blizzard1024

My issue for many many years is that CO2 levels during the glacial to interglacial periods lagged the inferred temperatures from Oxygen Isotope Ratios by up to 1000 years. This suggests strongly that it's the oceans outgassing and absorbing CO2 that is leading to these changes in CO2 and not CO2 driving the climate. Plus, one small absorption band around 15 microns is very small compared to water vapors much larger absorption in the IR spectrum. A doubling of CO2 leads to about a 1% change in energy balance. How does that equate to 4.8C? Even 2-3C seems farfetched. All of this work is based on computer modeling and proxy records which are not definitive. What about tropical convection? This has a huge impact on the global energy balance. Climate models don't explicitly predict this. Anyway, I have been trying hard to come around to the mainstream on this and my skeptical mind won't let me. I guess my main sticking points are the ice core records, the small change in energy balance from a doubling of CO2, Earth is coming out of a little ice age and the small absorption band of CO2 relative to H20. Anyway, I do agree that we shouldn't pollute the atmosphere at all and should be weaning off of fossil fuels for cleaner sources of energy. So at the end of the day, I may not agree with the doomsday warming scenarios but I agree with you on what the world needs to do for the future.

First of all, a doubling of CO2 (which we haven't reached yet) leads to about 1C of warming with no feedbacks. BUT, the claim is that water vapor will increase and amplify the greenhouse effect (this is uncertain). So, if the sun or some other factor like less cloud cover, leads to more surface heating then you get a positive water vapor feedback which enhances the greenhouse effect leading to cooling in the stratosphere. I don't agree with the positive feedback. Clouds are what drives the climate. Cloud cover has decreased as sulfate aerosols are diminishing due to clean air laws and changes in shipping. Plus, an active sun leads to more solar wind and less cosmic rays and hence less cloud cover. The albedo of the Earth has decreased by about 1% recently to 28.5% down from 29.5%. Also the effects of water vapor in the stratosphere from Tonga are still lingering. So you simplify the climate system to one small component which I don't agree with. CO2 never drove the climate system in the past in the ice core data. In fact, there is strong evidence from recent studies that ice sheets had a negative greenhouse effect with CO2 leading to cooling on the NH ice sheets due to the sharp temperature inversion. This was documented recently over the Antarctic ice sheet. So, the faulty reasoning of something else leads to small warming, THEN CO2 is outgassed and "communicates" the warming to the planet and then leads to warming is wrong. Any increase in CO2 leads to slight cooling on the ice sheets. Its water vapor that can turn the sign to positive greenhouse effect on the ice sheets as seen in Antarctica. So water and clouds rule our greenhouse effect and convection dominates our energy balance. CO2 is a factor but not a big one IMO. I am an independent thinker who has researched this for 30+ years. The fact the sun was very active in the late 20th century and the lag effect with the oceans is more than enough to explain the warming we have seen recently. Doubling CO2 only changes the energy balance by 1%. How can that throw a climate system out of balance? If the climate system is that sensitive, then any shocks of the past would have spiraled the climate out of control. Anyway, I do agree that we should still be pursuing clean sources of energy and am against big oil drilling etc. I just don't think the climate system is going to spiral out of control.

Agree. This to me means water vapor in the main driver of these changes. Not CO2. And the glacial topography during the last Glacial Maximum was massive and larger than Antarctica so one could easily surmise a similar temperature profile with ice highly reflective and a sharp low level temperature inversion. The ice sheets were 1-2 miles high similar to Antarctica. So once water vapor increases from warming oceans it then drove the greenhouse effect to positive which then kicked off a chain of positive feedbacks to wipe the ice out quickly in geologic times. Once a glacier melts, its gets dirty and dusty decreasing albedo, plus it melts to a lower elevation which is warmer. So, its water vapor that responds to the changes from the orbital parameters. CO2 is leading to a negative temperature tendency in a lot of the NH when the ice sheets are large and just begin to melt. So increasing CO2 probably doesn't do much since it is a weak GHG relative to H20. Here's another point: nobody has studied this. This NEEDs to be studied.

Colder would be way worse. Warming mankind has flourished. Cool periods not so much.

