whether man intervenes or not to stop Climate Change'
- 'their is a fairly weak correlation between CO2 levels and temperature'. Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic GHG concentrations. (IPCC Synthesis summary, pg 5)
- 'global warming is not a serious threat to man'. if DW scenario (increase of 1.1-1.7C by end 21st century), IPCC say that up to 30% species at risk of extinction, most corals bleached, increased damage from floods and storms. (IPCC Synthesis Report).
- "At most, we may see a total rise of about 2 or 2½°C during the 21st century over and above the temperature in 1850 (and this includes the 0.8C rise between 1850-2000) ie a 1.2 or 1.7°C rise during 21st over 1850-2000 period". See following graphs (click for larger graph) incl. David Warden (DW) 1.2-1.7C scenario v IPCC 6 scenarios (IPCC Synthesis Report).
Comments by Audience- Sue Chapman: Iain Stewart programme - Earth: The Climate Wars; Nigel Lawson excludes CO2 levels - his book is a work of fiction, 11thhourproject,
- Harry: 30K scientists signed up to Kyoto Protocol
- I said "Stern Report - will cost 1-2% GDP to correct problem if act now vs 8% GDP if act in 2030"
- I said "vast majority of scientists agree that climate change is happening and it is man made." David answers "I don’t think this argument can be settled on a number count. We need to listen to climate scientists. All of them, including the sceptics, agree that climate change is happening and that part of it is man made."I say' Agreed, most importantly we must listen and act on what climate scientists are saying. The IPCC say Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic (man made) Green House Gas concentrations. (IPCC Synthesis summary, pg 5)'
- Paul Entwhistle: Royal Society (1400 members) report on Climate Change - page / pdf; ask MP to vote for Early Day Motion EDM 21; on ; albedo effect; solar power; desalination;
- a lady 'no kind of concensus amongst scientists'
- albedo effect
- Roger West: 'High voltage direct current', Solar Power / Desalination.
David Warden writes:
ReplyDeleteThanks for this report Chris. However, there are a number of inaccuracies in your report. For example, I did not predict a temperature rise of 2.5-3.0 degrees this century. I said "At most, we may see a total rise of about 2 or 2½°C since 1850 and this temperature rise will be mostly beneficial."
I think it's misleading to interweave the Royal Society 'misleading arguments' with this report as I did not refer to them. These 'misleading arguments' are in themselves misrepresentations of the sceptics' case. For example, ‘Misleading argument 1’ is written as ‘The Earth’s climate is always changing and this is nothing to do with humans’. This is certainly not what the climate sceptics are saying. They agree that human carbon emissions are part of the story, but only a part. ‘Misleading argument 2’ is written as ‘Carbon dioxide only makes up a small part of the atmosphere and so cannot be responsible for global warming.’ Again, this is not what the climate sceptics are saying. They agree that carbon dioxide can affect the climate. The argument is about the magnitude of the effect.
The RS pamphlet even claims that ‘these tiny quantities of [of human carbon emissions] have resulted in an increase in global temperature of 0.75°C’. This is almost certainly wrong, given that even conservative climate scientists would allow for at least some of that increase to be accounted for by the Sun particularly in the early part of the 20th century.
In "An Appeal to Reason" Nigel Lawson castigates the Royal Society for trying to “prevent the funding of groups and organisations which openly doubt the alarmist creed of the new orthodoxy”. No young scientist, Lawson argues, should have to fear for his or her career prospects by the open expression of doubt.
Dorset Humanists can be proud of its educational role in the local community by providing a platform where all views, orthodox and unorthodox, can be stated and debated in a free and civilised manner.
Hi David,
ReplyDeleteyou say "At most, we may see a total rise of about 2 or 2½°C since 1850 and this temperature rise will be mostly beneficial."
Is that about a 2 or 2.5C rise between 2000-2100 relative to 1850 and 1999?
From http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/syr/ar4_syr.pdf
If so, this seems to correspond to B1 scenario (Table 3.1, pg 23) - the most optimistic scenario (see SRES scenarios, pg 22) which assumes a global population that peaks in mid-century with rapid changes to a service and information economy.
You say "I think it's misleading to interweave the Royal Society 'misleading arguments' with this report as I did not refer to them."
OK, I've moved them from this blog post to http://catscience.blogspot.com/2009/01/royal-society-climate-change.html
I'll look at the misleading arguement later.