I have always wondered about the greenhouse effect on the Antarctic plateau since there is a strong troposphere temperature inversion near the surface. Hence the thermal profile looks like the stratosphere which we know GHGs like CO2 lead to cooling. I found PEER reviewed papers on this that there indeed is a negative greenhouse effect on the Antarctic plateau. This was in Nature https://www.nature.com/articles/s41612-018-0031-y So based on this, what happened during the last glacial maximum? Much of the land masses in the NH were covered by similar ice sheets and likely had a negative greenhouse effect. Hence the argument that warming from orbital parameters warmed the planet and increased CO2 which then increased temperatures will not work over the ice sheets! this argument always didn't sit well with me. If CO2 is the control knob for the climate, then why does it not kick off the climate changes? If it is a feedback, it would cool the ice sheets! This paper also shows that the greenhouse effect is weakest in the polar regions (negative over Antarctic Plateau) and is strongest over the tropics which makes sense since water vapor IS the primary greenhouse gas. CO2 is a weak GHG that somehow becomes stronger during times when ice sheets melt supposedly. What changes in the quantam mechanics??? Anyway, I think this study changes how we see CO2 and its role in glacial and interglacial cycles. Water vapor is the primary GHG. That's my scientific opinion.

Like we really knew what the climate was like in 1850, especially over the oceans. Plus the UHI is much more prominent than what is accounted for. Also the 1800s if you believe this data was at the end of the Little Ice age. The temperatures in this graph are dubious. We have not been warming straight up. This dataset is biased and false. So this IMO is climate propaganda. CO2 never was the Earth's thermostat in the ice core data. This is basic physics. Physics just didn't change in the mid 1900s. Also the more CO2 we add, the less influence it has. Climate science really is ruining the credible of all scientists.....

If you look at the daily global temperature anomalies from University of Maine Climate Change Institute.https://climatereanalyzer.org/wx/DailySummary/#t2anom you will see that the daily mean global average temperature from the GFS initialzation is very close to normal for the colder 1979-2000 CFSR baseline mean. Today's is below a whopping 0.1C above the 1979-2000 baseline. This dataset has been averaging very close to .1C to .2C above the 1979-2000 for the past several months similar to UHI. The CDAS daily temperature is a 0.166C above the 1981-2010 baseline. see below So there really isn't anything too unusual going on. Its weather which can be extreme at times. It has always been that way.

http://www.drroyspencer.com/2019/04/uah-rss-noaa-uw-which-satellite-dataset-should-we-believe/

Disagree. RSS detains the warmer NOAA14, UAH matches the radiosondes much better. The RSS upward trend was done to match the flawed surface records. UAH is the best dataset. Why does RSS maintain data from a spuriously warm NOAA14 satellite? I will agree to disagree. UAH is the gold standard IMO.

There is another global cloud satellite datasets from the from 1982-2019. The source is https://www.eumetsat.int/about-us/satellite-application-facilities-safs This dataset like the https://isccp.giss.nasa.gov/index.html dataset shows that as global cloud cover goes up, temperatures go down and vice versa. This suggests its global cover in part modulating the global average temperature. But one can argue from this dataset that as we warmed dramatically from the super El Nino in 1998, cloud cover decreased to a new lower level. But it has remained steady since the early 2000s with slight warming. Clearly global cover is about 2 percent lower now than in the 1980s which equates to 2% decrease in albedo. If there was a significant positive feedback we would see temperatures taking off and we are not. see

Its getting even colder vs the 1979-2000 normal. The Arctic for the first time in many many years is at +0.0C in the winter months. There is a warm blob over the Arctic Ocean but this is unknown territory given it is model data and model climo. Given the Arctic is normal the assertion that Arctic warming is leading to record cold in Europe/Asia and north America is false. These ideas already have been floated around. They are not true. Look at the data... This site has the reanalysis data with a daily temperature of minus .172C the coldest I have seen in many many years. Of course we all know this is very short term climate and not reflective of long term trends. It does illustrate how much ENSO does affect the global temperature. The mean period for the graph I believe is 1994-2013 and the reanalyzer data is 1979-2000. So relatively to late 20th century and into early 21st century, significant cooling has taken place in a matter of months. Should this La Nina persist, it would be interesting to see if we get back to a negative departure vs 1981-2010 normal or even the 1979-2000 period below.