Misleading Arguements 1: you say "‘Misleading argument 1’ is written as ‘The Earth’s climate is always changing and this is nothing to do with humans’. This is certainly not what the climate sceptics are saying. They agree that human carbon emissions are part of the story, but only a part."
ReplyDeleteAgreed.
I quoted Royal Society Misleading Arguement 2 ‘Carbon dioxide only makes up a small part of the atmosphere and so cannot be responsible for global warming.’ because you described graphically in your talk what a tiny fraction of the atmosphere is made up of Carbon (C02 at 350ppm = 0.035% of atmosphere). I wrongly assumed that you thought that this tiny level of C02 could not have caused the increased temperatures seen in the last 40 years.
# I said "vast majority of scientists agree that climate change is happening and it is man made." David answers "I don’t think this argument can be settled on a number count. We need to listen to climate scientists. All of them, including the sceptics, agree that climate change is happening and that part of it is man made."
ReplyDeleteThe concensus amongst some of the most influential scientists eg on the IPCC is that 1) climate change is happening 2) and its mostly caused by humans and 3) these increases in temperature could have severe undesible impacts on humans during the 21st century and 4) that something should be done now to mitigate these temperature rises and 5) that if we delay mitigation the consequences would be more severe and more costly.
Hi Chris
ReplyDeleteThanks for your interesting responses.
My reference to 2.0 or 2.5C this century includes the 0.8C that has already accrued since 1850.
The reason I turned "380ppm" into "99.9% carbon free" was really to highlight the fact that we are so easily swayed by the way data is presented.
A large part of the sceptical case is discontent with the whole IPCC process - described by Lawson as science by committee - leading to a politically manufactured consensus from which few are brave enough to dissent.
The word 'consensus' is a euphemism for 'dominant paradigm'. Dominant paradigms need to be roughed up. If they are robust, they will see off the challengers. The whole of my talk was an honest challenge to the 5-point consensus you mention. The mere fact of a 'consensus' is no argument in itself. Global warming theory was itself a maverick concept when it started out. If everyone had said 'Well, there's a consensus on global cooling' then we would have got nowhere.
PS There is a 'consensus' that Jesus existed but a careful examination of the evidence reveals this is baseless.
Hi David, thanks for discussing this hear; I'm learning a lot about climate change from you.
ReplyDelete"My reference to 2.0 or 2.5C this century includes the 0.8C that has already accrued since 1850." thanks for clarifying this. I've compared your scenario with that of the IPCC 6 scenarios (see 4 graphs in body of this post).
I agree that we should analyse climate change on the facts not just on the 'concensus' of scientists.
"At most, we may see a total rise of about 2 or 2½°C since 1850" Subtracting 0.8C for 1850 - 2000 temperatures gives a rise of 1.2-1.7C in 21st Century
The IPCC say:
B1 scenario 1.1 – 2.9C increase
A1FI scenario 2.4 – 6.4C increase
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/syr/ar4_syr.pdf - Table 3.1
You say comment 13th Jan 'AT MOST' the increase in temperature will not exceed 2.5C over 1850 temperatures (or 1.7C over 2000)
What evidence have you that scenarios that exceed 1.7C increases, CANNOT happen? Surely some of the higher temperature scenarios are possibilities?
David"I think we would have got totally bogged down if I had attempted to appraise 4 massive IPCC reports. I was making the more general point that the IPCC has been criticised by the sceptical scientists, particularly its summaries for policymakers which iron out a lot of the scientific uncertainties, rather like Blair’s ‘dodgy dossier’ on Iraqi WMD."
ReplyDeleteNigel Lawson called The Stern Report 'a dodgy dossier'. Who said the Summary for Policymakers were dodgy dossiers? Why? I think it would have been useful to summarise the main findings of IPCC for DH members or at least told them how to get there own copy or given the website www.ipcc.ch
Hi Chris
ReplyDeleteSorry I have only just seen these latest posts. I don't think I would ever say that higher temperature scenarios 'CANNOT happen'. Of course they are possibilities. On the basis of my reading however I came down in favour of a pretty conservative estimate.
The IPCC Summaries for Policymakers are almost bound to iron out all the caveats, doubts, nuances etc in the main scientific findings. Policymakers want clear guidance not a load of scientific complexity and uncertainty.
I did not summarise the main findings of the IPCC because that begs the question whether the IPCC itself is purveying disinterested science.
I am aghast that nowadays everyone seems to think that that the climate change which has occurred is completely owing to human causes when even the IPCC's claims are much more hedged and nuanced.