Global temperature are plummeting due to the strong La Nina. In many parts of the world, record cold is occuring. The Thames River has froze in parts for the first time in 60 years. The UK had its coldest February day since 1955. This is short term climatic cooling I realize but now we are seeing below average anomalies for the first time in many many years. Look at Climate Reanalyzer image for today and the CDAS for 00z last evening both negative. These both show the strong influences of La Nina and the solar minimum on the climate. If this continues 2021 will no doubt be much colder than 2020 and probably begin a downward trend in global temperatures. Of course, El Nino can easily reverse that. So in many ways most of the warming and cooling patterns go along with ENSO.

What is interesting is despite the record low areal coverage for sea ice so late in the fall is that cold air masses still originate over the land. In fact, that is always the case. North America is seeing some extraordinary cold and snow cover for so early in the fall season despite the very low sea ice. The Islands of northern Canada and the Arctic waters just north of Canada and Greenland are much deeper than the shallower waters on the Siberian side. Therefore it's going to take a lot more warming to get rid of this ice on a seasonal basis. Plus there is NO albedo effect this time of year up there. The Sun is down. Even in the summer, it depends on storminess and how much cloud cover you have to decrease the albedo for a positive feedback. I don't understand how a climate model that can't explicitly predict cloud cover can forecast with any accuracy the positive feedback from the loss of sea ice. Open water many times leads to low clouds and fog up in the Arctic and no change in albedo. This has happened in many low sea ice years. Once climate or any atmospheric model can simulate clouds with accuracy then the results will be more convincing. Right now it still gets very cold over the land regardless of sea ice concentration. It is incredible how cold it has been in the Plains. -27F in Montana a few days ago. Records being broke by more than 10 degrees. Temperatures up to 50 degrees below normal! Snow in Texas in October! This stuff barely makes the news. Tremendous bias. If it was 50 degrees above normal the media and many of you would be going nuts blaming climate change. When it is cold, it is just weather. When it is warm it is climate change!

Yeah and this stuff is bad too. So now let's add wind turbines into the mix for more killing....

Do you think that energy companies are going to spend money on this? I have heard about it but many companies are not going to use this unless it is mandated. It also has to be effective,. When they shut down the turbines they lose money. So you think they want to do this? No way. They want profit and money like all energy companies. Just because they are "green" doesn't mean they don't operate with the same business model as the oil companies.

And kills the thousands upon thousands of sea birds too and we will have no way of detecting their demise. Yeah that is going to be a disaster for our seabirds. Again the biggest threat to our birds today is wind farms. Cats, cars, tall buildings, windows, TV and radio towers, electrical lines, pesticides have been around for a while and yes they have taken their toll. So now we can add another one too, wind farms, all in the name of protecting the environment or "saving the Earth"? Come on, Man! This is total insanity. How do you think we get plastics and pavement and other oil derivatives for modern life? If we stop fossil fuels before it is times, it will lead to a dark time in human history. Unemployment, higher energy costs, (look at the craziness in Germany), which will hurt american businesses and people ultimately. whose going to pay for all this? you and I. Higher prices for everything. Less jobs too. It will be a disaster. look at the craziness in California with the brown outs? They need more fossil fuels, natural gas which burns cleaner. anyway, you guys can continue your renewable fantasy. I hope it remains that way and doesn't come true.

This is not true. Explain the mechanisms that cause birds to do worse under a little warm conditions? That makes no sense. During cool and wet summers, especially in the Arctic, shorebird species have poor nesting success. the milder summers they produce a lot of young. North American was warmer 6000 to 8000 years ago especially the Arctic regions and these birds survived. The fact that this period exists suggests strongly our avifauna can survive warmer temperatures. Audubon and American Bird Conservancy and Nat Geo are looking for donations. They are disingenuous. I always take everything they say with a grain of salt. Even research in this area is poorly funded so there has to be a problem to get money. They is no way that climate change (unless it is cooling) causes any major problems for our birds. The Cardinal for instance used to be a southern bird, very rare north of Maryland. Now it is flourishing up to Canada and its population is doing very well in the south where it has warmed some. This is all BS and an excuse. Wind power is a huge threat to our migratory bird species. Not climate change. Come on man! to quote Joe Biden.

They kill birds and bats and destroy natural habitat. Do you want a bunch of wind turbines around where you live? Peaceful countryside pristine forests and mountains now covered in wind turbines all over. it's disgusting. And they get a free pass because they are "green" and "good" for the environment. This form of energy is the biggest threat to our birds and bats with a projected 4X increase up until 2050. Eagles are killed by these monstrosities. I fear the continued population declines of so many birds will be hastened by this ill conceived transition that is very inefficient. Its the biggest threat in the coming decades by so-called environmentally conscious people. You folks have been fooled. Somebody is going to make a LOT of money and continue to destroy the environment. Yeah what's not too love? /sarc

something we agree on!

well as the once great Sam Kinison said "you live in a desert, nothing grows here, nothing gonna grow here..." why do people live in desert areas like the west? This is not climate change this is natural variability. It tends to be dry on average out west, some years or even decades are drier than others. So now people are realizing that "hey, it's too dry here" I better move." Also building your house on the beach is never a good proposition.... you can't blame climate change on that.

Totally agree. Yeah the oil and coal industries have been horrible on the environment. This doesn't give the "green" companies a pass. There was a company pushing hard to have a huge wind farm on a migratory bird pathway by eastern Lake Ontario. They almost got their bird killing wind farm on a large scale except a bird watcher found a bald eagle nest on the exact area that they were gonna to put the majority of the wind mills. In fact, they were going to have to take that tree down. They didn't disclose that there was an eagle nest their on purpose! The entire project was cancelled. Serves them right. When there is money to be made, companies do anything they can to make money, even if it destroys the environment. We saw with this oil and coal companies. Coal companies destroyed mountain tops completely! Oil companies have a terrible track record too. To think green energy is going to be different is wrong. We need a strong well funded EPA and the states need strong well funded environmental protection. But you know how that goes. anyway, the prospect of wind farms on a massive scale will cause a lot of bird deaths especially raptors including eagles. The eagles just came back from the banning of DDT. Contrary to what many of you may think of me, I am a staunch environmentalist. Birds are very adaptable creatures to changing climates. Cardinals for instance 120 years ago were southern birds. Now they have spread north to the northern U.S. Many other southern species have slowly been moving north. Northern species actually have been doing fine because of the maturation of northern hardwood forests and conifer forests. There has been no major declines for many forest birds. The birds that have declined most are those that nest in brushy areas ones that need less mature woods (which have grown up), field birds and shorebirds. Shorebirds are a BIG concern. Many species migrate up through the Plains from South America and the obstacles of wind farms now dotting the landscape in the fields that use to forage will eventually threaten many species with extinction. It is has been found that they do much better in the Arctic nesting grounds raising more young during milder summers which have been happening lately. Yet they decline still. It is likely the wind farms. Green energy is mean energy for birds.

The new proposed wind farms were are supposed to be even higher up than current ones are going to be mass slayers of birds. Birds already have enough to killing them off...cats, collisions with buildings, windows, cars etc. Now we are going to put up tons of new wind farms even higher up. For what? Nothing its not going to make a difference at all except make some energy company rich. Oil companies indeed have exploited the environment too with negative consequences too. Now "green" energy companies will do the same. They underreport bird kills on purpose.

This is a BS study because our birds survived the Holocene warming 8000 years ago. Audubon is a radical left wing institution that wants your donations. That's all. Back when I was a kid they were saying how all these bird species would go extinct because of tropical deforestation on their wintering grounds by the year 2000. Well many of those species are doing better than ever. It turns out, they don't even use primary rainforest on their wintering grounds. Audubon does this for money. period.

another more.... http://savetheeaglesinternational.org/new/us-windfarms-kill-10-20-times-more-than-previously-thought.html

Here's another for your skier... https://www.cbsnews.com/news/30000-wind-turbines-located-in-critical-bird-habitats/ and another.... https://www.fws.gov/birds/bird-enthusiasts/threats-to-birds/collisions/wind-turbines.php#:~:text=Bird collisions increase with turbine,increased bird collisions are likely